I just noticed that I haven't posted anything since 2008 began and half the year has already gone by. Each day is filled with events and when things are happening, I tell myself that I should blog those. It's amazing how I don't have even a vague idea what I want to blog about when I actualy sit down to blog...
This year did not start on a good note...Losing my grandmother was the single most saddening and depressing event not just in 2008 but probably in my entire life so far. Perhaps, the only event that was equally depressing was losing my grandfather more than 12 years ago. They have been major contributors to my peace, happiness and growth from the day I was born and will remain a major influence throughout my life. They were both very different in character, attitude and energies, but at some level I was drawn to both of them in very similar ways. I plan on writing a biography of theirs from my perspective. I'm not looking to publish it anyday, but I think it'll give me a lot of satisfaction to salute their lives and to express what they meant to me.
My activities have continued like any other year though...I got myself a bicycle at the onset of spring and have been biking on trails small and big at every opportunity. That somehow led to horseback riding which until recently was only a big dream which I thought I would realize much later in life...where I come from, it is a very expensive sport and only the social elites get to do it. In the US too it's expensive, but definitely not unaffordable...Most of my american friends were quite surprised that I have never been on a horse in my 25 year life!
I also took up a drawing class at Emory University which was great...it was an experience of sorts. It was an 8 week course (2 hours every Wednesday) and the method of teaching ("Drawing on the right ride of the brain") was very different and much better than what I had expected. My teacher Mary Feagan, who is a retired artist, is not only a great art teacher, but also a writer, poet and one of the purest, nicest and the most endearing people I have met. The very first day of the class she narrated a poem that she had written "I need my grandmama", which literally flipped my heart...I was so moved. At that time, my grandma was ailing and this poem spoke to me like none other. Added to this was the fact that Mary resembles my grandmother a lot, which was the first thing that struck me when I met her. The 8th and the last class was a couple of days after my grandmother passed away and though at that time I was so messed up mentally and unwilling to do anything at all, I attended the class with the plain hope of seeing my grandmother in Mary. At the end of the class when we were leaving I hugged Mary like most other students did, but believe me, most of the others might forget that moment, but I never will!
I believe that each and every moment of one's life is unique and important in deciding each and every future moment. We meet so many people each day and experience so many different things and in some way or the other, each and every person and thing influences us. Many times we don't realize it at all, sometimes we realize it much later. But there are people who have immediate and perceivable impact on you. A lot of times, those people don't realize how much their words or actions meant to you. Mary falls in that category and I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for the healing that she provided without even knowing it. I did thank her for the class, but she is more than just a teacher to me and since I would feel too awkward and embarassed to thank her for what she means to me, here is a public note of thanks, which I hope she reads one day! THANK YOU, MARY!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, December 23, 2007
I wonder...
Media plays an important role in democracy. The history books convey what the media then reported. So much of what we know about the past is from the media clippings from that period. One would think that press would realize this and be very responsible with respect to what they report, but they tend to report views instead of news which is not good for the sake of our future generations that are going to understand history based on this information. Not only are political parties/individuals influencing and "buying" media guys - TV channels, newspapers and websites...countries/governments are also dictating terms to ensure that something is reported while something else is not. Since that's what is happening now, it could have well been happening earlier too. It makes me wonder if we are learning history from one particular point of view rather than learning facts of the past. Isn't it possible that some happenings were exaggerated and some others underplayed? Could Hitler have been a different personality from what we are told he was? Do we know everything we need to know about the war on Iraq?
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Infinite Energy Slam
Last week (Dec 15) I had been to an exhibition match between Andy Roddick and Robby Ginepri at Gwinnett Arena. For the kind of interest I have in Tennis, it’s surprising that this is only the second match I’m witnessing – the first one will remain etched in my memory forever since my all time favorite - Boris Becker featured in it!
This was an event I didn’t even know was happening until I accidentally stumbled upon it while “googling” for something else. I took it as a cosmic sign and booked a ticket the very next day. My friends at work and outside it are not much into tennis, but going to this event alone was not going to make it any less exciting to me!
When I reached the arena on this rainy night, a men’s doubles match between some locals was in progress. Since it was an exhibition, the air was light and players were willing to go for some unconventional shots which added some pep and entertained the audiences. This doubles match was followed by a 1-set men’s singles match between 2 upcoming players and a 1-set women’s singles match between the world #96 and Junior’s world #6. The men’s match was very entertaining, but it lacked quality maybe because of the fact that the guys took it too easy. The women’s match was the exact opposite – good quality but zero “extra” entertainment. This being an exhibition I would have expected the girls to have an I-don’t-care-who-wins-as-long-as-we-have-fun attitude but that didn’t happen…but no complaints - the match was good. I started to think if this displayed the difference between general mentality of girls and guys. I think girls tend to take everything a tad seriously and try to give their best and guys tend to take things very lightly until and unless it really matters. I don’t think one attitude is better than the other but it’s interesting to analyze…
Roddick and Ginepri had a grand entrance into the arena. The spotlights were on, there was music and fanfare and the noise from the audience was reaching decibel levels unheard of (pun intended). I did my bit to raise the dB level while trying to hold my camera steady to record some video clips. My Canon Rebel which should have been my date to the event was not allowed in since it had a detachable lens and I had to borrow a compact Sony camera from my friend for this event. The upside to this was I had the option of taking videos but don’t get me started about the downside!
The match started and the crowd that was yelling all this time quietened down as Roddick prepared to serve. Roddick gestured to the crowd to continue cheering and that set the stage for the rest of the match. I always knew that Roddick was one of the funniest guys on the tour and that fact was confirmed by his humorous displays throughout the match. He was doing everything that a seasoned entertainer does – connecting well with the crowd and getting them to participate, rooting against a section of the audience while siding with the rest, throwing goodies to the crowd once in a while, talking (something funny) to us very frequently, imitating players and getting the laughs, enjoying the match while respecting his opponent all the same…in addition to all this is the fact that he’s damn good looking!
His impersonations were extremely funny and very accurate! I have them on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/RndmVidz
Ginepri was a great sport. Though Roddick was the more popular guy, Ginepri had the ome advantage – he is an Atlanta local! The crowd did not ignore him at all. He played along with Roddick adding his funny bits to the drama that Roddick was scripting. He got out maximum laughs when he imitated Roddick after Roddick was done imitating the rest of the world!
All in all, an evening well spent. Here are some pics…
This was an event I didn’t even know was happening until I accidentally stumbled upon it while “googling” for something else. I took it as a cosmic sign and booked a ticket the very next day. My friends at work and outside it are not much into tennis, but going to this event alone was not going to make it any less exciting to me!
When I reached the arena on this rainy night, a men’s doubles match between some locals was in progress. Since it was an exhibition, the air was light and players were willing to go for some unconventional shots which added some pep and entertained the audiences. This doubles match was followed by a 1-set men’s singles match between 2 upcoming players and a 1-set women’s singles match between the world #96 and Junior’s world #6. The men’s match was very entertaining, but it lacked quality maybe because of the fact that the guys took it too easy. The women’s match was the exact opposite – good quality but zero “extra” entertainment. This being an exhibition I would have expected the girls to have an I-don’t-care-who-wins-as-long-as-we-have-fun attitude but that didn’t happen…but no complaints - the match was good. I started to think if this displayed the difference between general mentality of girls and guys. I think girls tend to take everything a tad seriously and try to give their best and guys tend to take things very lightly until and unless it really matters. I don’t think one attitude is better than the other but it’s interesting to analyze…
Roddick and Ginepri had a grand entrance into the arena. The spotlights were on, there was music and fanfare and the noise from the audience was reaching decibel levels unheard of (pun intended). I did my bit to raise the dB level while trying to hold my camera steady to record some video clips. My Canon Rebel which should have been my date to the event was not allowed in since it had a detachable lens and I had to borrow a compact Sony camera from my friend for this event. The upside to this was I had the option of taking videos but don’t get me started about the downside!
The match started and the crowd that was yelling all this time quietened down as Roddick prepared to serve. Roddick gestured to the crowd to continue cheering and that set the stage for the rest of the match. I always knew that Roddick was one of the funniest guys on the tour and that fact was confirmed by his humorous displays throughout the match. He was doing everything that a seasoned entertainer does – connecting well with the crowd and getting them to participate, rooting against a section of the audience while siding with the rest, throwing goodies to the crowd once in a while, talking (something funny) to us very frequently, imitating players and getting the laughs, enjoying the match while respecting his opponent all the same…in addition to all this is the fact that he’s damn good looking!
His impersonations were extremely funny and very accurate! I have them on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/RndmVidz
Ginepri was a great sport. Though Roddick was the more popular guy, Ginepri had the ome advantage – he is an Atlanta local! The crowd did not ignore him at all. He played along with Roddick adding his funny bits to the drama that Roddick was scripting. He got out maximum laughs when he imitated Roddick after Roddick was done imitating the rest of the world!
All in all, an evening well spent. Here are some pics…
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Truth be told...
I got up one Saturday feeling very fresh and creative, wanting to do something really productive that day. The last thing I wanted to do was to laze around talking on the phone or watching TV. As though the Satan read my mind, my cell phone was busy ringing at regular intervals the entire day and since I was doing what I was doing and enjoying it, I let the phone ring each time, listening to the “hey what’s up?” voice messages once in a while. At the end of the day all that I could think of was what reason I should give to those people for not taking their calls so as not to sound rude or make them feel unimportant. Not knowing what to say precisely, I decided to call them later during the week when they would have forgotten the fact that I didn’t take their calls.
The next week went by and something or the other kept me from calling them and a bunch of them called back that weekend…now this was a tricky situation. This not only made me liable for an explanation of the previous week’s “incident”, but added more pressure since they had initiated the call this time also. I attended the calls of those who I thought were easier to handle, but that didn’t give me enough confidence to call the “tough guys”.
Why do we make life this complicated? Who was the first person who declared that being told the truth was hurting? Why is it not socially acceptable to call a person and say that you didn’t take his/her call since you didn’t feel like it? What’s with diplomacy?
How often do we say exactly what we think?
Almost all the stress and depression we suffer from can be attributed to fear of not being accepted by the society. That wouldn’t be half as bad if we at least told the truth to one another, which seldom happens. You have a haircut, some people compliment your on your new look others decide not to comment. You go out of the way to ask one of them how it looks and he says it’s good. Now, you don’t believe ANY of them. At this point, it’s not that tough for you to accept the fact that some of them dislike it, but what bothers you more is that you are not sure what each one thinks about it (as though it matters).
The most misleading thing about not being told the truth is that we interpret the person’s hints/reactions based on what we would mean to convey if we reacted the exact same way. Given that each of us is very different in how we emote, this can be very inaccurate. Based on this derived “fact” we make other choices and decisions, which are also bound to fail since our initial assumption was wrong.
Children are an exception to this behavior. They do lie of course, not with the intention of making you feel good, but usually to guise their actions and escape punishment. They are brutally frank if they have opinions and are not shy to say that the food tastes bad when they are dining at somebody else’s place. When the truth is revealed by the kids, the adults usually don’t take it to heart since they know that the kids haven’t yet been “trained”. Why do we not handle the truth with the same attitude irrespective of who delivers it? The age limit for this acceptance varies from one society to another. In some societies, if you are 12 and still “telling the truth”, it’s a clear indication of bad parenting, in some others, 10 years is all they give you to speak up. Until then life IS paradise – no stress, no worries, no misunderstandings and no gossips!!
When I was 5, my class teacher was taking attendance and since she had made some mistake, wanted an eraser. Since I was sitting rather close to where she was, she asked me if I had one. Given that I did not want to give it to her, if I had reacted like an adult, my answer would have been “No ma’am, I don’t have one” and I would have taken all the efforts to hide my eraser away so that she doesn’t accuse me of lying. Since I was a child and was still legally allowed to tell the truth, my answer was “I gave you my eraser the last time you had asked for it, and you lost it. So, I would not like to give it to you this time”. She just asked me to apologize for what I had just said. The flip side of that being, at some level, I was discouraged to tell the truth in such situations. By the way, I was fully trained before my teens.
It takes a lot of effort to make up a lie and to maintain it. It also takes at least the same level of effort to correctly interpret another person’s lies. And, lying is so much easier than hinting. The toughest part is to make sure that your casual comments don’t get misinterpreted as hints…whoa! That’s a lot of unnecessary stuff to learn throughout your life and very few people really master this “art of communication” (which is what the adults like to call that). Why don’t we get used to the Truth?! Why don’t we just take what people say at face value and act on it based on how much that person’s opinions mean to us? Wouldn’t it be fantastic live with a child’s heart and an adult’s brain?
Think about it…
The next week went by and something or the other kept me from calling them and a bunch of them called back that weekend…now this was a tricky situation. This not only made me liable for an explanation of the previous week’s “incident”, but added more pressure since they had initiated the call this time also. I attended the calls of those who I thought were easier to handle, but that didn’t give me enough confidence to call the “tough guys”.
Why do we make life this complicated? Who was the first person who declared that being told the truth was hurting? Why is it not socially acceptable to call a person and say that you didn’t take his/her call since you didn’t feel like it? What’s with diplomacy?
How often do we say exactly what we think?
Almost all the stress and depression we suffer from can be attributed to fear of not being accepted by the society. That wouldn’t be half as bad if we at least told the truth to one another, which seldom happens. You have a haircut, some people compliment your on your new look others decide not to comment. You go out of the way to ask one of them how it looks and he says it’s good. Now, you don’t believe ANY of them. At this point, it’s not that tough for you to accept the fact that some of them dislike it, but what bothers you more is that you are not sure what each one thinks about it (as though it matters).
The most misleading thing about not being told the truth is that we interpret the person’s hints/reactions based on what we would mean to convey if we reacted the exact same way. Given that each of us is very different in how we emote, this can be very inaccurate. Based on this derived “fact” we make other choices and decisions, which are also bound to fail since our initial assumption was wrong.
Children are an exception to this behavior. They do lie of course, not with the intention of making you feel good, but usually to guise their actions and escape punishment. They are brutally frank if they have opinions and are not shy to say that the food tastes bad when they are dining at somebody else’s place. When the truth is revealed by the kids, the adults usually don’t take it to heart since they know that the kids haven’t yet been “trained”. Why do we not handle the truth with the same attitude irrespective of who delivers it? The age limit for this acceptance varies from one society to another. In some societies, if you are 12 and still “telling the truth”, it’s a clear indication of bad parenting, in some others, 10 years is all they give you to speak up. Until then life IS paradise – no stress, no worries, no misunderstandings and no gossips!!
When I was 5, my class teacher was taking attendance and since she had made some mistake, wanted an eraser. Since I was sitting rather close to where she was, she asked me if I had one. Given that I did not want to give it to her, if I had reacted like an adult, my answer would have been “No ma’am, I don’t have one” and I would have taken all the efforts to hide my eraser away so that she doesn’t accuse me of lying. Since I was a child and was still legally allowed to tell the truth, my answer was “I gave you my eraser the last time you had asked for it, and you lost it. So, I would not like to give it to you this time”. She just asked me to apologize for what I had just said. The flip side of that being, at some level, I was discouraged to tell the truth in such situations. By the way, I was fully trained before my teens.
It takes a lot of effort to make up a lie and to maintain it. It also takes at least the same level of effort to correctly interpret another person’s lies. And, lying is so much easier than hinting. The toughest part is to make sure that your casual comments don’t get misinterpreted as hints…whoa! That’s a lot of unnecessary stuff to learn throughout your life and very few people really master this “art of communication” (which is what the adults like to call that). Why don’t we get used to the Truth?! Why don’t we just take what people say at face value and act on it based on how much that person’s opinions mean to us? Wouldn’t it be fantastic live with a child’s heart and an adult’s brain?
Think about it…
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Jaane Do Naa
Hiya!
Here's my first audio post!
About the song...it's one of the numerous amazing compositions by Maestro Ilayaraja. Shreya Ghoshal has (as always) done a wonderful job. Of course, yours truly has recorded her voice over Shreya's, but you can still hear Shreya's voice in the background.
Haven't yet found a good software to remove voice from songs. Most of them that I've tried out either remove partially or remove some background music along with the voice. I thought this was a better option...Feel free to comment!
Song: Jaane Do Naa
Language: Hindi
Movie: Cheeni Kum
Music Director: Ilayaraja
Singer: Shreya Ghoshal
Here's my first audio post!
About the song...it's one of the numerous amazing compositions by Maestro Ilayaraja. Shreya Ghoshal has (as always) done a wonderful job. Of course, yours truly has recorded her voice over Shreya's, but you can still hear Shreya's voice in the background.
Haven't yet found a good software to remove voice from songs. Most of them that I've tried out either remove partially or remove some background music along with the voice. I thought this was a better option...Feel free to comment!
Song: Jaane Do Naa
Language: Hindi
Movie: Cheeni Kum
Music Director: Ilayaraja
Singer: Shreya Ghoshal
Even the universe had a beginning...
I've had several opinions about blogging over the past few years. The periods of time when I was "for" blogging I was suffering from a beginner's inertia, the rest of the time, I was plainly against the whole idea about the rest of the world knowing something/anything/everything about me. Today for some reason, I am in favor of blogging and neither lazy nor have an inertia of any kind, so here's my first post.
This blog is purely for strangers who have the freewill to comment anything without worrying about facing me one fine day! :)
What to expect from this blog? Any or all of the following depending on my mood...
1. Songs sung and recorded by me
2. My stints with photography
3. Some opinions on random topics which may include music, religion, politics, philosophy, spirituality, yoga, ayurveda, sports, movies, books, current events, science, funny/weird/interesting events...may even try some fiction!
4. Poetry if and when I'm in the mood for it...
As I've mentioned earlier, I would love to get some true feedback, honest critiquing is most appreciated!
C ya
This blog is purely for strangers who have the freewill to comment anything without worrying about facing me one fine day! :)
What to expect from this blog? Any or all of the following depending on my mood...
1. Songs sung and recorded by me
2. My stints with photography
3. Some opinions on random topics which may include music, religion, politics, philosophy, spirituality, yoga, ayurveda, sports, movies, books, current events, science, funny/weird/interesting events...may even try some fiction!
4. Poetry if and when I'm in the mood for it...
As I've mentioned earlier, I would love to get some true feedback, honest critiquing is most appreciated!
C ya
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