Princess of Hearts, 10 years on...

Ten years on and I still feel a sense of dampness when I watch her videos or read about her. With so much to reveal and so very much to hide, I have always been really snoopy about what was it with this lady that made her quite extraordinary.

Wasn’t she a real princess who genuinely tried to use her influence and power in a way that mattered? Reaching out to the helpless and the needy and maintaining her sense of poise and smile despite having reportedly a broken home with a very unhappy personal milieu was truly princess-like. I mean, she could have still made some news if she only made royal appearances at the Wimbledon finals every year and hosted regal dinners to the most illustrious political folks from the world. I remember to have read somewhere that only out-of-no-choice did she let herself indulge in social activities to flee from the trauma she had to experience from her busted marriage. All the same, she did, whatever for, and continued to go by her heart’s choices and that made all the difference in the world.

You will always be the best real fairy tale princess the world has known, rest in peace!

I am okay today, but tomorrow could be anybody's.

The news is now outdated as there very well might have been other devastating calamities that would have rocked the lives of other innocents. It’s a heart breaking truth to digest that human life is no more guaranteed to rest in the warmth of peace and safety.

I was nerve wracked to see several naïve lives being torn off in the Hyderabad bomb explosion, last week end. The politics as I could see however finds its home in the hearth of security, after claiming no hands what so ever in the happenings around them. What the devil does the terrorists need after all ? Our lives? And claim what? May be this is something we have repeatedly asked ourselves to find no answer. Life has been kind enough to count us out so far from such barbaric misfortunes. But it’s terrifying to think of how long will I or my loved ones get spared. I get cynical about the government of the largest democratic nation when I come to think of how safe I am tomorrow. May be this is again something we have repeatedly asked ourselves to find no answer.

In the least after we have lost, like always I could only silently send a prayer, may God bless the families of those whose life had been seized off for nothing by a mob of ruthless folks and may the souls of every one who died, dies or will die (God forbid) at the hands of such cruelty in the world rest in peace.

It’s Onam !!

It’s that time of the year in Kerala when you find almost every one in the traditional wear of cream colored sarees/dhotis with silky weaves of golden zari, gleaming lustrously.
Schools and colleges have shut down for the yearly Onam holidays and children are thronging the streets in full spirits.

Florists and weavers have turned intensely joyful for their business just flourishes to the maximum, this season. It gets me wondering to look at the quantum of flowers imported from the other states during this time of the year, alone.
Corporates in Technopark have been making merry for the whole of last two weeks traditionally marking the onset of the Malayalam month ‘Chingham’. Everywhere you turn, there are competitions of Athapoo, wherein people make floral Rangoli, Thiruvaathira, which is a traditional dance by girls around the athapoo and onam songs .The festive sipirt is in full swing all around the state and if you do want take a jaunt around Kerala, there must be more eventful excitements of Boat races and Onasadhya (Festival Feast) happening all around.

Nonetheless, Onam marks the homecoming of the beloved King Mahabhali who won the hearts of people for love, generosity and humility. I hope and believe the true essence of celebrating Onam is to mend again the sense of caring for fellow human beings and be truthful to the self and then you wouldn’t need to look anywhere else for God.

Hmm…that aside it’s a visual treat that I get to enjoy being a non-keralite and the most wonderful part of it all is that we have a 4-day long weekend up ! I am blessed !

Too many,Thank you , A good one please !

This is the umpteenth book I am chucking after having been half way through. It is annoying because you have spent about 3 to 4 hours of your life, reading it and through the middle of the book you discover the story is taking you nowhere and you don’t particularly agree to the persona of the protagonist and so, well, you decide to go ahead and close the book down for good ! Anything wrong ? Nope, but it happens almost all the time with me. Yesterday, after having reached about 280 pages in a 500+ paged book called ‘Wedding Day’ by Catherine Alliot, I had to scowl cause there was nothing more to the pages I read than how things were on page 1. I usually make a profound research on the book and its reviews on the internet before I decide to start reading it, cause I think we need something more on the blurb of the book other than the excerpts from the story and the usual, ‘New York Times Best selling….’ blah blah. A good book is that which keeps you guessing what would be happening next and should eventually prove your guesses wrong, irrespective of its genre. And if book review websites can sometimes surprise you with the high star ratings they offer a book, which might seem just mediocre to you, perhaps it’s better to take the good old way of walking through the bookshelf and letting the instinct randomly choose one. But then again, I run a risk of picking a bad one.
Too much for being choosy, I say.

Dave in INDIA

Dave is eccentric after his plans for the valentine’s day had taken terrific response from his estranged parents. Fed and Sophie had in all ways decided to sit and talk things out for once, for they could in fact realize that out of every one in the world, Dave undeniably still fancies for their ‘Red Tulip Cottage’ to come back to life again with the trio . Despite all odds that has taken the relationship for a toll, Fed and Sophie do miss the life they had together, somewhere implicitly. It is just that they could not get as expressive as Dave.

So Dave finally got them say Yes to venture out for a holiday. And the choice wasn’t too difficult, with Dave always wanting to visit India, (he would naturally have the urge to meet the one who created him, right?, pretty obvious ! ) . So here they go, all packed and seated in Air India from San Francisco.

Fed and Sophie are not particularly comfortable yet with each other, though.

Air Hostess to Fed : Would you like some Tea/Coffee , sir ?
Fed: Some Tea please

Air Hostess to Sophie : And you ma’am ?
Sophie: I am fine, Thanks

Dave hisses to Sophie : I’ve read it’s not really a hospitable gesture in India to deny a welcome drink.So, go ahead and accept it, mom.

Sophie : I don’t feel like , Dave. Now stop acting like the know-all, alright ?

Dave to the Air Hostess: ‘Namaste’, my mom isn’t really keeping well. She cannot take tea or coffee at the moment. I’ll have a cup of coffee, with milk and about half tea spoon sugar and some honey, please.

Airhostess: Of course , Is there anything else I can help you with ?

Dave : Nothing for now, Namaste

Airhostess : Namaste .

Fed : Since when have you started liking Coffee ?

Dave : I still don’t like coffee, dad. That’s for you .

Fed : Really ? Thanks, but I have had my share of Tea, so you really don’t have bother, Dave .

Dave pours in the coffee into Fed’s emptied Tea cup and terrorizes him that if he doesn’t drink the coffee , he would pee right on Fed’s T shirt.

After a while

Fed has gone sick after having had treat himself to a mix of tea and coffee and that has kept him disappeared from the seat for quite a while.

Dave is indulged in a magazine (Sophie is sleeping), when the beautiful airhostess offers him a pillow.

Dave: Oh, Thanks .

She offers him two more , possibly one for Fed and Sophie, each.

Dave: No Thanks, Mom doesn’t really like pillows and I don’t think Dad would be back soon to sleep.

Airhostess: Alright

Dave : That was a wonderful coffee, by the ways. Thank you.

60 and still young !

60 years of freedom to be ourselves and it’s truly historic !

It means so much to be part of a nation that has emerged from the grapple of an alien governance to the largest democracy in the world. Economic reforms, Industrialization, international capitalism, IT boom, there has been so much happening and I wouldn’t really know but I am damn sure there is so much to boast of and am extremely proud of it.

And oh yes, they always remind you to focus more on the areas to be worked on, especially in times of celebrating your strengths. On a more serious note, we know there is a long, long way to go and India, after all the restructuring that has been positively happening over 6 decades, still remains a developing nation. I wouldn’t really deny if someone told me, the growth has particularly made the rich richer, ok, may be not, the poor poorer, but with the population shooting up helplessly beyond an accommodating limit and all the fancy development happening with the metros, there is a lot more to be accomplished to strike a balance between the urban and the rural India.

Keeping faith in APJ Abdul Kalam’s dreams, I would love to believe that India would indeed turn a superpower by 2020! But 13 long years cannot build a super nation by itself and that’s perhaps the reason why you and I are still young and raring and faithful. Some one beckoning and we cannot be away.

At this moment, though, I feel like just carelessly whisking off all the imperfections that we live with (No nation is perfect, right ?) and I am raising my glass with all festive spirit in tribute a nation that is a beautiful blend of good and bad, right and wrong, dark and light, success and failure, you and me !!

Saluting my country that has a big heart and a deep spirit, we call it home to the world, INDIA !!

Tagged !

I must do this because Gomathy and Chriz have got me tagged.
I am reckoning a few things about myself/my life which are/were either special or funny or embarrassing to me or simply something to remember.

1. I used to hate eggs when I was young and would stealthily chuck my morning eggs onto the farthest horizon possible, and simply would pretend like I had them all. This did not go on for long ‘coz mom was intelligent enough to figure out from my happy face that I had not really had them, or I wouldn’t be happy at all.

2. I want to fuse all my likes into one point and that could get pretty long. I would try and get this done anyways. I like people who are warm and friendly yet honest and genuine with others (I am always enthused by human behavior), loneliness (sometimes), getting nostalgic with memories that bring a smile, changes in the way things look, music, experimenting out various things that might be beyond my capability (I might fail most of the time but I enjoy the experiment anyways), face cream, reading in candle light and quite a handful of things more.

3.I sometimes wonder at the change in me, that has taken place over the years. I mean, I have had my own share of time when I really used to feel uncomfortable with new people, new place, new timings etc. But I now I have learnt to enjoy them.

4.I am writing a book (yet to be titled). Yes, so that should hopefully make me an author, sometime this year or the next.

5.I am really scared of water bodies. I once, out of sheer enthusiasm, got on to some steep water slide and almost got drowned and I thought I had been swept by water to the deep sea. It was so embarrassing and I felt ridiculous when I was lifted off the water by the guards and I was screaming like I was getting pulled out of the Atlantic ocean.

6.I once fell flat on the road while walking alone but had to pull myself up and resume walking like nothing had happened. I was embarrassed to the core.

7.I had known Aravind for about 7 years before I married him.

8.I donated blood today for the first time and I feel awesome about it.

Now I don't think I have anybody from my Blogroll, who is Untagged yet. Every one whose blog I read are already tagged.

May be, Gomathy, should I just end the game here ?

Just Like that . . .

My Job is running for the last 20 minutes (I am a software engineer, so I frivolously choose to go by the common techie man's phrases) and am here, hitting enter every five minutes and slowly feeling a sense of fulfillment, as I see my files getting successfully loaded .

Meanwhile, my Life around me at this moment is nothing really exciting but interesting and it goes like

1. I had got a new cubicle mate, yesterday and we got instantaneously friendly with me having to help her with the installation of printer and the like, but today it’s a new face again (I don’t know where the other person is ) and I haven’t even said a ‘Hi’ to her yet. She looks really, well, grouchy.

2. I am listening to Rang De Basanti after quite a long gap and wow, I love this album.

3. It’s almost 4:00 and Smitha and Pinko (my team buddies, ok, he is actually Jisho, but we call him Pinko, for reasons best known to us ) should be here anytime now, nudging me for the traditional ‘coffee Break’ .For me, it’s the heavenly Banana Fry break.

4. I want to tell my manager that I will be on half day leave tomorrow, but I am sure she is gonna look straight at me like I am always here to give her a headache.
(May be I should just bunk ).

5.The flowers I got for Friendship day have gone pale. But I don’t feel like taking them off my desk. They were given with so much of Love.

6. I have just taken about 2 sips of water today (Gosh, I’m gonna have to suffer from dehydration).

7.Yipppee….My job has completed fantastically with zero errors !!

And just what I need right now

is, for heaven’s sake, some sleep ! This spell of monsoon has been keeping me feverish for the whole of last week and with work beckoning me for the weekend, my last hope of just snuggling down went for a CRASH ! If only those Banking folks didn’t need to ask for an umpteen number of documents, Life would not have driven me to total insanity today. Had to get all those stupid papers Xeroxed and after all these days, they moved the photocopier out of its usual place. Sigh, not to complain, though, Mondays are destined to be bad, no matter how much you push yourself to welcome the new week with a smile !

There was a peaceful Sunday, though. After all the scuttle around the kitchen for the whole forenoon, my insatiable culinary instinct pushed me to experiment with the recipe I had carefully noted down, last week, for Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I can’t believe I spent 3 hours on it, only to succumb to the mess it finally turned out to be ! My buddies at work (I had promised them I’ll bake one for Friendship day) were very sweet to have enjoyed it, despite the fact they had to bite the cake down like it was some roasted chicken. I swear I’ll make a really, really nice one for them, someday. And I saw Aravind trying to treat himself with this atrociously hard thing, somewhere in the middle of the night. He goes hungry in the night sometimes, especially after having to go by my experimental recipes on weekends. I didn’t dare tell him to kill his hopes, so went back to sleep. And he was probably caught up with the lip locking taste of it, ‘coz I found him really awry, this morning.

Anyways, thanks to Monday, my server is joyfully going to sleep every 30 mins and I am falling all over it, in my attempt to get something done, SOMETHING, done at least. But most of the time, I am falling asleep myself, in the midst of my Crazy Life on a crazy Monday !

I have learnt to care !

It has been there for so many million years before you and I were born. Got adorned with civilization by the degree of the needs and intellect of each generation. And the process went non stop. It still gets overstuffed with what we call the transformation of a not-so-friendly companion to an oyster. We have been enormously successful in what we wanted to achieve for we have indeed turned it into an oyster. All we need to do to fetch what we desire is to extend an arm and grasp, it could be from New York, it could be from the mall nearby, you wouldn’t need to care, because it is open out for you at just a click while you can just cuddle in a cushion. I am talking about the home we reside in. Nope, not the one built with bricks and stones. The one that has been silently and gracefully accommodating us all ever since Life originated, perhaps even before. The beautiful Earth around us. . It does not seem to enjoy the adornment we have been garnishing it with, anymore. Perhaps it’s getting suffocated. True and not to complain because we are taking away the trees it used to breathe from. Perhaps it’s hurt. Are we not digging it deep to construct the multi floored complexes? It’s not an open carpet anymore to the warmth of the sun, thanks to the harmful gases and pollutants we continue to forgetfully discharge while rushing to and from our daily chores.

The inhabitants of this home are not to be blamed, for the change that has happened was inevitable. There were necessities and hence we had to give room for inventions. Sometimes it disturbed nature. We had to pretend as if we didn’t notice. Suddenly there were more number of people and the needs, naturally, so very more. We continued to live with more technicalities integrated into our life. Life got out of the natural way but did not dare complain because these new inventions made our lives a lot more easier and we enjoyed every bit of it.

More and more and more and we are still on the race of finding more. In the run, have we turned hostile to our own home? Perhaps yes, because after all these years of remaining silent and motherly to us all, nature has gradually started to complain. And if we still haven’t noticed it, it’s high time to lend an ear to what mother nature has to say because if we don’t do that now, a little down the lane, we might unexpectedly realize that before we can turn things to normal, it might have been already dangerously late.

The earth, they say, has warmed up beyond the threshold which might get monstrous to the life of every single being, in here. It rains acid over the Taj. The coldest regions have found their way to melt down the way. The average temperature above the earth has gone up by an average of 0.74 ± 0.18 °C, over a century. The protective ozone layer is not so protective any more. All this and more, they call it Global Warming.

So here I go, chalking out the list of To-Dos which I have dutifully promised to go by. I hope all of us throw ourselves some light as to how to go ‘Global Cool’ and contribute at least in a minimal quantum to preserve our beautiful but One Earth !!


1. I switch off the lights/fan of any room, that is not used.

2. I do not let my TV/DVD player stay on stand by (Yes, this consumes a lot of electricity)

3. I try not to use motor vehicles if I need to take a short errand to the nearby Grocery store.

4. This was very surprising. Using Fluorescent bulbs instead of the regular ones helps reduce the consumption of electricity and I gladly opted for a Fluorescent one when my reading lamp went out, last week.

5. My office is highly conservative already and they promptly switch off the air condition by 6 PM every day. I am now starting to like this, really.

6. The most important of all, I have planted three saplings around my first floor and I visit them, every morning.

7.Last but definitely not the least, I am spreading the message through my Blog to people who care, just like you. :)