Sorry

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

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

Frustrating Day!

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

The Bride

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

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

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

****!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...)