Going through a Quarter -Life crisis ...check back in two decades...

Ok so now I totally understand this ….. I realize that I’m not strange to be feeling this ..and there are enough messed up people out there for a technical term to be created about this situation ( well not technical term exactly…) don’t I always say that 25 is the new 15 ?!?!? So here goes …I seem to have been going through and am currently in the throes of a quarter life crisis …. From the wiki

The quarterlife crisis is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the ages of 21 - 29. The term is named by analogy with mid-life crisis. It is now recognised by many therapists and professionals in the mental health field. The phenomenon has been identified in Japan as 'freeter'. Abby Wilner coined the phrase in 1997 and co-authored the first book to identify this phenomenon: Quarterlife Crisis, the Unique Challenges of Life in your Twenties (Tarcher, 2001).

Some parts of the wiki that relate to my condition are :

The version of the "quarter-life crisis" proposed by Erikson, then, is very different from the one that occurs in popular culture. Indeed, the pop-culture version of the "quarter-life crisis" contains more elements of the crisis Erickson associated with adolescence, Identity vs. Role-confusion, giving credence to the theory that late-20th century life, with its bizarre mix of extreme comfort and insecurity, is then causing people to mature at a slower rate.

Two years.... and counting...

Today …apart from being my graduation cum getting a job treat day was the second anniversary of my arrival in the US …yipeee!!!… no really , I guess this was one of the anniversaries that deserved to be remembered….last year I was in India at this time …so in effect this is the first and most probably only anniversary I’ll spend in Tuscaloosa….

I remember two years ago I was at the airport in LA… first just assimilating the fact that I was in an AMERICAN airport ..i.e. I was in America…. I spent most of my dollars tasting Haagen Dazs ice cream for the first time in the airport lounge….I was stuck there for twenty four hours after a twenty two hour flight, because my flight to Atlanta kept getting delayed /cancelled .. Well made it to Atlanta and Birmingham and finally Tuscaloosa …( not all the way to t-town via Delta..but you understand)…And the rest as they say is HISTORY : ).

Post School Jitters

So I’ll be moving to a new place and taking up a new job…I am very excited about the whole thing , it’s been what I’ve been hoping for since the end of 2005, a good amalgam of my skill sets, and a great team to work with in a great city , in an office full of desis.( my manager has a Ganesh idol on her desk )…

I don’t know what it is though but I’m not as enthusiastic as I’d imagined… maybe the realization that a new chapter of life that I’ve put off for a while will start soon has me scared, will I be able to do the job well; will they like me etc etc…Suddenly responsibility has been thrust upon my shoulders …. Start paying off my student loans , credit card bills …uughhh…

Maybe if I were getting a six figure salary I’d be thrilled… but that isn’t it either…. You need relevant experience before you can start earning in six figures…

I’m trying to think of some not so obvious positive things …. Living alone in a city in a high rise and not on student income.. That’s been my dream for so long!!! So I should be excited…….

Maybe I’ll terribly miss Tuscaloosa?!?! Or maybe my experience with moving to new places has left me a little bit cynical… or maybe the fact that ‘The Day’ has come has finally dawned on me .. ‘The day’ from the time I joined graduate school three years ago ; was a kind of a milestone that I had to accomplish before I could do anything worthwhile ..so now that I’ve crossed the milestone it remains that I have to make good on my word and start doing all those things ‘I would do after I get a job…’ . Maybe I realize that even though it seems like time stands still while you’re at school … it really doesn’t ..people are growing older , just because you embrace work life but try to cling on to whatever remnants of independent student living you can doesn’t mean that others around you would stop from wanting to embrace non independent responsibility ( do you understand what I’m trying to get at ???)

… Anyway it feels that I’ve been in this safe little capsule my entire life ( being a student that is ) ,and now have been sent out to this environment where the biggest problem isn’t completing an assignment or passing an exam …. Where people want to get married to their boyfriends or crushes and have babies and pay taxes and buy houses and cook and pay higher rents and buy cars and save for retirement and….* phew* the list is endless… I don’t particularly like school … but I guess it was a good enough shield from real life….


So you realize this post is not about my job but more about how after twenty years of school I have to finally enter the real world…. So dear blog I open up to you this ambiguousness I’m feeling, because I can’t make sense of it myself ..( some consolation for me is that I do remember that I was always a bit non excited before all of my previous journeys…).

TV Song Lyrics- '06

Two memorable sets of lyrics from the Winter of ‘06

First... Chasing Cars… introduced to me via Grey’s Anatomy

Snow Patrol Chasing Cars Lyrics

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's burstin’ into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
It’s here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Waiting on the World to Change via Brothers and Sisters

John Mayer- Waiting On The World To Change

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's hard to beat the system
when we're standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television


what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's not that we don't care,
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we're still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

Great songs…and I’ve watched a LOT of TV this past year…………

Me but not wholly me....

I do not know how other authors feel about their writings but always I have a strange sensation when I read something that I had written some time previously. That sensation is heightened when the writing had been done in the close and abnormal atmosphere of prison and the subsequent reading had taken place outside. I recognize it of course , but not wholly , it seems almost that I was reading some familiar piece written by another , who was near to me and yet who was different . Perhaps that is the measure of the change that has taken place in me.

So I have felt about this book also. It is mine and not wholly mine ,as I am constituted today; it represents rather some past self of mine which has already joined that long succession of other selves that existed for a while and faded away , leaving only a memory behind.

Jawaharlal Nehru
Preface of the book ‘The Discovery of India’

Not that I've ever lived in an environment close to being in prison ...but I was thinking about the same thing , it's kind of “the end of an era” point for me right now… every year ,for the past few years, around this time I embark on a ‘big’ journey ..last year it was my India trip after two years , the year before it was from Wellington to Tuscaloosa and prior to that ,Udipi to Wellington…. This time around the shift isn’t going to be as drastic as I imagined ( at some point of time I thought my options consisted of either Mississippi or Southern California :) ) …

Anyway a few days ago I chanced upon my student id card from 2004 … it was from my NZ college and the photograph was from three months before my arrival in NZ , when I was still in India.I realized that I had changed fundamentally from the girl in the picture …now I think …

Would she like me ?? If I had to use one word it would probably be ‘No’, just because I truly believe I was a better person then.. ( I wonder about the series of events that led from that to this..) …

Would she appreciate where I was at this present moment ???? Maybe yes , it’s definitely not what she wanted, but it’s beyond her wildest dreams(at that point…she has had wilder dreams before and after that time period ) ….

I wonder what will happen in the future..When I read these blog entries and see my (then) old id cards... how will I answer those questions?

Personally I feel they serve as good self improvement tools and reality checks :)

On a side note.... I've decided that one characteristic to figure out if I can truly get along with a person is when a phone conversation isn't a chore...

For the traveller.....

A passage from "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran

A friend gave me the book before I left Wellington, the following passage resonated deeply then , and I guess it isn't surprising that I chance upon it once more....

"Almastafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalase for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth. And in the twelfth year on the seventh day of Lelool, the month of reaping, he climbed a hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist.

Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. But, as he ascended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart:

"How shall I go in peace without sorrow? Nay, not without a word in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within it's walls., and long were the nites of aloneness; And who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and to many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache. It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought that I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yes, I cannot tarry any longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark. For to stay, the hours burn in the nite, is to freeze and to crystalize and be bound in a mold. Fain that I would take with me all that is here. But how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the Sun".

*********************************************************************************

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Seasons Greetings!!!

Does any one else miss Greeting Cards ( the paper variety…. I mean)

Neil Gaiman quotes

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”


“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”

“But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize. Their hearts desire, their dream....But the price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted.”

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten”

“Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?”

Lives are snowflakes - forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close in”

“This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.”

“It was a dark and stormy nightmare”

“I'll come to you tonight, dear, when it's late,
You will not see me; you may feel a chill.
I'll wait until you sleep, then take my fill,
And that will be your future on a plate.
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate.”

Life - and I don't suppose I'm the first to make this comparison - is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.

People kill what they fear. They burned, and drowned, and hanged those they saw as witches, the devil's servants: the wise women and the cunning men, the unfortunate, the lost and the strange

"-People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes."

Comics Part 3

with due respect to the copyright owners...

A life less ordinary..

....In a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri, this reality is summed up succinctly. In the story, we read the words of an Indian who had come to Boston as a young man on the day the Americans first landed on the moon:

"While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly 30 years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."



"If it can be allowed that the passport is a kind of book, then the immigration officer, holding a passport in his hand, is also a reader. Like someone in a library or even, in the course of a pleasant afternoon, on a bench beneath a tree. Under the fluorescent lights, he reads the entries made in an unfamiliar hand under categories that are all too familiar. He examines the seals, the stamps, and the signatures on them.
He looks up. He reads the immigrant's responses to his questions, the clothes, the accent. The officer's eyes return to the passport. He appears to be reading it more carefully. He frowns. Suddenly he turns around and tries to catch a colleague's eye. It is nothing, he wants more coffee.
You notice all this if you are an immigrant ..."

Passport Photos, Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar on English Textbooks

The Hindu, Literary Review, October 2, 2005
Textbook of Laughter and Forgetting

We have repeatedly witnessed in recent years, almost like the seasonal outbreak of a distressing form of cholera, controversies over the contents of history textbooks.
But why is there no discussion about what school-children are asked to read in their English textbooks?


I have very little memory now of what I had read in the books used in my history classes, although I do remember the attention with which I would copy out on clean sheets of paper the line-drawings that represented the portraits of emperors. Akbar’s moustache drooped. Humayun was thin and wizened, already preparing, it seemed, for a premature death. The rounded lines in the portrait of Shah Jahan contained all the sorrow of love’s futile striving. Nearly everything else in those books escapes me at the moment.

This might be entirely because I was a mediocre student and, like the uninspired everywhere, I found my classes stultifying. But the fact remains that I still have vivid and exact memories of what I read in my English textbooks. It was there that I read George Orwell’s account of shooting an elephant in Burma, Dom Moraes on a trip to the Thar, Khushwant Singh’s depiction of life in the village of Mano Majra, Somerset Maugham describing the solitude on his seventieth birthday.

When I was sixteen, I left my hometown Patna to go to school in Delhi. The school where I got admission, Modern School on Barakhamba Road, was a prestigious enclave where the children of the rich and the powerful came each day as if they were visiting a familiar club. Our teachers, for the most part drawn from the Punjabi middle-class, could only use a puritanical and unimaginative pedagogy to prop themselves up against the display of wealth. They knew in their hearts that they were superfluous and stuck to the dull routine of making us read and repeat the words in the textbooks prescribed by the school board.

Nevertheless, the English textbooks that I read and reread during those two years gave me a sense of language and an idea of how to express my own sense of the world that I inhabited. This is what literature can do, even without your knowing it. Shouldn’t there be wider debate, then, on what our students read in their books?
I recently received a letter from an editor at Macmillan-India. He had written to say that he was preparing a textbook for the Intermediate level students in Bihar and he wanted permission to use an essay of mine in which I had written about a visit to the Khudabaksh Library in Patna.*

The letter brought back the mixed memories from my youth. In my reply to the editor, I readily granted permission. I didn't ask for any payment. It seemed to me that even one poor student reading me in Bihar would be worth a thousand readers in South Delhi or abroad.

When I remembered my own alienating classroom experiences, it gave me pleasure to think that now a reader in Bihar would be able to rediscover his or her own world in my writing. The names of places as well as the people, the sentiments shared by the writer, even the dust on the streets—all of this would be familiar to the student in towns like Ara or Motihari. How many times before had Bihari students found their lives reflected in the English textbooks prescribed for their courses?
Then, just last week, the postman brought a registered package from India. It was the textbook with my essay in it. I read the book quickly. The search for relevance by the education council had meant not only the inclusion of Bihari writers like Tabish Khair among the contributors but also pieces that provided urgent social critique. A good example was a poem "Voice of the Unwanted Girl" by Sujata Bhatt, written in the voice of a destroyed foetus, presenting a protest against female infanticide. Textbooks elsewhere in India should include writings like this that touch the heart and challenge the mind.

Our students need to be freed from the claustrophobia of the classroom. The prose and poetry that we offer them should appear to them fresh and enlivening. The Macmillian-India book began with a brilliant, hopeful piece by Jawaharlal Nehru, its elegant rhetoric paying homage to the arrival of Gandhi. I felt my senses lift while reading the essay. However, I'd like to see students also reading well-written critical pieces on subjects as seemingly trivial as Bombay films. Let's give them Ashis Nandy's incisive essay on P.C. Barua and Devdas. It will engage—and educate—students as much if not more than Shakespeare and Blake.

Why is it that English textbooks, including the one I was sent, are top-heavy with hagiographies of our national leaders? I have rarely seen letters printed in these books. There is very little travel-writing. There is no space ever for quality journalism. In general, we should also be publishing more women writers. To my students in America, I have taught Mahasweta Devi, Ismat Chughtai, Urvashi Butalia, and Arundhati Roy. Why are these writers not being taught in the places where I studied in India?

In the textbook that sparked these reflections, I found a story by O. Henry called "After Twenty Years." I had read this story in my English class twenty years ago. The lines of dialogue and the characteristic, surprising O. Henry twist at the end of the story came flooding back as I turned the pages. But this experience also made me distrust my pleasure and my nostalgia. Why are textbooks so remarkably unchanged even after decades?

The most disturbing aspect of the controversies over the history textbooks has been the extent to which current political interests determined what was taught in the classroom. That was detrimental, no doubt, but in the matter of English textbooks the opposite has been true. Our textbooks have remained for the most part trapped in the bubble of their own past. They continue to be hodge-podge collections of quaint pieces, somewhat suspect in their usefulness, a bit like the clay-objects strewn beside a corpse in a ceremonial grave. It is no surprise that in our professional use of the English language, as a people, we remain stiff, formal, awkward. Unless these textbooks are radically changed, our teachers will remain mummy-makers, wrapping cotton around our children's mouths.

The Unknown Errors of Our Lives

"The Unknown Errors of Our Lives"
-Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
………. It would have been the worst error of her life, and she wouldn't even have known it. It saddens her to think of all the errors people make (she has been musing over such things lately)--the unknown errors of their lives, the ones they can never put down in a book and are therefore doomed to repeat………

Another quote compilation.... WooHooo!!!

It’s been a while since I posted some quotes …. Long one..hope you find some you like .

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house."
- George Carlin

A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
- Stephen Crane

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
- Woody Allen

I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it?


I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
- Kahlil Gibran

Better keep yourself clear and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
- George Bernard Shaw

I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
- Etienne de Grellet

"The darker the night, the brighter the stars."
- Vasily Rozanov

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
- Helen Keller

"Do you know a cure for me?"
"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."
"Salt water?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said, "In one form or another; sweat, tears or the salt sea."
- Isak Dinesen


KAHLIL GIBRAN
Seven times have I despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek
that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her
limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose
between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong,
and comforted herself that others, also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness,
and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face,
and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise,
and deemed it a virtue

ON THE STEPS OF THE TEMPLE

Yester-eve, on the marble steps of the Temple, I saw a woman sitting
between two men. One side of her face was pale, the other was
blushing.

FACES

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that
was but a single countenance as if held in a mould.

I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness
beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful
it was.

I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth face
in which all things were graven.

I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves,
and behold the reality beneath.

"THE PERFECT WORLD"

God of lost souls, thou who are lost amongst the gods, hear me:

Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear
me:

I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect.

I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongst
finished worlds--peoples of complete laws and pure order, whose
thoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visions
are enrolled and registered.

Their virtues, O God, are measured, their sins are weighed, and
even the countless things that pass in the dim twilight of neither
sin nor virtue are recorded and catalogued.

Here days and night are divided into seasons of conduct and governed
by rules of blameless accuracy.

To eat, to drink, to sleep, to cover one's nudity, and then to be
weary in due time.

To work, to play, to sing, to dance, and then to lie still when
the clock strikes the hour.

To think thus, to feel thus much, and then to cease thinking and
feeling when a certain star rises above yonder horizon.

To rob a neighbour with a smile, to bestow gifts with a graceful
wave of the hand, to praise prudently, to blame cautiously, to
destroy a sound with a word, to burn a body with a breath, and then
to wash the hands when the day's work is done.

To love according to an established order, to entertain one's best
self in a preconceived manner, to worship the gods becomingly,
to intrigue the devils artfully--and then to forget all as though
memory were dead.

To fancy with a motive, to contemplate with consideration, to be
happy sweetly, to suffer nobly--and then to empty the cup so that
tomorrow may fill it again.

All these things, O God, are conceived with forethought, born with
determination, nursed with exactness, governed by rules, directed
by reason, and then slain and buried after a prescribed method.
And even their silent graves that lie within the human soul are
marked and numbered.

It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence, a world of
supreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God's garden, the master-thought
of the universe.

But why should I be here, O God, I a green seed of unfulfilled
passion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west, a
bewildered fragment from a burnt planet?

Why am I here, O God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods?



If you want to feel rich, just count all of the things you have that money can't buy.
- Anon

The edge of the world does not look far away, to that I am on my way running.
- Papago Indian song for a young girl

"All of the people I could be, they got fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to only one — and that's who I am. The weather man."
- David in "The Weatherman"

I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
- Marcus Cole , "Babylon 5 "

"Who am I? I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all that I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am everything that happens after I've gone that would not have happened if I had not come.... to understand me you must swallow a world."
- Salman Rushdie, "Midnight's Children"

Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
- Saul Bellow

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."

Two often mentioned motivations for travels are to see another world and to disappear. In that sense, a journey in the footsteps of someone who disappeared in search of another world was the perfect journey.
- Nicholas Jubber, "The Prester Quest"

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
- Margaret Mead

"The people you care about you never really say goodbye to."
- MTV's "The Real World"

Basically, I have this theory that there are five kinds of truth. There is the truth you tell to casual strangers and acquaintances. There is the truth you tell to your general circle of friends and family members. There is the truth you tell to only one or two people in your entire life. There is the truth you tell to yourself. And finally, there is the truth that you do not admit even to yourself.
- JMS's Theory Of The Five Truths

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
- Horace Walpole

Those of you who think that you know everything are particularly annoying to those of us who do.
- Anon

Once I dreamed I was a butterful, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterful dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu.
- Chuang Tzu


The trouble with being a young female is that you have to sound like Hermione Grainger in the classroom and look like Beyonce on a night out. This standard of perfection is so excessiev that it's taking a terrible toll.
- Medb Ruane, "The Irish Independent"

I’ve never liked the Valentine’s Day holiday. Our culture celebrates romantic love morning, noon, and night 364 days a year – and then sets aside one special day every February to really rub the lovelesses’ noses in it. Not so nice. So: if you are lucky enough to have a sweetheart, of course you must kiss her (or him) today. But if you want to do a good deed, give a thought to the many lonely people around you: the divorced, the widowed, the unlucky – and maybe, if you have a spare dollar or two, you might want to send a small anonymous bouquet to one of them. Oh – and send it to the office, where everybody can see.
- David Frum

"Why am I always at, uh, weddings, and never actually getting married, now?"
"It's probably 'cause you're a bit scruffy. Or it could also be 'cause you haven't met the right girl."
"Ah, but you see, is that it? Maybe I have met the right girls. Maybe I meet the right girls all the time. Maybe it's me. "
- "Four Weddings & A Funeral

"I'm quite certain that to to make you happy, look after you, and keep you safe is the purpose of my life."
- Jerry Burton, second-time lucky with the girl of his dreams, "Miss Marple: The Moving Finger"

"You make me want to be a better man."
"That's maybe the best compliment of my life."
"Well maybe I overshot a little, because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out. "
- Melvin Udall & Carol, "As Good As It Gets"

"Love is when you look into someone's eyes and suddenly you go all the way inside, to their soul, and you both know instantly. I always imagined I'd fall in love nursing a blind soldier who was wounded in battle. Or maybe while rescuing someone in the middle of a blizzard, seconds before the avalanche hits. I thought at least by the age of 15 I'd have a love life, but I don't even have a _like_ life."
- Angela, "My So Called Life"

"I have to believe that it works...that when two people come together they stay together. I have to take that to bed with me at night even if I'm going to bed alone. That's a McBealism."
-Ally, "Ally McBeal"

"You would be the greatest choice I would ever make."
- Andy to Nina on "Everwood"



"Look at it mathematically. If just one person hooks up with somebody who isn't their soulmate, you got a chain reaction that screws it up for everybody on the planet."
- Jonesy to David, "Buying the Cow"

"I realized at that moment, there is no such thing as the one. it's more of a mind boggling whole hell of a lot of pontential ones, and while that should be comforting, it's actually pretty terrifying. We'd all like to kick back, and wait for some magical force to show us who we should spend the rest of our lives with, but the truth is there isn't a lightning bolt that slaps you on the ass and tells you to pick this person over all others. If anything its like the rain. Rain falls all the time, sometimes you're prepared for it, sometimes you're not, and depending on where you are when it hits you either get caught in it, or you dont. In fact most of us try like hell to avoid it. You might miss the bus, you might catch the bus. Maybe you remembered your umbrella, maybe you didn't. No big signs just random torrential bursts of opportunity."
- David, "Buying the Cow"

Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always.
- Dante

Love? Pah. Overrated. Here, look, these are my three wives: Pestilence, Famine and Death. Do you think I married them for their personalities? Their personalities could shatter entire planets! Arranged marriages, every one, but they worked out. They inspired me. Knowing that they are waiting at home for me is what keeps me here -- 75 light years away.
- Londo, "Babylon 5 - The War Prayer"

And then the question dreaded by all singletons, "How's the love life?"
- Bridget, "Bridget Jones's Diary"



In her own special category, she was quite beautiful. This was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at.
- Terry Pratchett, "Guards! Guards!"

Sorry. I thought I recognized landmarks in your face, felt familiar contours along the bones of your hand, caught a cry that tore in flight across your voice. Forgive me for staring. Someone I knew once lived there.
- Leslie Crutchfield Tompkins

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."
- Saul Bellow

"She's got character, she doesn't even take it out on other people when she's having a bad day."
- Rob describes Laura, "High Fidelity"

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

I didn’t really get the meaning of this song before , but yesterday after a conversation with a friend, I heard this on the radio and it all made sense …. This is more a diary entry for me ..and I’m the ‘brother’… though at times I may have been the ‘narrator’, but hopefully never someone who totally goes against the values mentioned in the song ... So help me God. What strikes me most are these lines -

If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness
Of love, for one another .

HE AINT HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER – The Hollies
2 weeks at #1 - 11 weeks on chart

The road is long, with many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
But I'm strong, strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother

So on we go, his welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
For I know, he would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother

If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness
Of love, for one another

It's a long, long road, from which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share
And the load doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother

He's my brother
He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Some Recepies..

Copyright :Spice Corner

Sometimes a post comes along and I just HAVVVE to plug it ….but this is an entire blog I want to plug.. seems like it already has a fan following …


Any way here’s Sups’ cooking blog…great 'Karnatakan' and Indian recipes for the day when I can actually think of cooking … Supriya is my roommate from undergrad so we are peers but at this point (like with most of my peers) our passions diverge a little bit..she prepares Medu Vadas and Idlis from scratch … I microwave Amy’s Paneer Masala from Publix to get my ( barely) desi khana fix ….
It’s a fantabuloustic blog …

Words to live by

The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are they necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?' -Eknath Easwaran (1911-1999)

- from my favorite quote book …. And here it is in its original context

Meditation by Eknath Easwaran
Chapter 5, Training the Senses
Section 7 of 9

Selecting Entertainment


“……………………..In the name of hard-hitting communication, the media increasingly also offer us debased language – a few shopworn vulgarities, hauled out to serve every occasion. Presumably they are supposed to shock us, but what I find shocking is that people will allow the full range of their expressiveness to be encapsulated in a few stale interjections. It may seem old-fashioned, but I would recommend standing guard over the gate of the mouth to ensure that only the right kind of words come out. It is another form of sense training. Vulgar speech, sarcasm, gossip, even pointless chatter, should all be denied exit visas.

The Sufis capture this idea in a splendid metaphor. They advise us to speak only after our words have managed to issue through three gates. At the first gate we ask ourselves, “Are these words true?” If so, let them pass on; if not, back they go.

At the second gate, we ask, “Are they necessary?” They may be true, but it doesn’t follow that they have to be uttered; they must serve some meaningful purpose. Do they clarify the situation or help someone? Or do they strike a discordant or irrelevant note?

At the last gate we ask, “Are they kind?” If we still feel we must speak out, we need to choose words that will be supportive and loving, not words that embarrass or wound another person. All of us understand what blows can do to someone, but we do not realize that words can create a more painful injury, one that can last for many years. Nor do we understand the terribly destructive impact words can have on the consciousness of the person who uses them………………….”

Indian Pop Art ....and then some..........

Gotta Louuuve Indian Calendar Art ( nothing makes me as nostalgic as the familiar drawings from waay back that I don’t get to see anymore!!! )…Googled Indian Calendar Art and Indian Pop Culture to find the following :









From here and here and here.

******************************

Has anybody else used those educational paper ‘charts’?!?! (I always thought of charts as something involving thick paper ) the ones made of flimsy paper and we’d cut out relevant pictures and paste in our notebooks as kids…pretty neat they were….








They usually were of national leaders or national monuments or national scientists, sometimes domestic animals , national flower(s), types of houses ..and I’m racking my brain to think of the various pictures I had pasted on school books over the years.. wonder if they still make them...
*********************************

Let’s stick with nostalgia for a bit …here are some print ads I remember from my Amar Chitra Katha’s , Tinkles, Chandamama’s, Champaks , the Indian Disney comics, and a couple of Mandrake comics I own ….










The above are from the following AWESOME sites this one (Great online desi vintage ad archive) and this one ( Really neat site for people who grew up in 1980’s India ;but some of the content isn’t exactly kid friendly!!!)
*************************************

Anyhooo back to the present…………….. aren’t the following pictures really Cute!!! Awwww................




Check out the website here .

True Love(Poem)

True Love

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

-- Wislawa Szymborska

Live your best Life (TM -O magazine!)

"The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another."
-- George Bernard Shaw, "Pygmalion," act 5

Interesting Video from the Dove Campaign...

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/

Behind the Veil

Barkha Dutt

Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

Saturday, October 28, 2006:

It's the classic cliché: meek eyes staring out from behind miles of cloth; the grim black color making the perfect style statement for suppression.

But is it really that simple?

Is the veil a symbol of equality or entrapment? Does it stand for religious freedom or retrograde ritualism? At a time when the globalisation bulldozer is swiftly flattening out individuality and turning us all into assembly line productions, is the veil a healthy assertion of multiculturalism? Or is it simply sexist in the extreme?

Jack Straw, England's former foreign secretary, kick-started the row when he declared that he would prefer Muslim women in Britain to completely discard the full veil. Salman Rushdie was even more blunt: the veil, he said, "sucks" and was just another way of taking "power away from women".

And Tony Blair joined the chorus: the time had come, he said, to step outside the boundaries of political correctness and debate the place of the veil in a modern, secular society.

So which side of the debate are you on?

I have to confess that despite being an unabashed liberal feminist, I'm pretty confused.

Sure, I'm instinctively revolted by religious dogma and sickened by the subtext: stifle female sexuality in swathes of impenetrable dark cloth. I have always argued that certain principles of equality must override and supersede religion. So while Jack Straw's comments were restricted to the niqab that cloaks women from head to toe, personally I find even the hijab or the headscarf scarily suggestive of subservience.

But it disturbs me only as much as the ghungat in Hindu homes of rural India or the feudal chic of urban socialites who dress up in fancy chiffons and pearls and then demurely drape their heads and reach for their husband's feet if required. The veil offends my notion of equality just as much as temples that deny entry to women or churches that believe priesthood to be the preserve of men.

The fact is that gender is always on the wrong side of faith. And so by definition, the classic feminist position is always at loggerheads with tradition.

The problem as many feminists (including myself) have discovered is this: our ideology often doesn't have the width for the world's complexities. It ignores socio-economic realities and how inextricably culture and identity are linked.

In real life, context is everything: and the truth alters as the context shifts.

I remember being in Kashmir in 2001. A shadowy militant group was trying to push women behind a blanket of black: the veil was being enforced in a valley where many women traditionally never wore it. Outspoken young girls went on record to protest the infringement of their freedom and the distortion of their culture. As we aired these reports on television, a fatwa was slapped on my head warning me against traveling to the state.

A few months later, 9/11 shook the world, and I was in New York. This time, there were threats too, but of an entirely different kind. Muslim women were being compelled to discard the safety and comfort of the hijab.

At the city’s community center for Arab-Americans, social workers were advising women to dress in a way that would blend them into the mainstream: no headscarves, skirts and dresses, if possible. At a peace vigil, I met a Bangladeshi woman who suddenly broke down and wept; it was the first time she had stepped out her house without wearing the customary salwar-kameez.

Freedom had really become another word for nothing left to lose. And suddenly what could have been a symbol of oppression in another place, at another time, had transformed into an emblem of religious pride.

So when Jack Straw says that the full veil is a "mark of separation" and a custom that segregates the community, it raises all sorts of other questions. The assimilation debate is always a dangerous one; must Muslims conform to an anglicised notion of dress to be considered regular people?

London-based journalist Zaiba Malik was one such "integrated" Muslim who had never worn a veil before, but decided to conduct a little experiment. She shrouded herself in black and walked across the city. Among the slew of comments heaped upon her: "You Paki terrorist, go back home".

Reading about her experience, I thought that one remark would have enraged me enough to want to wear the veil forever.

On the other hand, there is also no doubt that across the world, there is a crisis of modernity and leadership in Muslim communities. As terrorism plunges the world into a Samuel Huntington styled clash of civilizations, Mr Straw is right in saying that cities must not be split into self-contained ghettoes. The question is this: did his controversial remarks actually end up achieving exactly that?

There are no simple answers. Modern politics has got caught in the polarisations of the West vs Islam battle, and the modern gender debate is tragically trapped in extremes as well.

Read the furious bloggers on Jack Straw’s comments. One of them, a young Muslim, demands to know: "What are Straw's views on teenage pregnancy, on young girls going out dressed in next to nothing?"

Beyond the obvious cultural clash, the comment got me thinking. Would there ever have been a public debate over whether women dressed in handkerchief skirts and bikini blouses were appropriate role models?

Of course not.

Today we believe women have traveled a long way because we are able to flaunt our sexuality and strut our stuff. To question to that is to be labelled prudish and backward. And yet, I often wonder, is this progress or merely the circle completing itself?

The debate reminds me of one of my favourite stories, one, some readers of this column would have heard before. I first met "item girl" Momed Khan during the recording of a television show on censorship. The sultry, long-haired, short-skirted Momed, best-known for her seductive serenade in the hit song Dekh Le, sprang to her feet, and pointed aggressively at the skirt riding up her leg.

This is what women wanted to be, she said, almost yelling. The age of the salwar-kameez was over. As the audience applauded, I thought: here's a 19-year old Muslim woman from conservative Lucknow, in Thackeray's Mumbai, defying convention and norm. That seemed pretty radical by any standard.

Yet I kept thinking: What did she really stand for? The manufactured sexuality, the crafted coquettishness — it seemed to me that we had just gone and replaced an old stereotype with a new one. Had she turned up draped in a full veil instead, would she have been a different woman beneath the black?

Somehow I'm not so sure.

Modernity is a confusing business, and sometimes moving forward is the same as going back.

A question of faith

I’m at a stage of my life where I have to restore conviction that there is someone one looking out for me .. and in the end things will be alright…..

I truly believe that faith can move mountains .This conviction has guided me through most of life ..but a couple of years ago I became sort of blasé about the whole thing.. there are something’s in life that you just cant change… or things just not meant to be, or so I thought …...

Anyway I’ve recovered some hope and have started reading Norman Vincent Peale books and such like to get back the power of Positive Thinking..

It's good to have purpose to cling to in trying times ..something that you know if all the mountains come crashing down will still exist… I alluded to a lack of purpose in an earlier post ..purpose can mean ambition , strong love for a person or for god ..


Faith is a powerful and beneficial concept , but it can be negative at times ; I got to thinking about this after watching an episode of Law and Order SVU.. the story was about a lady who commits murder because of her faith in a person who we find out in the end doesn’t exist ( this imaginary person was a work of con artists ) …So faith drew this seemingly well adjusted ,well educated woman to murder ….

But it was misplaced faith… we all know about cases of misplaced faith , from my real life experiences I can state the examples of people who turn their back on family and close friends at the insistence of jerk best friends and lovesofthierlife , only to realize at the end that they had given on up on the people who truly cared for them .And jerk lovers/best friends being the way that they are; disappear when it comes down to the crunch ….This is of course an example on a small personal scale on a larger scale it could involve people drawn into malicious cults ,terrorist groups etc etc…

What happens to people who don’t end up in prison, or don’t get blown up , or aren’t left friendless and desolate….because of strong faith and belief in an undeserving cause??? They lose the ability to believe in worthy causes i.e. themselves, love, God……

I was spurred to write this post after Reading about this game in Aswin’s Blog ..found out about the post via Sharath…
Aswin asks :

Can you imagine ever having such a cause or Ideology in your life that you are ready to die for ? Your cause could be Absolutely Anything. I don't mean just Religion, Idea, etc - Your cause could be as noble as 'Ending poverty', or it could be as personal as curing your loved one's illness, it could even be something fictional like bringing someone back to life(?) , it could be, like I said, Absolutely Anything.

He goes further and reduces the penalty from Death , to years in prison to giving up all your wealth , education , memory ..to find out how much a person would be willing to forsake and for what cause

Here’s my comment :

Hi Aswin , Got the link to this post via Sharath, very thought provoking!!!

I wouldn’t die for a cause, because I believe life is precious and I don’t like to encourage suicidal tendencies of any sort..

Would I die to save a loved one??… Maybe, that would be the only instance I would consider this option ..Die to save a hundred dying people ?? ( maybe if it unequivocally resulted in their survival)
Would I die for my Country , Religion ,State or Planet??

…A resounding NO!! I believe all these disputes are politically motivated and everyone’s life is more precious than giving in to the whims of manipulative powerful people.. it’s the same as the case of the Indian soldier who died in Iraq fighting for the US army ..He only recently migrated to the States… and was brought up in India ..God Bless his Soul, but it wasn’t his war to die fighting … Maybe in an Armageddon situation, a war against planets, I would consider joining an army. The job of the United Nations and Peaceniks like me is to ensure that no world wars occur.. the world is no longer as isolated and countries and people aren’t as disconnected as they once were..

I would however risk my all my money ,incur the wrath of my friends , possibly switch careers to stick to my personal beliefs i.e. : open mindedness, the war against bigots , individualism, family ties and self respect .
I would also contribute as much as I could to the elimination of poverty.
This is starting to look like a letter :)
Regards,
N

A New Direction......

I don’t remember watching any American non presidential elections happening… ( I’ve always tried to follow Presidential elections,via my parents ..and they are always exciting )..but I spent the entire evening today watching CNN…… nail biter to say the least….

Living for the past two years in one of the more republican (if not the most republican) of American States…I realized that not all Americans think like Hollywood ( ok I’m not being serious here ;)) , I also realized that the heart of America was probably more conservative than I was…. But these two years didn’t particularly endear me to the Republican Party… so watching the Dem’s win the house is elating ..seeing the first female speaker in the history ( from ‘San Francisco’ and all the liberal connotations involved in that…) of the United States being chosen ( can you imagine for a country which has taken many strides for female empowerment , there hasn’t been a lady in this high a position ( next in line after Vice –President) let alone being president ( but now is a good time as any to start)…..

So this is the first national victory for the democratic party after 12 years; the time line goes like this- Bill Clinton’s impeachment , Dubya taking charge, September 11, the war on terror and the second Iraq war…. Yup definitely the American people could do with a change ( the years with the Republican stronghold weren’t too great )…..A lot has been said about lack of charismatic leadership in the Democratic Party, but on the other hand you’ve got Dubyaman ( who’s only saving grace was acting ultra conservative )!!?!?!

Right now the Senate race is still undecided..Virginia with ‘Macaca’ Allen ..in a neck to neck………. All very exciting .. maybe during my next year in America ,there will be more open minded people in Government ….and hopefully that seeps into the mainstream…

I guess as an Indian Citizen I shouldn’t be too bothered with what happens …but as someone brought up in the Middle East , from India and presently in the US .. I know how far reaching the Governmental situation in the United States is… I hope it isn’t too much wishful thinking to hope for a Democratic President in 2008.

12 Days of Christmas

What the …… but it is funny…
First of all the guy has an ambiguous accent like Apu from the Simpsons…. If these are in fact desiboys singing why can’t they impersonate an Indian accent properly??
Nonetheless it IS funny, and really good animation, listen till the end!!!…. If you haven’t checked it already from Sepia Mutiny..Here is a Desi Version of the popular X’mas carol Twelve Days of Christmas….Enjaaai??!?!!!!!

Celebration

Thanks to Mich for the fwd... the hostel/maggi noodle lines bought back memories.. :)

enjoy people.....



Celebration means......

A winter evening.
Four friends.
One barsaat.
Four glasses of chai.

(OR)

Hundred bucks of gas.
A rusty old bike.
And an open road.

(OR)

Maggi noodles.
A hostel room.
4.25 a.m.

(OR)

3 old friends.
3 separate cities.
3 coffee mugs.
1 internet messenger.

(OR)

Rain on a hot tin roof.
Pakoras deep-frying.
Neighbours dropping in.
A party.

(OR)

You and mom.
A summer night.
A bottle of coconut oil.
A head massage.
Gossiping about absent family members.


You can spend
Hundreds on birthdays,
Thousands on festivals,
Lakhs on weddings,

but to celebrate
all you have to do is spend your Time .

Keep in touch with your loved ones

Theres more to Me and You!!!!

‘There’s more to me’ ..Well I did mean all of the lines in that poem.. I was getting more than a little tired of people assuming things about me , based on a few facts and not the whole..(which is more than the sum of the parts)..anyway Sharath has been kind enough to mention the poem in his blog.. here’s his entry followed by my comment….

Anything more to know ?
Natasha's blog which I frequent (frequently!) has a few nice words up there.

I know its a poem, maybe she doesnt ( or perhaps she does ) expect me to take it literally. But think about it - if you were to describe to person A all the attributes of another unknown person B that Natasha says are not the only attributes that matters, A will still have a really really good idea about the person that B is !! ( books, significant relationships, failures, where u grew up, good/bad habits, overriding passions, job etc. etc. )

Yes, I agree that there will still be lots of 'undescribables' about people - there is nothing like knowing a person for a length of time. But undescribable doesnt mean undeterminable - many of those undescribables will already be determined by all the attributes Natasha has covered.

Besides, the extent to which we intend to know a person depends on at what level, for what duration we deal with her/him. To be fair to Natasha, she is probably talking about intimate people in one's life, presumably what you need to know before you choose a spouse or so, in which case that would be more accurate.

My comment:

Interesting take Sharath!!! When I wrote those lines I meant precisely that people cannot make assumptions based on all those attributes listed …… I guess I was talking about the intangible stuff you mention later… all the above mentioned tangibles do play a part in influencing what you are inside.. but I believe that there is more to a person than man made categories, when I wrote this I was of a mindset that there are only certain parts of myself that I show to people ,or only certain attributes of myself that some people choose to see in me … this will not give an accurate representation of who I am … and this isn’t only for really deep life long relationships ..if acquaintances saw me as more than just the sum of these attributes. .I’d be grateful for it!!!!
Having said that , I have to admit that I may be guilty of analyzing people using only characteristics mentioned above .i.e guy/girl, black/white, etc etc

P.S. I made it a point to mention all the generalisations people make that i could think of :)

There is no word yet for old friends who have just met

I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
-- Rebecca West, in 1913

I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
--J.D.Salinger, from The Catcher in the Rye

In later life, as in earlier, only a few persons influence the formation of our character; the multitude pass us by like a distant army. One friend, one teacher, one beloved, one club, one dining table, one work table are the means by which one's nation and the spirit of one's nation affect the individual.
-- Jean Paul Richter


Two step formula for handling stress:
1. Don't sweat the small stuff.
2. Remember that it's all small stuff.
--Anthony Robbins


When one loves somebody, everything is clear - where to go, what to do - it all takes care of itself and one doesn't have to ask anybody about anything.
--Maxim Gorky

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
-- e. e. cummings


Serendipity -The pleasant surprise of happening upon a fortunate discovery when you weren't in search of it.
Coined by Henry Walpole in The Princess of Serendip (Ceylon), (1754)

Here today, up and off somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement!
Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame

Even Santa Claus believes in YOU, Can you picture that?
from 'Can You Picture That?' sung in The Muppet Movie (1979), by Jim Henson's Muppets

There is no word yet for old friends who have just met.
from The Muppet Movie (1979)

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
from Orthodoxy (1908) by G. K. Chesteron

We are the music makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; --
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
We are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) (1862-1910)

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been.'
from Maud Muller (1856) by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
* W. Somerset Maugham


True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
* François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

There’s more to me …..

There’s more to me than my skin tone..
There's more to me than my problem skin!!!!
There’s more to me than the places I’ve visited …
There’s more to me than the exams I’ve managed to clear and the degrees I have..


There’s more to me than the people I know…


There's more to me than the sports i (don't)play...
There's more to me than the parties I go to...
There's (slightly) more to me than my overriding passions....
There's more to me than my good (or bad) habits...


There’s more to me than the caste (community) I was born in ………
There’s more to than which school I went (go ) to……………………
There’s more to me than the way my hair looks on a bad day……………
There's more to me than my jobs........
There’s more to me than being my parents’ daughter………….
There’s more to me than being my sister’s sister………..


There’s more to me than the people I hang out with……….
There’s more to me than my failures…………..
There’s more to me than being an “Indian” .………..
There’s more to me than my mother tongue or the languages I speak …………….


There’s more to me than my choice of diet ……………………..
There’s more to me than the amount of makeup that I (don’t ) wear……….
There’s more to me than my measurements………..
There’s more to me than the way I look………..


There’s more to me than the books I’ve read and songs I listen to………..
There’s more to me than the way I speak……………
There’s more to me than my age……….
There's’ more to me than my religion…………
There's more to me than my relationship status...........


There’s more to me than my significant relationships or friendships ………………
There’s more to me than the clothes I wear……………
There's more to me than my bank balance…….
There’s more to me than how “cool” people think I am (not)………………

There’s more to me than your opinion of me……………

Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! (music by sick puppies)

I’ve been checking emails after a looong time and finally got to watching this video a friend sent …Thanks Friend!!! Watch it…a smile/hug costs nothing but means so much!!!! Very Chicken soup for the soul ..and check the oprah link on youtube as well….

100 Greatest Songs Of The '80s

This is why I LOVE VH1.... they do these awesome retro countdowns, and play music videos that aren’t exactly the current hot thing…. I miss that about music channels ( what does a girl have to do to watch some old videos!!) anyway I’m watching the show right now , saw it yesterday as well.. thank goodness people at this site complied a list.. otherwise I would have made one myself !!!!..highlighted are songs I haven’t heard or don’t recall hearing…( actually there are quite a few i havent heard..just havent highlighted them all ;))..Again AWESOME list!!!!

100 Greatest Songs Of The '80s

.
(Vh1) "100 Greatest Songs Of The '80s," the five-part program will countdown classics from '80s icons like Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, New Edition, Journey, Guns N' Roses and Duran Duran. With 44, 000 votes received, the list was determined by an online poll at vh1.com where viewers had the opportunity to pick their favorite songs from the '80s whether it was rock, pop, rap or R&B. Join VH1 as it counts down the coolest, gnarliest and most awesome songs of the decade that gave us hip-hop and hair metal. Premiering with back-to-back episodes on Monday, October 30 at 9 PM*, "100 Greatest Songs Of The '80s" brings viewers each tune's back-story told through new, original interviews with the musicians who created them, as well as the legendary artists they inspired. In the tradition of VH1's hit "100 Greatest" specials, the show features archival clips, classic performances, plus exclusive interviews from Chaka Khan, Deborah Gibson, Dee Snider, Jordan Knight, Bananarama, Bret Michaels, Terri Nunn, Darryl McDaniels, Rikki Rachtman, John Oates, Def Leppard, Young M.C., Jane Wiedlin, INXS, Fred Schneider, Joe Perry, Stephen Pearcy, Jack Blades, Barenaked Ladies, Chris Booker, John Cena, Mark McGrath, former MTV VJ Nina Blackwood among many others. Episodes 3 - 5 of the countdown will premiere Tuesday - Thursday at 10 PM*

01 Bon Jovi / "Livin' on a Prayer" 1986
02 Def Leppard / "Pour Some Sugar On Me" 1987
03 Duran Duran / "Hungry Like the Wolf" 1982
04 Michael Jackson / "Billie Jean" 1982
05 Prince / "When Doves Cry" 1984
06 Hall & Oates / "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" 1981
07 Guns N' Roses / Sweet Child O' Mine 1987
08 Madonna / "Like a Virgin" 1984
09 Run-D.M.C. / "Walk This Way" 1986
10 AC/DC / "You Shook Me All Night Long" 1980
11 Journey / Don't Stop Believin' 1981
12 Whitney Houston / "How Will I Know" 1985
13 U2 / "With Or Without You" 1984
14 The Bangles / "Walk Like an Egyptian" 1986
15 Van Halen / "Jump" 1984
16 INXS / "Need You Tonight" 1987
17 Whitesnake / "Here I Go Again" 1982
18 Dexy's Midnight Runners / "Come On Eileen" 1982
19 Cyndi Lauper / "Time after Time" 1984
20 Rick Springfield / "Jessie's Girl" 1981
21 Michael Jackson / "Beat It" 1982
22 The Cure / "Just Like Heaven" 1987
23 Cyndi Lauper / "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" 1984
24 A-Ha / "Take On Me" 1985
25 Go-Go's / "Our Lips Are Sealed" 1981
26 Guns N' Roses / "Welcome to the Jungle" 1987
27 Kajagoogoo / "Too Shy" 1984
28 Wham! / "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" 1984
29 Talking Heads / Burning Down the House 1983
30 Pat Benatar / "Love is a Battlefield" 1983
31 Queen and David Bowie / "Under Pressure" 1981
32 Night Ranger / "Sister Christian" 1983
33 Soft Cell / "Tainted Love" 1981
34 Poison / "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" 1988
35 Phil Collins / "In the Air Tonight" 1981
36 Tommy Tutone / "867-5309 / Jenny" 1981
37 Aerosmith / "Janie's Got a Gun" 1989
38 U2 / "Pride (In the Name of Love)" 1984
39 Modern English / "I Melt With You" 1982
40 The B-52's / "Love Shack" 1989
41 Mötley Crüe / "Dr. Feelgood" 1989
42 The Clash / "London Calling" 1982
43 ABC / "Look of Love (Part One)" 1982
44 Bananarama / "Cruel Summer" 1984
45 Janet Jackson / "Nasty" 1986
46 The Police / "Every Breath You Take" 1983
47 Twisted Sister / "We're Not Gonna Take It" 1984
48 Bruce Springsteen / "Born in the U.S.A." 1984
49 Beastie Boys / "Fight For Your Right" 1986
50 Eurythmics / "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" 1983
51 Ratt / "Round and Round" 1984
52 Dead or Alive / "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" 1985
53 Billy Idol / "White Wedding" 1988
54 Salt-N-Pepa / "Push It" 1986
55 A Flock of Seagulls / "I Ran (So Far Away)" 1982
56 Bonnie Tyler / "Total Eclipse of the Heart" 1983
57 Toni Basil / "Mickey" 1981
58 Culture Club / "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" 1982
59 John Mellencamp / "Jack & Diane" 1982
60 Young M.C. / "Bust a Move" 1989
61 Styx / "Mr. Roboto" 1983
62 Berlin / "Take My Breath Away" 1986
63 Devo / "Whip It" 1980
64 Paula Abdul / "Straight Up" 1988
65 Foreigner / "I Want to Know What Love Is" 1984
66 Depeche Mode / "Just Can't Get Enough" 1981
67 REO Speedwagon / "Keep On Loving You" 1980
68 Public Enemy / "Fight the Power" 1988
69 R.E.M / "It's The End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" 1980
70 Joan Jett & The Blackhearts/ "I Love Rock N' Roll" 1981
71 Rick James / "Super Freak" 1981
72 The Fixx / "One Thing Leads to Another" 1983
73 Nena / "99 Luftbaloons" 1983
74 George Michael / "Faith" 1987
75 Prince / "Little Red Corvette" 1983
76 Thomas Dolby / "She Blinded Me With Science" 1982
77 New Edition / "Candy Girl" 1983
78 Blondie / "Call Me" 1980
79 Human League / "Don't You Want Me?" 1981
80 Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock / "It Takes Two" 1988
81 Cameo / "Word Up!" 1986
82 Squeeze / "Tempted" 1981
83 Prince / "Kiss" 1986
84 Lionel Richie / All Night Long (All Night) 1983
85 Robert Palmer / "Addicted to Love" 1985
86 Bow Wow Wow / "I Want Candy" 1982
87 Falco / "Rock Me Amadeus 1986
88 Chaka Khan / "Ain't Nobody" 1989
89 The Pretenders / "Brass in Pocket" 1980
90 Tone-Loc / "Wild Thing" 1989
91 Katrina and The Waves / "Walking On Sunshine" 1983
92 New Kids on the Block / "You Got It (The Right Stuff) 1988
93 Gary Numan / "Cars" 1980
94 The Rolling Stones / "Start Me Up" 1981
95 Debbie Gibson / "Only in My Dreams" 1987
96 Men at Work / "Down Under" 1982
97 The Romantics / "What I Like About You" 1980
98 Bobby Brown / "My Perogative" 1988
99 Wang Chung / "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" 1986
100 Loverboy / "Working for the Weekend" 1981

Sar Kiye Yeh Pahar - Strings

Hindi movies and movie songs kick ass( most of the time…) but when it comes to rock songs and TV serials …our friends across the border do a better job!!! I mean I’m listening to this compilation of songs from Pakistan and they sound so good.. sounds like rock and roll and its in Urdu/ Hindi ( which is the same thing really.. Pakistani neighbors have asked my mom and dad “ Aap itni acchi Urdu kaise bolte hai?? “ ..(of course they wouldn’t say the same thing to me)…… anyway was listening to Sar ki yeh hai pahar after maybe 12-13 years…Awesome song..Good thing the boys from Strings are still rocking :D

Edison Lighthouse - Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)

I soooooooooooooooooo will marry the person who sings/records/dedicates this song to me ;)……………………………or maybe not……………..:D

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)
By: Edison Lighthouse
(Barry Mason - Tony Macaulay)
1970

She ain't got no money
Her clothes are kinda funny
Her hair is kinda wild and free
Oh but love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me


She talks kinda lazy
And people say she's crazy
And her life's a mystery
Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me


There's something about her hand holding mine
It's a feeling that's fine
And I just gotta say (hey!)
She's really got a magical spell
And it's working so well
That I can't get away


I'm a lucky fella
And I just got to tell her
That I love her endlessly
Because love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me


There's something about her hand holding mine
It's a feeling that's fine
And I just gotta say (hey!)
She's really got a magical spell
And it's working so well
That I can't get away
I'm a lucky fella
And I just got to tell her
That I love her endlessly
Because love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me


Fadeout:
It keeps growing every place she's been
And nobody knows like me
If you've met her, you'll never forget her
And nobody knows like me
La la la- believe it when you've seen it
(Nobody knows like me)

I Walk the Line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day is through
Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you
Because you're mine, I walk the line

As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I've known proves that it's right
Because you're mine, I walk the line

You've got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can't hide
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line
-Johnny Cash

The Long Way Around

Artist/Band: Dixie Chicks

My friends from high school
Married their high school boyfriends
Moved into houses in the same ZIP codes
Where their parents live

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

I hit the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling
Lived like a gypsy
Six strong hands on the steering wheel

I've been a long time gone now
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
But I've always found my way somehow

By taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around

I met the queen of whatever
Drank with the Irish and smoked with the hippies
Moved with the shakers
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to

No I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

It's been two long years now
Since the top of the world came crashing down
And I'm getting' it back on the road now

But I'm taking the long way
Taking the long way around
I'm taking the long way
Taking the long way around
The long
The long way around

Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found

Taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around

Mostly Imagination...

Some thoughts since my last post :D…….

I was speaking with a friend, she was telling me about her plans for her 30th birthday. she must be 21 years old ..I just realize I have some 4 and half more years to my 30th bday…anyway one idea she had was to go to Antarctica to celebrate… which I think is pretty cool , another idea was that if she wasn’t married/engaged by her 30th birthday…she would buy her self a right hand ring.. depending on who you are; you might have a different immediate reaction to this …though I rather like it…I don’t have to wait for someone to give me a nice ring!!! Like she said “ I know exactly what I don’t want…”

There was a good eight years 98-2004 a period in which I didn’t travel by air and kind of lost touch with air transport, I always liked traveling by airplane…seemed like a very once-in-a-while adventurous thing to do…at that point of time I would have thought that some one who said this was seriously over privileged and didn’t know what they are talking about.. but here goes and I’m saying it ..”I hate traveling by airplanes”…already closed window car journeys make me sick…. Add to that five hour journeys by plane or horror of horrors the 16 hr journey from the US to India….. maybe I’ve grown bigger since I was a kid, but the airlines are seriously more cramped…. American airline food totally sucks ( if you call a soft drink and pack of pretzels a meal)…give me back those one and a half hour plane journeys from Dubai to India…..


My mom read my blog for the first time this week (thank you broadband)cover to cover for a few hours , , she liked my “I miss my mom when I have to clean the bathroom”..so Hi Mom!!!.. to everyone else….. yeah…whatever…….

The past few years I’ve been jumping from one unexpected place to another…where next I wonder ……………….


One of my pet peeves are people who lack any imagination whatsoever( I on the other hand. .have a rather overactive imagination)…I feel bad for people who lack the imagination to see what possibilities lie ahead for them or what they are capable of.. and I totally despise people who lack the imagination to see what other people are capable of….