Less is More < = >

It's a very greedy world out there. So much is thrown at us that it feels like you're getting drenched by a water hose (er! is it a fire hose?!)

So, like the intelligent, evolving creatures, we are probably programming ourselves to consume and digest as many bits and pieces of information as possible. 

Long winded stories are out - Tweets are in! Complexity is no longer cool - Less is More!

Does that bother? Yeah, definitely. 

You can no longer hide behind words or unleash your infinite knowledge on some scapegoat of audience because simplicity demands clarity and who in the hell has clarity these days? Well, at least I don't!

As someone once said - "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom". And we definitely do not want to be too wise too early, do we? :-)

Brother Forever

What is a love-hate relationship?

Its something that you experience with your sibling. In my case, it happens to be with my most annoying but lovable brother :-) One moment he is such a pain and another, I want to give him the biggest hug. No matter what, he has and always is there for me and I cant help but love him dearly.

Why is he such a pain and yet I love him so dearly?

He is always watching out for me. As a kid, once I had gone somewhere on my bicycle and once back home he asked me why I had gone to that place at that time! He really cares!

He always gives me brutally honest feedback (i like it or not).

He grosses me out sometimes with all those in my face burps :-) Nevertheless, thanks to him Im not squeamish!

His full time job is having my back and defending me in all situations, especially against mom :-)

If Im extra nice and practically beg him along with giving food and doing all his chores, he is ready to help me with whatever and whenever.

I can bother or hit him any number of times until he decides to get back...and that is  just 10 times worse :-)

The amount of the inside jokes between us is endless ;-)

We can never stay mad at each other for too long even with all those endless countless meaningless arguments.

I smile because he is my brother. I laugh because there is nothing he can do about it ;-)

Love you loads Anna <3<3

Lets-write-something-stupid day.

Im back after what seems like ages! I know, being busy with life in general and work is not an excuse but a very convenient reason for the laziness that lies beneath! Thanks to everyone who asked me why Im not writing anymore...that was like a kick up my backside and I totally needed that :-)

I cannot dance. 

I cannot sing. 

I lead probably a quiet existence. 

A brilliant blue or an orange hue may not announce my presence. 

Neither drums roll nor curtains fall when I leave. 

I may be a shadow and just come and go as i please.

Well, I knew, today was lets-write-something-stupid-day. 

Why do these words even come into my head when l don't get them myself is beyond my understanding! But I had to get them out or they would just go round and round causing a traffic jam in my brain :-)

My favorite keys

My favourite keys on my laptop are - Delete and Backspace :-)

All kinds of problems go away when I press Delete :-) I use it all the time. Junk e-mail? Delete. Misspellings? Backspace. Unwieldy sentences and confusing paragraphs? Delete...Delete...Backspace. I sometimes wish my life had a Delete key. One click on the keypad and I wipe out an event or some people. Maybe another click and I could start that part of the life all over again :-) And being one who blunders in a grand fashion, I have empathy for others who wish they could go back and start over. Some hurts just can't be undone. Its like putting toothpaste back into the tube :-)

So my best self says to me - "leave it. leave it where it belongs - in the past". Yeah, as they say, its a new day full of promises and new beginnings. And that is something I might forget if life had a delete/backspace key :-)

Love Me - Love Me Not :-)

I read somewhere today that we can’t hate ourselves into a version of ourselves that we can love!! Its also said that generally there is a lot of pressure in one's culture (in most) which forces people to judge you very easily and fast. These people make us feel as if there is something wrong with us if we’re still single by a certain age or don’t make a certain amount of income or don’t have a commendable social circle or don’t look and act a certain way in the presence of others. This list can go on forever!!

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by such mindless banter happening around me...about me and end up comparing myself to other people. It just tends to get stuck in my head somehow and on many occasions, completely tears apart my self esteem.

Yesterday, while I was beating myself up over something I can’t even recall at the moment, I read an email from one of my anonymous blog readers (I'm surprised people do read my posts) telling me that one of my posts literally got them through the night. Literally!! And if am to go by the intended meaning of that word, this person was basically telling me that one of my posts saved their life!!

I get emails like these once in a while from some anonymous person from somewhere around the world, and they always open my eyes to just how much I matter, regardless of my inner critic’s vehement objections.

Probably, a little self love doesn't harm us :-)

My wandering mind

My mind works in a funny way! 

It can never accept what comes easy - it always looks for a journey and keeps its gears greasy. It wanders from place to place like a vagabond and never stays for too long on a thought. Its never satisfied with a simple answer :-) It looks for a story with twists and turns as a simple answer is hard to take. It always hopes for more and refuses to learn. Its sometimes like a flowing river - making its path the way it wants while ignoring all cautions. It cuts across creating a lake - but never stays and goes forward.

My mind only hopes for a fresh start every time it moves on - shattering all the logic and memories - and hopes for a new dawn. It never stops to take lessons from what it has lost or gained.

My mind truly works in a funny way :-)

It feels like home

It just sneaks into my life unnoticed.

It feels like an old t-shirt that I keep wearing and suddenly panic when it goes missing or I cannot find it.

It feels like that blanket that I keep snuggling into, the one that has frayed edges, an odd stain but a fragrance of familiarity.

It has hope written all over it. It doesn't look fancy and fabulous yet it is fancy and fabulous.

It feels like the smell of an old book or a melody that is dripping with nostalgia.

It feels like the wind in my hair and the smile on my lips.

Old photographs - definitely feel like home!

Inadequate

No matter what I do, however hard I try....some people, with just their words, make me feel inadequate and good for nothing!!

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"