Ramblings

jumbled up

2011-08-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

A lazy Saturday afternoon is hard to find. It is hard to treasure it for long when i find one.

A visit to the mall - always hurried - scurried - in a mess, the brightly lit shelves, rows and rows of colorful packaging whirl past as the shopping cart whooze to the corner of your find.

The stories of those who walk by on the streets - the beggar, the street vendor, the fruit seller, those group of loud Indian visitors, lost dazed rich people trying to find coca cola - staring at them from your window and fancying up your own story for each one of them - what leisure were those now you realize.

I tasted my tea today - darjeeling leaves - with its rich fragrance. It had long been i tasted food. I gulp them down every now and then several times a day. I measure my water for enough intake - one red steel bottle on my left hand, pouring it down my throat - my eyes on the screen, my right palm on the mouse. Am i supposed to taste water? I wonder.

I lived for 15 minutes last week. I was in a cab to work. I closed the stack of A4 size print outs on my lap, the presentation material for the day - closed my eyes, brought my senses alive and watched, I listened, I smelled. I saw the droplets on the window of the cab - blurring my visuals of outside. I felt droplets on my bare arm that had managed their way in. I smelled the rain. I smelled the moisture inside the cab. The thudding of rain drops on the roof. The splatter on the roofs nearby. The incessant chaotic car honks, motorbikes that splashed waves around - the raincoats, the umbrellas, the squeezing under umbrellas, the smiles, the shouts, wet hair, muddy folded pants, the potholes, the rain boots, the whites turned brown on school children.

I suddenly missed school, i missed college, i missed mom, i missed a cup of tea.

But the days roll on. I still measure my water intake. Try hard to make in time for work. Balance it out well. Cook, wash, read, correct, edit, send, write,click, edit, call, shout, click, decide, edit, read, send, think, click, call, frustrate, write, gulp down, edit, click, send, stand, speak, opine, call, click, walk - rush, call, reply, call, listen, click, note down, translate, gulp down, edit, opine, speak, call, cook, wash.....

and the days roll on.

my world

2011-08-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

The long lost freedom is not yet found.

It is in some old forlorn forgotten well, deep under the waters, whose walls have grown moss - lust, wet, green, innocent moss - carpeting the inner walls.

It might never be restored, retrieved - the freedom.

When i think of freedom, i think of a hilly, a mountainous place - a hill station perhaps - with its crisp fresh air, its friendly, innocent, simple people with no complications of emotions, with no ego - no expectations, no demands. A gay happy face when the daily demands of basic needs are fulfilled.

I think of a school on this hill, a school and its kids. I would love to spend time with them - teach them something perhaps - spend a lot of time with them - play table tennis with them maybe - run with them - chat with them - spend a lot of time with them - show them various books - solve their innocent emotional issues - talk with them - spend a lot of time with them.

When i think of freedom, i think of making friends in the lonely place - knowing people doing their own stuff - making tea, tending to their gardens, dusting their windows, scrubbing off a stubborn stain.

When i think of freedom, i think of a snack on this hill somewhere - a sandwich probably - and a book - under a warm lovely sun, lying on the grass - reading the book until my lids get heavy and i fall in a lazy cozy warm slumber. I wake up to the crisp fresh breeze - the flowers around - red, blue and yellow, dangling and dancing with the breeze.

When I think of freedom, i think of keeping the body and the mind fresh, healthy and alert.

When i think of freedom, i think of writing, on a table, or on the grass, or at a tea shop, or in the school - i think of writing.

When i think of freedom, i cannot think of you. When i think of freedom, you are a wishful character - the yearning in my life. You are what makes me complete. You fulfill me and complete the purpose of why i live. With you i feel free.

But you don't come alone. And i can't take you with all your belongings to my space of freedom because they clatter a lot, clutter a lot, make noise - a lot of noise. They are orthodox, conservative, complicated and stagnant. And for them, i have no space in my world.

But i have stopped taking you there anymore.

I keep you here, with me - where you are - lest they hear us and follow us to my world.

But i still wish, i still yearn for you to be there with me - under the sun, lying on the grass........

I miss you deeply, where I wish you to be.

resting it out

2011-04-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

Am supposed to be on complete bed rest, i should be resting it out. I am.

But more you restrict the human nature, the more it wants to erupt, burst out! especially when it knows what's it that it's missing.

I am not supposed to be here, but am here for a brief while and it makes the sensation even more pleasurable, the keyboards softer the monitor more alluring.

I select lighter, readable books to hold on my face while i lay on my back all day. Currently it is Small is Beautiful and each sentence i read it seems is written in the context of our own country. I heard it somewhere that King Birendra used to love this book and slightly understand why. And i also get perplexed a little at that piece of information.

It is a beautiful book written in the seventies which still holds good for an economics book written on the basis of research and data decades ago, the substance still holds good and beautiful.

So many learned leaders of our country not just political leaders but thought leaders fail to lead their fields - their own fields - why? when they are so learned, when they know what to do, why can't they fight the odds, bring in that conviction and just do it, as Nike says.

I got an 'activator' on my top five strengths (from Gallup's test), and can't just stand it when things don't get done. I can't stand it especially when things could be done and are not done, forget those who are ignorant and incapable of stuff. But when those who can, do not, it's simply unbearable.

For now, i am just resting my energies out.

what's it called?

2011-04-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

Until you sit straight, you don't realize you had been bending all the while!
I wake up at night and can't sleep for hours....anticipation kills.

I go back to my orange. Mom takes the extra effort to find oranges for me, in this season. Fruit is better than juice they say, i am not sure - when they are preserved as well.

I go back to my book - EF Schumacher - a wonderful read - clears my mind - economics makes me pessimistic of the realistic world, it shatters the beautiful world we create around us, and jolts us back to the present. Sad thing - we hardly do anything about it.

I call friends, bosses, relatives to wish them a happy new year, i text a few, chat with a few. That's done. What next?

Fb - scan, browse, comment, like, post, find, go back to the past, find new friends! i am married to my husband after three years in fb- the fun part is, it collates all the picture of both of u together. I had a wonderful time reliving each photograph again. Its like falling in love all over again.

I look at the picture of the new born beauty to my brother in law - we wondered how she will have to learn Nepali, Newari, Hindi, Tamil and of course English!

Get some sleep!

weekend

2011-04-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Apart from the questions who will win - India or Srilanka and who will bat first, the next question on my mind is....

Will NEA give the few extra hours of power for the World Cup as it did last time during the Ind - Pak match?

picture this II

2011-03-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

soap in a row

@ a tea shop in dolalghat!

balancing act!

outside home

picture this

2011-03-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

White flower:

@dhulikhel, 2010

Boy splashing water

on way to the last resort, 2011

twitter this

2011-03-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

i opened a twitter account today. it's so awkward though, maybe because i am not used to it. i am so used to seeing familiar faces on fb, it just baffled me at first. then i search for people i knew, friends, family - there were none.

i then went for celebs - from bollywood and hollywood and then to familiar categories, my favorite writers, then nepal...it leads you to more sites. i never knew manjushree thapa had a separate site in her name, its boring though - not much information except a review on her books which i can get anywhere. And her FAQs aren't that friendly either. well, she is the reserved kine. as long as her literature enriches us, no complaints madam.

just blank

2011-03-24T04:41:00.000-07:00

blank.

sometimes the mind is blank. not just when you try to scribble something but when you try to even think something, it is preoccupied with just one thing that is most important in your life and nothing else matters.

i have been home, resting for a week now. and it seems fine. nothing else matters. on the first day i had to rest, i was deep shit worried about office, so much work, so few people to handle, one of my other colleagues is on bed rest too. I felt guilty, bad, twisted, difficult. But now i feel fine. Life will go on, but nothing's as important as health, nobody will give it back to you - not your mom, not your husband, not your dad, not your mother-in-law. This is one thing that totally belongs to you and if you don't take care of yourself, no one else will, because they don't know how you feel - your health. I think i have learnt it the hard way, shouldn't have been that difficult, but the simplest facts are the toughest to penetrate sometimes.

i have been doing the most cherished thing lying on bed these last few days - reading.

pathetic coffee

2011-03-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

Its exactly 10 mins before the net goes down...the load shedding starts and it's not powered here, where i am.

Well, i am not in for pathetic coffees anymore either. We try to get in the best that's around, grind them and brew them, tea is brewed, coffee is what? filtered?

Anyways, i am just through with one of the finest literature i have come across in these years - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It is one of the smooth writings i have read in a long long while, it reminded me of Dostoevsky. Atwood is simply amazing, and i am definitely digging out more of her from the library.

The starting sentence of the novel is "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." and you can't put the book down then after....

state of mind

2010-12-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

I went to print a few pictures of mine, and the family – get it mounted so that I could hang a few on my wall. The wall is empty mostly except for a wedding picture of ours gifted to us by the professional photographer we hired – he clicked it, blowed it up and framed it. My in-laws hung it up on our wall. It has been there since. We have shifted from the room a couple of times and been back to the room a couple of times, and this time we are here to stay, but the picture has remained there since we got married - three years complete, to be exact. ‘you decide your mind first, before you print them’ suggested a friend, and I decided to do so and came back to my desk, 6.30 pm. An empty lift, the fluorescent light, half empty floor, echoing voices, you get used to it when you are regular late-hour at the office. A multinational organization huh! What prestige in the society, you are a smart guy if you get in, a sort of genius if you succeed. I am half way through the second category and dad’s proud about me. Is that all that matters? Am I successful?

Should I have my first child? Should I go to the USA and study marketing? Should I go and teach at a school? Do I have a choice?

I did not realize how people stopped having choices. I did not realize that people did not realize that they did not have choices. People think they do. But if you really empathize and think about it, there are as little choices as you think you got.

I read a theory once about choices by one of the philosophers. He said we don’t make a decision in life, not a single one. His point of view was – when you are brought up in a particular circumstance, in a particular set of beliefs, in a particular kind of family, in a particular environment with the financial spending you make, with the education you get, with the unique set of all the things in your unique individual life, you cannot but make one decision that you had made about certain thing. If you tweak something about that uniqueness, which is true for some other individual maybe, that person will make his decision which is based on his set of unique experiences. But one person, with his set of experiences will make only that one decision and nothing else; he will think he has choice because he has multiple situations to ‘choose’ from. But this philosopher propounds, in actuality, he does not have a choice, he has a decision already, he cannot but choose that particular decision given his set of experiences. Nice. Complicated. Unconvincing. Confused.

I am married to the best person in the world. It’s a great feeling to have that feeling that you are married to the most amazing husband, and when you are totally in love. I love every moment with him, and can never have enough of it. I tell him, lets not sleep tonight, it will be tomorrow, and you will go to office, and I will go to office. Let’s just wake up all night and have a longer moment, looking at each other, being with each other, feeling each other – sometimes I just stare at him snoring for hours, just being awake with him around. And I have never had enough of it. Comparatively, we spend much more time together, at home, at lunches, just being together somehow than other couples we know, we go the library together, do the grocery together, commute to and from work together, attend parties together, go to the movies together, but somehow, we just aren’t enough together. And I feel so lucky. I just love being in love. And being entirely – so engrossed about one person. Sometimes, I tell him, maybe this is unhealthy, I am so much crazy about you. Maybe it is, I don’t know. But I don’t care either.

Sometimes I think I am the most confused person around. I don’t know whether I want to continue my studies at this point, I think it’s too late – I should be giving birth to a child right now as expected by the whole big extended family – mine and his. Sometimes I am confused whether I really want a child, no, I am not confused about that, I do want a child. I am confused about whether – is it now, do we want it – confused mind about this topic, alright, confused about the kinds of question I should be having around this topic about the whole child thing. I am confused about whether I want to stay here or go abroad, for more opportunities, confused about whether career is important to me, whether money is important to me. Then, I see more confused, very confused people around me. When I counsel them, talk to them, sort out their decisions, their life problems, I feel that my life problems, my decisions are easier to make. Sometimes I am confused about whether I like my job. Sometimes I wonder whether I am an workaholic, whether I am an alcoholic – maybe I am, but maybe I just don’t realize it.

There are so many ifs, buts, variables in life, in everyday living, so much chaos, so many things to attend to, so many stakeholders, competition, confusion, varying thoughts, intonations, pitches, so many parameters, challenges, questions, you just get fed up and it gets on your nerves – like today, for me. I just want to shut off and feel, take the time to smell the air and read a book, and sip a coffee and do just one thing at a time. Just sip coffee.

What if today, on a day like this, I had to decide something. It would be totally different than when making a decision on a saner day, I would think, but look I am not making any decisions today, somehow they are all postponed. Maybe if I was so hard pressed and busy to be making a thousand decisions, I wouldn’t be in this mood today – a catch 22 for you here. Nice.

Blessed

2010-11-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

In less than a month's time, we would have been married for three years. How does it feel, my to be married friends wonder maybe, you have been married for three long years! The older of the lot colleagues who are in their 15th or 18th year of marriage must think we are kids.

When we go for a cup of coffee or have discourse over some topic, fight over the scrabble board, we find new aspects of each other and the same old curiosity and enthusiasm creeps up about each other. Yet, to find that deep rooted comfort amongst the novelty of the relationship emerging each day - is a blessing. I thank for every moment spent together, and its just too precious.

for the heck of it

2010-01-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

Kathmandu has changed. Changed a lot. A few couples - newly settled have asked us between conversations we have had - '.....one option is to come back to Kathmandu...start afresh' - we have always discouraged them - sadly - '...not for another 4-5 years maybe, let things settle for a while.'

Back of our mind runs a list of things they would be frustrated with once they are back - load shedding hours in the superlative, waterless taps, chaotic traffic rules, innocent accidents, lampless streets, dark alleys, lurking fear at every street corner, suspicious looks. We forget what might go right for them - they may turn into a successful entrepreneur, be even more close to their families, regain their lost faith in religion, have peace of mind, turn into nature lovers. Maybe we could add one more to the list of frustration - pessimism.

idiot

2009-12-27T05:44:00.000-08:00

Met a college friend for lunch - talked about 3 idiots and 5 pt smone. met a friend for coffee, talked about 3 idiots and 5 pt smone. it brought quite a few flashbacks. i realize, when i remember now, the times that used to be, there are only specific things that remains in your mind - and those are not the ones that were meant to be remembered - like music, like coffee hangouts everyday, like samosas, like ramblings - it was an everyday affair - always available, always free. Free stuff then are so precious now and dreams of then are so in vain.

ponder:

what goes through your mind when you see a child? (a lot)

three things that will stay with me today/thank you-s for:

good coffee - i still love good coffee

a nice talk

hubby

i miss:

music

a wild run - till my cheeks go hot

counting the stars

its been ages i have gazed at the sky. i still remember the excitement we had when we realized we had found Ursa Major. it was a playful and curiosity driven thing we did after dinner which stuck as a habit - gazing the sky at night after dinner, trying to find the constellations - Cancer was the second one we figured out - if i remember correct. Bro carried a torch light and the astro book from the library and that was it - under a clear winter sky. Stars twinkled and we shivered but we loved it. Every time i go to the library, as if by habit i browse over to Astronomy - forget what i was looking for and skip it. i have forgotten many things - and this is one of them. maybe, tonight i will go up to the terrace with a blanket on my back and gaze at the stars - i will try to find aquarius maybe - its the right month if i am not wrong. Maybe i wouldn't figure it out at the first go - but i will sleep tight thinking - at least i tried.

A good time

2009-12-21T01:54:00.000-08:00

five months is a good time for a new blog post - no i did not think so and no, that is not why i am here.

i am here because i got the time. i got the time to ramble on - on my own. i need two days of bandh to finally go to fb and update my status and go around taking status on a fren's newest updates...

no, i am not that bg, just a lil laid back - not doing things right - maybe or just not interested.

'people interest me', i was talking to a fren recently - 'but not as much to know their daily status' - we argued a while - it was interesting. You should be in HR, she said - i said - maybe not - but pray i will be.

books has always been a pal to me - they don't need a reply, no deadlines, no times fixed, no need to voice your opinion, form sentences, look for the right word, if you had slipped a wrong one in the first place, no necessity to go back and correct them, no apologies, no corrections, no nothings, books are always there to give you company - in good times and bad. Books don't say i am ignoring them if i don't return a call - don't say they are hungry or lets go for a coffee...books get worn out though - pages fall apart and in few cases if you re-read them after years, you could get a different meaning altogether from it.

we all have our idiosyncrasies...our little rules for ourselves... aquarians are known for too many rules they make for themselves and known to stick to them..one, i have for myself is i don't re-read a book - one, because like a painting, it gives a different dimension every time you go back to it. two, who's got the time. three, i don't know, i just get too bored too quick with one thing. My husband gives me a weird look when i say that, ''except you'' i reassure him - he's gorgeous.

it's good to be rambling again...wish i had the time and the energy to do it more often...few things i had wanted to write about today which i would not be writing is about the sheer incapability of our leaders to direct this beautiful country to a path of prosperity, mother-in-laws, and oranges. will take these up in later posts definitely.

The July

2009-07-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Slipped birthdays. Hustle bustle of the pratice squeezed into an already busy day! Its amazing how so many things can still squeeze into that 24 hours and you thought you were the busy one.

This seems outdated when i see my husband spend hours at the facebook.

One more movie, few pages of the book i carry, an article, one more phone call, one more dish conjured...it will settle in somewhere between that busy schedule, so will these words.

13Tzameti

2009-07-04T05:02:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me to pronounce it.

From the subtelties of finer emotions. This one takes you to the death seat. How would you feel with a gun pointed on your head?

after a long time

2009-03-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Don't remember when i wrote my last one and don't know when i will be back for the next. Cannot trace in my memory what i wrote last, and can't say what words will flow next. It is like the changes happening these past few years, plucked from one side of the street to the other, one bosom to another, one JD plus many. Life seems to have taken a tumble, a fun one - a frivolous one and at the same time a serious one, which one camouflaging the other is hard to say. Discovering new people, experimenting simple but new dishes, finding unused soup spoons in never-opened drawers, entering a strange side of the world, being married - just hoping for another new beginnning - this one has been too good - touchwood. Bonds made stronger, energy renewed, new hopes and promises, ambitions grow and so does the mind. Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. Why does a person - no, why do i need this strange hour to freshen up the mind? Is it because there is no chaos around? is it because the only sound there is - is the barking of dogs - incessantly far faraway in some unseen corner of the world, as if it is a 'figment of my imagination' - ah, this one is from rata-tu-e - wish i knew how to spell it.

Things happen so fast, it is difficult to record the emotions that come with it.

But it is nice to be here after such a long time - i have always liked corners i guess.

More later, definitely.

One more Tihar

2008-10-25T01:26:00.000-07:00

The rice is soaked and dried... flour made and soon we will make rotis for Tihar...
one more that will never end...
coz it will come again another year.
it is here to stay...with the lights and the fun
the crackers and the diyas...
here is one more tihar ...
let's celebrate one more tihar with the sun.

GFC

2008-10-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

Will the Global Financial Crisis affect Nepal?
When few CEOs shared their views on this, some were of the view that Nepal is safe from the GFC, it would not trickle down to this level, others were of the view that the effect will be to the extent of spillover from India - through our trade with the country. Still others, whom i found more realistic said that Nepal is not and cannot be decoupled from the rest of the world. How can it be decoupled? How cannot something that shook the rest of the developed world, affect us? Are we an independenlty standing...self-sufficient country? No, we are not. We live on trade, breathe on grants, loans and aids. We are at evey nook and corner, at every turn of development, closely linked with US, UK, Japan, Europe and ofcourse the emerging markets - India, China, Middle East and the like.

Ofcourse, the NEPSE stock exchange is not governed by the normal ways of stock markets. It is said just a few hot shots can make or break a stock. I believe these rumors.

So, the next question is to what extent will the GFC trickle effect be in a country like Nepal?
and are we ready to whatever happens in its name?

go green

2008-07-09T08:48:00.001-07:00

i sometimes have vertigo thinking about the eco system, sustainability issues and the environment - you know the trees and the plant and the whole set of eco system animals and the jungles that are part of it and the plastic bags and the sights of them strangling penguins and seagulls and choking snakes.
no, i didn't think too much about it to get vertigo. my brain is too tiny, any attempt at starting it gives me dizziness.
use the right electric lamps. use less energy emitting equipments, walk the ride - get a bicycle, get your cars decarbonized, plant vegetation around your home and workplace.
reject plastic bags as much as you can - reuse them at least if you can't completely refuse them.
it's all about reusing, refusing, renewing and recycling.

the hook

2008-07-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

working is an addiction. not working as in working. but working as in holding a job. look at a 60 year old who is to retire and he is still looking for job to hold him, irrespective of whether he needs the money that comes with it or not. no, he just needs a job to hold him straight, to keep him tight and to give him a purpose - a purpose to fill his day, a purpose to eat and to drink and to give him a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction - to give him a purpose to live. there are just a few like my dad i guess, who are rather happy to get the much awaited free time. so for five years, he had had a free time now, and i don't know a happier person to be free than him. he was literally awaiting his retirement, to get some time to wile away and that he did very leisurely. he loves to read - a page from here, a paragraph from there and such. he loves to write a page today and page tomorrow. he loves to sketch - a stroke here a stroke there. he loves to eat - whenever he wants. i am enjoying life you see he says with a philosophy book in hand, a nice cup of tea by his side, legs stretched - why the rush after all - what is there to be gained? he is an avid reader of philosophy - radhakrishnan being his favorite - more to eastern thought than western religion. he is the least interested person i have seen for making money - that sets all the tooth in the wheel right i guess. time for me to get a good sleep after a day's running. goodnight fellas.

home again

2008-07-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

home is where your heart is.
i got stuck in age of reason by sartre.
its a sad story. but a reasonable book i guess.
i am yet to reach the end, what does matheiu do?

after listening to a person like sushmita who has scaled the everest with 9 others is an inspiration. hats off to the courageous lady!
if you don't know who sushmita is, she is the courageous and daring lady who organized a mission to take 9 other ladies to the top of everest. ladies from various backgrounds, who had never thought they'd ever scale any mountain.

let us not talk about the inflation and the rising food prices and the price of oil. it is inescapable anywhere. so your ears should be stuffed with these news articles everywhere.

thoughts for today -
deficiency of vitamin D creates osteoporosis (i don't think that's how you spell it). anyways, so i tried to check the source of vit D. all i could find is the sunlight. and got pretty frustrated, for one who is within the enclosures of the office wall 12 hours a day, sunlight is a pretty scarce thing to consume for vit D. so lemme know any natural food that could give me that extra Vit D.

If one is bored with the drag hindi or english movies, alfred hitchcock is the answer. put on one of his hundreds of directions and you is sure for an entertained evening. he is damn good. What a person! what a director!

welcome back!

2008-07-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

this is a welcome back to me as well.
after marriage and a long long break from the world of blogs and bloggers, i have to welcome myself back to this screen which i doubt anyone reads at all.
so by sense of pity to this lonesome existence of satelliteblue, i decided to continue it.
did i tell you about my verandah?
well, i had always wanted a verandah to my room, why? because you definitely see one in one of those hindi movies you so much cherish as a child. so, the sequences the lead actor and the actresses have on verandah is quite classic ones running from dilip kumar, romeo juliet to the modern day shahrukh blowing kisses or...that's all modern i got. no updates on the movies beyond shahrukh. no i don't recognize the hundreds of new faces that have cropped up in the hindi movie screen in the last one year.
so, as i was rambling about the verandah business, i had always wanted one. but now, that i have one, i don't see much use of it. this brings me to the basic fact of life, which reminds me one of my grade three readings which used to have a moral..one of the moral stories basically that it is not the objects that give you pleasure, it is how you use it. it is all in the mind.
well, i know, this sort of idealism does sound a too hi-strung to be in one of those moral stories. well, let me own up, i am not in the right frame of mind, given my headache, a hectic day and the fact that it's past eleven already and i should be up by five tomorrow. so long, don't read through this jumble. i will have cleaner one for you in a few days. so long.
and thanks vid for all those inspiring words. some times you just need one more sentence in the mail to start writing again.
happy thursdaying.
PS. is this my third wecome back blog or is it the fourth one? who cares. duh.

Ramble on

2008-01-05T22:39:00.000-08:00

Experience counts a lot. That’s what I feel and everyone else I suppose. That’s why they count experience when they give a job to some person. But with the cover, with everything artificial covering us all, we forget the gist of things. We forget that we are all just tiny living creatures on this infinitesimally small planet in the huge huge huge universe called the earth. And that our ego, our sorrows, our cries are such small specks of dust that it wouldn’t even count. It wouldn’t matter whether you wear a blue tie or a red one to that party damn it…it just wouldn’t matter. Yet it matters, because the world we live in is small and we do everything small. It pains if we have the tinniest scar. We cough when those microscopic viruses enter our system. It matters. And it leaves me bewildered – the enormity and microscopic-ism of nature!

Yet, I have a complaint when people all around just forget our smallness in the whole big picture and just remember their bigness in this small world. What scares me is that they are ignorant about the fact that it is a small world and that we are vulnerable – extremely vulnerable to the rest of the universe that is so big big big. We are living – balanced by such complicated – no where to be found resources and we brag!

We are pathetically vulnerable to the ozone and the oxygen and the water and the land. Yet we brag of the new diamond ring and the Gucci leather bag. I have a bigger car than yours and mine is a better sandal. We are lost in the world of petty things like sandals and bags, hair style and nail style, mobile phones and the latest music system – imagine!

Okay, chocolates are good. Some chocolates are v. good. Beaches are beautiful. Hiking in a cool green forest is out of the world. Wild life safari is amazing. And watching sea creatures are fascinating. And we have our own preferences when enjoying stuff – and some of them just happen to be bedecking ourselves with expensive leather goods and fur coats. When we are really into all these we forget that we are but a miniscule part of the twinkling star above us. And we sing innocently to the sibling – Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are! We fail to explain him that such a lovely twinkle but belong to a mass of various gases unimaginable to his little brain. And the little brain remains little to think of it as an innocent star of his innocent childhood.

It should be a healthy debate on how seriously we should take these issues? Should we just enjoy life – scatter plastic all around us? Dirty the rivers and lakes? Ride ac-ed cars? Or should we be a little more conscious of the Al Gore advocacy and take in the inconvenient truth?
Ramble on…

slow

2007-12-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

i look around in a blank expression.
i am too tired...no, that's not the right expression...i am too dull to use the brain.
and on these days, you find everything boring either, or look at everything with a quizzical experssion.
with the same mood, i stare at my desk as my rest my back on my chair after a daunting email.

i wonder why i have three stones on my desk.
i brought them a month back to where they dwell now, picked them up from a river bed, washed and painted them red and here they are stone-still on my desk occupying six square inches of space on my jumbled, small desk.
i wonder their significance and whether i should just put them straight in the waste bin. then, i remember i don't have the energy or rather the motivation to do so. but what are they doing on my overcrowded desk?
with the stones, i turn a lil philosophical and a lil more dull to divert my mind to existentialism. what a heavy word. why are we all here in the first place and why just question the stone?

but the mind is too heavy and passive to think anything.

maybe coffee might help, i type to shris, as the boy places a cup of hot coffee on my desk - she's in the same mood as i and sends me a one-liner.

knock-knock

2007-12-23T00:19:00.000-08:00

What a break. What a brake.
Back to work after a long exhilarating break is mind boggling - you can imagine!
Let me get back to my self before I spit out incoherent ramblings here...

pokhara - pothana and fewa

2007-11-29T03:54:00.000-08:00

Picturesque

2007-11-28T21:10:00.004-08:00

so close

2007-11-28T02:37:00.000-08:00

purano sukunda

2007-11-14T04:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Diwali! ...Pani Puri & Patiyalas

2007-11-08T02:32:00.000-08:00

Like a sudden jolt of electric current ran through her body, she woke up with a start – gosh! Where am I? she had ordered a plate of momo: the belle type with 5 kinds on a single plate. And it was there on her desk, neatly wrapped in a food wrapper. The delivery boy had also left the bill tucked under it – he should have woken me up! she murmurmed. She felt for her watch on her wrist – shit, she’d forgotten it – then instinctively glanced up for the golden Orpat beside the door – 7.15pm. She had forgotten to switch on Federer’s match again. She had slept through it. She couldn’t believe it! she had waited to watch the match all year long, and she had slept through it – she had slept through the finals of Wimbeldon and that too on such odd times of the day!! She had never before winked a nap at 5ish! It was mad!!

The feeling of disgust was showing on everything she did after that. The momo: seemed to be rotten as if her regular belle had been minced with something else. Rotten veggies maybe. She carried her back pack down the empty white stairs and through the hallway, where customers flocked by on working days. As she punched her check out card, she dumped the momo: down the wooden bin.

************************************
Outside, the sun shone bright to hit her eyes with a torturous glare. She crossed the street before a whizzing bike. The rider shouted an abusive remark to this hard-headed lady who crossed the road before a speeding motor bike – You Mad?! She got a minor sadistic pleasure at having made someone else irritated too. A plate of Pani Puri – she ordered at the counter before taking a seat beside the window. The seat was warm under her and the sun rays now hit her. She could take this for a while – just a while. Then she will have to move from this seat, it would be just too hot.

The mouth watering pani puri in front of her calmed down her mood. These broken potato filled puchkas with salted water had a different charm to her. Vanilla? 21 Love? Very very strawberry? She checked for ice cream – no-thing ma-am just butterescoh - and that’s what she had.

As she gazed out at the busy streets below, she realized that she liked a good street view while eating out alone – maybe because it gave her a feeling of engagement, maybe it gave her strings of thought for her next blog, or maybe she just liked to see people in action, or maybe she liked the variety the view of the real life window gave her as opposed to directed-blinkered TV shows. As these things were playing in her mind – it flicked channels to a lady in blue and pink patiyalas. This lady walked briskly across the street with a filmy breeze on her open long thick well-maintained hair. She noticed her shoes as she stepped out a white Toyota car – pink too. Wo! She thought – that’s cute.

With the last panipuri shoved in, she made a mental note to sew a patiyala some time this diwali – maybe she will ask her brother on bhai tika.

2bg

2007-11-07T03:20:00.001-08:00

hectic days ... are flashy days...
as in if you try to remember what you did all day...
you go blank for while...then remember bits n pieces of stuff..
and then you hate urself for trying to remember anything of the rush...
i remember the flash pen in MiB, when the men blacken out each other's memories...

Kathmandu!

2007-11-06T04:37:00.001-08:00

As i sat staring out to the busy street of NewRoad with my too burgery-burger and a fanta for a change of taste at HotBreads, i realised that quite a few customers entered the joint because of the food on the window display. It was a direct attack on the taste buds and the saliva glands - directly through a POP display of product - not a poster, not a TVC or a jingle - a yummy burger and a fresh chocolate donut on the display - why wouldn't it bring in customers?! No wonder HotBreads is a favorite!

As I was slipping myself through the every possible nook and corner of the crammed traffic at 'Indrachowk before Tihar', I saw a thick moustached taller-than-all-Nepali-around tourist (you can visualize what i mean if you have seen one)... so i saw this guy with a handycam standing right in the middle of the crossroad taking a 180 degree view of the crowd and the mess and the shops and the people and the traffic...and i thought what a great idea of showing Kathmandu to his family and friends back home! Coz whatsoever you describe to them, and the scores of photographs of the durbar square and the surrounding mountain ranges wouldn't give them the feel of kathmandu unless they see this crossroad of Indrachowk and Newroad with all the lively things going around with their own eyes...Lovely!

If you come to Kathmandu, and ask people where should you go and shop? they'd tell you either or all of these three names that pop up in our heads - ToM- top of mind - NewRoad, Thamel, DurbarMarg - - Thamel and NewRoad are quite crowded places - all year round. I had met a few Indian colleagues of mine during a training a few months back. They were quite taken back by a few strange things in kathmandu at that point in time which were evident by their questions to me - e.g. Are those long queue for petrol? (what an innocent question, i thought, ofcourse!). And of the three shopping places i suggested them, they did all the shopping while traversing from one to the next... wow! that's even wonderful.

just in rest

2007-11-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

Even in the rush of events, i started a new book a few days back... it's called 'Losing my Virginity' an autobiography of Richard Branson. Through a few pages, and m already inspired!! one of his school teachers predicted him to be either in prison or to be a millionaire...well, he got both! interesting.

Medicines from the time of Vaidya-jis are still in vogue...i could make from the long queue i saw early morning at a vaidya i recently visited...n i feared to be the only one there!

Kathmandu is definitely low-some for gambling this season seems like...

Politics is still the same..they hardly decided a thing but toss the decisions around. it's like a chess game that's never finished - and each move takes the longest hour...

Clouds have cleared up in Kathmandu skies and the sun has shown itself out...but alas we workers clog on within ac-ed rooms to wish for the open and the sun...chug chug chug...we don't need no education... ... we don't need no thought control........

n i'm free......free fallin'........

it's my brother's birthday today. Just in case he rambles to my page...here's a song for you...
Happy Berthday to you....
Happy Burthday to you...
Happy Birthday dear Arvind...Hyappy Birth....day...to you!

peace and calm

2007-11-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

Sunshine and bright days...so good to see.
A little more peace of mind...no harm in it.
Political situation yet not solved, it reins heavy in mind.

milk shake

2007-11-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

long time no writing.
no that's not true. i have been scribbling smthng or the other but nothing worth in the least publishing here... or i was just too lazy to come to the site.
the earthshaking quake was of quite significance of what has happened in kathmandu recently. i was at my comp staring at the screen when i got the jolt. then as i lifted my head in awe, i saw the 2by3 glass decorative frame on the wall sway.
i was choked to shout earthquake! even, but we came out of the floor in unison.
as i rushed out of my table to a safe corner, all i could think of was carrying my mobile set with me. 'i need to contact my family and friends, just in case', i thought. at these flick of seconds in life, we decide the prioritizes in our life. so true.

Manjushree Thapa

2007-10-17T02:01:00.001-07:00

I surfed through the New Book’s row at Pilgrims hoping to surf by past as usual. My eyes stopped still on Tilled Earth. I took it out – Manjushree Thapa – short stories – impressive. I dilly-dallied for a while, my mind oscillating – should I buy it? should I not?

It reminded me of my college day temptations to buy every new book I saw. I smiled at myself and swiped the card – why not when I can afford it – it’s our own writer after all!

Manjushree Thapa is at her best in Tilled Earth, a collection of stories written over many years. The stories give a feel of reading one of Lahiri’s stories from – Interpreter of Maladies- not that the stories are similar but it gives the same satisfaction of having peeped into a new life and known a new person – it takes one through the subtle nuances of feelings and emotions an individual goes through. My appreciation for her work may have come from the thrill I felt every time I could empathize with one of the characters in a familiar locality – be it NewRoad or Thamel.

Even the shortest story of the collection will leave the reader with a chain of thoughts. And each story will open up a new set of characters for you to ponder into a different realm, a different aspect of Nepal.

5.30 g.w. muses

2007-09-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's been ages i guess since i woke up early morning.
well, got a buzz from shris at 5.15 and i was at the comp eroding my brain at 5.30.
it reminded me of college days and much before that of school days when we used to read the same chapter 15times. Guess why we did that? Maybe to remember for a long time that there are two major ways how a cell can multiply - mitosis and meiosis - it's weird i remember them - and i doubt whether the information is correct. But it's surely early morning studies that stuck those two words in my mind like a post-it note.

The fresh air - nah, the fresher air is the better description - fresh air has become a rare commodity. The scientist guys should next go for fresh air refills in rooms. hmm...
ya, so the morning air and that particular chilly smell and the chirping birds. Well, those of you who are early risers would be bored to death by this blog. But i doubt there are many - one, who read this blog, two, early risers among those few who read this blog. Well, this reminds me of another of those vernacular diagrams we used to make early mornings - sets and subsets and upturned Us and downturned Us and Es - belongs to, doesnot belong to, is a subset of ...blah blah...where have those days gone? days when you read and wrote stuff which never brought you any money. Strange days, but what lovely days.

I have never craved to see the range of himalayas upnorth from the bowl that this Kathmandu is. The clouds are here for longer and for some reason i find them thicker-impenetrable. With dashain just two weeks away, it's still raining - sad. Global Warming. and this time it's the real global warming. Not of those wayward reasons of global warming mothers give- i have a stomach ache- global warming! i use more gas to cook than i used to - must be global warming! cookies don't taste as good - g.w.!

Jokes apart, the al gore documentary was pretty powerful in driving home the message. not just the content, but the way he presents the gravity of the situation is amazing. I still remember the lift he took to reach to the peak of the graph to show the levels of pollution, and the flight over the poles to show how they are melting - and melting fast.

Anyways, enough of early morning thought processes for now - my brains already need a rest. My brain gets tired quicker than it used to - you know the reason - global warming!

pink

2007-09-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

Long time back, I had a blog about whites.
Today it’s about pink…not all pinks…
Pink health and pink floyd kinds you know…
Not exactly pink shoes and pink lipsticks coz they are not my kind
Pink highlighters and water color tubes may be…
But not pink picture frames or pink handbags…I don’t carry them.
Pink sky is a beautiful sight definitely but a pink toothbrush will look too delicate.
We used to have an English teacher, who used pink chalk-sticks to teach us,
And another one who used to treat us with pink strawberry ice-creams…not that it is my favorite flavor…
Sweet pink and dazzling pinks are different - one is like a soothing hot water bath and the other like prickly cold water bath.
Pink are flowers –naturally beautiful, not like black – unfriendly and dark.
Pink are open and friendly – could never hide a secret or conspire against anyone.
Pink t-shirts are a lovely sight…got a gift recently by a pink personality – the kinds that are open and friendly, wise and beautiful, fair and nice, sweet and good.
Pink are for love. Pink’s for friendship. Pink’s for soft. Pink’s for girls – you know the kind – pink for girls, blue for boys…blah blah…
Pink transparent file folders.
Pink ink would be weird nah…unless it’s amongst the legally blond type pink girls..who used pink laptops and pink feathery caps and pink strap around their poodles.
Pink remind of few people. Pink reminds me of cuteness. It reminds me of the scores of pink sarees and pink kurta-salwar and pink nice shoes. And pink sneakers and pink ball point pens and pink erasers and pink five rupee note and pink J-lo shades and pink lipstick stain on a wine glass. Pink nail polish, pink nose on a smiley. Pink is a rare color, coz beautiful is rare, coz freshness is rare, coz innocence is rare.
Pink is smile. Pink is passion. Oh, this reminded me of the aerosmith song…and pink is not even a question…and pink when I turn out the lights… oh ya that sexy song in his sexy voice. Pink, jinx, links, ink, kinks, sinks…
Incidentally I am wearing a dirty pink cotton full t-shirt with a v-neck at the moment, it’s a year old now, vid? She got a grey one – ditto. And we went for bright pink saree shopping last week… and mom wanted to make a gold ring with a light pink watery semi-precious stone embedded, and shris and I got pink cutie cutie slight high heeled shoes…
So pink is not that widely found…not that rare kinds either...it is there..has always been there..and will always be there...like your good old friends..you think you've lost them..but it's only until you find them...right behind you...all through.

Heartshaped box

2007-09-23T03:25:00.000-07:00

well well well...
it's been a long time... seems like love has taken it's toll ;)
feeling in love...loving n feel...
jumble of wor(l)ds... ;)

thinking about your (the) loved one gives a-tinge-of-happiness-a-tinge-of-skepticism-n-loads-of-smiles-on-your-face... :) :) :)
being vocal about 'Love' has always been 'uncomfortable' to me...and nothing has changed...
talking about vague, roundabout, 'tending to philosophy' topics has been my comfort zone and maybe it always will be....
but change is the necessity of life...and i believe we all are changing...and yes, definitely me... i am up for it. I'd register twice if someone opened up a 'change univ'.

having the right balance of thoughts, feelings and love for each other might be the trick of it...
sharing your emotions could be the trick of it...
just falling for each other desperately could be the trick of it...
hmm... but what is it exactly is the question... and we all wish we knew the logic behind that smile...that unflinching twist of pain and that uncontrollable twinkle in the eye when we think of a person... but lo! this is one zone where the logic radar goes bust and just swirl around at no particular direction...
here, i fall in love...
and rise in love i do.
there you give me a smile...
and i smile the same back to you.
distances apart we think of you,
miles away we wish...
hold my hand and let us dance...
to the tune in heart that rings.

well well well...
don't know where that came from...
anyways, here's to all the love skeptics in the world...
Just do it! Tick.

fries and ketchup...let's catch up

2007-08-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, there's a lot to be done...
scores of books to be read...tons of knowledge to be gained...
yet to be a lot wiser ... a lot matured...
need that extra practice on tt...for the match...
a little more push to complete the unfinished project...
an extra hour on that file...
one more hour of meeting...
a few more discussions...
few notices to be drafted...it's already late to be posted...
shopping with mom...catching up with dad...
kitchen needs a spruce up...
the room a good good clean...

i know there's a lot to be done...

yet i dress up cool and take that ride...
to the far faraway house below the mountains...
to take a day off...
have a leisurely lunch...
gossip nonesense... talk wild...
feel the breeze...take a snap
while the others nap...

coz my dear, it's sabbath day!

kris' place has featured twice...and it takes me by surprize everytime i go there by the mere nearness of it to the mountains... ...so close.
we lazed out in her newly furnished room, flipping channels...gossiping ...sipping coffee and tasting her hand on custard desserts. ...Hot french fries out of stove...and a lazy afternoon nap...yummy!

pineappy today

2007-08-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

one of my first memories of pineapple is drinking its juice in a dark cinema hall. i went to a movie with few of my school friends, i think it was Caravan by eric valli. still in school uniform, we were yet to have our tiffin break. but we were maintaining discipline as we did in class - not eating. i think it was during interval we heard the scuffle of packets opening up. my best friend then, handed me her usual water bottle that she carried to school. she said - mom made some pineapple juice at home - try it. i did - and i loved it. pineapple has been my favorite since then - which reminds me of the rule - first impression is half the work done - usually works for me.

the hard tough covering is quite unassuming of the soft, sweet, juicy inside it has. and the craftsmenship it takes to take off those covers is quite a game. the challenge is to waste as little of the fruity part and take off all the unedible. when i go for a pineapple today, the fruitman is quite clean to remove all the polka dots on its white surface - what he calls the 'eyes' on the pineapple.

once its hard covers are out, there are no other peels, no seeds, nothing - just the fruit n you - yummy!

i once tried pineapple rice with a friend in Boat Quay. i was quite amused when it was brought in an actual pineapple shell - interesting. the rice was a lil-pineappy-sweet too. hmm...

remember a day

2007-08-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

i usually tend to remember this place while i feel down and low, like when most of us remember god - when we are sad, and not when we are up and happy, and of no cares about rest of the world. but today is an exception. i feel good and preppy today. again that is not the absolute case . i feel definitely bogged down by work and the hectic pressure that i feel on my shoulders and the head and the brain - everywhere basically. days just roll by if you let it, and then you try to hold it but they just slip by. i try for 'activities' on my days so that they are memorable days to stay and not slip by. we went for a good solid TT practice the other day. it was after such a long time that the whole two hours in two weeks felt pretty worthwhile - of all the sweat. all three of us were at a table tennis bat after many many years - it gave us that added excitement at having found that time, energy and the bat to be playing it for solid two hours. we didn't care whether we were winning or losing or whether that cut, shot and smash were actually on the table - we just hit it. shris took us out for lunch yesterday - for no special reason and it was an awkard group - which had never lunched out together before, so it was kind of odd broken conversations all along. shris and i then decided to meet up in the evening for cliche - friendship day's sake. first, i texted her a different venue after having reached the one we decided on. then, she texted me about three times saying: you go home, i am going to be late. so after three pages of ET and an americano, i was headed home. the usual stuff after that - lot of tv, helping around the kitchen, gossip with mom, update with dad, few pages of the bedside book and the tv again before bed. that's why i say, i need activity yaar and maybe more time and energy for that . time, more than energy - otherwise, immemorable, inconsequential and 'me too', look alike days just slip by - one day after another and they turn into weeks, months and horrifying years. when we will meet up in grey hairs and wobbling tooth - i don't want to say - we should have done something to remember our days. this reminds me of a melodious floyd song - remember a day! it actually goes reee-member a day we were born - a day before today.the song is totally out of context of what i speak year. it is just the word 'remember' which triggered that song. yet another evening to spend today- hopefully a memorable one, otherwise this day passes as yesterday.

Belch it out... eeks!

2007-07-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

Droplets of rain on my eyelid...
i feel it cool and shy...

Hair loose open outstretched arms...
i will one day fly...

above the clouds, the trees...the mountains high...
where you belong...
and now i trust, so do i

all ears

2007-07-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

And the phone slips of the sweat between the ears which has gone hot of the long hour of talk. It is difficult to hold it there any longer so it is brought a little afar from the ears to just let the voice reach the ear letting some air pass in between. It is switched from one ear to the next as frequently as needed...
The exasperated voice is heated without any end though ...how can you say you don't understand me after 8 months?!
Silence at the other end...except a faint tchk tchk...tchk...tchk...
Are you at your nails again??
Silence...tchk tchk stops
How is it going to work if you just remain silent? say something..shall i cut off? You don't want to talk to me? ..........okay, we don't have to talk about this right now.....tell me, how was work yesterday................................hello?
Click.
Hello?? Damn!
I don't like him yelling at me on the phone, so I put it down...it relieved me of the hot burning sensation...the air cooled down my ear. The ear rings were loosened up too....so I took it off...meticulously, not to drop it where I can't search it again. I wiped cleaned my ear lobes, returned my ~kerchief neatly folded to my coat pocket...and put on the rings again...first left then right. Hm..neat.
Who was it on the phone your food's all cold come in and eat...
It was mom - all in one breath.
On the table there was rice with dal and aloo.
Hm......Contemplatively I took two sliced cool pieces of cucumber from the platter and took it to my still warm ears. Hmm...it felt cool. After a while the cucumber and the ear were the same temperature. The pieces now warm, felt unhygienic…I placed them beside my plate, took my mobile and dialed his number. I got to see you, I need to talk to you, I said, in half an hour at the café, you gonna be there? Finally! Sure honey, I am all ears.

heavy clouds all around...mountain lust green

2007-07-26T00:11:00.000-07:00

It's lunch time!
The little of a writer I am, I had decided to write something of my experience at college a few weeks back for my own memory sake of which I am scarce. I started on a fresh sheet of paper and wrote 8 pages straight when I was interrupted for my supper, after which I have not gone back to it. I would not have mentioned this thing had i not come across this very nicely written blog on writing. It's called the REAL Writing Life, and the blogger, author of a few bestsellers, offers suggestions on writing. One strong take for me was that the writer has to be obsessive with his writing - be it the plot, the story, the words, or the sentences. This obsession will take the writer to its completion. Being obsessive to the end - while writing seems the most difficult part, at least for me. Somewhere I had read that V.S. Naipaul used to write for the sake or satisfaction of writing - not for anything else...he used to frame expressions and descriptions on his way back from work because beautiful expressions, sleek descriptions are the heart of literature..when it touches you at the level of Art, I think a literary piece is successful.

**********************
I have no skills. That is what I think. I cannot play a sport. I cannot write. I cannot draw or paint. I am not a computer freak. I can't drive, I don't have a good figure and I can't sing. I don't play an instrument either. Sometimes I think about myself and say to me and those ears around - I am pathetic. Had it been my younger brother around, he would have been quite satisfied to hear this. He'd have added - I told you so! But as my boss once mentioned to me confusedly, who likes to take opinion on many things...you have that....knack....to sense. He was reflective and I was reflective at that point of time - on me. Being reflective on oneself with someone else by your side doing the same thing is a different experience I realized, because these occasions are rare, as least for me. Well that was it...i don't remember any concrete outcome of the reflection because that was not our objective, the objective was to kill time ... to think of something ..anything.
**********************

It's been raining now and then...now and then....to the point that you forget whether it rained yesterday or not. Many people are ill because of it. The weather takes a heavy toll on the moods of people whether we accept this fact or not. Some people like it, some don't. The heavy mood is on. Whatever one looks at looks heavy..starting from the clouds, the mountains, the leaves and trees, the wet birds, soaked dresses, hair, buses, cars, and mobikes, slippers, tyres, window panes, umbrellas....everything is soaked...heavy...filled.

Leap it up!

2007-07-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

Well well.......
a long time wish come true......

I went bungy!!

how boring a post could be on bungy without any pics?!

It was great fun though!

How did I feel? The first leap from the edge of the hanging bridge was the most exciting...
and then you feel the land leaping at you from below...for 4 secs everything whizzes past you and your world is upside down - literally.

You hang there for half a minute or so....all you see and hear is the river down - down below...
I had an urge to shout after i took the leap and when i was down there swaying on the rope.....so i shouted ..WOHoOOOOOOO!!!!!!......apparantly no one heard me coz the onlookers see you till you take the leap and half way through.....then they wonder where are you....or how would they feel....

Fly me away... color me...

2007-07-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

Birds remind me of freedom...independence...

Of smokes and all the upwards pollution..

It takes me to its nest...its home..cozy n comfortable...

Of dependence...of hunt and of worms...

The songs...the nature...the trees...

Colorful birds, Birdpark.

and the memories remain...

2007-07-06T05:09:00.000-07:00

2007-07-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

A shorty one today:

A project that was with me for more than a month is off my desk today.....
Wish i could share the relief i felt when the Send button was hit off my boss' comp.....

Lu ta....... Ciao......

Music of your life

2007-07-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

Vid tells me to write about Spacing Out.

And luckily, I am not spaced out today.
Shris is angry with me for the 'sticky business'...
She says why do you need the sticks?! Shall i try it to when i get frustrated?
Well, I can't explain it to her.

She called a while ago...she was literally angry on the phone....
I said, Now, you going to bang the phone down on me aren't you?
And she did! Interesting.

A lots of 'fwded mails' day today. But very very busy with piles of work, so i kept passing them on to the list of people without even reading complete a few of them. But the Smart MBAs' fwd was interesting, where the four students who's taken an excuse of a flat tire are put in different rooms for the re-test. The question is ...which tyre went bust? haw...haw...good one.

My comp at home went dead yesterday ... the only msg that came as i powered it in was smthing to do with boot device...so as a comp unfriendly person, i thought the whole thing had gone for a toss. I had given hope on all the songs, my article collections, book collections, other stuff collected over the months...

Bro somehow revived it.... and i knew what i would have lost so i played music on the comp for the rest of the night and all this morning too - Satriani all along.

It rained today. I didn't realize it coz i got no window where i sit....
But without caring that my boss was right behind me, i just stared out the window when i got the chance and it was so beautiful.... .......rain drops on the green leaves, trickling rushing umbrellas, squeaking shoes, pittary pattary drops on the roof...
it brought back to my mind the wet kurta i had been drenched in a few days back...... and i shivered of the cold i felt then.

Amidst humming computers and uninterruptible power supplies, we forget to drench in the rain and feel the sun.

RU mad?!

2007-07-02T00:59:00.000-07:00

How to use: Are you mad?!

This particular expression is to be followed by your mouth open and it should be held open for at least three seconds. It should be accompanied by eyes wide open, preferably with both palms wide open at the target in front of you.
For more lasting effect, use it at the person beside you while you are at the wheels, driving a vehicle at top speed so that the passenger – i.e. your target gets the jolt of their life. If you are a lady and if you have longish hair profile, ruffled open hair is the best get up, which gives the whole set up a mad look to gel with your poignant expression.

The stress should be on the last word – Mad. It goes: Are – you- ma-AD?!
Okay, so you are ready for the mirror test now.

Face the mirror and follow it step wise….there you go…….Are you Mad?!
You can get it right – Are you Ma-AD?! Try it once more…

When to use: When you feel that the other person is mad, and you want a confirmation on the same from that person. However, too frequent use of this expression on one particular individual is guaranteed to make the person Mad.

Pink 32

2007-07-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

When you tread too deep, it hurts.
My life as a shoe...no one empathises...
when i stare out of the window shop, when i shine and smile, a little girl winks at me and smiles at my pink skin.

Ma.....pink!!
she says - very cutely...
Ma...pinky..pinky ...i want pinky shoes.
The Ma looks hefty, deadly.
If the Ma would slip me in, i'd be dead to dust.

But she is not that kind of Ma.
She let the little girl slip me in and her feather like little feet were so cute.
But she was in that growing up age when her feet would get bigger with her, so she would have to get a bigger me even though i was the best match. I acted as big as possible, swear to God, but she would just fit me. Not a millimeter of space, just fitted me so well...

Thurty-for.. The Ma said .... 34! i shrank. And i went to my cozy lil space on the window stand waving bye to all the shoes in the boxes with their big fat numbers on them....
38! 39! 40! ....fat assess! and such dull colors...grey, blacks and whites....
I was the prettiest of them ... pink with a white bow. White bow. Hmm...cute.

As i sat brooding on my usual stand, i saw the 34 swinging with the little girl... pinky, she said, so sweetly. My days are passing by, i wink once in a while to little girls to catch their attention, oh, why does the feet get bigger with age!

2007-06-29T22:41:00.000-07:00

We went to Kris' place. We took a cab through the thick stubborn traffic. It took us about half an hour. The surrounding mountains were getting closer and closer. Shris said, now we walk. So, we started walking towards the mountains. Nagarjuna was right atop us, but she would not say we have reached Kris' new house, we just kept on walking towards the mountains. I kidded – don’t tell me we need to go behind those mountains.

After a long long walk passing all the houses and the enquiring faces along the path, she says…I think we are on the right track. We still kept on walking and after another 10 mins she says…the tracks and the surrounding are changed, but I think we are on the right track because there is not other road near here. So, we kept on walking until we bumped our heads to the mountain, and we reached Kris’ new home.

Was I surprised when I went on her terrace!
If I stretched my hand… I could have touched the green mountains... It’s a half hour trek to Ichangu Gumba, Kris said behind me. I could see three layers of mountain…and the almost full Moon just above the Swayumbhu’s Danda. Gorgeous place to be boss…just behind, you could rest on the mountains to see the Ktm valley rolled out in front of you.

In the same city, yet far away, it was a separate world to be in. I am definitely making a second trip to Kris place!

2007-06-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

(Soft Music) Sorry, the number you have dialled cannot be reached at the moment, pls try again later.....

Hi, I am out of office on July 2nd. I will get back to you on the 10th. For any urgent issues, pls contact Ms. XYZ.

MEN AT WORK

Wet, Do not Step

HTTP smth smth Error:Page Not Found
This page is under repair
Sorry for the inconvenience

Lunch Break 1:00 to infinity

THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING

Dodge this!! (shoot gun)

kris

2007-06-29T02:29:00.000-07:00

We are to visit a new friend today.
New friend as in one who is made recently.
She has a new house built. She has gone to the details of choosing the color of tiles for the bathroom, she buys her own door knob and the color for different rooms.
I plan to visit her today with Shris who has been accompanying her to few of her shopping trips.

It seems a little out of context for kids in mid 20s to be hopping around hardware store asking for door knobs and bolts, paint, paint brushes and white cement. She was involved upto the brick-wala, the rod-wala to the roda-wala.

Well well, with a kid on hand and a pressured hectic job all day long, that is hell of a task to accomplish when the hubby's on duty to some other country.

Kudos to Kris!! through humble reach of my blogpost....

Writing Kris reminds me of the flying Krissh.. hmm....

wonder

2007-06-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

i smtimes wonder at the various perspectives in life there and how how how little we know about it......
the tininess of man's mind to store, understand, comprehend and analyze knowledge on one hand and the vastness of man's mind as in - 'the brain is wider than the sky' on the other hand.... amazes me to the two distinctly opposite relative quality of the same thing............

philosophy starts with wonder...someone had said...
it is the questioning mind... philosophy is the start and end to any faculty of knowledge...
it exists and starts beyond the realm of all knowledge.... it is metaphysical...transcendental....
whist some say philosophy is a past time of the idle mind... it's about inconsequential discussions...
here too is a distinctly opposite perception of the same subject....
i wonder.

tired

2007-06-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

the pencil case stands grey
with all the pencils to be sharpened...looking fray..

will you not sharpen me to the sharpest lead...

hya.....

too tired to think anything...
too tired to write anything...

days and days gone by..to you..
what do i get at the end?

experience?

Spools of thought

2007-06-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

There are times when you feel that the whole world is against you. We feel conscious of how we dress, what we wear, what we speak and how we behave in front of and with others. And there are times when you are in the mood to damn care of the world that surround you - oblivious of it, you do what you like. These are the times when you feel a breeze of freedom to taste what your palate likes and to be amongst people that you love. Lots of thing brings this second stage of mind at play. Being in love, reading some spiritual writings, reading philosophy, having a level of consciousness from all these things and of course a little thought - common sense.

However, there is one thing that binds us to the first fear of being conscious of the world at large. It is the bonding that we have in this world by way of association to various people and the liking and the loving we have for each other. I need this job, thus, I need to dress correctly, speak correctly and smile correctly, coz if I don't then I could lose this job which would mean I will not be able to give my loved one what I promised. Now, if the love, like or the attachments hadn't been there at the first place, all the other further attachments brought from it would have been spared.

This brings me to another spool of thought. If we like each other, why is there a necessary element of expectation? He loves me, thus he will do this for me, he will buy me this, he will say this or wear this or see this or be this. If we all love, like or have acquaintances without any expectation, without any ifs and buts, I believe my first two paragraphs would stand in vain. If we are all able to love and like each other without any expectations, without the obligations and the feeling of being bound to a relationship, the meaning of everything else would change I guess.

Relationships, love, liking for each other - should be capable of setting you free, and not binding you. Expectations are one strong reason that gives the feeling of burden to a relationship. Possessiveness is another factor, I think. It makes a relationship strenuous. A father being possessive of a daughter, a girlfriend of a boyfriend, a sister of her brother, a master of its pet, is a hindrance to feeling free and loving in its pure sense.

silver

2007-06-20T05:27:00.000-07:00

smone Chinese thinker had said......
those who know do not speak.
those who speak do not know.
hm...
thought provoking.

the politics of the country is going for a toss surely,
with fuzzy statements like the ones our PM make.
and with all the haywire vibes that is coming out of the alliance.
hopefully the elections happen as stated, and let us expect a frutiful budget.
that's about it for now on that front. Wish we could help. We are helping in someway, that's what i feel.....by doing whatever we do.

BBC is gaga about happiness this month.... which reminds me of a prjt we undertook to gauge happiness during college days. like always i think i will end up watching the promos and not the actual program on BBC...

i smhow picked up a bk on Lenin sterday nite - midnite to be exact. it's interesting... how he got into the mainstream after his brother was hanged. He was just 23.

last week i opened my drawer after long .... to clean it.
to my utter disgust.....no, i didn't find baby rats as i did once.........
i found that all my silver trinklets had reacted with one of my tablets and gone black....damn! how careless .......
so, could anyone suggest how to get them back to shape? .....shining? would be a gr8 help to see them white.

Not just talking

2007-06-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes i feel i will never ever learn the art of communication.

Art... yes, i truly believe it's an art because more I think of communicating it right, the more hotch-potched it becomes and I end up with a potpourri of juggled thoughts in both my and the receiver's mind.

Practice does help. But i believe good communication comes naturally to a person. Some people just relate to you and the mass and all the people without much effort - or so it seems.

While some like me, just fumble at the next call or the next presentation or the next meeting and an encounter or a compliment or the next thank you and the next sorry - to mumble at myself post the whatever encounter, that i could have or should have said something else, reacted somehow differently or used this word or that...and it's useless basically at that point of time. Because situations like these occur at 'the' moment and 5 minutes later, you are back with the audience wondering how you spoke or the handset is down and you go back to the conversation to ruminate whether you used the right words. I said sorry to a colleague of mine and after the whole episode it seemed to me that it was not enough and that i sounded a lil arrogant or my posture was not right.

On hindsight it seems i should have thought of 'how to do it' beforehand...but it's just not practical and possible to do it for every meeting you gonna encounter on way to the restroom.

It's a frequent thing of mine at the lunch table of the variety of people i meet - how am i to start the conversation, and once i start it how to end it?

I don't think this is a common issue for all and i am fed up of talking the weather and the movies with every other person i meet.

More so, i wonder at, and pity the people around me :)

chit-chat

2007-06-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

okay!

so dear tell me what's up.

where shall i start my talk?
what would you talk to a person that knows everything about you....
has known you since maybe 10yrs...
you live in the same town and work at the same joint......

you basically see each other grow each day...inch by inch...
yet you will talk to each other.........

okay!
dear so tell me...what's up?

with coffee and a muffin in a tray i walk through the spread of others in queue...
here we are... did you want anything else? i thought you'd like muffin.....
because you know, i like muffin.....warm - heated - muffin.....
and there is that silly smile on the face.....forced out on her face.... basically....
which means why the courtesy when you do it your way.......

okay dear,
so tell me, what's up?

how was the movie.....did you like it? she is sipping coffee so i presume she doesn't have the time to speak.
i fill in for her....
personally, i didn't like it.....the second half was pathetic.....
the starting had signs of a different hindi movie...the concept of superman and diana and lara speaking french....but it's pathetic...btw how did you like it?

she was now busy with the muffin so i thought let's move into something else...
you havent' told me how you like my new bag....
i was looking for a brown one....but this green is different, isn't it?
i don't know i have this fascination for green...
many people say...it's a sign of jealousy...but i think it is just the color of nature....
so unassuming.....

and, you wanted to have an ice cream too didn't you?
but, with coffee...it wouldn't go that well....nah?
why not we have a pastry instead?

blackforest? i think that's your favorite too...huh?

two blackforests please....

okay dear tell me.......what's up?

ah, she is speaking finally. but she is too good.
She said - nothing. you tell me.

What pleasure!

disarrayed thoughts

2007-06-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Do you have the urge to tear apart and see what's inside this screen in front of you?

Would you like to go in-in-inside the electric wires to see how the electricity actually flows?

I would love to see the electric impulses passing through the brain cells as a person thinks........

It would be well nice......

Sorry

2007-06-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

In anguish and pain you moan to me,
I strive hard to listen --
Silence I see
Whispers I feel
Pitch black is what i hear
Hello?

I pain to unfathom the meaning of you,
I strive to understand the whispers and clue.

Which language you speak, my friend to me?
What words you say that strike empty ears?

A new thought dawns on me --

Maybe it's me, not you at fault-
I have been rather deaf all along.

Contemplation

2007-06-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago i used to have this thought -
that when someone wants to go away from you for some reason......
i should let that person go.....
because i always thought it is a temporary drift...a common phenomenon with everyone...
and if we have a very strong bonding between us...nothing will change.

This has changed in the last few days, i guess.
I feel I am shaken from within.... i feel more scared of losing a dear one....
and i suddenly realize that it makes you weak.

Love makes you weak. Ties make you weak.

But that should not be the reason we should stop loving, i guess.
Confusion.

FD

2007-06-12T04:42:00.001-07:00

Frustrating Day!

arm for a canvas :) my last week hobby...

2007-06-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Bride

2007-06-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well..................
So it seems i didn't wish someone on her b'day.......damn!
Anyways, here's a small write up i sent for her sometime back...
Many people have commented on these...but i have not had the energy, time and the will to change what i first wrote.....so, here's 'the bride' for you.......on the Bride's Birthday.......
Happy B'day dear!

The Bride

I attended one of my friend's wedding for the first time ever. Not that I have not attended any marriages, nor is it that none of my friend's got married and I have not attended any of them. I have attended quite a few weddings of my friends. But this is the first time I ever stayed the whole full fledged damn week with her – before, during and after her marriage – day in and day out. In a sense, it was one my longest social excursions to the so called society and people – and the world of uncles, aunts and grandmoms and granddads. Rituals, rules, respect, norms were staple and I can't deny that I missed my independence quite a many times during my five day stay there.

Among the many things I realized, like the complicacy of the food and the various levels of relationships that exist in a big extended family, the extent of expenditure and preparation one has to make, the most exalting thing that dawned on me was – How one could know everything about a person during her marriage. I realized that if one has to really know a person inside out, see her in all colors of life – it is this one occasion that gives you the opportunity. I will never forget this friend of mine because I saw her through the most important, the most extensive event of her life. I saw every bit of her. I saw her in her deepest distress – when her mother fainted. I saw her in her best moods – with her beloved on the phone– with her see-you-soon tone. I saw her dance and I heard her sing. I saw her early mornings and midnights. I saw her gobble and weaken through a fast. I saw her choose her best clothes and pick the jewelries. I saw her being blessed by her parents and saw her give untiring smiles to end number of neighbors – whom she had never met and whom she knows she will never meet again. I saw her cry on leaving her two lovely sisters behind and I saw her yearn for some more chowmein – that she so loves. I saw her spend – and restrain. I could feel the love in her, the irritation and her nervousness. She wished for something she could not have, she gave away what she treasured.

Myriad of colors, mixture of sweet scents, and mosaic of joyous emotions – it is all about marriage. People, people and more people. Best of food and drinks, dazzling lights, and scintillating music– laughter, extravagance, space, energy and jubilance – it's all about marriage. Amongst this crowd and clamor, chaos and order, it is just one person among all, who goes through extreme emotional stages in such a short period of time, such a drastic and dramatic change – to be uprooted from one family, one culture, one place, and one surrounding to a new world – and it is the Bride. To be the only friend of the bride throughout her marriage is one experience I would never forget. I would never forget this girl who went off crying – in her best dress she wore for her best man. At the end of it all, I had seen it all.

When I picture her today, I ask myself – what else do I need to know about her when I have known her this close? Surprisingly, I get my answer in an instant.

What I know – what I think I understand – is a bride. Bride – I smile at myself, bride - reflection of everything new and fresh – bride – the beginning of a new journey and a new life, a new family, novel surroundings, fresh thoughts, emerging emotions. All my pride and satisfaction of having known a person so deep fizzles out in seconds.

I realize what I saw in the Bride – were questions she reflected in her nervousness, the joys for being so near to the answers, dances and songs for a better and beautiful life, emotions for treading into the unknown, fear of losing the identity she has. But I have not known the person after the beginning. I have not opened the book but its cover. Is she still scared and nervous? Is she happy with her new life and the new found love? Has she made new friends, did she miss her family and her two lovely sisters? Does she belong? Has she found herself? Was all the jubilation worth it after all? Has she found the answers to all her apprehensions, and is she happy? Flick of a thought, I feel as if I am starting a new thriller book, or the latest movie released.

Bride – I scoff myself – and I thought I understood her!

mindless thoughts

2007-06-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

bogged down with work...
too much oily eating...
too much i-scream..u-scream...all of us scream....
too much ice-cream

shouting slogans atop the bus...
shouting slogans burning tyres...
at a Frooti Dharna karyakram...

waiting for the phone to ring...impatiently...no, it wouldn't ring...
oh! had to call someone...

'runaway' feels creeping in.....where to?
only available place is the restroom or beneath your own desk....
okie, have asked out a fren for lunch...
thoda fagging....very little eating...

June!
'She was born on first of june...that's why she is called Juni,
didn't you wish her on her b'day?'
wot?!

civilizational confinemnets.... a person has too many affiliations...
it is not just to judge a person on one strong affiliation...hmm....
religion, caste, creed, color of skin, part of the world...
like a muslim or an asian or a hindu or a women or a greek or american or bong..

'all the whites are white due to de-pigmentation, you know that nah?'
hmm..

'so why are they thought to be superior..? they don't have better brains than asians?'
no idea.. let's not talk racial stuff ... okay?
'hmm.. ... ... had your lunch?.. .. too oily food nah?'
hmm... n masala..lots.

crazy times

2007-06-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

If you think what you were 10 years ago.... can you become that person now?

No.

Why?
Because you have replaced that person that was there 10years ago.
You are where you were 10years ago.

It is not the time that is moving..........
it is you...who are changing.

There is - no time.
There is just one time - that is now.

You change but you refer to the time as change.

wot?
think about it.

ramble on june

2007-06-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

****!

I wrote a long post before this... under the same title...

Just when I started to enjoy writing it, p!ok! I pressed some unwanted keys on the keyboard and the whole damn post disappears not to be found listed anywhere!! Great... how dumber can I get...!!

I was basically rambling about my friends in that write up....

It’s so pathetic....

And the economy of Nepal in general....
On how the so called 'optimists' see the economic happenings as a new start and stuff....
i don't see where the new start is, when the petrol lines get longer by the day, and the huge debts yet to be paid back to IOC...

I may sound a perfect pessimist here...but the garment production units shifted to nearby India have taken away quite a thousand jobs with them...

Market growth's likely to be down-forecasted.... inflation is likely to go up and up....

No, we don't yet have a stable government in place...

The only hopeful industry at a glance seems to be Tourism...even with a double digit growth over last year, i don't see a great thing there...the base was already so low...

All I see quite disappointingly is a group of travelers all set to start their journey... fumbling with a compass on their palm! Let alone, know the direction. So, whoever's had the conception or misconception that the economy has taken a jump start...humble request to pls rethink.

But the hopes are high yes, with the travelers having come together keen to move ahead...which was a rare sight a few months back.

So, all the best for a new start.

Expression

2007-06-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

Someone told me to be expressive of my feelings on the blog. Hm..interesting.
Be expressive.

I have got a lot more than one comment on myself at being un-expressive.
It is something that doesn’t come naturally to me. Some one just introduced to me asked whether I had a tormented childhood, for my fear of expression. I laughed at the person and said, Excuse me?

A close friend of mine got completely disgusted with me last week - of my expressionless face.
It's difficult dealing with you - she said, I could have never guessed.

Expressions have been a subject of much debate and discussion in the spiritual and the philosophical world too. Hinduism maintains that an individual should control the 10 indriyas - suppress the feelings and emotions that come out of it and devote oneself to God. That is an aide towards Nirvana, to spiritual cleansing.

I believe this is where the Hindu-istic thinking and the modern western thoughts differ.. the latter being more pro-expression in every field they enter into. Freedom of thought, expression, independence, individual rights.. all go in the same direction. Much of chaos, laxity, and loose character are the bi-products of a too free society, I guess. Both have their positives and negatives on the weighing scale.

Finding a mid-way - a balanced character, I think is the challenge to our minds today.

meeting needs profitably

2007-05-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

This morning, I went back to Kotler's Marketing I read two years ago. It made more sense and it did not make more sense than it did two years ago.

I could relate to the theoretical aspects of it, drawing from my experience at work.
The examples he gave then, were in the process of being out-dated in the course of two years.

So, apart from marketing, i got two new lessons-
1. get some experience before taking up a management course
2. market dynamics change everyday whether you read about them or not,
so, keep yourself updated.

Having studied marketing for quite a number of years, if someone asks me today, what is marketing? I still tend to fumble for words and explain in roundabout ways. Kotler gives it so damn simple: Meeting Needs Profitably.
I found the classic three-word definintion at the start of the book so fulfiling - like a fresh window has let in chilled fresh air into my mind and no fumbling anymore.

a tiny part

2007-05-29T22:53:00.001-07:00

I sometimes wonder whether it is a universal psychological phenomenon when one particular aspect of life or reason, which has always been there, but never considered, so thoroughly seems to have pervaded the day, and the thought process of the whole day as if it has suddenly crept into whatever you are doing or thinking.

These are usually everyday things like, time, the sudden realization of time.
Time is always there, it has always been there and we all know, if we don't use it today, it is gone the very next moment, until you think about this fact.
Now, the catch is, it is a universal phenomenon, we all know about it, but this realization of time exists only when I think about it. And when I think about it, i have the sense of losing it, which would have been anyways lost had not i thought about it. But since I think about it, I am losing it.
hmm....

Like family.
They are always there. But sometimes they seem to be overwhelming.
if you don't think about them, its okay. You seem to have slipped their existence out of your mind. It’s like they don't exist. But when you think about them, they are always there - in whatever you do, or whatever decision you make.

This sense is also there when you suddenly lose something.
Something-s have always been there. You know, like you take off your watch everyday and put it in one particular table everyday. And you naturally reach out to it every morning and go to place it there every evening. It has become a habit....almost a tiny part of you.
How do you feel when one fine morning, it is not there. I get this sudden feeling of losing something because, I can not think of where it could be, and therefore, it is 'lost' to my mind.
And a tiny part of me, feels bad about it.
you know, it does not have to be a watch... it could be anything, a favorite cup of yours, something hanging on your wall, a remote control, a refrigerator handle, a nail on the wall, an eraser, a shoelace, a key or a key ring, your hair, an old telephone book, toothbrush, pair of jeans...
It’s just not there when you reach out for it and you get nothing.
And a tiny part of me goes empty. I sometimes wonder whether it is a universal-psychological-phenomenon.

eXcuse me

2007-05-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

I had accompanied a fren cum colleague of mine to the nearby nbds - the so called departmental store. she bought at least 7 varieties of pickle.... i was already amazed by that, when i saw this big huge junkie kid....i will describe him to you...you will see why he is worth mentioning...

he is this huge, huge-built kid... i mean thrice the size of what he should be...bulging from every available angle. but he is short...
fat and short, dark in color.

he is dressed in a fashionable pair of shorts... pulled down to the desperate point of dropping down...the hip-hop style, i think it is called.

he is slurping a can of fanta in the most disgusting manner, and as he does that he is ordering a lil sister-like girl...who seems to be his maid...to keep what he desires in the shopping basket she is holding...the basket is half the size of the girl...and this fat guy is ordering around...this and that...to the girl to drop into the basket....
now i was already amazed at that scene...
when i encounter this chap at the payment counter.

XCUSE ME-EE...XCUSE MEEE - he shouts at me in the most irritating jingle....and he repeats it...
"XCUSS Meee...XCuss mee-eeee....we are illiterate.!!..not literate!! like you uuu...so we don't know how to speak Enggg-lish...XCuss meee"

It was a total disgust. i gave a similar reply to him..."i Xcuss you...You are XCussed"
That's it.
My irritation is still there. Not so much for his XCuss...than the way he was acting smart with the girl with the basket in front of him. Gosh!

morning walk

2007-05-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

i went for a walk this morning with the digi... the first sight i caught - this long serpentile queue of cabs and bikes... waiting at the petrol pump

This Ratankar Bihar on way to Mangalbazaar is being renovated... can you see how the bajra is being protected by the iron bars...and the tiny man with folded hands in front of it must be its protector...

the goddess in her chariot.

the chariot... and its wheels.

the chariot, on the left.

bhaktajans on the right.

There are two goddesses during Macchindranath festival. One of them was intact...but the other chariot, raath, was still being constructed... (in this pic)after it went down a few week back. The small one is intact.

This is Macchindranath... it's temporarily put in nearby satal......

and the paraphernelia.....

A short trip on way back...to Mangal Bazaar.........

This is the king's palace... there is a beautiful courtyard in here... it's now a museum..........

King Bhupatendra with his folded hands....he dreamt Lord Krishna in his sleep one night asking the king to build a temple for him....

this is the Krishna mandir the king built...

the durbarsquare...mangal bazaar!

.....had my cam anti-light when i clicked this....

Honacha....chwela-baji...wo and piro aloo....yummy! but it's said, it isn't as good as used to be...

This is the famous ma-marru galli in mangalbazar... it's barfi are a favorite to all kathmanduites

This goddess is the reason it's called Ma-marru galli.....

In this galli, there's this goddess. People who learnt witchcraft came here for prayer....

Ma-maru galli...literally means...where you wouldn't want to go.

the globe

2007-05-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

the first thing that hits my mind when i say 'globe' is the television program on travel&living - the globetrotter...it is quite a channel going on there...v.interesting, i like it, but hardly watch it...guess why.

on the globe,

the ocean are painted blue. the ball crisscrossed with meridians, longitudes and latitudes, degrees, equinox.....the colorful country boundaries....

wait there - i think there are continental boundaries to start with...then international boundaries, and national boundaries...

name of countries fill the small globe on my table....and the capital cities on a dot.

without the measurements and the marks, colors and the props, and without the nomenclature that beautify it.....i guess the globe would look naked...unpainted...bare and wild.

Eraser

2007-05-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

The eraser is an interesting object. It reduces itself as it disappear lines on your pages.

It’s like bad memory cells, if there are any.

The pencil is at the other end of the continuum - it reduces itself as it creates. Thus if you take a pencil and an eraser, they are at two different poles - the lead and the eraser - different natures.

But they gel together - like people of different nature. The existence of one depends on the other. The significance of pencil to many is because it's erasable...the eraser is there because of the pencil.

circles

2007-05-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

it's like everyone's in their own damn world as it is supposed to be...and it is just the interlinking circles of concern that is connecting one life to the other and sometimes the circles tend to drift away and not touch each other...that is when the link between friends and sisters and lovers and brothers and mothers get weakened and sometimes when it rains and we sit with a cup of coffee watching the raindrops sliding down the windowpane, we wonder - 'nothing has changed...the rain still slides down the pane... i am still drinking coffee...different places, change in routine...surrounded by different people but i am still the me and would love to be ... where i enjoyed'...then, we drop a mail to a long lost friend, extend a hand to your lover, call up the brother, drop by to say hi to the uncle and the circles are interlinked again.

recent read

2007-05-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Every road towards a better state of society is blocked, sooner or later, by war, by threats of war, by prepareations for war. ...............War is a purely human phenomenon. The lower animals fight duels in the heat of sexual excitement and kill for food and occasionally for sport. ...........................Some social insects, it is true, go out to fight in armies; but their attacks are always directed against members of another species. Man is unique in organizing the mass murder of his own species.
(Start of the chapter 'War' by Huxley)

Aldous Huxley in Ends and Means, 1937 has quite aptly analyzed the nature of war and the causes of war. What i found most intriguing though was the last few paragraphs of his writing where he has considered the psychological causes of war and how they might be eliminated. He says War is sometimes welcome because peace-time occupations seem boring, humiliating and pointless - which i think held more true in his time...1930s .......now this is rarely applicable or more so, there are so many wars already ongoing that we have not had yet that boredom felt of peace-time...where is peace-time? However, he had given a solution pertaining to job-rotation which he believed would remove the boredom in the occupations.

The second psychological phenomenon during wartime was the decline in suicide rate - as during war-time, people had heightened significanc and purposefulness of life as opposed to peace-time. Danger heightens the sense of social solidarity and quickens patriotic enthusiam. Life takes on sense and meaning and is lived at a high pitch of emotional intensity.

Both the psychological causes of war seem very convincing amongst the many other nationalistic, political, religious, economic, social and power gaining reasons of war he sites. The psychological reasons of war are less thought of and more in the individual's control as opposed to all the other reasons why societies, sects and countries fight.

more rain

2007-05-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

its been raining continuously in kathmandu since yesterday. its one of those irritating rains which finds a way to seep into everything. whatever you touch or see is wet, being dry seems somewhat of a luxury. i got into office early for no reason at all. maybe i was here to prepare myself for the bashing i was scheduled to get this afternoon, and the rain somehow set the mood right. while raining, the human race seems to have gone to one of those sci-fi movie age where everything is gray-scaled, wet and sad.

i dozed off watching manhattan for the second time yesterdy. i was in my typical rested position with the pillow propped up behind me, surrounded by phone cords, my notebook and a huxley book faced down. when i opened my eyes disturbed by someone, my mom and brother were staring down at me. 'Look at her!' she said. the room was filled with the loud sweet background music from the movie and woody was in his own self chattering to diane. 'how can u sleep with this loud............' mom's voice faded on my ears as i went back to sweet slumber.

today

2007-05-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

it's raining...pittary pattary rain...on the roofs of the houses ...tin roofs...clay roofs....concrete roofs...and on buses and taxis and helmets....

it was typical traffic jam today with some tiff going on between micro bus drivers and the police early morning....the tempo i was in took a de-tour....and i had to walk a stretch to my office.....i got in half an hour late....... the micro buses about 20 in number were blocking the main road....and there was big commotion...traffic jam...people walking...what a sight to see!

okie...time to go home...and eat...
to listen to some good music...read...
and sleep...maybe i will watch a movie....

Idiosyncracies-i hope i got the spelling right

2007-05-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

what's your problem? Juni asked in fury, as the gaze of the gang-by-the-corner followed her.
She was dressed in a white kurti with small green petals on it. She loved the print. She looked pretty in it - all her flab straightened by the cotton, and she had let her hair loose unlike other days. That was the reason for the whistles and the songs when she passed the last corner to reach her home.

She felt safe when she put down the handbag in front of the mirror. She thought the interview went well. She had answered all the questions - maybe she will get the job.

She got an engaged tone when she called up Pranita. Her friend had been attacked two nights ago in her house. The dad had been injured seriously by the robbers. They had come with khukuris and knifes. 15 stitches on the head Prani had cried on the phone and she kept sobbing till she fell asleep over the phone, her friend consoling her from the other end.

Juni hated thinking of all the sad things in the world. She had stopped listening to the news, and had stopped paper subscriptions two months back when all news that was there on TV or the headlines were of either accidents, bombardments, killings, or robberies. But as the cliché fatalistic saying goes - who can stop what's destined to happen? - honi lai kasle talna sakcha ra?

She was hungry. She went to the kitchen. It was in a mess - nothing new.

Everyday, her elder brother cooked for both of them, and left the kitchen in a mess. Pots and pans to be cleaned, open packet of bread, egg shells, garlic, ginger and potato peels a neat heap on the counter. He was on a night job - call centre. He had even developed a weird accent - he called it Australian. She could tell it was far from being one- but sounded a copycat for sure - trying to be something he is not. But it was the best job he could get with his qualifications. And it was safer - much safer than his previous job - making marketing drives - driving his bike all day in the horrible traffic to sell branded water bottles. Whoever would buy branded water bottles, she thought, but they did. Manus got calls from officers and managers of so called big companies for his water bottles, through his acquaintances he had there.
(to be contd...)

the gr8ness guide

2007-04-12T02:17:00.000-07:00

haywire! haywire!

the world is haywire... but it is connected with wires...

vibes and feelings
thoughts and hunches
intuitions and senses

these are the things that connect the world
while we think it is the WWW that keeps the touch...
and the fibre-optics on which we survive....

sleek SUVs, the top most position,
all that heavy pay checks
big bunglows...n a free world trip
wouldn't help a bit if you ain't got the heart for it............

what you say?
so what should we do about it.......? huh?

all the robin sharma i read to boost my spirits
seem to have rubbed off along the weeks on hectic schedules throughout....
these lines must be the flimsy remains of what i read in him.....

i thought he was a callous guy who talked BIG
but after a second thought i don't see anyone not being 'Great'
after he follows the Greatness Guide... what's the harm in trying?!
the worst that can happen is.......you become either good or v. good if not Great...

jumbo

2007-04-11T03:09:00.000-07:00

the people around me are just people around me...
n very few special people around me...
i think when that scenario changes to many people who are special around m.e. .... life would sound better...more greener ...i suppose or mayb not... that could just be my general perception on 'the grass is greener on the other side' concept... or mayb not.

'i have many acquaintances but very few friends' - one of my friends says to me quite often and i wonder... hmm... ... isn't that true with everyone?
when he means friends...he means true...soul-mate kind of stuff...surely....

i smtimes wonder what it would have been like if special moments, dialogues, visions and feelings could have been highlighted and stored for later references.... it would have been really good... those devices, if built someday would be a great boon to people like me who hardly remember special events and dialogues and dates and moments... ....

btw... have you seen an elephant suckle? here it is.... i captured it in an elephant breeding centre... around chitwan area...

evreythnig is graet. thnaks for asknig.

2007-04-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Thomas L. Friedman goes on and on in his book to drive at one conclusion as to how the World is Flat. . . and your hajar prayas at telling him that you've understood wouldn't stop him from expalining that the world is indeed flat.

I have just started the book. it talks about how Banglore is as an outsourced city and it talks about Dalian, the Banglore of China for the Japanese.

There's more to come on middle east, technologies and blogging making the world flatter. So will keep you updated.........

3 good things about today:
1. the mouse will play when the cat is away - my boss is away for a brief while...tho the crunch continues.
2. i just had icecream with a friend...i love treating myself to it once in a while
3. i had a good good sleep after a long time yesterday....good and long sleep when you wake up and find that you are actually late for work... and i had this intense sense of satisfaction...

too boiled to eat

2007-01-26T01:38:00.000-08:00

'what have u been doing these days?'
i give a list of stuff i have been doing lately...it's a tediously long list...which makes me occupied 24*7.
at the end of my description she gives a satarical smile :> 'is that all?' - the smile says. I raise my eyebrows meaning - 'did i say smthing wrong? did i hear the wrong question?'
she says, 'all that is fine...what on the intellectual side? what have you been doing which tears your brains apart?'

uummpppp..............i go into an uneasy silence..................

'hhmmm.....in-te-llec-tual?' i pronounce it as slow as is permissible.
'wot?'
'i.......i......started a book lately ... it's abt a women's story in iraq........'
'but that's not intellectual nah.....what have you been doing to strain ur brains...?......tell me....'
i give my blank stare and whisper as if whimpering ......'nnothhing', and i know she is disappointed.

after she is out of the room, i rack my brains to remember what i have been doing on the
inte-lectual side? i have been reading....yes, a book..........
i have been reading the person of the year issue of TIME...it's awesome... but it's still information i realize. i do a lot of document reading on the office comp and lotsa reports and churned out stuff.......but where's the thinking?

i feel like a boiled vegetable under the whoooooose of the aircon. i suddenly hate the mehendi painted hands on the keys. i feel the sun is too glaring against the blinds, and all the tubelights too gaudy when the country is doomed to load shedding.

:) stay positive .... stay positive...stay positive :) - the new mantra..........

Workaholic(WHLC)

2006-12-27T03:56:00.000-08:00

35+65+693+58+69596+6958+245+658+845+3215+651+856+11+25465+2554+32 -enter-
damn!
how come?
'here's ur tea dear'
35+65+693+58+69596+6958+245+658+845+3215+651+85.... tring! tring! tring! tring!
why don't you ever pick up the phone?!
Shh...damn...all over again...
35+65+693+58+69596+6958+245+658+845+3215...651...taxation..no, there has to be a reversal made...where's the voucher....
13.5 percent times 3 for 12 months...and then...
dyaddy! dyaddy! look at me....i am a spiderman!...dyaddy!...dyaddy? dyaaa...huunn..mommy...
why do you scare the child so much...can't you do those stuff at your office?
come, we will play...spiderman and superman...rite? dhishum...dhishum....
13.5 percent...tring, tring, tring...tring, tring, tring...
Hel-lu...mr. devdass association...this is the residence though...
Phone: think, we have met the right person...are you at your home computer sir? working on your office work?
WHLC: aaa....i ....actually...aaa...no......
Phone: don't move, don't try to escape...all routes will be closing...and we have surrounded your house...you have crossed the work limit hours per week...you are charged of working too much and contributing excessively to the annual GDP per capita... you will be penalized...to a forced vacation with your family to hawaii for the next three weeks...all costs born by the rehab....
WHLC: you can't do that...its a crime...i haven't finished the project yet...it's not fair...
Phone:don't make it any difficult for us...your computer will automatically shut off in the next 10mins. All your work-related files and folders will be sent to your office where you can find them after your vacation....thank you for listening patiently to us...enjoy your vacation!
WHLC: its not fair... oh my god...the computer is shutting off...someone stop it... help...this is...oh my god...someone...
Thus, the workholic was doomed to a three weeks' vacation to the much relief of his family. The WHLC however had torturous hours staring at the clear blue ocean and the sunny sky... i am sure he saw his project and his calculations on them too!

long time no ramble

2006-12-26T01:52:00.000-08:00

Soliloquy: wish i knew my next station...i'd probably pull the bell right now... but i will just move on...and on and on...to see beyond the next corner, the next and the next...
the grey cells in the head seem to be numb and the fingers just lull over the black keys, to type in their own pace. the knots and bolts of the body seem to be chugging on their own, like an old train.
the situation is such- i don't know what i just said. i don't know what i am supposed to do. i called three extensions to get no reply and there is a desperate need to talk to someone on things you don't want to discuss.
n then the phone rings for me to give nonsensical replies like - i don't know and it seems so and guess it is right.
efficiencies and inefficiencies. effectiveness and ineffectiveness. management terms go haywire in the head to mix into potpourri of jargonless haphazard.

Information: Anil Ambani was voted the favorite businessman, Laxmi Mittal the favorite NRI and Sonia Gandhi the favorite politician...and yes, Amitabh the fav actor as usual -TOI-christmas day

Compliment: yesterday, got a strange kind of statement for me...it went - i like your way of communication, i think i have learned smthing myself - i was like ? ?

branding is deep deep deep...deeper than I ever thought it would be. its hectic. its tiring. its difficult and its meticulous. i don't do it. i see it being done - that's all the more difficult.

there are these 'thought ofthe day' that a friend of mine keeps posted me with each day, some are good ones like -

do what you want,
be who you are
and
say what you feel,
because
those who mind, don't matter
and
those who matter, don't mind

and a very applicable one:

Don't make promise when you are in joy.
Don't reply when you are sad.
Don't take decision when you are angry.
Think twice..., Act Wise.

n you go thinking like...hmmm......

the waiting

2006-12-25T04:55:00.000-08:00

made the phone call
rambled through my handbag
stared at the ceiling
counted the overhead lights

analyzed all the paintings on the wall
read the famous sayings posted there

talked to the next stranger
listened to his woes

rambled the bag again
made a second call
stared enough at the clock
to see the minute-hand move

stared at the ceiling again
talked to the next stranger
passed a couple of smiles around
to get back v. few

i start thinking - what a world it is
all strangers around

jus then the door opens
the priest says - next!

ah! i sigh - the waiting is over

mandah:

2006-11-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

the seasons of change...
the festive season...
tell me it's there...
now and forever...

celebrate daily smiles...
the fun and flavor...

the evenings subtle ...
and the mornings bright...

frivolous minds...
healthy smiles...
oh, naughty eyes...
tell me why...

oh, don wanna shed...
this state of mind.

the right glove

2006-11-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

So the two of them were in search of the right glove as the title above rightly puts it. One of them was sweaty in the bright lit store and the other one cold. But both of them frantic of one common goal - finding the right glove. Now right here clearly creates a confusion - it was not the right as in "the correct one" but right as in the left and the right - the glove for the right hand. They were sure of the left one - the one they held - all chosen and decided - a sleek black leather glove - all alone on top of the rack -alone - set apart from the rest - to show it was the "chosen" one - waiting for its mate - the right one. The two of them had nothing else in mind - even if they did have smthing, it took a back seat at that moment to find the right glove. They looked for the glove among the other gloves, behind the othe gloves, beneath-under-above-between-below-beside- but the perfect match in the tiny heap of about 20pairs of gloves were not to be found. A few had already tied the knot- so that wen u thot u found the perfect match, it was already tied up with some other pair.
So as we searched for right pair, we became a lil philosophical, a lil pensive, a lil more tired, a lil irritated. Let's not buy a glove if we can't get a perfect match - said he. And the thot was contemplated - and processed - in the lil black box atop the neck. Nah - let's find the perfect match - left glove in the left hand and the right one in the right - they will be a lil different - after all, they have individual existence - their own idiosyncracies - they will be a lil different - and they will be together - that's the fun of it all - that's the joy! And the payment made, the a-lil-different-pair-of-gloves stayed in the bag contented to find the perfect match!

one word

2006-10-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

Surely the anniversary of this li'l space is long past due...
Early morning today, i learnt the meaning of a word...zeitgeist.
i didn't know any such word was in existence. But surely it is, and quite a nice word it is... it means the spirit of the times...
Life has reached that crucial stage where one needs to make not just one but quite a few critical decisions. Decisions that would shape life forever.

there is a site called oneword.com...i have tried it a few times..it gives u certain second to write on a particular word....it's amazing how things come out of your mind in that time....it's fun to write and then to read someone's else's entry in that many seconds....

fizzy feelings

2006-10-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am on my bed lying flat staring at the white ceiling. The bus whoozes towards me on the empty street, almost hits me and whoozes past me in the dark empty streets beyond. A next bus comes does the same. A motorbike, a cab, a car and a truck and the number increases as i stare at the white ceiling. And all of them almost hit me to taper into nothingness.

A fire at one end and a fool at other. I was pretty hit by that sms i got from a fren. Cigarette and a :colon and that phrase. A short sms that was, but quite solid.

Household work is the main stay for many women even today. But why do we feel so unproductive when on a puja day all we do is make diyo lights or prepare flower garlands or mithais?

smses and atms

2006-10-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

shrtcuts r taking over the lng-routes
gve me a mssed call wen u're there.
wot? the mom asks in stark disgust.
not jus simple daily conversations like these, most momz are lost wen the kids be engrossed in the 'whose line is it anyway'z n 'hitchhiker's guide to galaxy'z ...
n the kids go bust xplaining them the sequences that it's monica who's married and ross who fell in love with rachel n it's phoebe who loves to sing...
n e ways,

todayz three:

1. cleaning cleaning...cleaning my room after such a long time... off its dust n mess
2. clicking pics with bro in the self-click mode
3. tihar shopping ... bhogatez, lakhamariz, swan-ma n masala (dry fruits)

copycat

2006-10-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

M trying to copy smthing from a blog i came across a few weeks back. Courtsey to the blog...

Three good things today:

1. had lunch together with frens
2. the rain
3. live music

scramble

2006-10-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Shris has a new member in her family...a german shephard...she's called DJ - guess what it stands for ...Dashing Junior...her mom is called Dashing...
She said DJ will have her family reunion in Tihar when all her relatives who has DJ's kins will come to her place. Happy reunioun!
Bro asked me to draft a resignation letter...then i kept on thinking... how the hell does one write a resignation letter? it's a pretty irritating task for one who has never done it before.
One senior guy at work accidentally picked up my phone to praise it...but old model as it is...he couldn't say anything and said it's a nice blue... on which i replied ya, the phone's reception is good. What kind of conversation is that to pass the day?
Deep bright red... all of us three girls had deep bright red shirts on by accident... and we were telling melon he shud've had on his too... we could take a snap and frame it up to read... the redincidental day!
so tomoro could be a walk walk walking day for all-o-fuzz... something's brewing in the air...Probabale bandh ... we heard the rumour...
how can one get used to it? all of us kind of expect on the back of our minds that we'll have to walk to work in a gap of one month or so...coz it's all there...nothing of political nature has been settled ... not until the next meeting atleast... and then, all unsettled matters are brought to the streets...

cya 2moro

2006-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Too tired to post anything.

so here's a corrs lyrics ...courtesy: lyricsdomain.com

When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life
Well hang on

Don't let yourself go
Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
(When your day is night alone)
Hold on, hold on
(If you feel like letting go)
Hold on
If you think you've had too much of this life
Well hang on

Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
When you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone

If you're on your own
In this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life
To hang on

Well, everybody hurts
Sometimes, everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

And everybody hurts
Sometimes

So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
(Everybody hurts
You are not alone)

pears and plums

2006-10-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

Nice painting na? found it on blogs of note... you can even bid for it!
http://rebeccabischoff.blogspot.com/

Fruits: direct from wiki -

Fruit is a part of a tree or bush that contains seeds. It is often eaten as a food.

Most fruits we eat contain a lot of water. They contain natural sugar. They have a large amount of dietary fiber at the peel, seeds, and fibrous parts. All fruits contain iron, and they are very low in protein and fat content.

Sometimes "to bear fruit" also means "to produce results".

"Fruit" (or "rotten fruit") can also sometimes be slang for "a homosexual". I didn't know that!

Types of fruits:

I found the list of berries of particular interest... didn't know there were so many types of berries! how many have you tried??

There's even Huckleberry...
nomenclature seems to have gone out of stock for any berry-berry name towards the end of the list!

Berries

Raspberries

Bearberry
Bilberry
Blueberry
Crowberry
Timberry
Cranberry
Huckleberry
Lingonberry
Strawberry Tree , not to be confused with the Strawberry

Other berries:

Barberry
Currant , red, black, and white types
Elderberry
Gooseberry
Hackberry
Honeysuckle: the berries of some species (called honeyberries) are edible, others are poisonous
Mayapple
Nannyberry
Oregon grape
Sea-buckthorn
Sea Grape
Wolfberry
Mulberry