30

2008 - Sahib Sindh Sultan

2009 - Ivory Tower

2010 - Pier 39

Expressway Vs Highway

We try to save money now

To spend good quality time with family later.

When we finally end up with saved money later,

Either there is no more a family

Or we ourselves are no more in the family!

Given a choice between the toll expressway and the free highway, which road should man choose? The expressway is costly but its faster. The highway is free but its slower. Faster means more quality time with family. Free means more money in the kitty, because money saved is money earned.

Twist in the tale: Going slowly on a traffic-ridden free highway consumes more gasoline and also leads to more wear and tear of the vehicle in the long run than going smoothly on the toll expressway. So, is money really saved while going on the free highway?!

The Vicious Circle

Higher pay packet entails a desire for better life;

Better life leads to liabilities exceeding assets;

Then, sustenance depends on higher pay packet.

:-(

Bloopers

I am making too many mistakes these days.

Sometimes unwillingly; sometimes willingly.

Each of them is costly.

:-(

"First time" of the day...

..Sat under a fan that actually worked in the BMTC bus!

..Toogire Rayara was not sung in the Mutt on a Thursday after all the preliminary religious activities.
:-(
Incidentally, it is only after one year of marriage that I came to know that my wife liked this song very much and my wife came to know that I liked this song very much! [Same with Indu Enage]

..Saw a lady crying in the Mutt in front of the Lord, with total devotion, as if there was no one else around her...

Experiencing the music!

Cool showers after a long, long time in Bangalore...

I have always liked this song, but today I felt the joyousness that is shown so well in the choreography...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpTCnl36gZI

Alas, the rain-bearing clouds can be compared to actual rain today. The rain vanished - like the rain-bearing clouds in the song - as soon as it came...

:-(

Peer Pressure

Scene (and seen!) in a female boutique shop in US (sometime in Nov 2009):

Three teenage girls checking out the innumerous dresses spread across the different shelves.

The quest for the ‘Right Dress’ made the three friends wander across the shop.

One girl picked up a jazzy top and her jaw literally dropped as if she found gold.

She grabbed it with both hands and made way to the friend nearest to her.

She said to her, with her eyes rolling: “Isn’t this cool? I mean isn’t this is so damn good?!”

The friend looked at the dress, just shrugged and said “Its okay” and continued her own search.

Not convinced if the top was just “okay”, the first girl then took that ‘piece-of-gold(!)’ to the third friend.

She asked her the same question but this time with less enthusiasm.

The third girl frankly said “Naw...” and she too got busy with her own search.

The first girl gave one last look at the jazzy top, gave a shrug and kept it back on the shelf.

Just goes to show how much one value other’s opinion…

Good Deed for the day

I was hungry when I left my office cubicle. By the time, I ran to the bus and got a seat, I was starving. I had a box of rusk with me which I opened and started munching. Etiquette told me that I should offer it to my (unknown) colleague sitting right beside me. But something within me was stopping me. I was not sure if I was embarrassed or if the person listening to iPod was stopping me but I sure wanted to. A part of me was stopping me from even starting the conversation with the unknown person while another part was urging me to the good deed.

Just a few days ago, when I was sitting in the same bus with another (unknown) colleague, I found it so easy to ask if Sachin had got to his momentous 200, but now, when I wanted to do a good deed, it was such a humongous task. Simple words – “Would you like to have some…?” But the words just wouldn’t come, even though I knew the other person would politely refuse! I tried and tried, I mentally spoke but physically it just wouldn’t come out! I finally felt so guilty eating all by myself, that I took the direct approach: I stopped thinking and blurted out the question. As expected, the person politely refused. Phew! What a relief to just ask and be rid of the guilty conscience!

Why is it so difficult to do a good deed? Why do we feel embarrassed?

Then I remembered Trevor McKinney in Pay It Forward. A simple story of doing 3 good deeds, and how the world gets transformed…

Quotes on Life

"It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us."

"Freddie, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes they stay right, sometimes they wiggle up sideways. Life is full of these anxieties."

"Life was like one of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you miss it. Life was apt to have a nasty back-spin on it."

"Mankind is divided into two classes, those who do sitting-up exercises before breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't."

By P G Wodehouse in The Little Warrior

Ambitious?

Everybody in the family is happy and excited. But I am a little concerned. I have my reasons. And I have my questions.

Am I being too ambitious? Is this the way I want to lead my life?

Its funny how Life takes you even when you have no clear cut goals and you just flow with the river. And boy, its not boring.