Falling in Love

We fall in love

with the idea of love
instead of falling in love
the one we hold in our arms

Setting the House on Fire

That's what happens if I and my sis end up spending more time together. We are poles apart and yet we are similar.

At home, I become the Silencer and she a Loudspeaker. We still remember the day when we removed her tonsils, her voice and our lives changed forever.

We still fights like kids, making fun of each other and sometimes when it gets too far, it takes the form of an argument. That's when the referee comes in the picture, forget to add that Amma dons that role.

We have undergone a complete role reversal as adults, I act as the elder one which I am not. Growing up, I was the mischievous child who had the tag of "trouble maker" written everywhere across his face while she was the quiet one. That has changed a lot!!!

Our conversations are of a one way channel where we both speak what we want to and don't really listen what the other is saying. The peace that is brokered remains for a very short time. We are like India and Pakistan constant on the war zone though we both claim that we are India.

We have our set of ground rules which both of us agreed to follow and if any of us breaks that rule then from that time the rule never exist!!

We are the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Wonder how we would end up if we were a team? Few years back we were thinking about participating in the KBC siblings special coz we are both high on GK (General Knowledge) and could have at least won some moolah. We never tried as we were camera shy :P

The Amazing Race Show would be a perfect opportunity for both of us to test how will we do. For that to happen will take time...

As of now, there is peace but the small arguments still continues...

Solution

“We are always aware of the solutions to our problems

The sooner you act on it, the problem cease to exist
The more you delay, the bigger the problem gets”

Call Me Yogi Baba please

Now onwards, I am going to add Baba against my name and also hold pravachans to guide the misguided souls (Doesn't matter how lost I myself will be).

I got this idea from one of my friends as he said "bas kar re baba" as I went on to give my divine advice. My sister always keeps on saying that when she tells me something I should just listen and not to tell what to do. It has become a habit of mine, to tell others what they should and don't if I think they are doing something that could jeopardize them.

Don't ask me how I got into the habit, but then with a mind like mine it is hard to ignore :P

On the other hand I think I would do better than other "babas" in giving gyaan straight from the real life than from the mythological epics. I think it would be good a way to earn an alternative income in these times of recession.

May be in the next 5 years or may be soon, I could too buy myself a bungalow in either Juhu or Bandra. So, please the readers of this blog and my future followers :D if you think you need any advice/decisions to be made, don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

Don't forget to make a small donation so that this struggling baba could make his mark and hold his pravachans. I am in need of sponsors to finance them, in return I will act as counselor for their employees and promote their products among my followers.

Tho Bhakt Jano take a deep breath and let it out slowly, do it 2 to 3 times and you will feel the difference.

See, I can be the new Cyber age Yogi Baba reaching my bhakts through their computers.

Pictures To Remember...

I finally got my college friends pictures added to my collection. The fact that we never had any pictures of us always amused me (except when we were attending weddings and the one trip that we took together and never saw the pics).

On Saturday, as we got together almost after a year. I thought it would be great to capture the moments on camera, which we did. Though a group photo is still missing.

The other pictures that I am missing in my collection are the NCC camp pics and the Esselworld trip that the three of us took when others failed to turned up.

The Sir who had accompanied us to the camp had informed us that if anyone wants the copy they can have it for a certain price. I never bought it and did not even have a look at the pictures. The camp turned out a big change for me as my skin color got changed and that in the 10 day camping we bathed just only once or twice a week. I still remembered as I was walking up the stairs on the floor where the school noticeboard was and the girls of my class were giggling seeing me. I was wondering why they were laughing. Later I came to know that some of NCC pics were put up on the school noticeboard.

When I saw the pictures I came to know why they were laughing. I stood among the group of boys who gladly posed for the camera in their undies as we were taking a bath. Ah, still cannot believe that it was the only pic that got notice of everyone. Though it did little to add to my popularity. If I had any knowledge of it, I would have lifted some weights that would have made my biceps bulge :D

The Esselworld trip on the other hand was fun. You don't need to have a big group to have fun. I was the only one to sit on the Thunder ride. What a fun it was as it took a 180 degree round, there were shoes, even coins falling down on the ground.

For me pictures are a way to relive those moments again...

Assumption and Expectation

“Assumption and Expectation are sides of the same coin.
Assumption leads to unrealistic thinking while
Expectation leads to heart breaks”

Do you still wish to flip the coin?

The Wrapper Collection

 


WOW!! That is the word that comes to my mind when I decided to spread out my collection of chocolate wrappers.

I am not a chocolate lover but yes I do collect chocolate wrappers. I got into this habit when the dairy milk bar used to have vintage cars on their covers as a child. I had a good collection of different cars which was thrown away.

I don't remember when I started collecting different wrappers but it is something that I have continued to till this day. Some of the wrappers are out of production. I even have the smallest dairy milk wrapper which I got through one of my friends.

I have never spend on chocolates at least never brought them for myself though I do buy mint like polo. Still never thought I would have such a large collection. Guess I should thank my sisters, friends and my office for all the chocolates that I got.

I hope that someday, I might get a good price for them and I could make a good fortune

See day dreaming helps you to be happy :D

Cleaning Up The Mess

I finally got the time in my hand to clean up my cabinet which looked more like a junkyard than a cabinet to keep my things.

As I got into organizing it better, it came to my notice that I hardly use any of the items, books that I have still with me.

I still have those Taxation handouts that I got from the classes during my final year in college. Hoping that it might help in understanding paying taxes, which I pay now.

Got one of the corners filled up with computer programming books which I hardly touched. I have no expertise in programming but if MS office is giving you a trouble, then do let me know especially advanced MS Word, I can teach a thing or two. The capabilities of these applications are amazing.

I also happen to have a collection of dairies that my Dad used to get which I keep with the books that I have. One of them being "Oliver Twist" that I got from the school library. I have tried reading it so many times, but the language just kills the joy for reading for me. Apparently the writing was in ancient Queen English (Shakespeare, my guess).

I have a bundle of newspapers articles regarding finance and interiors which would be helpful when dealing with finances. They have good articles in it. I hardly ever take them out.

This happens to be my natural coconut shaped piggy bank. I have a thing of collecting unusual items which catches my fancy and this happens to be one of them. One day while breaking a coconut Amma found this inside. I decided to keep it and make a better use of it. A piggy bank that I have hardly ever used.

This happens to be a first page of a newspaper published at the time of independence and reprinted when India completed 50 years of independence. I found it good enough to keep it with me.

I don't throw anything even if it becomes useless, I keep them with me hoping to make something out of them. I have everything from wood to the card boards even the plastics that you find when you buy new clothes. The only problem is that I don't find the time to make something out of this.

The funny thing is when I was done with cleaning up my cabinet, it looked the same as it was earlier.

Kya Baat Hai!!!

"Oye. Jab itana lamba hokar
tujhe koi dikhai nahi denta
tho mera kya honga
Kher pasand tho kai aate hai
par main kisi ko pasand aaou
tho baat bane :("

I was a little surprised when I got this reply from one of my buddies whom I had forwarded one of the philosphoy message that I got from other and this buddy of mine asked me whether I was in love?

I don't know where he got this idea (coz the message I sent had nothing remotely connected to love), so I replied him back that I am yet to find one and when asked about his status, this was the reply :)

Took me a while to digest when I read the message, the first thought that came to mind was, did I sent the message to my friend or someone else?, but then the word "lamba" cleared my doubts and it was indeed him.

I have known him for a long time and never heard him ever talking about gals. Though both of us and an other friend had taken a new year resolution few years back that we would have a girlfriend but both of us never tired to get one.

This message was quite different than he is normally. Guess time changes everything :)

Thinking of Getting a Pet

These days I am thinking of getting a pet. Though I am being opposed by everyone in the family, still I think we should have one.

For a pet I would like to raise a Tiger, a white tiger, I like tigers a lot and would love to have them as pets. The problem is I live in the urban jungle where we don't have enough space for the man himself forget about catering the needs of the animal and also provide protection to myself and others.

I cannot have dog as a pet as Amma does not approves of it. She think it will make the whole place dirty. I am not sure how the two of them would live when I leave the house for work.

I thought of keeping birds, but again she disapproves of it and says that she will open the cage and let them free. She is of the opinion that birds should not be caged and I agree with that. I could have easily had a squirrel as my pet who barged into our home in search for food but yet again I had to let it go.

After a lot of thinking I have narrowed it down to a cat which should be easy to look after and should not cause much trouble. I have also learned that cats unlike dogs needs less attention and can be toilet-trained easily. I am still looking into the prospects of the pros and cons of having a pet and how to take care of it and yes finding a place from where I can bring it home.

The Last Time I Played Holi

Got up too early in the day than the usual and was staring out of the window and listening to the silence which was broken later.

Scribbled a few thoughts in papers as I wanted to start the day with a clean slate. Waited for the day to pass away as I felt restless sitting in the house. Though it was a day well spend with family.

There were hardly anyone playing Holi from my building, except for the building adjacent to mine. I was trying to remember the last time I played Holi, I realized that it was about 10 years ago that I poured water and colors on others.

The last time being when my cousins came to my house and put colors on me and my sister as we were studying for our exams which were on the way. In terms of a proper playing, it happened to be the year when my father passed away. As I enjoyed the moment, the watchman of the building (the earlier place where I used to live) took on a societal obligation to tell me that I was not supposed to play. Though I did not understood what he really meant back then, but think of it who had given him the right to tell what one should do or not, especially when kids are not aware of such things.

I feel like I am living with dead people in the same building. I would have loved to go out and play but there are hardly anyone to play with. There are no one of my age group and the kids did not ventured out to play. Going to the old place would have being no different as my friends have got so busy in their lives they forgot what fun we used to have as kids.

Hope the next year would be a different story, I will make sure that I am somewhere playing Holi :) and that I am not working that day otherwise all my plans would go kappish.

Hope you had a great time playing Holi.

Listening to Myself

These days I am having fun listening to my voice with the help of my cellphone. It has a voice record feature which I have never used in 3 years.

The first time I used it to record my singing. I am more than a bathroom singer, singing whenever in the mood. It is another matter that I don't happen to know more than 2 lines of any songs.

When I heard myself, I could not believe what I was hearing. It shattered all my dreams of becoming a singer :P

I was like how can this happen when I thought I had a good voice. I do have a deep voice. My manager once told me that she liked my voice which was different from others. Many have told me about that but it never got to me. Few even went ahead and mimicked me, I went a step further mimicked others mimicking me :D

I have a very bad habit of saying "aaaaaa" especially when someone questions me and I have to think and answer. Still I am better than Venkatesh Prasad the Indian bowling coaching who say few words in between a lot of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

I think it is a good way of working on your voice, finding out how others hear you out and improving on it. I am working on my aaaas lets hope I reduced the numbers when I speak.

P.S. I was thinking of posting my singing audio file so that you could judge how I sound but changed my mind as I did not wanted to do atyachar on you and stop paying a visit to me :)

Insensitivity of the Society

As we were walking down the road and talking, I said something and turned around to find that she was not next to me. I looked behind and saw her running and beating a man with gray hair with her umbrella. The man did not even complain and went ahead.

I asked her what was that all about. She said he deliberately made a physical contact. Almost every women could relate to this kind of "touching" everyday as they make their way to schools, colleges, work or even to a place nearby.

When the recent Mangalore attacks happened, she was in fury. I could seeing her blood boiling up and am sure she would have loved to kick their @!#$%. I often told her that she should join a "Nari Mukti Morcha Andalon" but most of the times I tell her to let it go. Something she won't!!

I know it is not easy but then it is a kind of Fight or Flight situation, you have to decide how you are going to handle it when it happens. The best way is to confront them, most of them don't actually expect a reaction and that is what boost these sinners. Better attract the attention of the crowd and give them a nice thrashing.

I remember the first time when I came across such incident. Walking with Amma as teenager towards my home. A girl probably of my age with her Mom were coming from the opposite direction. I then saw a guy coming from behind them and moving his hand over the girl. I was taken aback as I had never seen such thing happening before. The Mom and the girl hardly reacted as he passed.

If it is not the touching then it is the staring. People do check out each other but what is not welcome when it remains eyed for a long time. Even school going kids do that. I was surprised when I saw a school going boy standing near the seat reserved for women in the bus and staring at them intently. If you do find someone doing that ask them what their problem is. It is a wrong mentality in our society that we let people stare and don't confront them.

This reminds me of one the MTV Bakra's episode years back, where they showed a girl being harassed by a roadside romeo at a bus stop. What was disheartening to see that no one (read male) intervened even when she asked for help from the people standing beside her. Only one women stood up and tried to stop that romeo. She was telling her brother (who had a good built) to stop the man but her brother choose to stood there and do nothing.

I don't know if you remember this, but way back in 2002 when a minor mentally challenged girl got raped in the Mumbai local train in the presence of five men, out of which one was a reporter whose account as an eyewitness was on the front page. They did nothing and watched as a drunken got into his act and then got off the train. The question that came to my mind was why they did not stopped him.

When I first read the story the one thing that came to my mind was the man carrying a weapon? or he was of a good built that prevented them from stopping him? I was angry at them for not standing up when I saw the picture of the accused who was nothing but a thin frame man who could have been stopped. It was really a shame for men specially. I am not sure how they were and are able to sleep in the night.

This is our society built on insenstitivity, though we prefer to add the term "fear" to to display our inability to act. We forget that the women who is being eve-teased is a mother, wife, sister and daughter of someone.

What would you do if someone did this to a women in your family?

Hope the next time, if you see a women being harassed by roadside romeos, you know what would be the right thing to do...

Liked the Quote

Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God; your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

— From the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Love is Blind!!!

This is very true if you are judging a couple on their physical exterior and wonder what made them fall in love in the first place.

I have seen a few love stories and it did made wonder what were they thinking, so Love is indeed blind for you if you are judging someone you don't know.

Here is a gist of a few love stories that made me wonder:

The Patel Dude

This guy was handling a team in which three girls were working. There is a square in this love story. He had proposed to a girl in his team who turned him down. Disappointed by the fact that he got rejected he happened to have proposed to another girl in the same team just a few days after. Later the news came that the girl said yes and they were both getting married.

Many tried to speak to him, stop him from making a mistake. They called him mad too. The reason, the girl happened to have a darker complexion and cannot be said good looking in terms of looks. This Patel guy on the other hand was good looking, fair and could have easily got any gal in his own community which have a lot of pretty faces.

Regarding the square in the love story, the third girl had feelings for him, when she got to know about all this, she choose to go for an internal transfer.

He did not listen and got married to her. Everybody thought they would be going separate ways but they are still going strong and have become parents too. I don't know their secret but they truly break the shackles of the society which discourages such union.

Does Size Matters?

This guy joined the organization as an associate and eventually landed up with a plump role in the company. He was smart, had a way with words and the ability to convince you and a visionary.

He was often seen with a girl from his associate days. After a few years both got married. What surprises many is that the fellow could have got a good looking girl who has charmed many with his personality.

The twist in the tale is that he was a little obese and fair. The girl too belonged to the same weight category and had a dark complexion. There are many stories doing the round on what might be the reason behind this, but nobody knows the secret of their successful marriage.

It is hard to believe such stories unless you see them happen. They break your perceptions of the "perfect couple".