Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Sheer brilliance of NOT-Working



I was train`ing to pune last week, and was nicely sitting by the window berth wearing above tshirt
and was reading the following book..



And there was this gentle man sitting right in front of me and he all of sudden asked me "How are you going to change the world by Not-Working?"


For a moment I did not quite understand it but then it struck to me that he was referring to my tshirt.... It was funny... Then he went on to ask me if i had changed the world and how was I going to change the world, he was sort of rediculing me.. and I hated it...I wanted to ask him point blank what has he done to do anything in his life... but as it turned out he had done lot of work related to orphanages, he keeps visiting childrens homes and orphanges and does something about them... finally at the end of it.. it was a nice conversation.


I think I should travel more often by train, there is nothing better than a nice evening by the window with a book in hand and reading looking at all the sunflower fields and all the stations and all the people. And mostly always you always end of meeting someone very nice and interesting to talk to.

About the book: Actually the name may suggest that it is a self help book, but actually it is not so. It is a book is a collection of stories about simple and ordinary people who have done something great to bring about a social change with creativity and determinations.

Cheers and adios...

Monday, January 29, 2007

CreATiVItY

"Everyone is born creative, everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten, then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra.. etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”

Quoted from "How to be creative" by Hugh MacLeod.

I loved this essay... It is a good reading..

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Dancing...

I have been here in Pune (pimpri), in a marriage of my cousin..

I have been dancing my heart out for last three days and my feet are aching bad because of constant jumping.... It is not like a bangalore party dancing... it is like dancing with grannys, the long lost aunties whom you see only in marriages, dancing with all the chotu kids of cousins with whom we used to play in summer vacation way back. It is very different and fun. I dont know what happens in other communities, but at our place there is something called sangeet.... (which is not restricted to fairer sex), and it starts with traditional songs and then goes on to all the hindi dance numbers ... (English music is not popular at marriages). Actually I am not that good at dancing, quite bad in fact (find it very difficult to move gracefully), but if there are aerobic kind of dance steps... like "Lets' go party tonight", "Kya mujhe pyaar hai", types then I guess I can take over..

I shall write more about it with some pics when I am back to bangalore....

Cheers

Friday, January 19, 2007

Blabbering on 50th post

This is my 50th post, and I feel happy that I have come so far, thanks to all the guys who read this....

Nothing specific to say today, but I will just put down the rumblings in my mind on the way to office.

One of my collegue has a 8 year old kid, and he communicates with his father on Google Talk. Amazing... I think he plays with Xbox (or whatever that is called). I wonder if this kids mature much faster in life?

That made me think about my days back then in baroda, I remember that the only appreciable toy that I had for a long time was a bus, a metal bus with wheels, not the "chaabi wala", but the one which you have to drag. And I used to go around our veranda, day in and day out with it. I used to envy my neighbours kid, because he used to have multiple busses and sometimes he used to let me run them as well.

Another thing I guess which was quite facinating was to play "Ghar Ghar", and I remember that I had a blue color plastic cooker, witha yellow color plastic gas stove. And we used to play that endlessley, never getting tired to repeating the same routine each and everyday.

Sand, that is another thing that was heaven, there was the excitement when some construction used to start nearby, and thats all was needed for me and my sister to run away from home and run and fall and make sand castles, in hot sun, rain, anything.

I wonder if today the kids play the same games, I think it is quite out of fashion these days to play "Ghar Ghar".

Sometimes I think that our generation was the best time to grow up, because most of us coming from small towns have seen a mammoth change in out life. From kerosene stoves to microwaves, from vivid bharti to radio indigo, from struggling to get a line to make std calls to cellphones, from postcards to emails, from gud (jaggery) bajara roti to pizzas, from the Bata canvas shoes to the Nikes, from the much awaited sunday movies on doordharshan to hundred channels. I guess because of the massive changes we are able to relate to the hi-fi glamour world and also slow paced life of our towns.

I think enough rumblings, for the morning....
Cheers and happy times ahead..

By the way out of my all 50 posts my favourite post has been this.




Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Did you see RDB?

Not long time ago,
I went to cancel this ticket,
It was not a simple reservation,
but a tatkal train ticket,

TC said said go here,
Clerk asked me to go there,
Went almost everywhere,
but no sucess anywhere

finally had to go to railway inspector,
but he was not on seat for an hour,
finally he came, was arrogant, rude
and said it is not possible

All angry I was and frustrated,
When I met this gentleman down,
On relating everything to him
He asked, did you see RDB?

Either you shout and go home,
Or you go and put a complain,
Choice is yours,
For this country of Ours.



PS1: RDB is RangDeBasanti
PS2: Dont have patience to sit and rhyme it.
Hold on one more
Last PS: It was a tatlak, waitlist ticket so liable to be cancelled.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Surprise gift from faraway....

While travelling back from Hospet couple of months back, I had met this french gentleman, Antione in the bus, and I helped him in a lot in getting a auto, explaining him bus routes and other such stuff. Couple of days later I went around with him to do some shopping for his family because he was going home. That was november.

Out of the blue, couple of days back he called me again and said that he was back in india and that he wanted to meet him, and yesterday when i met him, he has got for me a Frech Wine and some amazing home made choclates (not the kisses kinds, but marmalde with choclate coating). It was such a lovely surprise and I have been feeling happy happy since then.

You can come home for some good wine, but as far as the choclates are concerned, it is anybody's guess where they have dissappeared... :D

Monday, January 01, 2007

Notes of 2006...

--> The easiest way I ensure that the auto guy does not cheat me, is that I start talking with him as soon as I enter the auto, trust me it makes a huge difference.

--> Gyming everyday for about 20 minutes makes you feel good for next twenty hours and give sound sleep for rest of hours.

--> Lot of times, last year I kept wondering and fretting how could he/she do this to me and so on. But I realized that it is worthwhile putting myself in his/her shoes and analyzing . I think that everyone is resonable and good in their own way.

--> When quarelling most of the times I forgot all the good things that happened to relationship and only remembered the last bad thing that happened.

--> I think our mind has infinite capacity to do things, the moment I start thinking that I cannot do this or this is not your cup of tea I think I am getting older. And I dont want to. (Wanna be 18 till I die)

--> I hate when someone discourages me, and now I dont care to be polite also, I ask them to f*** off.

--> Munna bhai and Roberto Benigni (of Life is beautiful) are my heroes. and RDB is my inspiration.

--> Have realized that only during the times when I am down and broken that I have ventured forth to do some thing different.

--> I did some creative writing course, sounds funny. But to me it was the course which opened a whole new world of poems, haikus, screenplay, dramatics to me.