Never Miss An Opportunity

High on emotions that I am, going home after one and a half years, I cannot stop thinking about how wonderful my family is and how much I love them. I feel very strongly about my family, as I know do my cousins too. But I do not ever recall telling my elders that I am really blessed to be born into this family.

It was the summer of 2004. May. My board exam results were just out and I had stood third in my college, with a 98% in Phy-Chem-Mat. It really was time for jubilation. And what was more amazing was, it was my cousin's engagement the next day. It was double celebration. Since the engagement was in the morning, my dad decided to host a party in the evening. The party was for immediate family(which comes up to a count of about 30 odd people :)), and every one was high - on happiness and more.

And then, my uncle comes up to me and says, "Make a speech". I was like What! And I don't know why exactly, I felt very silly and shy to go up and speak! My cousins coaxed me, but I was mad and I declined. Then they gave up and they asked my cousin to speak. She went ahead and gladly did, talking about how happy she was, how she loved everyone and how she will miss everyone after she moves away.

After she spoke was when I realized what a magnanimous opportunity I had missed - an opportunity to actually tell my family how much I Reaaaaly love them and not feel very corny about it later on. And what was worse was, the come make a speech was a setup to actually give me a gift after I had spoken. They gave the gift later on, explaining what they had intended to do.

There aren't too many things that I regret in life. But this definitely is one. I regret not having done what I should have and for not saying what I should have. And that's why I say - Never Miss An Opportunity. The next time around, I shall not :)

Feathery Tales

Washed ashore from a land afar

The drift and tide and wind in power.

Stuck ashore without a steer

Whose mercy awaits me here?

Gales or storms, drizzles or warmth

Surrendered to force, for better or for worse

All by chance, for all along

A wish, perhaps would change my luck

A wish to only think and steer,

To be the one to control life here.

Pic Courtesy: http://www.mcfadyen.org/

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And what is more, you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Mind Speaks

Erred I a lot in the past

That too at a dear cost

Heart now back in place

No longer king, but just my slave.

Just one chance, he always pleaded

That time shall come, I never heeded

Took over me with a gallant stride

All I could do was go on with the ride

Triumphant he was, victorious

My words, they seemed notorious

Watched I silently, events each

Some day surely time would teach.

Erred I surely, by keeping mum

But lessons learnt in the hard way some

Lost the game, he humbly stepped back

No other go, now courage he lacked

Must go hand in hand, he and I

He will learn it as time goes by

Together, well, we will be happy

The future, I assure, will not be crappy

Prisoner of my Mind

Considered my personal best, a poem very intimate, being published years after writing it. Although specifics are unclear to the reader, the poem rants the dilemma of a dual minded situation.

Thoughts ream on so endlessly

Pent on them I thoughtlessly

A path of no return is this?

"Free me from this," I fervently wish.

Muddled up as in a maze

Bound in chains, I can only gaze

At a hopeful future so bleak

Freedom is all I now seek

A convict of crime of conflict of mind

Or do in me a victim I find?

Matter it does not in this game

Coz in the end it hurts all the same

Spun this web round me so tight

Struggling hard now to unwind

Why is the mind so complicated?

Leaving me swirling and all dazed.

Trust it must I, though so caught!

Coz battles hard fought are never lost

But all this at what dear cost?

In the end, part of me is surely lost!

Quoted

I have a diary in which I have noted down many of my favourite quotes. I do not have that book with me right now, and this just seems to be an easier way to note them down now. Some lines and thoughts that are dear to me, one way or the other.


"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn." - Gore Vidal


“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” ― Douglas Adams 


The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one 
- Wilhelm Stekel




The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
-Gloria Steinem

There's no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit

-Robert Woodruff

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin!

-Unknown

“I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries” - Theodore Isaac Rubin

"You never know until you try.

And you never try unless you really try.

You give it your best shot; you do the best you can.

And if you have done everything in your power,

And still fail--the truth of the matter is that you haven't failed at all.

When you reach for your dreams, no matter what they may be,

You grow from the reaching;

You LEARN from the TRYING; you WIN from the DOING."

- My manager's mail to me, when I resigned from IBM

"Defeat is not when you fall down.

It is when you refuse to get up"

"Luck is an empty oyster.

It needs your sweat drops to breed the pearls"

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. concerning all acts of initiative(and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans : that the moments one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way"
-W.H.Murray
(explorer)

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

— Marilyn Monroe

“If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.”

Sometime you cannot believe what you see..
you have to believe what you feel!
And if you ever going to have other people trust you,
you must feel u can trust them too--Even when you r in the dark..
Even when you are falling!!!

- M found it somewhere :) And i loved it

So many more, that I can't remember at the moment. Hoping to find the book when I go home :)

When do we begin to lose it?

We are probably the worst creations ever made. We are born perfect - naive and nice. When it is while growing up is that we lose this innocence and let our head rule our heart. The reason for most our problems is this prized possession of ours - the brain. Whenever we need to make any decision, we need to make it with the heart and not with the brain. But the world that we live in is so immensely materialistic, that we have completely lost track of what is important and what is not. When was the last time you did anything just because you loved doing it, and not because you are supposed to do it, or because you are expected to do it, or because it is "good" for you. When was the last time you listened to your heart and not your head. I know it is impractical to let the heart rule over the head all the time, but I also know that we do not let this happen when it most needs to. Education is a farce, where scoring marks is considered more important than learning. Society is a farce, with all the double standards rooted in. People are a farce, full of pretense and laughing at the ones who do try to live truly. When the focus is only on the winning, by hook or by crook and not on the journey and on constantly bettering oneself, we automatically stop the learning process. People, compassion, humanity, and even plain being there for someone you care about has lost value. When is it exactly that our perceptions stop being our own and blend into the perceptions mankind has held for centuries? When exactly is it that we stop the questioning and just start accepting without reasoning, simply because it is much simpler an option. When exactly is it that we stop caring about what we really want and need and bother mostly about what others expect us to be. When exactly did we last think about why we are doing what we are doing, and realize that were doing it probably because everybody else is doing it. Where is it, in this mad world, that we need to draw the line? When is it that we will undo what we have done to ourselves. When will be let our emotions rule the roost when it needs to?

While I think about this near-idealism that I can only dream of achieving one fine day in the distant future, I do hope I make a conscious effort at the least, and I am reminded by the wise words of Baz Luhrmann

" Sometimes you are ahead,

Sometimes you are behind,

The race is long, and in the end,

It is only with yourself"

A Bookworm's Plea

I believe it is a sin to put a good book down. Try as I might, once I am hooked, I cannot. I do not remember when it was exactly that I got into the reading habit, and like they say, some habits are really hard to shake off. I remember starting out with Enid Blyton novels. For a long time, I thought the author was Gnid Blyton, because the font looked like a G! For a longer time, I thought Enid Blyton was a man. I had pretty soon exhausted all the Famous Five and Secret Seven series in the school library and I moved to the St.Claire's and Malory Towers series. I do not know how many will agree with me, but these simple tales of hostel life is the best series I have ever read. It created a huge longing in me to live in a hostel. In fact, these books made me feel like I was in one of the schools, an on-looker at times, a character at times - judging the situations, enacting the characters in my mind and enjoying the read thoroughly. I remember that in Class 7, me and a lot of my friends were hooked onto these series, and our class teacher Aruna Maruthi once saw the book with one of us. While we were studying in the free periods, she took our book and read it and came back to us and said that one can never outgrow books such as these!

And slowly, my reading habits took a mature shift when I started reading Dickens, Jane Austen and the like. I remember being thrilled out of my wits when I read A Journey To The Center Of The Earth. I remember vividly imagining The Secret Garden, probably the most I have imagined for any book. I remember being so happy that Fogg did actually go Around The World In 80 Days.

And further, I started reading the usual Sidney Sheldon, Arthur Hailey, John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, Wilbur Smith novels and so many more of the like. I also got hooked to Harry Potter, after being dragged to the movie with my cousins. I remember that in 2nd PU, I would wait to get back home from college and tuitions to just stay up all night and finish the new Harry Potter novel. I remember how I read Harry Potter after my first year Engg exams, but before the Mechanical Lab exam, and how I nearly flunked it because I could not get myself to read any theory for the viva, being hooked to Harry Potter. I also remember yelling at so many of my friends who told me who dies in the new book.

I have had many many sleepless nights, reading a novel which was un-put-down-able! I have many times nodded absently to what my Mom was saying, being engrossed in my novels. I have many a times sat in Sankey, enjoying a silent read with the perfect ambiance. I used to finish books so fast and return them to the library that Librarian uncle (a fellow bookworm) used to be so happy that he would only charge half the rate for the book :) Nothing ever transforms me to another world as easily as a good book.

I am sure a lot of you are similar bookworms, with similar experiences and reading has been an integral part of your growing up. What saddens me the most is that this generation kids are more and more attracted to video games and the reading habit, evidently, has been going down. While the graphics of the video games are extremely cool and everything, it still cannot replace the power of a book - a book that can make you think, imagine and grow. With this trend, naturally, book-sellers are having a hard time running their businesses. I know I speak for a lot of you when I say I love the smell of a book, old or new, and entering a bookstore is like paradise for me. Although I have never bought books at this particular bookstore, I do know the sentiments when I make this plea. On the request of my friend Sharath, who got into the habit of reading only thanks to this bookstore, I make this plea to everyone to go buy books from Bookworm - a store in Shringar Complex, MG Road, Bangalore which is also facing the effects of the dwindle of bookworms. After all, only one bookworm can help another!!

Image from http://kids.jacksonvillelibrary.com/books.htm

Did Video really kill the Radio Star?

Every time I hear the song "Video killed the radio star", I wonder how much it applies today or at least in the last decade, when radio has been largely popularized by FM channels. It is actually surreal to think that it was about 7-8 years ago when FM started off in India. Radio City, the then only channel in Bangalore, was one of the main reasons I would even get up in the morning. My mom would come and switch on the radio in my room, and being pleasantly surprised by one of my favourite songs playing on the radio, I would wake up with a smile on my face. This would really set the mood for the entire day. In fact, it is this surprise element which I like most about radios. You have absolutely no idea what song will play next, and more than one of these songs are definitely bound to cheer you up. This small thrill is definitely not experienced when you play a song off your playlist :)

I have been a radio listener all my life and I have to thank my mom completely for this. I know as many kannada songs as I do, only thanks to the radio playing in our room all morning when we were kids. I have grown up listening to so many kannada songs and bhavageethes, which led way to English and Hindi music when FM started. I remember completing all my record work listening to Jonzee during sleepy afternoons. I remember work math problems, one after another, during my 2nd PU, listening to the music Barker played all night long. My fondest memories of radio are definitely from 2nd PU, when my parents cut the cable connection and I would listen to the radio day in and day out while studying. I remember phases that radio stations went through, first playing English and Hindi. Then playing only Hindi, and then only Kannada. And through that last phase, where they played only kannada songs, radio was my only source of getting to know new music. Working full days, coming back and apping left me no time to watch Tv and the radio shows I heard on my way to work and back were serving to complete the music quotient for my day. After all, music is the magic that moves my world :) :)

Thanks Sindhu for the Radio City link, that brought back a lot of memories and totally made my day :)

The Silent Spectator

We go on with our lives, in a frenzy; talking, sharing, blogging, scrapping - live and on the web. We share thoughts, photos, videos and information of all kinds. When we do this, how many of us actually give privacy a thought? And here, I do not only mean privacy settings blocking people unknown to us to pry on us. I also include the hundreds of acquaintances who are on our friend lists who have access to all our information. Enough has been spoken about these kinda issues. Strikingly, what I also include in this list, after deep thought, are some of our own friends. When I include friends here, I do not mean to say we share information in a threatening manner. In a group of friends, more often than not, there are smaller subsets of people who are closer amongst themselves. Or also, the group might consist of a lot of people and we initially connect considerably with only a few. It would take time before we get close to everyone in the group. But while hanging out as a group, we still share to the whole group. We might not be particularly close to a person. But that person hears your thoughts, listens to your jokes, peeks into your dreams and all this while you do not even credit this silent spectator. This silent spectator is slowly getting to know a lot about you, and you are not even aware of it. As I think about this, it is just a little freaky that you have exposed yourself to a lot of people, knowingly or unknowingly. It is also probably a little sad that you do not know or have not cared/ bothered to know more about this person who seems to know so much about you. At the end of the day, you might think that you are an enigma, but chances are that there are many silent spectators who know a lot about you, even when you might think no one else really knows you and no one really cares!

Gobi Manchurian!!!

I definitely need to offer my tribute to my favourite dish in the whole world - Gobi Manchurian! I ate Gobi Manchurian in the USA for the first time two days ago, and after a year almost(Ok ok - I thank you for that totally Param!!) and this brought back a gazillion memories! Those yummy florets of Gobi, fried crisply in cornflour, with the right amount of sauce and masala - drool!! I cannot imagine I stayed away from them for a year - I have sinned, Oh Lord. Please find it in you to forgive this poor soul. hence, this post is dedicated to yet another of my loves - Gobi Manchurian(GM).

GM and I go a long way. We have a lot of stories to tell. But the evergreen story of all these(as agreed unanimously by all the grandchildren of Late Shri G.Lakshmipataiah) is the RT Nagar ShantiSagar story. So, when I was a little girl, RT Nagar had opened one of the then new "New Shanti Sagar". And my Ananthu Doddappa took all of us cousins there for dinner. I ordered a Pav Bhaji and mid-way I said started complaining, " Oh, I can't finish this. This is too much!! ". Where I come from, wasting food is an unthinkable and hence I was given the stern voices and the sweet cajoling. Nothing worked. And then arrived a plate of hot, beautiful Gobi Manchurian. Forgetting my full stomach, sub-consciously, like how a sunflower turns to the Sun, I turned to the GM and picked up one and ate. And to this day, trust me on this, I am teased about it. Every time we go out for dinner and order the GM, it is pushed towards me with a teasing - Go on finish it and after all the pieces are finished, again the plate with the masala is pushed towards me with a - finish this also!! :|

Another folklore in my family is that, if you want Ashwini to come and stay in your house, offer to treat her to GM and she will come. You know this age when uncles and aunts invite you to stay with them for a few days during the summer holidays, when your cousins are too young and your uncle and aunt are too old for you to hang out with? Yes, that dreaded age is when you just want to stay at home watching TV, reading novels and hanging out with the other neighbour kids your age. So, to lure me to come stay with them, my uncles would say "I will get you GM. You should come eat GM from this place where I live, really!!" And well, now who can resist that! And off I would go stay with my relatives. The best part about this: I now can relate to my cousins and talk to my uncles and aunts but I still get my GM whenever I visit ;)

On the same note, one of these times that I was in my uncle's house, as promised, one evening me, my aunt and my cousin went to the much-talked-about GM shop. It was a small shop like a chaat shop, and my aunt ordered 3 plates GM. I was like, "3?? One for each??". My joy knew no bounds! The GMs soon arrived and I started eating slowly, devouring each piece, visibly lost in my own GM world! And all of a sudden, I was rudely brought back to the present, when I saw a hand from somewhere behind me reach into my plate and grab a handful of GMs. And when I say handful, I really mean handful. It was a man's hand and for a second I thought it was my uncle and for another second I wondered when did he come here, was I that lost? And then I turned around to see some stranger walking away with my GMs!!! I was momentarily shocked, I have to admit, by seeing some random walk away with my GM, but what overtook the shock was the anger. The anger that someone else ate my GM and that I couldn't eat the rest of the GM on my plate and that I could do nothing :|

Be it the GM in Shanti sagar or the road side Gobi Manchurian near my school, or the yummy plate full at IISc canteen, or the crispy ones at Suchi-Ruchi, the rest of my GM eating experiences have been extremely satisfactory with happy endings, unlike the previous one! There are fond memories associated with each eating experience - like the time the Udbhav group went all the way from college to malleswaram to eat the road side GM, or the time we ordered full plates of GMs for each of us, or just sitting at home, alone, watching a movie and eating GMs - and that will continue to be so for me.

Although one often tries the new variants - Veg Manchurian, Paneer Manchurian or even the Baby-corn Manchurian, one never forgets the king of all Manchurians - the Gobi Manchurian. Respect!

It's just music!

It's just some words, the way they form a line. It's just those lines, the way in which they are sung. It's just the singing, so seamlessly blending with the music. And it is just that music, that gets me high, and is sheer magic to me!

My Daddy Strongest

Sometimes, living on your own gets to you! When you thought that you are all grown up and ready to take on the world, you are reminded that you will never stop being Daddy's little girl. Oh, the perks! Late last Sunday evening, I realized with a jolt that I was to report to my new office the next morning at 6 AM. Living on your own, away from home, having to leave home at 5 AM to get to a new place that I knew nothing about suddenly gave me jitters. I suddenly felt alone and missed my Dad. Missed the fact that on all important events in my life, he was the one who dropped me off, making sure his girl is safe and secure and on time. Be it my board exams, the hazaar debate and essay competitions I used to be sent from school to, my first day in office, and of course, my very first day at school, he has seen me off with a customary 'All The Best' that is an intricate part of his vocabulary. In fact, every single time I have stepped out of the house, and said 'Anna, bye!', he says,'All the Best, baby'. It is almost a ritual of sorts and very underrated, till one fine day, when I thought about it and realized how deep and meaningful those three words really are, wishing for the very best for his children, every single day of his life, every single minute of his life!

Me and my sister have never been the typical daddy's little girls. When I say typical daddy's little girls, I mean those who are never allowed to travel by buses, or bike to school, or go out with friends; well, who are just over-protected, in short. My dad has in fact brought us up like boys, giving us all the freedom we needed with, of course, restrictions when necessary. He has made sure we learn to be independent as much as we can. For instance, if my bike was out of petrol out of my doing, daddy dearest would not come and push it for me, I would have to push it myself till the petrol pump(which I have, many a times)! We have been pampered, and he has a soft corner to buy us all the stuff we ask for but what we have never been are his over-protected little girls, and I absolutely love him for this. This let me grow up, take my own decisions, make my own mistakes and learn from them - just the way it has to be - with the secure feeling that he will always be there for me, no matter what.

When people who know us see the best in me and many times the worst too, it is evident to plain eye that I get it mostly from my Dad. We are so alike and I can easily identify it and this, according to me, is the best gift that my Dad can ever give me. I have seen his virtues and I can see them in me too. More importantly, I can see his weaknesses, which help me not make the same mistakes that he has done and I typically would have too, otherwise. Where he has lost in the past, I have earned, and that makes him the ultimate winner. From trusting people blindly, to spending and lending money liberally, I have seen my Dad being hurt many times in the past and these things have taught me to always exercise some judgement and caution in my life! But after such episodes too, to have such magnanimity of only giving and never expecting anything in return is something truly great and something I still need to learn from my Dad.

Being so alike, me and my Dad know what irritates each other the most and we each do precisely that when we are in a fight. Now, being so far away from home, I miss those stupid unwanted fights we used to pick with each other and the way we both never had to say sorry to each other but just understood that talking to each other meant forgiveness. I miss his amazing sense of humor, jokes targeted at me (especially when my friends were over). Jokes that irritated me, but kept me in splits nevertheless. I miss those summer nights, when we used to sit in the balcony across the coconut trees swaying in the breeze, when my dad would recount his childhood heroics and I would sit and listen to them, maybe for the hundredth time, but still with awe and pleasure. I miss waiting for him to return home every evening, when he would surprise us every now and then with our favourite treats. I miss him every night here, being accustomed to his 'Goodnight baby!' for all these years. But at the end of the day, I know my father has given me the love, respect, freedom, education and courage that I need to survive on my own here and I sleep peacefully.

You do know you are blessed to have parents such as mine, when friends of yours visit home and tell you 'Your Dad is so much fun! Loved meeting your parents yesterday', or when you are chatting with a friend back home, and he tells you your parents are the coolest he has met, ever! You do know you are truly blessed, when all you can think of is going back home, just to hear him say, ' All the best, baby', yet another time, coz you just can't get enough of being Daddy's little girl :)

[The Blogadda contest gave me a wonderful opportunity to write what would otherwise have been just thoughts in my mind, never penned!]

http://www.pringoo.com/custom-designs/Good~dad-paaaaaaa/did-25739/mid-12/ppid-534

A Midsummer Night's Melancholy

A midsummer night's melancholy

As blue as blue can be!

Longs for a time well in the past

And feigns to be not aghast

A year in time, passed too fast

A home made away from home

A girl, her dreams and her very soul

More confused than ever before

Longs and sighs for the ones she loves

Those days and nights - of blacks and whites

These grays, they loom, all day long

And lurch and lark, through the dark

These blues that she feels, as time reels

Subdues, she hopes, with other hues

Hues of hope and hues of dope

And hues of laughter and of cope

A week's worth!

One place, four friends, five days - and memories to last a lifetime! Those five days were enough to set us into another world, another routine, another mood altogether!

Running to catch the bus to Peenya Industrial Village. Standing in those crowded buses where we could hardly see outside the bus; but craning from time to time to check if we missed our stop or not! On lucky days, sitting by the window seat and looking at B's mysterious muse of a house and planning on going there someday! Waiting for K to get off from the back of the bus and finding that he got off much earlier and had to walk a lot. Trying to find an auto at that place, gosh!

Walking on a to-become familiar route to reach the gates of ISTRAC. The same old routine security check at the gates. Parting ways with our cell phones for 8 whole hours - the thought itself was torturous, the act was pure agony. But the result - bonding time with B, S and K, just like back in an era without cell phones - simple and fun!

Sitting for hours on the sofa, waiting for the training to begin. Passing time by playing word games and planning class trips. K's (in)famous tryst with the air conditioning. Leisurely lunch breaks. Full meals for four rupees. Managing to finish the amount we put on our plates and thereafter wanting to sleep, in the already soporific surroundings. Wondering if work life would be dull, looking at the sad faces of the employees. Trying to determine just where the sensors started working on the auto-opening glass doors by walking back and forth. Hiding stuff in K's hair. Exploring the campus. Looking at a fresh entrant of trainees and wondering, how bored will they look after a couple of years at work. Waiting for the benevolence of Lakshminarayana and his assistant. The balloon guy who made us laugh till we cried. Soma and his friendliness. JV and respect! The TV lady who just fell in love with K. The beautiful flowers on campus, and how we wished we were allowed to get in cameras to just take pictures of those flowers. The inspiring talk by that man, whose name I can't remember, but whose words I can. The room from where they control launches. Watching the tracking of the satellites, live! JV's in depth and detailed explanation of the antenna system, which valued more than my semester worth of Antenna classes. The thrill of it all!

And then, after a long day, catching a bus again and returning back home, having learned, laughed and lived another day in ISRO.

DISCLAIMER: It is in no way intended that the work at ISRO is boring and hence the employees look dull. Infact, ISRO would be one of the most exciting places to work, and hence, we pondered about this fact. Also, a year later, having entered the corporate life myself, I realized that this is a general trait and not particularly caused due to any organization.

Blinded!

I was washing my hand, when I saw a girl behind me, in the mirror. My eyes shifted to take notice of her, just as naturally as it always does when you see something new in the scene. My good manners told me that it is rude to be caught staring and turned away. As I was turning, I noticed her cane. Although my brain could arrive at the most logical conclusion soon enough, I still looked away, not wanting to stare at her. And that moment, I wondered. Wondered if blind people can feel people staring at them? Wondered why I could not even get myself to look at her even though I knew she possibly would not know I was looking at her. Wondered how it really would feel to not be able to see while the rest of the world can see you, even stare and gape!! Wondered why this unfair world has deprived some people of seeing the beautiful creations of nature! Some questions, I believe, really have no answers!

Define: LOVE

Two days ago, my roommate suddenly springs up this question: 'Define Love!'. I, for a minute, was speechless. How long ago was it that we gave up looking for a definition for love! This question took me back to middle school and slam books. That was the last time I consciously tried to define the word that only has to be felt and understood. I remember that I wanted to get it darned right, because it went on everyone's slam books for posterity and more importantly, every one of your peers read what you wrote and you obviously had to come across to them as a cool person!!You portrayed your 'coolness' by either writing the first ridiculous thing that came to your head or by coming across as sensible and level-headed. Now, I really don't know what I was trying to be at all but then I was convinced that my definition was really the best of them all and all my friends' slam books are filled with this : Love, is as sweet as chocolates!!!!