16th december

To all those who were born today

Have a great day and live beautifully.

Madhuri Dixit

If there was one Madhubala in her times, there was and could be only one Madhuri in current times.

ahem...

My friends used to call me smelly when they saw my affinity for grossest stuff/conversations. When i saw this i realized i am a prude.

anger

http://apexcsllc.com/index_files/Page877.htm

i have a headache

passing thoughts

the day womenfolks are disassociated from the idea of being the honor of the family/society, they would be freed. In the sense, a women should not be looked at like objects who can either be revered or bring disgrace to a family.

Someone said the idea of family could have also come from the thought of "ownership" of property which in turn lead to the idea of passing on the property. Who could it be passed on to? Intuitive answer to it is - posterity..their "own" children. So, men had to ensure woman remained chaste. A woman's sexual activity should be brought under the microscope. Oh dear! it doesn't stop here.

Perhaps, to ensure this further, ideas like "virginity", "chastity", (ill)legitimate, "weaker sex", "woman-pride of the family", "honor killing", "dont-talk-about-sex" and likes were glorified.

This could have been a justified road to suffocating a woman's freedom by creating (supposedly) a respectable position for them or protecting them in a society.

It is so demeaning! I do feel there is a thin line between stupidity and tolerance.

(to be continued...)

life of a programmer

got to order groceries. need to get some furnishing stuff. got to cook. haven't taken bath. why?

demo tomorrow and i have no idea why my program doesn't work.

solution?

stop thinking and hit the road for a long drive. eat. leave the rest to a delayed breakthrough

a helpless man

shades of black fade in perfect white. the white he is told to become. further add to it drops of tears. unfortunately, he likes it gray or may be, he is bound to be. he spends years figuring who he is. yet left with same.. gray answers.

a helpless man. man is not bound..he binds himself and one day, he breaks away. he has to.

you can make a man hear your voice for a while. he will do what he is told to and he would also hurt people around him. noise subsides one day. he hears his own in the quietness of his inner solitude.

we live in an extremely suffocating ecosystem but when we learn to be honest to ourselves, nothing can suffocate us. when we learn that we make a system to live a good life, we also learn to define, dissolve, redefine rules to the benefit of all. why are people expected to live like dumb human beings regretting, feeling helpless while hurting others and why do people succumb? is it so hard to see. perhaps, they forget they would all die one day.

may be

He held my hand, may be,

when i missed my step

He took me in his arms, may be,

when i wept

He comforted me,may be

when i worked myself up

He scolded me, may be

when i goofed up

He made me maggi, may be

when he had to cook

He cracked jokes, may be

he could write a book

He kept looking out of the window

trying to breathe, may be

decades passed, he stood there, gazing

trying to think, may be

Watch yourself inside,

world can give you clues, may be

to be a man, shed your pride

you'll get to where you want, may be

untitled

Sometimes i feel no one should, in principle, be critical of anyone. It is just a futile verbal exercise that may keep your mind engaged and disoriented. Every person houses a hypocrite and a diplomat within. Its so damn difficult to be just yourself in a world where you have to constantly prove yourself, where you want to fit in to be revered. Its not easy to be brutally honest nor can many stand such individuals.

blessings for new beginnings

Bought a new car. We were coaxed to take it to a temple and perform rituals to bless the car. last night we drove to our temple - India gate :) It felt great!!!

Standing in front of kali temple today with flowers, prasad, coconut and dakshina, i felt a disconnect. When pujari spilled coconut water all over the car, Sandeep said we have to get it cleaned after this. Perceptions change. Its natural. Things can mean so much to you or nothing at all.

Ram and Sita

They are exemplary protagonists in Indian epic Ramayana. Two individuals immensely in love

surrendered to each other. One never took advantage of the other. Their faith in each other was unshakable in excruciating times. They repented even for a brief moment of disbelief in the other, if it ever happened. One lived in exile to uphold the integrity of the other and to teach mankind, an important lesson while the other bestowed with great power and wealth, lived like a saint away from his wife.

In love until death, they lived a life of high responsibility with a settled heart.

Its moving but it sounds unreal. In current times, to hold them as idols would only seem to add to the baggage we are living with already. As much as i watch them in disbelief, i wish to meet someone like them and perhaps find a ground for myself.

when conscience dies?

11 killed and 76 injured in the blast near Delhi High court.

what kind of hatred does mass murderers nurse? what kind of greed intoxicates them? What kind of belief system blinds them? What kind of victimization makes them indifferent?

World is a jungle indeed and will remain so until a powerful man looks at a common man like a pest, a victim creates more victims, until the government does not design an effective system to deal with socio-economic disparities (not by reservations and pseudo schemes which makes the system incompetent but subsidies for better education and healthcare), until building a sense of responsibility towards the nation and other people is conveniently ignored, until we do not break away from our age old baggage of superstitions and pre-judices.

black dog

helluva night

moments

The night under the stars

on the beach, lying

deliberating patterns in the sky

with a bottle of wine

Until the last drop, lip-synching

songs on your playlist

When engulfed in the moment

it transpires, one exists

The bottle in the sea, floats i hope

the message safe in the sand

May be someone will find

May be someone will smile

Relationships are denied existence

if they have no name

that the two beings can claim

Yet, the surreal moments that make them

get etched on your mind forever

for your heart to savor

life - drama =?

what would life be without drama?

first scream, first move, first word, first day at school/college, first love, first day at work, first marriage, first kid... new car, new house... last day here/there... last this that..

i mean seriously imagine what would it be like?

ACTION!

who is bigger?

every man has his own way of narrating a story. it generally does not go against him but everybody else. have you met someone who does not manipulate truth? i have. not one but many. it requires lot of courage and integrity to be able to own up to your mistakes.

people say it is divine to forgive. But it requires to be human first to be able to say sorry and mean it. no one is a bigger person really. it is just about being honest.

.

eating doodh-roti and missing Anand

have you seen him?

indeed

the other day i was reading some stuff on Iraq war and wondering what a shit place this world is. vested interests, cunning policies and no respect for human life.

suddenly i looked at one of the most wonderful person sitting beside me and so many people i have known, came to my mind. it struck me again world is how you see it. its beautiful and can be better.

pandemonium

the next best thing that can happen to us - we learn to keep it simple

time is the most beautiful thing we have

Who are you?

Life is all about what impact your action has on others. Everything is driven by that. The shades in the impact spectrum may go unnoticed by you. Eventually, that builds or renews your identity in the mind of others. Moreover, who you are in your mind is directly or indirectly derived by what others make you feel about yourself. An individual's identity, being a function of how people perceive him to be, is therefore multifaceted. Given that our perceptions are limited, ever-changing and ever-growing, we take the liberty of judging someone at any point in time. Is that being naive?

It is this identity, we live for.. that drives us. Worth it?

life's pace

sometimes when you look back, you feel you've traveled so far and sometimes events in the past seem so fresh.. like it just happened yesterday. it is hard to forget almost anything you've lived. good or bad experiences, they make you. you'll always hold them close to your heart. they are a part of you. they'll stay with you forever. if you try to relate to those moments, you might find your dramatically different status quo, hard to believe. Truth is, its not exactly a disconnect. life in flashback is composed of finite memories...events that influenced you, moved you, embittered you, filled you with joy... and so this feeling of leap in life..which is just an illusion. it is when you were living them, you were transforming, neither totally unbeknownst, nor in complete cognizance.

every breath

mountain is cold
winds are strong
it'd snowed

on it, a tiny bud breaking its way
through the snow
all night, all day
it aspires to grow
to bloom, kiss the sky.

not far does it go,
before it starts to snow
not far does it go. it'll lie
held beneath, it'll try
again. for there is no other way it knows
it still breathes

Let it snow

:-)

पतझर के बाद आते हैं दिन बहार के
जीना क्या जीवन से हार के

it doesn't have to be a miracle !

my friend

those beautiful evenings

crazy conversations

that great music

those fights

i miss those times

my friend

i miss you

Whose side are you on?

I didn't know it was a war

may be, a bad bug bit us

indian classical dance and music speak volumes about indians-once upon a time. deep understanding of intricate emotions immortalised in art forms, so beautiful that you are often left mesmerised. still, they are losing their place they once had, in our minds. we have always been such an expressive lot. what happened to us?

life-time

time,

that you are leaving

do tell the time,

that is yet to come

how much i loved you

hi night

its 2 30 in the night. i cant sleep but i like it. its so quiet. there is so much peace. i've missed it i guess...for the past 1 week we have been more than a dozen people at home. everyone running helter skelter for the wedding all the time. all that feels so futile and at the same time all that means so much to so many. sigh!
i miss my night jogs in singapore..

i ask

in this hustle and bustle

is unnerving silence

quietly sitting with a long face


in that silence

is unsettling restlessness

desperately running the race



i ask...

what have you become?

template of life

why do people come to think that their way of life is the only road to happiness? why would you desperately want your posterity to live like you would have had? why would you want to impose your ways on them? imagine how boring it would be. no discovering. no exploring. just following. can you respect/understand this thought ever? shouldn't you only put forth your point of view and then leave things to them.

how much can one fight? there are times when fighting for your own stand with people you respect and care for, gets on you. when you just want to give up and say "fine". when you so want to elope but you stick. you stick because you know you cannot really get far leaving them behind, unhappy.

i am hopeful. still. it can only get better. it will.