...it was easier to feel the anger. The anger fueled me, kept the sadness from taking over every ounce of my body. But the anger is no longer here…no longer my confidante, my companion, my ironic solace. I am left with nothing - just hollow - and empty.

The time I spent on myself - really a great help - makes me realize that I should be a part of the journey.

“I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.” – Diane Ackerman

March 25 (II)

March 25

March 24

March 23

March 22

Alex also says,

Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.

Alex says:

I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.

Step back..

“Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.”

- An excerpt from Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching”

Drafted..

More often than not, I end up creating a draft post, and by the time I think of publishing the post, it becomes outdated, or irrelevant. A friend of mine pointed out to me the other day that my blogging frequency has increased in last two weeks or so. I told him that the frequency is more so the same, but it's just that the published posts have increased multi folds in last few weeks. But when I went back and looked at the stats, I did realize that the drafts are still almost same in number, and hence the activity is on a higher side - conclusion being, I have loads of spare time these days (which, by the way, I won't have very soon - I have plans). I have to figure out what I should do within whatever spare time I have with me, in next few days.. blogging not really helping me enough..

Ignoring calls

Confession -
I have a habit - that of ignoring the phone calls from the numbers I do not recognize.
Usually what happens is, when I am in good mood, I tend to pick up calls from any number, and engage in a warm chat.

On the contrary, when I am not in the best of my spirits, I most definitely decline calls from numbers I do not recognize (read, numbers not saved in my phone address book). And in many cases, I disconnect the calls from my acquaintances too, only to return call at a later stage.

Not to mention, I disconnect calls when I am busy as well, again to call back at a later stage.

And when someone lets the phone ringing, without picking it up, that's a heart breaker!

Got Lucky?

We don’t always recognize making gut-level decisions. So when they result in good fortune, they feel more random than they actually are. Luck is happening all around us, but are we attentive enough to spot it? Here’s a quick look at luck that’s changed loads of things in history. In most cases, it was far from random.

1. 1895 – As German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen experiments with electron beams, he happens to put his hand in front of the source of radiation. The image of his bones is projected across the room. Rontgen has just invented the x-ray machine.

2. 1945 – Percy LeBaron Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, is surprised to discover that radar waves have melted the candy bar in his pocket. Soon after, Raytheon unveils the Radarrange, the world’s first microwave oven.

3. 1948 – Swiss mountaineer George de Mestral notices how burrs stick to his pants after a walk in the woods. As he examines one of the burrs, an idea strikes. He calls it velours crochet; we know it as velcro.

4. 1958 – A 12 foot-long, 7,600 pound thermonuclear bomb, 100 times more powerful than what was dropped on Hiroshima, lands off the Georgia coast – just 20 miles from Savannah – after the collision of two military jets. It never detonates.

5. 1984 – With the second overall draft pick of the NBA draft, the Portland TrailBlazers select Sam Brownie. The Chicago Bulls win six world championships in 8 years with the next pick: Michael Jordan.

6. 1989 – During a Canadian Football League game, a fan’s image is projected onto the big screen. The crowd cheers so loudly, the young woman, who’s wearing a Labatt’s T-shirt, is escorted to the 50-yard line at halftime. Her name: Pamela Anderson.

7. 1998 – Pfizer researchers studying gene receptors as a way to ease high blood pressure notice that their male volunteers are becoming, well, excited. Pfizer ends up marketing the pill as Viagra.

8. 1999 – A customs agent on the US-Canadian border stops a man on gut instinct. Turns out the man is an al-Qaeda terrorist planning to attack Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve.

9. 2004 – A cellphone set to trigger an explosion on a busy road in Karachi fails. Pakistani police link the phone to the residence of a top al-Qaeda operative. There, they uncover a plot to blow up US financial institutions.

10. 2005 – NASA scientists track a 320-meter-wide asteroid flying toward Earth. They give it a 1-in-50 chance of hitting our planet in 2029. Will we get lucky again?

What to answer..

More often than not, we try to answer wrong issues - if I pick a fight with someone senior at work, maybe I will think that I should leave my firm, because that's the easiest way out from the current uneasy situation. What we tend to avoid, in most of the cases, is to solve the problem from where it began - for instance, maybe I should either try and work around the problem (read, help the other person understand my concern), or else, if there're problems around the former, I should try and prove myself - not by leaving the place but by making sure that everyone gets to know what I am capable of! Leaving the place would be an extreme, which I should think of only if I see no respite at all.

It's not really a matter of what exactly it is that we are going to do, it is more so about what it is that we are trying to answer. And if that problem is that I am not getting my due, it might do me good to make sure that I get it, one way or the other.

Of course, easier said than done..

Sleuth..

Sleuth is Kenneth Branagh's re-make, re-imagination, re-invention of the 1972 film with the same name which, in turn, was based on Anthony Shaffer's stage play. In the original, Laurence Olivier played the high-born snob Andrew Wyke and Michael Caine was the working class hairdresser Milo Tindle. This time around, Caine is Andrew and Jude Law is Milo. The general storyline remains the same, as does the cat-and-mouse dynamic between the leads, but the screenplay has been rewritten. The result is a script with more delicious lines and a shorter running length. What's lost in translation, however, is any reason to like or sympathize with either of the principals. In the film, both’re arrogant assholes, and it's not really tough to enjoy spending 90 minutes in the company of two such jerks.

Sleuth is all about revenge: Andrew's revenge against Milo for stealing his wife and Milo's need to strike back after Andrew humiliates him. The first two acts of the movie are, as explicitly stated, like sets in a tennis match. The third act acts like icing on the cake.

Sleuth can be enjoyed for its plot convolutions. For those who are aware of all the twists and turns, this is a chance to admire the performances, savor the script, and appreciate how much visual variety can add to the proceedings.

To keep things lively, the director uses all kinds of odd camera angles and mixes traditional shots with images gleaned from "security footage." Andrew's mansion is an amazing slice of Oz - a playroom for the rich and famous that's so cold and sterile that it's unfathomable how anyone but a complete narcissist could call it "home”.

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Andrew and Milo are dining raw. It's an interesting movie - a film that works more successfully as a study of technique and writing than as a motion picture.

Trivia: In the casting, there are just three (3) names!

The Curious Cat

The old adage says that curiosity killed the cat. But I wonder…was the cat happy before he died?

Curiosity pervades the human mind, and yet it proposes a dangerously thin wire upon which we walk. If we choose to ignore our curiosity, we never allow ourselves to take risks. If we never take risks, life would just be one boring, straight, road to nowhere. I imagine we would spend quite a great deal of time regretting the chances we did not take. And yet if we embrace our curiosities, we choose to enter an unknown territory of potential danger. So how do we reach a balance? How do we decide whether to acknowledge and entertain our curiosities or to deny and ignore them? Which path to choose…curiosity or safety?

There is no one right answer to the question. But I, for one, prefer to believe that the curious little cat died happy.

The quote

What is one quote that has left a profound impact on your life?

“What you fear most has already happened”
- Annie G. Rogers

Ten Beans to Spill

I was tagged by S. So here are my…

Ten Beans to Spill

1. Last week of August is one of my favorite times of the year. It starts with my brother's birthday, followed by my mom's. Same days see the birthday of many friends of mine - S, another S, B, R, A, G. And the week is summed up with Dad's bday....so we get 7 whole days of celebration!

2. I never eat sweet after any meal, even if it is only a bite. I tend to cherish the taste of food.

3. I feel most spiritual when I am surrounded by nature (whether it be trees, the ocean, the mountains, or the desert).

4. I have a full-blown phobia of heights.

5. I only drink alcohol approximately once every one to two months, and usually only one glass then.

6. Food that I hated most when in school was Rajma-Chawal.

7. Food that I love most today is Rajma-Chawal.

8. I really suck at cooking. (All I can do is tea/coffee/maggi)

9. One of my favorite pastimes in college was riding two-wheelers through college roads.

10. I hate it when people lie, or get late!

The books I would write...

The books I would write would be of travels in foreign lands, of lessons learned, of beauty seen, or awareness heightened. The books I would write would tell of adventures of the body and spirit, of the mind and heart, adventures of a fully lived life. These books would tell of my own journeys across native soils, the people, the culture, the diversity and challenges of life. Filled with my own moments of pain and fear, these books would tell the stories of overcoming danger and adversity, rising above the terrors and facing the world head-on with courage and grace. The books I would write would tell these stories through honesty and hope, imparting wisdom and bravery to those reading the raw words of my own experiences.

These books I would write in the hopes of making a difference in the world. By using my own life, the only experiences I can truly, wholly know, and molding these experiences into words, more than words, emotions and awareness and realizations that could touch the deeply scarred souls of this world. I would write these books because I want to live this life, because I want to have these experiences and to know that I am capable of surmounting the strongest fears and deepest pains. I would write these books because if I could live this life, then somehow I believe the answers would find me. And in turn, these answers, this wisdom and knowledge, could be passed on to others.

Or maybe the books I would write would be a collection of my actual experiences, moving memoirs of the life I have actually lived. Maybe I would write a book detailing the internal turmoil of a ten-year-old guy with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Maybe I would describe the constant fears, the disturbing beliefs that every detail of life must be lived out in a certain way in order to avoid catastrophic repercussions. Maybe I would write of the endless hours spent arranging and rearranging books, or the feeling that no matter how much I ran, I would never be tired. Maybe I would write of being the preadolescent guy who ate his lunch by holding only the plastic wrapping, and the confusion he felt. Maybe I would write this story.

Or maybe I would write a book about an adolescent guy sitting outside his hostel, contemplating the meaning of life. Trying to understand why people try to force themselves, or not. I would write of a morning when the walk to school became a cross country, an attempt to flee from self. Maybe I would write of drugs and sex and every avenue of self-destruction and the reasons why these paths were not taken. Maybe I would write this story.

Maybe I would write these books because these are the stories I know. Because these are the stories I’ve lived. Because these are the stories that may actually make a difference to someone, somewhere, in the midst of tormenting fears or the confusion of a lost identity. Maybe I would write these books in the hopes that lost souls would know they are not alone, that their path is one that has been traveled by many, that their story is not so different from mine.

So maybe, just maybe, I would write books of my life, both real and imagined. Books that tell my story, and the story of so many others. Books that remind us all that life’s journey need not be walked alone, that the burdens will not always weigh upon us too heavily, and that beauty can be found even in the midst of darkness.

Life's hard..

"Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that – I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much – so very much to learn.."
- Sylvia Path, Unabridged journals

Tagging threes..

Three things you wish for (just for you):

1. I wish I had enough money to pay for another MBA straight away, to avoid going into 100+ grand of debt
2. I wish I didn’t have so much anxiety and so many fears.
3. I wish India wins the match tomorrow (that one’s to see if this really works!)

Three things you would do to/for you if there was no one to judge you (or if you had the guts.)

1. Write the autobiograhpy of my life (this is something I would love to do, but fear keeps me from doing it at this point).
2. Publish that autobiography
3. (There’s no third for me here)

Three bad habits you have.

1. my addiction with myself
2. being lazy
3. I am a total slob…though I am making plans for change with this one (and hopefully will find the willpower to change the other two before long…we shall see).

Three insecurities you feel:

1. That I will disappoint others (I’m working on this…trying to learn how to be okay with other’s disappointments in me and focusing on meeting my own expectations for myself instead).
2. That I will not be able to touch others’ lives in the inspiring and healing way that I want.
3. That I'm not good enough to be a "Writer"

Three talents/skills you wish you had:

1. ART…I wish I could draw, paint, make beautiful collages, etc.
2. The ability to play the guitar (I also attempted guitar lessons once, but I really sucked and never could manage to make my tiny hands produce any beautiful music).
3. The willpower to live a really healthy life (i.e. exercising regularly, getting up early, etc…I’m not really sure if you could call this a talent or skill, but I certainly believe it takes talent to live this way).

Three things you would do if you had more time:

1. Write more.
2. Read more.
3. Travel across the globe (and maybe even far)

Three things you would do if you had enough money:

1. Stop working so much (I would still work, but maybe I would stop for sometime).
2. Put the money in a safe place (isn’t it obvious)
3. Travel, travel – everywhere

Three things that bring you peace and relaxation:

1. the beach
2. the mountains
3. writing

Three things that spark your creativity:
1. Reading
2. Nature
3. Music

Three people I'm tagging:

I know some people really don’t like to do these tags, so feel free to accept the invitation or not. I am tagging S, C and N.