"Change"

Man does not like "Change". He resists it. He feels very insecure when there is "Change". He does not like to go out of the comfort zone he has created for years and years. "Change" seems like the biggest foe he ever had. He fights back, wails, and does whatever he can to avoid "Change". His mind just does not accept "Change".

But then "Change" happens. "Change" is inevitable. "Change" is needed to bring more life into one's life. Man understands this later and then moves ahead with "Change". "Change" gradually becomes his pal. And again man starts settling down. And again after some time, "Change" appears. And again, man starts resisting it.:-)

Man likes it or not, "Change" is an integral part of his life. So it is better to flow with "Change" rather than swimming against it. U never know, this "Change" might open up a new door, a new opportunity.

I had a very disturbed sleep yesterday night. In the evening, we got to know that our neighbour's daughter had hung herself at her place. She has left behind two kids and her husband. Her parents are inconsolable. They suspect her husband's role in her death. They feel that he assaulted her and then hung her. It seems he had been ill-treating her for quite some time now. This lady, who passed away yesterday, was a health officer.

I did not know her personally but still her death affected me somewhere. I was just thinking if she had no other way. She, being so educated, could have done something about the circumstances. She could have just walked away if she felt so strangled in the relationship. She could have stayed with her parents anytime. She could have led a good life with her kids. Why this extreme step?

Well, maybe it is easy for me to talk about this and analyse. Maybe she was in a very helpless state. Nobody knows. But the people, who are left behind, are the ones who have to go through pain and anguish. Who are the sufferers here-her meek parents or the helpless, innocent kids???

I am always disturbed by suicide stories. Now a days, you also get to hear students committing suicides because of results. I somehow feel that life is very precious and no problem can be that big that it cannot be solved. There must be some way out for everyone. It is just that we should be patient enough to try to find it. Well, it is easy to preach, isn't it?

Anyways, atleast now, may her soul rest in peace.

Involvement

I love to see people absorbed in their jobs - be it a singer, a cook, a potter, a cobbler, a tailor, a sports person or any other professional. One starts enjoying work when he is involved in it. Lot of success stories are born at places where people put in so much of concentration in whatever they do. You can also notice the quality that comes out of such involvement. It reminds me of a kid who sits to draw with a book and a box of crayons. It is very difficult to catch his attention when he is doing that. He just does not bother to look anywhere else until he finishes the picture. I wonder what happens to that involvement, that concentration when he grows up!!!!

Words- they are just words- but they sting you the most. They penetrate your soul and hurt you so badly. It takes days and days to forget those words or to accept those words. And they are just words, only words!

Education never stops.....

There is so much to learn. Most of the times when we meet people, we are busy judging them or probably looking at the darker shades. But I think we have so much to learn from people, especially from the ones whom we know. Every person has something or the other to offer you. Many a times you do not have to learn lessons by experience. You can learn them just by looking at others' lives, others' mistakes, others' achievements. I have been learning so much from my relatives, my friends, my neighbours, my colleagues and also of course from all the famous personalities. Every person whom u meet or whom u know becomes your guru sometime. Believe me, it is fun being a student. When you are a student, you can make mistakes and you learn and learn. Somewhere down the lane, you might have become a guru for someone else.:-)So just because you have a degree or a master's degree or a Ph.D, you can never say that you have learnt everything. Education will go on until you wanna remain a student and add-on more to your life.

Sometimes u know that things happenning around you are wrong and that you are right. And you also know that you are the only one who is right. You can probably win if you fight this crusade. But your victory might become the cause for few wounds, tears, afflictions in others. So you don't feel like winning. You just stay quiet, keep those opinions and values to yourself and go on. You might become the loser in others' eyes but who cares. You know what you are and you walk ahead, still sticking to your values and beliefs and with a satisfaction that you have not hurt anyone.

For all mommy's girls:-)

I have been missing Mom's cooking for a while now. She is gradually recovering and I bet that she is waiting to be back full-time in her kitchen.

I think girls start missing their moms' cooking after marriage. That is when you realise the value of your mom, especially her cooking. Till marriage occurs, many a times you never even acknowledge her dishes. You just have them in a hurry, or absentmindedly watching the television. But after marriage, u really start relishing them and wondering when you could possibly cook like that.;-)

Of all the dishes, my mom's mango idlis have been very famous. I remember that we used to wait so eagerly for the summer 'coz it was the mangoes' season. Then throughout the season, we would devour mango idlis every possible day. My dad's colleagues would demand more and more idlis from Mom.

I also miss Mom's pulao. I always feel that the hotels should pick up the recipe for pulao from Mom. Anyways, I am avidly waiting for Mom to start cooking. Ok, ok, I agree that I am Mom's girl and I aspire to be like her sometime-maybe atleast a part of what she is today.:-)

My tennis icon

Pete Sampras

Yesterday, I was watching Autobiography on History channel. It was about Pete Sampras this time. Believe me, it was only then I realized how much I miss seeing him play tennis!

I have always been a great fan of Sampras. My friends would all be surprised looking at my loyalty towards Sampras 'coz it was the Agassi era then and no girl could ever think of anyone other than Agassi. They all wondered about what I found in Sampras and why was I a great fan of his.

For me, Sampras was a synonym for tennis. He seemed to be such a shy person off field. He stayed away from the glamour of tennis and never became a style icon. But on field, he was unbeatable. He became so involved in the game and never paid attention to anything else. The other thing I like about Sampras is that he never showed any emotions on field. You could never make out if he won or lost the game. He remained the same always. I thought that he was a very very well balanced person on field. and above all, he has been one of the best players I have seen. Who can ever forget his powerful serves!

When I heard the news of his retirement from tennis, I almost lost interest in the game of tennis. Yesterday after a long time, I got to see him on Autobiography. I felt that it was a great honor for him to be on that show and that it was very well deserved. After all, he is Pete Sampras and he has always been a winner.

Sometimes u want to talk so much about the people whom u admire. But when you start talking, u find that words are not enough to express your thoughts about your icon. That is what happened when I started writing about Sampras. :-)

One of the main intentions in blogging is that I wanna write about all my icons, about people who were so far but yet inspired me to live. This is my way of offering tribute to them.:-)

Somebody asked me the other day if I nursed an ambition of writing a novel or a book of poems. Nah, I don't have anything like that in my mind. I just write. I write because I can express my thoughts more clearly in writing. I write because I love writing. I write for the sheer pleasure of writing.:-)

He continues to live.......

Kumar gandharva

It has been 10 years since I started listening to him. I never get tired of listening to Kumar Gandharva. In fact, after listening to him for so long, I feel he has become my teacher. Many a times, I feel that he is the dronacharya and I am ekalavya.

His music is very, very different. Not many people like his music, not many of them appreciate it. I listened to him for the first time at my Grandpa's place. I was busy playing with my cousins' gang and I heard him singing. I was mesmerized and I immediately went to Grandpa and asked the name of the singer. I felt that his music was so unique and it held all my attention. But I kept wondering about the pauses he gave in between his singing- very minute pauses that would be noticed by keen music lovers. So I started my research about Kumarji. I got to know that he was affected by an illness which left him with only one lung. It seems doctors had advised him not to sing. But he did not let his illness stop him from singing. He developed a new style and went ahead. I also read that he was inspired by folk songs so you can find a tinge of folk songs in his music.

His music evokes spirutuality in me. I feel that I am sitting in a temple listening to his music. His music has the capability to leave one's mind in a perfect rapture.

I had a glimpse of his recorded music concert on DD. And then I got to know that he had passed away. I still feel very remorseful thiking of it. If he were alive, I am sure I would desert all my other aspirations and become his disciple.

But his music will always be there. That is a greatness of a musician, isn't it? Musicians will always be immortal through their music. Yep, Kumarji too will always be immortal. And whenever I listen to his music, I know he is alive, very much alive in his music.

Fantasy

The chief pleasure of fantasy is the pleasure of nostalgia. It projects not a new world but an old one seen through the sentimental daze of longing for comfort and simplicity. It provides a clear-cut distinction between good and evil, and yet at the same time reduces the stature of evil to a black hat on an arbitrarily chosen player. It offers a complicated action whose outcome is known in advance. It simplifies the post-industrial landscape into a never-never land of green meadows, cosy country inns, and unpolluted rivers. It reduces technology to one-dimensional magic.
- Excerpt from " Tolkien: the Lord of Fantasy"

Wow- the perfect explanation for fantasy- and also about why I like the world of fantasy. It will always be a world where I would want to be.

Robert Frost's poem

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- From " The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

I have read this poem several times and always wondered about the "sigh" for taking the road less travelled. Finally I found the answer in one of the sites about Robert Frost's poetry:

The inspiration for it (The Road Not Taken) came from Frost’s amusement over a familiar mannerism of his closest friend in England, Edward Thomas. While living in Gloucestershire in 1914, Frost frequently took long walks with Thomas through the countryside. Repeatedly Thomas would choose a route which might enable him to show his American friend a rare plant or a special vista; but it often happened that before the end of such a walk Thomas would regret the choice he had made and would sigh over what he might have shown Frost if they had taken a "better" direction. More than once, on such occasions, the New Englander had teased his Welsh-English friend for those wasted regrets. Disciplined by the austere biblical notion that a man, having put his hand to the plow, should not look back, Frost found something quaintly romantic in sighing over what might have been. Such a course of action was a road never taken by Frost, a road he had been taught to avoid. In a reminiscent mood, not very long after his return to America as a successful, newly discovered poet, Frost pretended to "carry himself" in the manner of Edward Thomas just long enough to write "The Road Not Taken". Immediately, he sent a manuscript copy of the poem to Thomas, without comment, and yet with the expectation that his friend would notice how the poem pivots ironically on the un-Frostian phase, "I shall be telling this with a sign". As it turned out Frost’s expectations were disappointed. Thomas missed the gentle jest because the irony had been handled too slyly, too subtly.

A short time later, when "The Road Not Taken" was published in the Atlantic Monthly for August 1915, Frost hoped that some of his American readers would recognize the pivotal irony of the poem; but again he was disappointed. Self-defensively he began to drop hints as he read "The Road Not Taken" before public audiences. On one occasion he told of receiving a letter from a grammar-school girl who asked a good question of him: "Why the sigh?" That letter and that question, he said, had prompted an answer. End of the hint. On another occasion, after another public reading of "The Road Not Taken", he gave more pointed warnings: "You have to be careful of that one; it’s a trick poem – very tricky". Never did he admit that he carried himself and his ironies too subtly in that poem, but the circumstances are worth remembering here as an illustration that Frost repeatedly liked to "carry himself" dramatically, in a poem or letter, by assuming a posture not his own, simply for purposes of mockery – some times gentle and at other times malicious.

It is fun to be a spectator of your own life. This helps you to think rationally and also to understand yourself better.

- Says Maddy the philosopher again.

Whatever happens- happens for good. At that moment u may feel the pang. But when that moment passes away, you know that things have happenned for good
- Says Maddy the philosopher

Having the courage to smile

I have always experimented with my hair. I just go to the parlour one fine day and I ask the beautician to gimme any new cut. Every time I get a new hair cut, it is fun to watch people 's reactions. I have to answer a lot of questions like:
"Why the hell did u get a hair cut?", "What came over you to get a hair cut like this?","How can you ever experiment with your hair like this?", "Which idiot gave you such a hair cut?", and so on. :-) There are also some people who come up with kind things like " Errr....you are looking a bit smarter now", "the haircut suits you", and so on. Sometimes I fail to understand about why my experimentations on my hair provokes so many reactions from others. Initially I used to find it tough when people just censured you right in front of everyone. But now the comments don't affect me. I continue my experimentation regardless of comments and compliments. In fact, I love it when a person walks upto me and says " This haircut makes you look like an alien" and then I look straight into the eyes of that person and smile- smile benevolently at that person. And believe me, this needs courage. Lots of courage.:-)
I have always welcomed new things , new experiments in others' lives. All that matters to me is that if they are happy with their experimentations. That is why I am puzzled at people's reactions to my experimentations. But then I am grateful to them 'coz they teach me to build up courage, courage to smile at their criticisms, courage to smile sweetly and hug them and listen to them shouting at me " Madhu, what is wronggggggggg with you?". Hehehehe