when its big boss' b'day

If I were a top brass officer and i recieved gifts and flowers on my birthday from everywhere under my command, i'll wonder about the junior guy who must have gone out to get these. What must he have felt while being tasked to arrange my gift. If the task was given on a weekend did it ruin his weekend or did it give him the opportunity to go out for my sake. If he was tasked on a working day, did he leave his office and go out. Was he happy or sad about it. Did he enjoy the opportunity to go out leaving everything aside to arrange my gift or was it a burden to him. Did he have to cancel some other plans for it. Did he curse me for having to miss his movie he had planned with a friend. Did he thank me for any other blessing in disguise.
I'd really ponder at my gifts, wishing they could tell me their stories, how they landed up here. Who selected them for me and what they went through for it. Anything hilarious or stupid that happened while they were being picked and gift wrapped for me.
And you know why i'd think of all this... coz i've been that junior guy buying the birthday gift for the top brass.

good morning sir, may i have the permission to live

Am i allowed to live? Why am i asking this question, because that' s what i feel. People object to my living. In this day and age, i'm governed by the army regulations which forbid me to meet a male colleague in my house freely. No, there isnt really any such law but that's what is followed in the Indian army. No single male to visit a single lady in her room and vice versa. Imagine the narrow mindedness of such a statement. A friend, a coursemate with whom you have done your training cannot meet you in your house. Imagine a friend visiting you and you have to tell him to go to the mess because he can't step into your house because of these restrictions.
Imagine, an officer of the Indian army is not supposed to sit with his own colleague in his house if that colleague is of the opposite sex.
What would you feel? disgusted, suffocated, enslaved, angry.
Please dont tell me this is India and it is Indian army and be ready to stay enslaved to such dogma. Let's grow up. Lets get over with our cynicism.

education and ethics

Can only education give you high ideals or is it something inherent to one’s nature

I was forced to ask myself this question when an officer shared with me his experience in the deserts of India.

 He was out for an exercise in the sand dunes of Rajasthan. Village children from nearby villages regularly brought food, curd, butter for the troops. Out of gratitude, the officer decided to buy some eats for the children as well. When he was distributing the eats to the kids, an elderly called out, “hukum  saab”, the officer said, “I wondered what was wrong and stopped, the children stood quietly and then the old man came up to me and said”, “Saab do not mind but we bring you food as you are our guest and it is our duty, if in return you give something to these children, you’ll spoil them. They will start expecting things in return of the hospitality which is our duty. If today they get treated in return for bringing you food, tomorrow they will serve a guest only if he brings something in return.”

The officer had no reply to the old man’s words, he just ordered for the sweets to be taken back.

technology wastes as much time as it saves...no offence...to anyone...been happening since morning...of course it helps 2, im just sayin...it takes up ur time..gives you a sense of being busy..sitting around doing nothing on your laptop...the world on the click of a button...like a lost traveller you surf the world...most often. is time save as important as time pass? maybe more, even in a busy world, busy is all self created...

Must we love our job?
Or must we follow our passion as our job?
I dont think that its possible for every person 2 do a job he loves, yet, we may love whatever we do and also do what what we love doing apart from our daily job, apart from our profession.
Sometimes, we find ourselves in a fix. Disillusioned and not satisfied with the way things turn out. If you think you're not living your dream, then you must also know what your dream is and follow it. What stops you? Fight those internal and external forces stopping you.
The biggest barrier i think is not wanting what you have and not knowing what you want.

stepping out of sorrow

"sorrow is a sin against the soul."

I can brood for as long as i want but i cannot brood forever. What is more important that i can get out of my sad state when i want, i dont have to wait for time to act as the gentle healer.

I've learnt that when im sad, i must not remain where i am, must not be idle. Go out, sing, play, talk to a friend, dont stay alone. Friends are greater healers than time. I've heard that laughter is the only cure for sorry. quite true. What better way to laugh than share some good "remember when" stories with your friends.

Dont dwell in your grief just go downtown........as Petula Clark suggests in her lovely song 

living with a void

In one of his talks, spiritual guru Shri Shri Ravi Shankar spoke of death, losing a loved one and gave the example of a woman who had lost her daughter. The woman went through pain and sorrow but then she moved on with life, she said 'i attend parties, go out, but people expect me to be sad all the time, is something wrong with me?' of course nothing was wrong with the woman but something was wrong with those who expected her to be sad all the time.
Certainly, nothing can replace the loss of a loved one but we learn to live with the void for there is a life ahead of us..

remember the nursery rhyme, "row, row row your boat gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is butt a dream." as a nursery kid nobody would have thought of the depth of this beautiful rhyme. i just recited it without wondering if it means anything at all. Whoever made this rhyme must have been some creative genious to have conjured up words with so much meaning into poetry for little children.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row,_Row,_Row_Your_Boat

wonderkind

My home is in paradise and i'm grateful for that. I can never stop feeling amazed at the natural beauty all around me. But a couple of kids once made me feel that even i tend to ignore beauty at times. These kids came running down to my house shrieking with joy, "we saw a small little bird!" I dont know which bird they were talking about but then i went to the back of my house and saw this little bird. It was just a small little bird. A brown coloured bird. Not a significant colour for a bird. But then i saw; it was a very pretty little bird with a distinct shade of brown. I realised brown was a lovely colour with so many shades. And when the bird lifted its tiny wings, there was white and black and ochre. It was so much more than just a small little bird, it was a beauty. I had seen it before but i never shrieked with joy like those kids. After that day, my appreciation of beauty has increased. Now i find beauty even in a blade of grass and a bunch of dried wild flowers.

so you think you know me?

Humans and their nature is not constant. How then do people make claims of knowing someone like the back of their own hand. With every passing day, all events that occur, every new experience, i change. So does everyone else. We change in our understanding of things around us, in the way we percieve things, in the ways we react... i dont even think i know my best of friends completely because they are not constants. If you say you know someone really well i'd say; well, really?

mirror mirror

A friend once said to me that a woman is the most beautiful thing God has created. That very day i had been struck by a very beautiful sight. I called my friend and said the most beautiful thing God ever created is not women, it's a flower. "maybe" came the reply. Yes, maybe. how can beauty be rated anyway. When we rate beauty, its our own assessment that we rate. Someone rightly said, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder." We need to have a beautiful heart to be able to see the beauty all around us.

Singing under rubble

The earthquake in Sikkim reminds me of a documentary i once saw in which a little girl was saved from debris by rescuers as they could hear a child's voice sing. In the documentary, the girl said, "mother told me to sing when i feel afraid" . The girl had lost her mother but her advice saved her life. Only a child's heart can be brave enough to sing even when buried under ruins.

Mystic Rose

Ever thought that laughing and crying could be a form of meditation?
Well, if you believe Osho, it is . I came across this meditation technique called the mystic rose. It includes three steps. the first is laughter, say yaaahoooo and laugh continuously for 20 mins. second step is crying, say yaaaboo and cry for no reason for 20 mins. The third step involves silence. Just be. Laughter and tears are supposed to cut through the layers of dust that has settled on our being and silence allows us to go within once we have cleared the dust on our souls.
We may have never conciously practised this as a form of meditation but all of us would give testimony to the power of tears that lightens our burden, the power of laughter that elleviates our grief and silence that brings peace.
Though it may seem wierd, the technique is effective for the simple reason that it takes us back to the two human attributes that we deny ourselves of for the fear of being called unmanly or a lunatic.

mud pies

when i was smaller, i think i had a bigger heart. it was full of compassion for all cretures great and small. i once decided to make a house for ants...yes an anthill. i mixed some mud and water and shaped it like a hill then made tiny holes all over for ants to get in. i dont know if there were any takers for my engineering efforts but i remember being scolded for making a mess from the bathroom, through the corridor to the garden. my little muddy footprints didn't appeal to mother.

on another bright day i decided to make a nest for the sparrows that come to perch on our rose bush. i collected dry grass gave it the best nestlike shape i could and placed it on a low branch in that bush. then i made another nest and placed it just on top on a branch slightly higher. it looked like a two storey nest. a couple of sparrows hopped around and graced the nest but it wasnt worthy for a dwelling.

i could spend hours sitting on the branch of my walnut tree. yes it was my tree. i sat there hidden safely in its branches and singing my heart out. best way to spend an afternoon.

cathing butterflies was a game until i hurt one beauty and caused to break its wings after that i only watched them fluttering and their beaytiful colours...

on two ocassions i tried to mother little helpless baby birds but failed to keep them alive. i learnt though that they can open their mouths for food  much bigger than when they grow.

i loved collecting wild cherries, no they werent cherries just some wild red fruit i called wild cherries. nature provided me so much to play with.

i loved the little wild flowers that grew aroumd my house. it was amazing how after a hailstorm, the garden flowers would be destroyed, i found the wild flowers still smiling with their tiny delicate petals.

i still sit on tree branches, laze around on a patch of grass and pick wild flowers. i forget my music express and ear plug sitting outside. there's beautiful music and  beautiful silence nature offers.

i love to see a daffodil change from yellow to beautiful feathery white ball and then the wind coming along and blowing it away spreading the seeds of love...

'THINK THAT THERE WERE NO NATIONS NO FLAGS TO LIVE OR DIE FOR'

imagine you're a soldier alone in a battlefield filled with the silence of the aftermath of devastation . when all is finished and you've got nothing left to live or die for...too shocked, too shaken for grief... hatred brings you nothing takes you nowhere.

you can make a difference

i love sharing this little story i learnt in school

A man walking by the sea shore notices thousands of tiny little starfish washed to the shore by fresh tide. He bends down, picks up a starfish and throws it into the see, takes another step picks another starfish and throws it into the sea, and goes on in this way. Another man watching from a distance asks, "Hey, what difference will it make if you throw a few out of the millions washed to the shore?" He gets no reply, the first man takes another step, bends down picks up another starfish and throws it into the sea and then he says, "look, i made a difference to that starfish." 

what if there really was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow

i like to believe in beautiful things, angels, fairies, makes the world that much lovlier.
two mynas together bring luck, three for joy.. blow a wish it'll come true..wow it doesnt hurt to believe, does it. "for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he", "with our thoughts, we make our world" great masters said that. id rather not believe if you tell me a cat crossing you path is bad omen, poor cat, it has to go across the road. yes they tell me that good and bad exist together like light and shadow but turn your face to the sun and all shadows fall behind! its all in our head, all in our mind.

when do you smile

i read an sms and it breaks, i watch tv, something funny comes up and it spreads across my face again. im with friends and again i smile. each of these times something external evokes a smile. its like needing an aid to joy, to be happy. when did last i had a smile that sprang from within...no event had to occur, my heart was just joyous of just being...hmm if i have to think to give an answer, its been quite a while. the source of true happiness lies within, my spring hasnt run dry, iv just stopped accessing it.......let me go back again, let me dive ...

dreams

i saw a movie, people were dancing on a moving train and i remembered this was one of the wild things in my wish list. not dancing, just travelling on the roof of a train. i told my friend sitting next to me in the movie n she said come to my place, i'll have your dream fulfilled. really, im gona do it one day.
so what else did i wish to do as a child ...
everything
i wanted to be a magician, a singer, a musician, an astronaut, a deep sea diver, a traveller and then...
maybe a doctor, a  teacher, writer, soldier...
the last thing came true but i want more . one little life and so much to do. its nice to go back to your childhood wish list and also create a new one.

love sarah mc lachlan when she sings, "when you wake up every day, please dont throw you dreams away, hold them close to your heart coz we are all a part, of the ordinary miracle..." 

smile

"we dont smile coz we are happy, we smile to be happy"

fact and fable

A child's mind is pacified about the mysteries of life throght fables. Children are also taught important life lessons through fables. as we grow, society demands rational thought. Reason, logic, science. gone are the days when all of life was mystery and magic. santa claus becomes a myth, tooth fairy was a lie, mushrooms grow in circles because their roots grow that way, not because of dancing fairies. Why are we made to live a fabled life in the first place. does it give us some sense of eternity or because ...of what?

Yet folklore and fable often open our eyes to simple and profound truths. So what if now genetics explains evolution of species. Isn't that a reflection of magic in itself. We just are being more rational about it though.

when i was 17

i was just watching a show -when i was 17, Jordin Sparrks, Jason derulo reminisced of the the music they followed, the crazy things they did at 17. i started thinking for myself, what music did i follow at 17, what did i do at that time and i couldnt really remember.

it isnt strange, its just that if you dont distinctly remember a part of your life then you probably havent lived it to the fullest at the time.

ya, i was in a crucial phase, studying in class 12 with the pressure of maths, science and the indian education system. maybe i did miss out on enjoying at that time.

maybe a lot of kids do miss out on a lot at that age because of the pressure of studies. maybe that itself becomes their life or maybe i just have a bad memory and am cribbing about the past when i know it wont change a thing.

life's miracles

Its incredible where all life can thrive. Remember the last time you tried growing a plant or waited for a seed to sprout and then witnessed its miracle. What a beautiful experience it is to see your crops grow, your flowers bloom...and even more amazing is when a plant fights its way out of the seed that fell on a tiny creek in a rock or the edge of a wall, with no possible nurture, it proclaims, life will find its way and blossom when it has to.

a picture in my mind

picture a thick old book full of stories, events, memories, lying on a desolate wilderness. The wind ruffles its pages, sometimes gently, sometimes violently, almost threatening to tear it apart. Then, having opened an old chapter leaves it by itself. The old chapter, a memory, has been evoked by the sudden gush of wind and its story echoes in the wilderness, the human mind.