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!