Reality really bites!!

Men are happier....why shouldn't they be?

Wedding plans and preparations take care of themselves.
You can never be pregnant..at least men havent been created that way ;)
You can wear a white t-shirt or even no shirt to a water park.
The world is your urinal!!
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them!
Wrinkles don't matter to you...infact they add character.
A 10 day vacation requires only one suitcase.
You always get credit for even a slightest act of thoughtfulness.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look like :)
You can do shopping for even 30 of your relatives on the last day in 20 minutes :)
The same hair style can last for years..even decades...and no one notices.
Phone conversations are over in 1 minute flat.

The inner battle

Its that time of the year again! 5 years have passed since dad left us and needless to say, I miss him a lot.

The longer I strive to take care of myself these days, the more I realize the significance of attitude in life. The extraordinary thing is we have an alternative everyday regarding the attitude we clinch for that day. We can neither change our past nor change the fact that people will act in a certain way. The only thing we can do is play with our attitude.

Having watched my most important support system leave me made me cynical about certain emotions. Its just that unearthing them all over again is not the task that is on my priority list now. I dislike certain things and certain people now - a little too much. But there are solutions for everything. I am reading more than ever. I am watching more movies than ever. Listening to music more than ever. Busy with life and its chores.

One good thing is that all of it is also giving me the opportunity to become more passionate about certain other things. My family and friends. I am converted over the fact that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. 

The battle has already begun and this time with my own self...

Are you this friendly? Really!!??

I'm sure many of us have heard of incidents where foreigners, especially westerners, have asked us questions about India that seem genuine to them but amuse us! With so many jokes floating around on this theme, it is sometimes hard to explain which are genuine and which are not :-)

I myself have been asked so many such questions when I was in Europe long back for some project work. The questions range from "Why are footpaths a foot higher than the road in India?" to "Is there telephone in India?" (this coming from a person who was working with people in India every day)!!!!

While most of the questions are just funny, some do make you think. I faced one such question. We were a small group at the lunch table with our European hosts. The topics of discussion were very casual. Suddenly the host started asking us a few questions about how things work in India. Then he said - "Wherever I've been in Bangalore, people seem to be very friendly to me. Are you guys really this friendly?" Initially we were all startled at this question. A friend said - "May be the people in Bangalore realized you needed some assistance with various things and were more helpful to you". He said - "No, I am talking about friendliness, not just being helpful". After glancing at each other and realizing that we were indeed friendly to each other,I said - "Yes we are". However, this left me thinking whether we are more friendly to our visitors than we are to our own folks. Are we?

I suppose foreigners indeed think we are more friendly to them, possibly because of the way we interact with them when compared to how they interact with us when we are in their country. May be we do go that extra mile to make them feel comfortable. As far as friendliness is concerned, I think we are much more friendly to each other within our personal network than they are among themselves. To an extent we do that with any outsider to our cities or home, although we do not say "Hi" to total strangers as those Americans or Europeans do. However, are we as friendly to someone from another state/city who we personally don't know as we are to a foreigner? I can't say!!I can only conclude what we already know: No rule can be generalized to all of India. This makes it difficult to say "This is how we are". That's what makes our country so interesting I guess.

For the record, the "foreigners" that I know are mostly from western countries, mainly US and Europe. I am not very familiar with how people from other countries behave.

Why do I bother?

I visited my blog after a long time today and after looking at the date of my last post, wondered why do I even bother to write!! Well...after a lot of thought, here's what I think it is about...

Until relatively recently, people only had a few books to read – the religious work, an almanac, a devotional work or two – and they read them over and over again, may be aloud and and mostly in groups so that the traditional literature could make a deep impression on their consciousness.

But may be after the printing press appeared, things began to change gradually. For the first time it became possible for people (even ones without great wealth) to have a small library of sorts in their own homes.

Today, I feel, we read books extensively (both hard and soft copies) without much focus and, with rare exceptions, we read them only once. May be, we have no choice but to keep up with the changing and broader culture. Not may of us make any serious effort to remember or understand what we read.

We read and read and read, and forget and forget and forget. 

So, I ask once again...why do I bother?

May be to compensate a little for the weakness of my memory did I adopt the habit of writing so as to have at least some general idea of what "it" is and what I thought of "it". Probably, synthesizing a thought on what a book, a movie, a specific trip was about, and writing it down, makes the experience itself richer, more memorable. I still don't know!!!

Quikrrrrr

These days, witty ads are hard to come by. And this one really makes you take notice. The print ad for Quikr.com behind an auto rickshaw.

If you are Hindi-challenged, it says:

"As compared to your vehicle, my vehicle is QUIKRRRRRRRR"

And if you are the one driving behind it, you wouldn't know whether to smile or frown. Full points to creativity!

Journey of a lifetime!

Whenever I am stuck in a traffic jam here in Bangalore (which is almost every day), I think of scenes from Hollywood movies. Scenes where people are screaming and evacuating a city because some aliens decided to attack them, or a Dino-sized someone decides to take a walk on the road or some psycho has decided to blow up the city!!!

I think about them because that's exactly how Bangalore traffic looks like. No rules, vehicles running at random, fitting into the smallest inch possible on the road!!

I inadvertently tend to look out half-expecting to see a flying saucer or a Godzilla bringing down a building with its tail!!

At least that would make the journey interesting...wouldn't it?? ;-) 

Complimentary

After a long day filled with meetings and work, a man walked up to a cafe and ordered a cup of coffee. 

As he sipped the liquid with gratitude, he heard a soothing voice say - "Nice shirt buddy". He looked around but nobody was there. The place was almost empty except for himself and the waiter who made his coffee. And this waiter was at the far end of the counter washing something. A few moments later he heard the same voice again - "Beautiful watch". 

A little shaken up, the man called the waiter over and said - "Hey, listen, I must be losing my mind after a long day's work....I keep hearing these voices saying nice things. But there's not a soul around here except us".

The waiter laughed and said - "It must be the cake".

"What??" - asked the man in disbelief.

To this the waiter smiled and said - "You heard me....it must be the cake.......its complimentary"

Drift of thought

In the manic pace of a usual work day, I paused, took a deep breath and looked at the sun lit window on the other side of my desk. I slowly sipped my coffee and also took in all the mindless banter going around.

And suddenly, the world seemed a brighter place :-)