God did the rest...

Hi All,

Long before about 7 yrs ago, there's was this little girl who wanted to make it big in the world. Her only aim was to get admitted into BITS Pilani. She dreamt and worked hard. But fate took a different turn and she failed to get an admit though by a narrow margin and went on to do her engineering from one of the lesser known colleges.

That crushed her confidence and she started setting lower targets for herself. She was scared to dream further and lose out on those precious dreams. She was scared that she will be failure to herself.

Then came the moment. The good people in her life gave her confidence to trudge upon the lesser known road. Even if the road ends in a dead end, the lessons along the road will be valuable. She started to dream again. The old nightmares haunted, but she didn't deter from dreaming on.

She tried her best and left God to do the rest. She took GMAT and got into Indian School of Business after few months of study, a fortnight of application completion, a week of interview preparation and a day of thanks to GOD.

It may not be a big thing to most people, but to her it was the return of her confidence, the triumph of her dreams and the shooing away of evil confidence-crushing shadows. She was able to overcome her fears at last and walk out to the world.

Thank you God for doing the rest. Thanks to all those who supported me. A big big thanks to few special people in my life who made this possible.

An emotional CIAO..

VIJAY's Neeya Naana

Hi All,

I have made it a point to avoid television (Though I do watch dance shows, Chutti TV). In fact I have even stopped viewing songs on TV. One reason being I hate to watch some XYZ person droning on and on and on about useless things. But I do download and watch episodes of Naruto (Japanese Animation) almost everyday.

But there's one show which is not overtly emotional like other talk shows in Tamil. I am of course talking about VIJAY's Neeya Naana. Though it is a debate the host, Gopinath ensures that the discussion doesn't up as a heated argument. (Probably the arguments are edited. But for a channel that seems to advocate controversy, editing sections to avoid conflicts of interest doesn’t sound true). This week the topic of discussion was - "People of the state of TN vs. People of other states" (continuation from last week's episode) It is a very touchy subject. Every person invariably roots for his home state. It is only natural that they do so especially when a person is questioned about ethics and integrity, it is highly unlikely that they will be entirely truthful.
I reserve my judgments and hopefully the blog readers too reserve their judgments as I don't want to change this post to turn into a political case.

What I felt while seeing the show was just this
1) Should a controversial topic such as this be discussed openly and be aired. Will it not hurt the sentiments of groups of people?

2) Few were hostile and admitted their distrust of people from other states. India's strength lies in its ability to embrace different culture. Aren't we weakening the foundations by advocating open hostility towards certain sections of people because of our own prejudices?

3) Personal experience doesn't warrant group behavior. I do agree that society moulds a person's belief, character and customs. But a person’s individual nature is far apart from these generalizations and shouldn't be used as a biasing factor.

In the end Gopinath wrapped the show saying that "hopefully this show breaks the barriers and have made people to be more forthright in their opinion". I hope this happens and my cynicism vaporizes into puffs of smoke. While I do agree that being open about one’s opinion is a good trait and is commendable when followed in nurturing interpersonal relations I fervently believe that generalizations such as "people from XYZ state are not trustworthy" ends up creating distrust and disrespect. (Let the cynic in me die)

To wind up the post, I agree with the statement made by Gopinath that all people as Indians must transcend the barriers and appreciate each others culture. We are striving hard to promote Italian, Spanish and other foreign cultures. We can take little time and effort to study our neighboring state and the rest of India. Let us learn to appreciate each other better.


CIAO.

After so long...

Hi All,


I am writing this post after so long. The credit goes to Deepak who wanted to revive the sleeping blog(ger).

Life's become very busy. Personal work takes too much time and I hardly get to sleep few hours a day. But I have never been this happy in my entire life. So many things are happening around me and affecting my course of life stream, the tides and tidings of my life has never been brimming with so varied activities. In this one year I feel I have evolved as a better person and the nights are no longer darker.

Coming to the point I took GMAT and have applied (still applying) to universities. Hopefully this time next year my blog will be from a Grad school. Hopefully the prayers love and blessings of the people will carry me through my dreams and desires.

I will be making another post in few minutes. This is just a Welcome home post!!!

CIAO.

UTOPIA

Hi All,

Back after a long hiatus. September 6 reads the last update !!!
More shocked at my lack of posting. After umpteen promises of updation(in some cases revival) to many of my good friends, I am here finally. (Hopefully my lethargy doesn't continue).

I tried to come back with a bang,
But somewhere missed, and developed a guilty pang,
A heart yearning to write,
Alas, lethargy won over creative light.
So where was I when I wanted to fulfill my heart's desire,
Where did it disappear to, the fire?
And what's my excuse now that I am back,
How am I to escape this genteel sack ?

Happened to come across many a thing,
At times gave a feel that I had sprouted wings,
Of flying high, of feeling glad,
At times slightly sad,
Of learning something of use,
With never ending books making me muse,
Of happiness unadulterated and pure,
with slighting prob's, though with a cure.
With good work to keep my time,
What other work could be more prime ?
I asked myself again and again was this the cause,
And knew by instinct this wasn't the reason for the loss.

Family and work are two halves,
Leaving no quarter or otherwise for anything else,
Considered it a luxury
To take time off to gratify one's own being,
But the minutes before sleep,
During the quiet acceptance of a necessity I let go,
Deciding many a times that procrastination is my greatest foe,
I shed aside a promise I made to myself,
To post this post before I turn into a work/house-elf.

This is my state of UTOPIA I feel,
Transitory it maybe,I make another "me-myself" promise-deal,
Who said promises are meant to be broken ?
Not while a hope remains open.

Hmmm so thats how it goes.. This is what will happen when one happen's to read Vikram Seth :) Love his book "A Suitable Boy", which never seem to end.
And at last about to finish it, which again adds to my euphoria.
Hopefully will be back soon.

CIAO and CIAO soon.

The PeRfEcT Moon

Hi All,

When I was a kid, I used to visit my parents during summer vacation.( I lived with my grandparents). Most of the nights we would sleep under the stars in a wide open space, , which people would normally refer by the term balcony, but which we used to call "Bail". Don't know the origins of the name, but we referred it that way( Still do). Might be because it helped us escape the oven like interior.

I would gaze at the billion stars, trying unsuccessfully to count them. On many occasions (almost every night) would point the constellations to my mom. The Great bear, also called as Ursa Major, The ursa Minor, the Orion, also called the Hunter and so on...Point out the formation of clouds and name them. (Cumulus Nimbus etc)
Used to keep rattling names till she dozed off to sleep.
Of all the times I remember only a crescent moon. (Not a full moon, blooming in its richness, but a crescent moon glorious even in its waning state)

The PeRfEcT moon,
The perfect moon becomes perfect only to become imperfect.
It reaches the highest point only to come down again.
The pinnacle is attained to touch ground zero once more.
Its is adored only to cursed later.

Its the same single moon.

Only the perception of people viewing the moon changes.

The moon struggles, lives through the month to attain full glory. But that moment of glory is transient, vanishes the next day. And it doesn't quit. Doesn't quit through its period of decline.

Rises , and rises once more to become its glorious self.

Humans try to attain perfection, but if perfection is relative, perfection is just a perception of perfection and not really perfection.

There can exist nothing that is perfect, its the limitation of humans to look beyond the obvious, and therefore conceptualize perfection, while it can never exist.

The path that we take to attain the so called perfection is more important, and more vital than the so called perfection itself.

The pinnacle is transitory, but the path is permanent.

Someone else can take your glory, but never your hardwork.

Others can overshadow you, but can never prevent you from experiencing your life.

All that really matters is not whether or when we succeed, but the choices that we make, and the choices that we never give up.

What we make our life in the end hardly matters, but the road we trudged upon to make our life is what matters.

The perfect moon is more perfect and more loved when its just a crescent,

We are more human with our faults, when we try to limit our faults and become a better person.

Never ever judge yourself.

Accept you as you are, and never let go, till you become what you want to become, and still continue beyond, irrespective of the cycles of change. Extreme darkness can only lead to light.


CIAO.

Worldometer

Hi all,

One of my friends sent me this link. Worldometers Was really humbled to realise how insignificant we all are compared to the universe we all are.
Made me to realise we could be making some difference somewhere to someone. No life is insignificant when it has got a caring heart that beats for it .

Thought of penning a few words..

Small maybe our quest,

More maybe the time we invest,

But for those who trust,

We have to be our very best.

Hmmm and got this cute little gif image in a forward. Thought of sharing it too.. :)

Till my next post...

CIAO.

Independence day special

Hi All,

A lazy afternoon, I keep shifting channels in the hope that I would come across something good to watch. No luck :(
But found something "interesting". Independence day special. In all the channels including good old Doordharsan.

Back in school we used to have independence day celebrations with parades, inspiring speeches about the leaders in different languages ( Tamil, English, Hindi) , few dances and of course patriotic songs by the choir. The practices for the same would start a fortnight back. And the auditions for the speeches will be held three days before the event. By which time the whole school would be aware( and in most cases would have witnessed) every single event that was supposed to take place.

On the day of the event other than the above mentioned , there would of course be speeches made by the Principal( which used to drag for hours) and by the Chairman( we would hear muffled sounds instead of a speech) and at the end, few pretty senior girls would called discreetly by staff, to distribute chocolates to all students. At the end of national anthem everyone would push each other to be the first in the queue.

Even after so many years the chocolate craze hasn't subsided :) (In fact become worse). But somehow those two small pieces of chocolate seem more significant than any amount of Dairymilk or Temptations.
After that there would of course be "Roja" film to look forward in Doordharsan. Year after year, the cycle remained the same.

i.e until recently ...
All the channels bid against each other to telecast "India tolaikatchigalil mudhal muraiyaga" films. And yeah if the hero of the film happens to cast in the role of an army officer, its a patriotic movie. Even if the movie's vulgar, it is considered patriotic. Telecast some show where some dumb actor talks about country , about the matyr's, about patriotism blah blah..
Why is there so much dearth of ideas. If they can't engage people without films and actors then please get back to your mega-serial routine. Who really cares what some XYZ person thinks, if the same XYZ person is contributing nothing productive for the nation , other than lousy entertainment ?

I am not against films. I love films. Just happen to consider that it is such a shame, that we are so accustomed to celebrating everything , without realizing the full intent of it. Be it diwali, dusshera or Independence day . Sending forwards wishing independence and convincing ourselves that our part is more than accomplished is such a shame . And I regret that even I am part of it and that I do the same. I can't escape it .

Everyday I see orphaned ( maybe not ) kids in the train dancing , singing aloud songs, begging for alms, playing tricks with the hoops. It is distressing to see that some actually encourage it. At the end of the day, whatever they earn (yes earn) goes to somebody else.
I don't know whether refraining from donating alms helps them.
But I do know that contributing only worsens their sad state of affairs.

When they grow up, they grow up embittered. Embittered by the fact that there's so much disparity in society, embittered by the fact that fate was cruel to them. Who wouldn't. We whine when the food isn't good to our taste buds. They whine because they have no food. We worry when our clothes become dirty. They have no clothes to worry about. We sit and complain about the air condition not functioning properly, when they don't have a shelter to reside .

Even I do all the above mentioned and I am not proud about it. All of us could so easily have been one amongst the kid on the roads. We are lucky that we can read this, while they might not even be aware that such things are being written about them.
At the same time, I am just wondering... They have a life. They too have the same emotions, who am I to pass a judgement that they aren't happy. They might be, except that it is not the kind of happiness that we usually relate to.

Is there a solution ?
For every single kid adopted by some organizations there are ten on the streets, suffering the same fate. Can't we do anything other than feeling for the kids ?
There's one thing we really could do . And which wouldn't require so much of an effort. We can visit the homeless kids sometime and talk to them. They come to you so openly without any inhibitions. They want to held;to be cuddled;to be loved.
Else, we can make contribution for a child's future.
Visit CRY.

As their motto goes

CRY... The initials stand for Child Relief and You. In spirit, it stands for hope, for possibilities, for the conviction that collective action by individuals and organizations can restore India's underprivileged children the rights that are owed to them.

And it is not just one organization. Hundreds of other organizations too do the same. Worth mentioning is the fact that my company too has an organization which doesn't stop with contributions alone. It reaches out to the kids by making them learn English and math taken by its members.

We can make a huge difference. If only , if only we had an heart. After all you spend for your cable more..

Make a difference, Be a proud Indian.

CIAO