Saturday, December 1, 2012


questions fluttering like sparrows
hop from branch to branch
spaces between silences
make the air sticky like soap from burst bubbles
the lights dim and get brighter
answers take flight like a cat's tail on fire
I have a bubblegum stuck on a shoe kind of mind today





Friday, November 9, 2012

Who is happier?

This question still puzzles me, many observations later - I am still nonplussed. Is it someone who sees life and the world as an intricate pattern full of symbolism and possibilities. Or is it someone who sees life as is - the plain, let us have fun and let us live it to its fullest without understanding any of it. Which of the above is happier? Which one is more content? Can you choose how you see the world and interpret it? 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Metaphor of the day


There were noisy, happy and chatty people in the café he was at; he wondered what makes people talk so much, as if they would turn to statues if they stayed silent. He wished it were like that.

 

Musing of the day



Writing can or never is impersonal. For me, I create with my own unique perception, my varied or limited experience, my gathered-over-the years biases, my pernickety preferences, seeing through my looking glass - in which the world reflects in its own special way. Writing to me is like weaving little pieces of your soul into every creation. It's like painting it with a colour that oozes only out of your skin. And finally displaying it to a world created out of your own perception.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Metaphor of the day


She watched the baby as it drifted off to a soundless sleep, as quiet as a whisper dying out. 

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Mental Floss #70

Why is it that we get attached to certain people unknowingly - and they become the Velcro loops to our Velcro hooks?



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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Mental Floss#2



Comparisons are futile aren't they? If I compare myself to an apple, I will always only be slightly better than an apple.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Musing on the concept of marriage

Marriage. An eight letter word that feels like a four lettered word these days. Why does everyone assume that if you are not married you must be terribly unhappy? That something vital is missing in your life - like the sun to your planets.The centre of gravity could be different for everyone. Is marriage supposed to be the centre or the source that holds all the threads in your life together? And what if the centre shifts, the marriage heads for a breakdown - is it supposed to be the end of your universe? What is wrong with just a fulfilling relationship? Does it need a tag, sanction or approval from society to be what it is? I know many people who have married for security, only to never find it in a marriage. Many who have married to alleviate loneliness, to have never found companionship. Of course these may be the exceptions and maybe you attain your life's purpose only after you've finally learnt how to co-habit with another person legally - but it can't be the right prescription for everyone. One medicine for all maladies? Musing continues....

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Realisation#1

My answers are a result of a series of questions I ask myself. My answers could be different from yours, because my questions could be different from yours. #Givingandtakingadvicedoesn'twork.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

wisdom in unlikely places....

and that place happens to be the calvin and hobbes comic strip....
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It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.



A day can really slip by when you’re deliberately avoiding what you’re supposed to do.


That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!



So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?



Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.



County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when...Hello??



Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test.



If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.



The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.



I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.



True friends are hard to come by ... I need more money.



Why should I have to WORK for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it!



Reality continues to ruin my life.



I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.



Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.



A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.



Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.



In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.



You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.



As a math atheist, I should be excused from this.



I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life ... Procrastinating and rationalizing.



I have a hammer! I can put things together! I can knock things apart! I can alter my environment at will and make an incredible din all the while! Ah, it's great to be male!



I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.



I think life should be more like TV. I think all of life's problems ought to be solved in 30 minutes with simple homilies, don't you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns. I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified. Women should always wear tight clothes, and men should carry powerful handguns. Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don't you think?



Why isn't my life like a situation comedy? Why don't I have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures? Why aren't my conversations peppered with spontaneous witticisms? Why don't my friends demonstrate heartfelt concern for my well being when I have problems? ...I gotta get my life some writers.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Scary Thought #1

If your heart feels heavy, is it a sign that maybe it is turning into stone?



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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Love this one



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I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


Pablo Neruda

Needs no title


“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”
- Oscar Wilde
Man on Porch: Why don’t you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
George Bailey: You want me to kiss her, huh?
Man on Porch: Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people.
 

It’s a Wonderful Life

“The heart is the only broken instrument that works.” - T.E. Kalem

Beautiful....exquisitely beautiful

It’s dark.
You exhale a fist of memory.
I love you like weathering wood
in a room of empty pianos.

When you return to something you love,
it’s already beyond repair.
You wear it broken.
James L. White, from “Lying in Sadness” in The Salt Ecstasies (via proustitute)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

We are


We are atoms. We are open scars.We are a million short stories.We are molecules.We are pent-up wishes. We are 10 trillion cells. We are repressed passions. We are someone's past. We are lines on a palm. We are heart, brain and mind all welded together. We are hope carriers. We are someone else's opinion of ourselves. We are slaves, we are masters. We are the keepers of conscience and insults. We are a beating heart-in-the-mouth.We are all selfish.We are synapses between neurons of the world. We are possibilities waiting to happen.We are all a little broken.We are love seekers.We are prejudiced bigots. We are dreamers. We are eyes that see too much. We are deeply held convictions. We are indestructible souls. We are the truth that will set us free. We are creative impulses. We are living lies. We are pleasure chasers. We are the urgency of desire. We are mirrors. We are happiness makers. We are...if you think about it, just another footnote in the pages of a single chapter of the universe.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Mental Floss #1

Isn't happiness or to be happy a choice? Just like choosing your favourite flavour of coffee :)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Head vs Heart

Been trying to find the middle ground between rationality vs intuition, head vs heart and reason vs belief for a while now. Think I have it figured for now. For now. I've realised behind every rational thought or action is an emotional driver. Emotional drivers are commitment, independence, satisfaction,security, love, belonging, status, power, exalted sense of self, feeling of accomplishment, feeling of certainty.

You choose the job you choose to make the money you make for bills you pay for? Sense of accomplishment, achievement, provision of a good life to your loved ones, sense of independence et al. You choose a rational action basis the emotional payoff for it. For now am done looking.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Am in love...


…In love with the movie - English Patient. The movie is full of small, well thought out details, easy to miss but difficult not to appreciate. There is a scene when Katherine Clifton’s husband is waiting outside the place where he discovers she has gone to meet her lover, Almasy. You see him fiddling with a paper in his hand, he tears off a part of it and unrolls a chain of hearts torn out from inside the paper. Small moment - ironic and apt. 

Some quotes I love from the movie:

Madox: I have to teach myself not to read too much into everything. It comes from too long having to read so much into hardly anything at all.

Almásy: What do you love most?
Katharine Clifton: Water. Fish in it. Hedgehogs, I love hedgehogs. Marmite. Baths, but not with other people! Islands. I could go on all day.

Almásy: Go on all day.
Katharine Clifton: Your handwriting. My husband.
Almásy: And what do you hate most?
Katharine Clifton: A lie. And you?
Almásy: Ownership. When you leave, forget me.

Almásy: I once traveled with a guide who was taking me to Faya. He didn't speak for nine hours. At the end of it he pointed to the horizon and said, "Faya!" That was a good day.

Almásy: I once heard of a captain who wore a patch over a good eye. The men fought harder for him.

Katharine Clifton: You speak so many bloody languages, and you never want to talk.

Hana: There's a man downstairs. He brought us eggs. He might stay.
Almásy: Why? Can he lay eggs?

Hana: He's Canadian.
Almásy: Why are people so happy when they collide with someone from the same place? What happened in Montreal when you passed a man in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?

Katharine Clifton: Will we be alright?
Almásy: Yes. Yes, absolutly.

Katharine Clifton: "Yes" is a comfort. "Absolutely" is not.

Katharine Clifton: My darling. I'm waiting for you. How long is the day in the dark? Or a week? The fire is gone. And I'm cold, horribly cold. I really want to drag myself outside but then there'd be the sun. I'm afraid I'll waste the light on the paintings, not writing these words. We die. We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have... entered and swum up like rivers. Fears we have hidden in - like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. Where the real country is. Not boundaries drawn on maps, names of powerful men. I know you'll come carry me out to the Palace of Winds. That's what I've wanted: to walk in such a place with you. With friends and an earth without maps. The lamp has gone out and I'm writing in the darkness.

Hana: Then I tell myself he spends all day searching, in the night he wants to be found.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

John Steinbeck's letter to his son

My best friend passed this on to me and just posting it here, so I can keep coming back to it to access it quickly, and so can anyone else.
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Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968) might be best-known as the author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, but he was also a prolific letter-writer. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters constructs an alternative biography of the iconic author through some 850 of his most thoughtful, witty, honest, opinionated, vulnerable, and revealing letters to family, friends, his editor, and a circle of equally well-known and influential public figures.
 Among his correspondence is this beautiful response to his eldest son Thom's 1958 letter, in which the teenage boy confesses to have fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan while at boarding school. Steinbeck's words of wisdom—tender, optimistic, timeless, infinitely sagacious—should be etched onto the heart and mind of every living, breathing human being.

New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second -- There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply -- of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it -- and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone -- there is no possible harm in saying so -- only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens -- The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Father



Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Thought of the day

Maybe pain is vital, as a purifying agent for the alchemy of the soul...

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Come let's

Come let’s find paths that lead to nowhere,
Crunch our way through dried leaves of ochre.
Come let’s get drenched in the rains,
Traipse and slosh in muddy puddles, soiling our boots.
Come let’s talk about the nothings- in -particular,
And set aside the told-you-so's, what-ifs and never-evers.
Come let’s just be…
Let’s be ourselves a little longer than we need to.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Just another evening

It is just another evening
There is a slight shiver in the breeze
Just a dusting of goosebumps worth
Bright green, gold and red lights embellish the air
Squint your eyes and blur the outer edges
For an instant surreal Dali painting
A sliver of muted light shines on the tarred pavement
My shoes have stopped me at the line of light
I see a cat slinking around the corner
As if swallowed whole by the universe
Maybe if I stood long enough
The streetlight would beam me up too
The sharp aroma of Chinese cooking
Hot, greasy and soul nourishing
Wafts through the cool wind
These evenings, the world stops spinning for a while
Like a still photograph with background music
And in a while, the line of light on the pavement moves




 
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