Musings

A new feature on Orkut of being able to chat with all your contacts has been driving me to take cover under the “being invisible” mode. Much to my dislike, I am still being invisible as the thought of being available to the 200 odd contacts on the site sends me shudders. What will I chat with people I have hardly met? It is ok to share an occasional not with each other but talk to unknown people everyday? Oops! not my piece of cake, surely. For once I am happy to let the cake go! Getting in to the mould of being unseen has its own share of excitement and disappointments too. It is interesting to see a lot of contacts coming on line, who cannot see that I am also present. Some kind of ego-booster I must say. It fuels a supreme pleasure of giving me the power of talking to them at my will. I just need to ping them and a conversation can happen. Unless I initiate it, they cannot reach out. At the same time it is also a little sad that no one reaches out to me with a friendly...

It is really so wonderful to be seeing you after such a long time! Aah I know feels good to be looking eye to eye, heart to heart after a long time. What to do? These everyday hassles of life hardly leave any time for the things that really matter to “us”. The worldly commitments, rate race is really killing, first for earning and then running to spending all the money to show that life is very “happening” and a host of other things leave hardly or no time for meeting you. I do think often how far apart we are going. I yearn for that quality time with you where no one exists but you and me. It is only in these silences that I feel deeply connected to you. I don’t have any words to talk to you, yet there is so much that is conveyed in these silences. The sheer joy of existence, the celebration of “being” in life, that silent acknowledgement that we exist for the same purpose and so many unsaid things. I miss all that dearly. Sometimes I do wonder how much I have grown up in...

The joyous face of a child I saw from the car window remains afresh after days. The face of a little girl asking for alms albeit with the twinkle in her eyes.. The fact that she was out there on the roads day in and day out doing the same thing, did not take away the shine in her eyes. No matter 9 out 10 people did not bother to look at her, not even rolled their windows down. She was at the “job” with equal enthusiasm for the next vehicle that stopped. Unforgettable. Unmatched renewal of faith. May be that is what people mean when they say we all have a inner child and it is up to us to keep it alive. The quality of being joyous for no reason. It is our basic nature to be in a state of happiness, WITHOUT a rationale. Unfortunately we have surrendered to such a morose life that we need a reason to even smile! On the other hand we have no qualms of adapting to childish behaviour like refusing to talk to someone after a fight, crying over someone else taking our toys (read materialist...

History is created, stories are written, dependencies change statistics; all based on what happened at “that moment” If you look at the major turning point in your life or any new occurrences in the world most of them are an effect of one instant. It is that one moment which changes adoring to abhorring, love to lust, winning to losing, respect to dishonour, trust to betrayal. I suppose most of the transitions I have mentioned are not a very pleasant change. Think about it; don’t these changes affect us most? The way you look at life and what it has to offer to us changes when we are negatively impacted most. Positive changes though more than welcome seldom leave any learning for us. We are too busy basking in its glory! Like I read in a book “There is no bigger failure than success”, precisely so, because success fails to teach us anything. That said; let me confess that I too yearn to win just like you probably. Yet it is inspiring to see how much that one moment of negativity impact...

It is a common scene in the various social or official circles. Someone is leaving your office, locality, home for better prospects (or otherwise!) and there is this sudden demand for that person. Words of praise flow in which have been absent for so many years of togetherness. Gifts are exchanged or given; contact addresses are exchanged (no matter the next moment it is not to be found) and invariably there is an unknown, unheard of sentiment which chokes many a throat and in some overflowing–with-emotion cases wets many a shoulder. I always wonder where all these are hidden when the person is physically present in our life. Why do we mask our feelings or worse why display something which is not exactly what we feel? If it is the second case it is a total hypocritical display and less said the better but what really intrigues me is the first case. Is it that we expect people to be always available at our beck and call and hence think they have a permanent availability for us? It is li...

I had a colleague who was so used to the comfort of traveling in crowded trains and buses (pun intended) that he found the idea of a car drive unnerving! Such was his comfort level in the crammed modes of transportation that the idea of spending time all by himself in a less crowded car was totally unpalatable. Aah! The cozy comfort zone!!! Set patterns of reactions (or inactions!) gets me thinking of the sense of security we derive by conforming to the same behavioural mould we have got ourselves in to. We as human beings simply love to recreate old stories again and again and refuse to think of creating a new history so very often. For seven long years (yes in IT 7 years is long) I worked in a company because of the known work, good friends comfort of being “one” with the system. All along totally oblivious on how I was lagging in terms of monetary benefits or lagging on technology advancements It was not until I changed jobs (only because the company shut doors!) that I realized...

Firstly I thank my stars and fellow drivers on the road that I am still alive to write my experiences of insane driving in India . I have learnt a lot of things most of them coming from inner voice and some due to the outer noise. Nevertheless it has been interesting and I would love to share them with you all my fellow sufferers (in Hindi HUM SAFAR) of this bumpy yet interesting drive of life. So put on your driving belts and here we go… Tip no 1: Live in the present Looking too hard at the road ahead or often looking at the rear view mirror may often catch you unawares by a small obstacle near by (read pedestrians, bikes, bicycles). This translates to us seeing the distant future with a telescope or reliving the past so much that we do not enjoy the present moment. Use mirrors (soul searching?) only to detect mistakes made in the past to avoid them again. Tip no 2: Be a good follower to be a good leader Very often we are either irritated by the ...

This morning was a great relief when I opened the cupboard to select clothes for the day: reason, I had jettisoned many of the clothes yesterday which left me with very less choice. Having a wide range of choice is supposed to be a sign of prosperity but for the many I know including your's truly it is a sign of complex mental exercise with the end result not always desirable! I recall quiet times spent in a little English village which had hourly fixed timings for trains and buses and life was so peaceful and predictable. There were no hassles of boarding the 9:02 am train or the 9:07 am train. With no alternatives in hand everything fell in place :-) When I see parents today pampering their children with so many choices be it food, clothes, games and they in turn being so firm in their own right I feel funny. Having " Bournvita" for one day would mean inviting hell in the house because "Milo" is not available. Going for shopping or eating out or cooki...

It took a swiss ball in the gymnasium to teach me one of the greatest truths of life..It is all about finding the right balance and then enjoying the game. After struggling initially for couple of times for the right equilibrium, once I got it the rest of the exercises were sheer joy, ofcourse entwined with pain :) Reflecting on this philosophy I realized all the past 12 years or more I have spent in pumping time for career and little or no time to other aspects of life like fitness or even simple things like taking a walk in the sun, totally a lop sided balance. Now for some time that I am the master of my time and not the time sheets at office or the client's mercy, I realize there is so much joy to simple things in life. Being able to give more than 2 hours for fitness seems to be a dream in the corporate world, now that I am able to do it it is a dream come true. Yet, it is a lop sided balance with the financial and career aspect needing attention. By god's grace I belo...