What else is Paradise?

15May09

Seven Thirty in the morning
Cool breeze with scents of adjacent Jasmines
Children playing with dogs
Morning News paper
Hot Bagel and Hazelnut coffee

What else is Paradise?

Thought on a October morning, Einstein Bros Bagels outdoor seating, Chandler, AZ

Filed under: thoughts   |  1 Comment

Does Gmail think we’re stupid

01Apr09

Last year on the Fool’s Day, it said we could change our timestamps on the e-mail to make it look like it was sent in the past. This could be useful for B’Day greetings and forgotten e-mails and would be allowed only five times an year. Ok, I almost believed it, but this year it comes up with an auto-pilot which on enabling composes and replies email on your behalf, it can also chat on your behalf. It also gives some examples. I can’t believe Google guys thought they can get away with it.

Common Google, grow up. We’re not those kids who could be fooled by saying there’s a Lion standing behind. Ok you fooled us once, but how can you ever think you can use the same trick again and again. Try something better next year.

PS: Now We’d be really fooled, if this feature was indeed true

Filed under: Ramblings   |  2 Comments
Tags: April Fool, Fool's Day, Gmail, google

Shantaram

25Mar09

Its time to do something on my blog other than changing the themes around ….So here I come on my blog again. I think I’m more of a free-lancer at heart than a committed blogger, I dont want to write when I dont feel like, and I dont want to feel bad about it either. Through time and again I have found one truth about me if nothing else – I get obsessed easily with something as easily as I get bored with it later, But one thing which falls as an exception is blogging, may be that’s because this is where I can let my heart out …. and without bothering about people judging me on my thoughts.

Shantaram is a book I completed in recent times. I’m not going to give an illustrous review of it as a book and would rather direct here, the people who are looking for it. But one thing I will do, is share why I identify myself with the book. I’m not an australian, neither am I a criminal or have lived in slums, but one thing I find in common with it are the imperfections.

I know I’m far from perfect. I’m not someone whom you can take as inspiration for most of the things, but I realize it and I have survived despite it, and survived pretty well. It also scares me to see people who are perfect, in almost every sense. It makes me want to ask them the question – if they see the world as it is, or do they see it through their own frosted glass where everything looks beautiful. How can one not feel small infront of them. Shantaram made me realize that one needn’t be perfect to be a good person. Shantaram also describes the India, which I’m sure most of the people reading this blog haven’t experienced – the slums of Mumbai. Before reading the book, I used to picture slum life with poverty, sadness, hunger and people willing to run away from it given a chance. But they seem to be content with the little they have – the huts, the open toilets, TV sets and a sense of community which I bet nothing else but suffering can bring. The book also made me realize how absurd comparisons can be, how we have no right to compare our life to someone else’s and form an opinion based on that. But again, its not a perfect world – so we do compare and we do form opinions which later becomes our point of view. And it’s always better to have some point of view – good or bad than having none. On the whole Shantaram has been quite a read, a tale of imperfections and otherwise which one can identify more with , than those other preaching inspirational books.

Filed under: Books, Review   |  2 Comments

Change …. Not always Good

01Mar09

I’m back from my trip to India after two years, the trip was great. I spent my New years at Goa and it was amazing. This trip also gave me a chance to take off from work and think about something other than work and weekends.

This trip also helped me get a perspective if nothing else. The most important thing, I realized in this trip is that no matter we change countries or girl friends, accents or attitudes, there’s something intrinsic that will always tie us to what we are and that will never change, that with which we identify ourselves and people relate to us, that which keeps us, us.

And the part that scared me about myself was, I was trying to change that.

Filed under: India, Introspection   |  7 Comments

Damn Mind

16Feb09

My heart aches for Solace
Solace or Silence my mind wonders

My body longs for Love
Love or Lust my mind wonders

My mind wanders for ideas
If its procrastination  my mind wonders

Damn Mind!

Thought on a workless day at work.

Filed under: thoughts   |  4 Comments

Aisle of Dreams

21Sep08

Browsing through the aisle of Dreams
I wonder what Dream to pick up to dream tonight

Those good dreams that give a world of unreal Happiness
and a second of real dissapointment

or

Those nightmares with a hell lot of unreal hell
and a second of real relief

Thought on a Fall evening, Tempe town lake

Filed under: thoughts   |  10 Comments
Tags: Aisle of Dreams, Dreams

Newyork

30Aug08

NewYork is like a mistress.
You dont wanna live with her, but you can’t wait to see her.

Thought in a subway NewYork City.

Filed under: Travel, thoughts   |  12 Comments
Tags: newyork, Travel

The Pillars of the Earth

27Aug08

This post serves a dual purpose. First, It does the post that Manpreet had tagged me with, a long time ago, and second it reviews the book, not in an exhaustive way though.

Tag: Take up the book closest at hand, open page 123 and write the lines six, seven and eight.

Normally I keep the book I’m currently reading closest to me, at my bedside. It is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I completed this 1000 page book last night, and the book came even closer to me. This is the feeling you get after reading a great book I guess. Anyway I quote the sixth, seventh and eight lines in the page 123.

Then on holy days, when people come from all over the country to hear the services in the cathedral, we gather farthings galore.

The Pillars of the Earth

Review: The story of this book is woven around building a cathedral. It starts with the wish of a mason dreaming to build the most beautiful cathedral in England. Its about him and how he struggles to make his dream come true. Its about how Love defies Logic and how ordinary people with their strong will could wage wars on the strongest of kingdoms. Its about hatred between two step brothers and how lust can overpower someone. Its about never learning to loose, and how a single woman can start and stop great stories. All in all, Ken Follett has done a wonderful job and never in those 1000 pages, do you want to give up reading the book. No wonder it was featured in BBC’s Top 200 Nation’s Best-loved Books and Oprah’s Book club. Great Read!

Filed under: Books, Review, Tagged   |  8 Comments
Tags: Books, Cathedral, Ken Follett, Kingsbridge, tag, The Pillars of the Earth

Freedom

15Aug08

Freedom

If I were to be asked about the most important thing in my Life, no doubt I would say Freedom. Freedom which sometimes we take so much for granted that we realize its value only when we loose it.

Happy Indian Independence!

Filed under: India   |  9 Comments
Tags: freedom, independence, indian independence

Ek Coffee Mug ki Aatm Kahani

03Aug08

Title Translation: Autobiography of a coffee mug

I was mere clay, shapeless, colorless and formless when I was picked from my mother earth. Like every child going away to a boarding school, though the idea of being on my own scared me, it excited me as much. There were a thousand possibilities of what I could turn into like, nevertheless unlike humans they weren’t in my hands. I could’ve ended up in a trash site with thousands of my other less fortunate friends or in the roots of a strong tree supporting it to eternity or I could have ended up joining a water stream and draining for thousands of kilometers, settling where I want. But destiny was more favorable to me, it took me to a potter instead.

Coffee Mug

As I was filtered to remove the impurities contained in me, I felt like departing from a part of mine, but I wanted to be better and with those flaws there was no way to get better. So I let them go and invited the element which would purify me. Water flowed in through me to remind me of how meaningful of a shape I could take with its help and then my skillful stable hands touched me, the way they smoothed me, the way they made sure I felt good and the way they treated me on the wheel made me remember my mother earth. Their careful movements carved the niches so subtle in me that I didn’t know existed. Oh the joy when I saw myself in the water puddle formed beside the wheel. I had taken the form of a coffee mug. Then I joined my friends in queue to be treated with paint. I didn’t hate my original color but I always knew I could look much more beautiful, that was when the white paint touched me and changed me forever. I was already feeling new and I was anxious to see what patterns would I be painted with, the artist decided to paint me with the more fortunate sons of my mother earth – the flowers and the fruits. That dab of yellow and purple and oh the red, I was flaunting to my fellow mugs of how beautiful I was.

I then moved into a dollar store where I would be sold, I was finally happy that I was of some value. Then came my master, who looked at me and passed by. I was disappointed that I wasn’t attractive enough for him and I was so envious when that maroon cup was being looked over by him, so what if it looked a bit more beautiful, I was certainly bigger and would serve purposes which it wouldn’t. Oh he was coming back at me, yayyyyyyy I was picked. He took me home.

I’ve been spending a happy life since then. I’m the first one he uses me in the morning. There’s no way he can start his day without me. I was big enough to become his cereal bowl, I would be poured with milk, sugar and cereal everyday in the morning, and be savoured over the morning news. I’m so happy to become his morning mistress. And in the evenings I did what I was originally supposed to do, I provided him his daily doses of caffeine. He would take me in to the patio to enjoy the cool breeze with him while I was serving him coffee. Sometimes when I hide myself, he would go mad looking for me, sweeping the whole house. I so enjoy the attention I get. Ofcourse he does ignore me sometimes. I stay in the sink for hours waiting for him to clean me, but he couldnt spend a day without me. He would take me out of the sink and clean me, cursing himself for not cleaning me earlier. I also get to spend most of the nights in his bedroom, by his bedside by the book he’s reading, dancing to the music he’s listening to. I’ve also been the only one who’s seen him through thicks and thins. I have seen him happy, rolling with laughter and I’ve been with him in the more silent moments, I even caught a glimpse of his secret tears which no one else did. I share with him the bond of a lifetime. I know this wouldn’t be permanent, but sometimes I wonder what would we do without each other. May be he’ll find another mug and I another Master, but we’ll never forget the bond we shared and the times we had with each other.

Original Idea: Ek Gadhe ki Aatmkatha by Krishan Chander, Seventh grade Hindi.

Sorry for the sloppy picture, my master took it with his laptop.

Filed under: fiction   |  17 Comments
Tags: autobiography, coffee mug, cup, mug