A new year...

A new year...

Doesn't give me a million dollars...
Doesn't give me a lenient boss...
Doesn't give me a ravishing girl...
Doesn't give me an European tour...

But it does give me an oppurtunity to call up dear ones to say that I do care for them...Happy new year!

Today is New year's eve and I find hoards of advertisements for pubs and midnight parties. They charge exorbitant amounts in the order of thousands for a few hours. It is for these clubs and card makers that the new year is indeed very happy. I've never seen such partying till my graduation. Entering into the professional world, I find myself in a totally alien environment.Honestly speaking, I feel that a lot of these partying stuff has been thrusted upon us by the Western culture because for none of the festive occasions I know do people booze and dance till they lose their senses.

For me, a new year doesn't mean anything great. The sun is still goin to rise in the east. The boss is still going to grumble at me. The beggar is still going to ask for that elusive one rupee from me. Everything is the same. It just gives me an oppurtunity to renew the contacts rusted by the daily bustle of my professional life. For all my dear ones,

Happy new year!

In the silence of the woods...

In the silence of the Woods, I lay still,
An occasional gust of wind, full of chill,
A howling wolf and rattling leaves, is all that I hear,
I stand here all alone, with no fear.

I seek not the glory and fame,
Nor am I the target of gory and shame,
The scorching sun and nipping cold,
I endure them strong and bold.

Be it the prince, or the pauper,
The billionaire, or his chauffer,
I consume everyone's pride,
Who ever comes by my stride.

I am the destination of the journey of life
I am the sink to all the problems rife
I am the ONE, for everyone,
For, all of you end up in me, the coffin!

Mani Ratnam...look out for this!!!

Anyone wants a refreshing piece of love story akin to Mani's style of romance, here you go. I got this one in one of the forwards.

Actually this story (which I have removed now) was originally written by Rajesh.J.Advani and due to his request, I am removing this post. Actually, he suggested a part of the story to be given here and a link to the actual story at the end. But due to the dearth of time (Man, I am still working !) and lack of editing skills, I have removed the story and I am supplying the link to the original piece.

Here you go...
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/articledesc.asp?cid=307066

I promise you that this story would be worth a read.

A beautiful mind...

Every mind is beautiful in one way or the other. It all depends on the beholder's eyes. I see beauty in my own way. I have been fortunate enough to meet some really beautiful minds. NO, I am not talking about IQs of 200 or brains behind the path breaking rocket science paper in the IEEE conference. It is plain beauty of thinking. Today I will write about one such beautiful mind, gifted always to think positive, and, inarguably, one which has won over the hearts of whomever it came to contact upon.

A happy cheerful face is what flashes on everyone's mind when they think about this gifted person. Plain speak is one quality I would like to see in every person in this world (though too high an ask) and this person is a perfect embodiment of that. Social artifice, envy, artificial behavior are nowhere to be found in this person's dictionary. I've always seen this person ever-ready to help out others. I still wonder what the person will do when confronted with a situation where it is a choice between the person him/herself and his/her friend. I myself can answer this question for more than 99.99% of the people I have met, but this is one exception where I don't know the answer.None of the hundreds of friends the person has, can answer this- I can bet.

It is very difficult to find a person who always has the right responses during all times. I am lucky to have one such person. So are my friends (No cash awards for guessing that they were also the friends of this person)...On behalf of all these lucky ones...

Happy Birthday Meera!!!!!

Life is Beautiful...

From the heaven of silence in mother's womb into the cacophonous world...Excited and joyful faces that the fresh brain doesn't register...The pride in the father's face, the relief in the mother's face... nothing the just born brain knows...eating and sleeping were the fortes...

Tears on the first day at school...the tender hands reluctant to leave the mother's sari...
The boring teacher...the flitting butterflies outside the classroom window...the first girl who shared her pencil with me in the 5th grade...who had all the qualities to be my life-partner (so though my amatuer brain)...Pride in examinations cleared...Tears over lost competitions...Hatred and envy over the guy who got one mark greater...First real crush in the 10th grade...Pain over your best friend wooing her away...Victory in the life-critical examinations...

Entry into a new world called college...on one's own foot...meeting that one person...butterflies in the stomach whenever that person crosses...thousands of unconveyed thoughts and poems...
Pride over the first job...exhilaration over the realisation of self-supporting...the never-ending search for a life companion...culminating in finding one supposedly compatible person...True love's first kiss...marriage...

Search for status and recognition...MONEY...MONEY...MONEY...

CHILDREN...The proud father/relieved mother feeling now very well registered for eternity...the toothless smile of one's offspring - BLISS...The tender fingers pulling the hair out of my chest...Driving with the child to it's school with the warm hug of it's little hands...

Children grow...graduate...marry...birth of the grandchildren...the grandson/grandaughter leading to the park holding the wrinkled hands...

It goes on...

As the soul departs, faded grey cells recollect these... The heart is light.......

LIFE is indeed beautiful...

For connoisseurs and gourmets…

It was a great time this weekend. For most part of the time, I spent my time with my one-month-old niece and it was a great time with her. It was my lucky phone call to one of my friends that landed me into one of the most different kind of treats I have ever had.

My friends in Bangalore were celebrating the birthday of three of them- Kannan, Gikki and Murugu and these three people planned an exquisite treat in a place whose name I don’t know of. It was a lane full of eateries, from North Indian Chat corners to Chinese food courts. Let me try to recollect the exotic foodstuffs we had.

It was South Indian food first. We started with steaming idlis, onion uthappams, masala dosas and plain dosas. Next we went to the Chinese corner and we had fried rice and Gobi Manchurian. We returned to some Karnataka styled bajji shop where we had different kinds of bajjis-capsicum and chilli. Though they didn’t have the traditional taste of Tamil bajjis, they did have a different taste, with lime playing a dominant role. Next we wanted to have some sweets for a difference. This time we had a typical north Indian sweet, which had crisp noodle like substance soaked in a sweet yellow hot liquid. I don’t remember the name, but it was very good. As we strolled the road, we came across a paratha roll corner where we had paratha rolls-gobi, paneer and mixed vegetable to be precise. Then we went on to have some fruit salads and one peculiar substance that I tasted for the first time was Gulkand-which was rose petals grounded in honey. Then we wanted to finish off with deserts. Cold badam milk and basundhi were our choices and they both tasted extremely good. I was done with that but a few of my friends still had some room for ice creams, masala coke and milk shakes. We also bought some chips to munch on our return journey. The connoiseurs who feasted ont he above stuff were Nithish, Prasanna Srinivasan, Hemanth, Sai, DSP, Shyam and myself.

It was indeed an exotic treat and I guess this will stay in the minds of all of us for a long time…and for those who are reading this-bon appetite.