Taking life as it comes....

Life is a Gift - with a catch....

2011-12-15T19:11:00.002+04:00

Yep..Life is a gift! Beautifully wrapped...we hold it, cherish it and embellish it with more accessories - But scared to surprise ourselves we add more wrappers, more external decorations.But really very very few of us have the guts to open the gift. To see whats inside. I've taken a few peeks and I am getting a hint of whats inside...its nothing - Its just plain, dark, empty vacuum - something you cant control, something so intense that once opened you get sucked in..When you've been gutsy enough to do that, the experience is a transformation - to a more individualistic, more at peace, more self-contented living that seeks no other external validation for being. Nirvana.

As one more year wraps up, lets unwrap our gift of life....lets find peace within.

PS: Ha ha...am starting to sound like the Robin Sharma's and Deepak Chopra's of the world...Age I suppose :P

Of Endings and beginnings...

2011-08-04T11:39:00.002+04:00

I watched the last Harry Potter Movie yesterday...I delayed watching it, but I eventually had to get to it. I am not the movie-review type, so that's not what I am going to do...but I am going to analyse the unexpected impact it left on the Wundergal world, rather than the Hogwart's world...

I have now been following HP for almost 10 years, waiting for each book and each movie...suddenly its over. Its done. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint - I have grown too. Its not a bad thing - its just unsettling. Call me a late bloomer or whatever fancy term u want to use, the hardest thing I have had to come to terms with (which explains some of my previous posts) is the fact that, there is NO control over life. You can dream, you can believe, you can worry, you can cry, you can laugh, you can enjoy, you can hope - every single thing is transitory and what comes next is NOT IN ANYONE'S HANDS....What happens, happens - mostly with no rhyme or reason.

In retrospect, being the story tellers we are designed to be, we attach meanings and cohesively link events as "good" or "bad"...but hey, I am sorry to break the news.. but things (shit and non-shit) happens at its random will. However, inspite of the bleak outlook, there is something I have salvaged of my optimistic myself - borrowing from Viktor Frankl

Life Dearest,
"The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance."

Thats a new outlook...replacing my everything happens for good and what goes around comes around theory. Ha ha....Feeling smug. (let me for a while...) Which leads me to something Albus Dumbledore says in this HP movie..

Harry: Professor, Is this real or is it all in my head?
Dumbledore; " Obviously Harry, it all in your head - but that does not mean it is NOT real"

It is so unbelievably true, how sometimes life in the head is more perceivable and more real than the reality around!!!!

Disappearing Acts....

2011-06-09T20:42:00.002+04:00

Part of the super powers conferred as part of being w.u.n.d.e.r.g.a.l...Read God's Debris by the Dilbert fame, scott adams.. its ancient - i just got to read it.. a thought from the book that was severely cool! (yes, I happened to watch Kung fu panda 2 and loved it)

“We like to believe that other people have the same level of urges as we do, despite all evidence to the contrary. We convince ourselves that people differ only in their degree of morality or willpower, or a combination of the two. But urges are real, and they differ wildly for every individual.Morality and willpower are illusions. For any human being,the highest urge always wins and willpower never enters into it. Willpower is a delusion.”

Sometimes too many thoughts go criss-cross, whishing-whooshing - like fireworks - does anyone remember fireworks after the show? - no right?!....Going through a thought firework in my head...let my brain tranquilize. Then I'll write. ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

First love...A Sequel

2011-03-10T18:30:00.003+04:00

Shakthi, my little doll - not even all of 6 years has started reading.... its so gratifying to see her stutter through the words, trying to familiarize herself and making up pronunciations with the little she knows. Its lovely to see her take so much interest. Of course, the effort now is only to read and not to understand - but its beautiful, to watch someone falling in love the same way you did and someone as cute as a five year old kid...

I dunno, if she'll take to books like I did, but sometimes I cant help but hope. Cant help but wish she builds, imagines, experiences and see the fascinating worlds the books let me see. I hope that inspite of all the fun stuff on TV and computers...books last into her life. I want her to be elated, when I bequeath my most precious book collection to her when I cant read anymore...

Way to go girl...Amma loves you, reader or not!

My first love...Books!

2011-03-04T10:35:00.002+04:00

From: http://themonicabird.com/post/3273155431/date-a-girl-who-reads-date-a-girl-who-spends-her

I dont know about guys, but every girl who is a bookworm, will identify with this one. I am and I do. Could'nt be written better! - WG. The post follows.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Rosemarie Urquico (via kblitz)

(via conversationslips)

Rosemarie no longer has an active blog, but she can be found on Facebook here:http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=585211028

To see the post about how she was found, please go here. Thanks, Jonathan (who should eventually get a website that I can link to, yes) for searching!

Countdown...

2011-03-03T22:09:00.002+04:00

Savoring the last 15 minutes of the twenties....Its must be a plateau out there, not a downhill slope!!!

Take it as it comes or fight it and try changing its course...do whatever you may, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!!

Zen.....from within. Loving it.

Over the hill...

2011-03-01T14:37:00.003+04:00

And the overwhelming themes are,

Purposelessness. So what? How much more? . Where to? Positive disintegration? Existentialism? Identity crisis?

So much to do – so little to do it with, always. Straddling two worlds that are fast drifting in opposite directions is exhausting....Balance is a theoretical concept. Happiness is elusive, relative and momentary

Life’s a charade – I am a terrible actor. The “con” in consumed, concern, conduct is not coincidental and correspond to consequences, conformation (to expectations) and contrived respectively.

Search for meaning is pointless – the answer is 42 (for those unenlightened, read Hitchhiker’s guide). Life’s a joke – I need to learn to laugh with it.

Life really (really, really) never stops....it goes on with no respect for an individual’s state of mind. The drama in life is only in the human mind – the hell should freeze over, the earth should swallow me, I will die without you, injustice will be punished are all logically modeled outcomes sitting on the flawed assumptions that life is fair.

But life is in moments. Moments of utter fulfillment, love, pain, beauty. In the intensity of moments, is where the meaning of life is. It took me all this while to understand this – now that I know it – I guess the next phase is internalizing it, by facing the fact that moments ARE momentary, there are no “everafters” and memories are the only things you leave behind, To reconcile my idealistic Piscean self to the pragmatism of reality. I guess, the following lyrics from ARR's latest album "changing seasons" summarizes it all,

oru pillai ezhuthum kirukal dan vaazhkaiyo
athil artham thedi alaivathe vetkaiya

Is life like the scribblings of a child?

Why this quest to find some meaning to it?

artham puriyum poothu vazhuvu maaruthe
Vazhvu kazhiyum pothu artham konjam maaruthe

When I think I have it figured life changes,

And as life moves on, the meaning I attach to it also changes!!!

Cheers!

PS: I know lately, my posts have been vacillating between seemingly depressive and hopeful thoughts. However, in reality, it is a rational mind which heretofore had oversimplified the enormity of life now realizing the need to grasp the dimensions of this immensely complex conundrum before embarking on solving it (if at all it gets there).

Sometimes,

2011-02-22T09:53:00.003+04:00

All it takes is a thought...

Whose warmth

Can wrap your day in happiness!

And Tapasya, added something to this, that I made my day even better. I am adding in the main post, so that none of you miss it...

And on days like these
Make sure you bottle up that thought,
So you can snuggle into it
In the winters that follow...

A rare insight...

2011-02-09T12:39:00.005+04:00

At the most unexpected moment, for a seemingly frivolous question...you realise something interesting about yourself and the world....one such thing that I realised yesterday

Butterflies fascinate me - If you do take the time to stop and notice, butterflies can be a source of joy, just with their seemingly aimless flight patterns and bright colours....the way the flit from flower to flower, like a connoisseur trying to find the best food outlet...In short, butterflies are fun on the outside..But they're interesting too because butterflies don't start of as butterflies. They've been foodaholics and overweight, they've been single mindedly focussed (on eating, but focus it is !!), they've been imprisoned by themselves before learning to fly and to let go..

The contrasts of all the stages in the metamorphosis of a butterfly are so much more, than say, that of a frog....Human beings metamorphose too...from children to teenage to adult to middle aged to old age...just that some of us are frogs - who don't really seek much more than convenience (learn to live without always having to swim and shed that tail that's so out of fashion) whereas as some of us are more curious minded and seek a lot many more experiences that could change us fundamentally during the metamorphosis.... The effort always pays off.

So butterfly it is!!!

If that was cryptic...I am sorry

Crisis.

2011-02-03T15:14:00.003+04:00

I should sue Disney – for all the princess stories and their “good always prevails over bad” preaching animation movies and for disproportionately popularising the “happily everafter” concept. They’ve been selling lies to generations of children and no one’s gotten to them yet. I am afflicted. I cant stop hoping. I therefore sue Disney for damages of disillusionment that my life is becoming!

The pragmatic me says:

I’ve understood life is more of Tom and Jerry – each one does their own thing, no winners and losers, no good and bad, no beginning and no end – it is all a matter of time and context...

The idealist me says:

Yeah right, like hell, I am going to accept that....I am too sold on the Disney “ideals” – there is a karma and it always gets to you – in a good way or a bad way....truth (in the form of love or affection or righteousness or whatever be it) should essentially triumph.

Its an ongoing battle. But the idealist is losing hands down to the rationale and empirical evidence called life that the pragmatist lives. Denial seems like a route to take. But for how long?

Tell me really, is there a bloody point to this existence if you cant find what really anchors you to this life? What I have found so far are driftwoods that sail me a while...Is there a destination? Is there some point to this? – I dont know..All I know is that soul searching is an addictive form of escapism pushing you deeper and deeper in the search for the elusive and it definitely must be injurious to mental health!!!!

PS: I am NOT depressed. I am not going insane. In fact I am more stable than I have been in a long while. I’m just thinking my way out of mid-life crisis maybe!

5 years!!!

2010-12-25T09:32:00.002+04:00

I just realized my blog turned 5, three days ago...4 months older than Shakthi....I remember those times, half pregnant, prepping for GMAT, and holed up at home for it was freezing cold even in Memphis, TN...I remember, the sorry, old, grey, but the most comfortable recliner in the world on which I created my account and wrote my first post.....Five years and as I read my posts, I cannot believe it actually tracks my evolution as a person....I'm glad I have a blog!!! Interestingly, WG has become a second identity to me in several places...

And for those who say blogging is on its way out - I agree FB and Twitter are a helluva lot easier, but as long as there are people like me around who want to tell elaborate stories on the littlest of ideas and experiences, blogging will live.

Love you bloggie!!! Hope to see you live as long as I do :D

Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!

2010-12-17T10:16:00.000+04:00

The Hindu : FEATURES / METRO PLUS : Citizen reviews

After 16 years, I got published in The Hindu again.... (1991, I got my article published in the Young World - something I posted in an inland letter :)

Wundergal's star gazing adventures!

2010-12-14T09:03:00.002+04:00

On 13th December, WG wakes up to "The Hindu" as she always does and saw that there were goingto be meteor showers that night...Hmmmm, her school time star watching hobby had been abandonded for years now, limiting her ability to identification of a few planets and constellations.. but shooting stars? meteor showers? She was up for this one!!

At 10.30 PM I put the little one to sleep and wondered of all the possible places I could watch it from - the terrace of course, but it is in the middle of the city...I wanted to find a less-lit place that would be ideal for starwatching...at 11 PM I took out my car and drove around a bit....As murphy's law would have it, the fuel was low and a place that would be sufficently dark and safe enough for a woman to indulge in focussed starwatching was several kms from my home plus the apprehension of being pulled over and being fined for one thing or the other, made me head back home...I thought I'll give it a shot in the terrace anyways...So I walk up five floors and the gate is locked..Okay..

The guard at our apartment must already think I'm a weirdo, driving out at 11 PM and all, so now I have to go ask him for the key and I tell him I'm going to starwatch...he's gonna be convinced I'm a looney. So WG, sorts all excuses in her mind on why would someone want to go to the terrace alone at 12PM (FYI: they keep it locked because people indulged in"disturbing" activites in the terrace in the night - whatever that was!!) - Haaa..I lost my gold chain in the terrace and I want to look for it...fair enough and he bought that excuse too .Got the keys. It was 11.39 PM now as I opened the terrace gate and looked up..

Inspite of the lighting noise from the city, the stars were quite bright. The moon was setting, half of it all oranged up - looking like a slice of fruit derived by crossing watermelon with papaya (I know, thats eeeeeeeeewwwwww)...but it was beautiful.. I located the Orion constellation and the Gemini to the north of it..and lay down on the terrace to see if anything happens..NOTHING. Ten minutes...I kept looking at the stars..

Thanks to movies like KKHH and pictures on the internet, I was looking for a positive streak of light across the night sky paying no heed to the fact that my viewing location was extremely suboptimal. Another 10 minutes and I was giving up - bhaiyya would be waiting for the keys too...Then I started hallucinating, the stars started moving...very faintly I could see new stars appear, move and disappear - Oh my god.. this was it... this was how it looked..I must have seen about 5 or 6...I would have left after one, if I was convinced that I was not imagining it...Eventually, I was convinced that it was real.

Hmmmm...so WG was happy happy happy (not everafter - she needs a lot more than meteor showers to supplement and sustain happiness). If you're wondering, I have had my dose of Hindi cinema and therefore I did wish on the "shooting stars" - greedy to one wish for every star - haha.

If you want to know more on the meteor shower, see the link below.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101213-geminids-meteor-shower-peak-december-science-space/

Bye.

Attempts

2010-12-08T13:47:00.001+04:00

"I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt"
- Celine in Before Sunrise

Brilliant movie. Awesome conversations. For some reason that quote came to me and I felt the urge to post it...

Treading thin ice..

2010-11-30T11:39:00.001+04:00

I do try to keep this blog innocuous and limit to personal philosophies on life…but now and then something comes by and rakes up the social factor in me to an extent that I feel all the sharpest terrorist instincts in me kick up – to do a whole new Jalianwalah Bagh…..So yes, this blog post is definitely PG-13 complete with swear words and unrestrained violence…

What the bloody fuck??? Really….first its CWG, then Chavan and his housing project and of course Mr.Raja… the male mistress of the princess in the family that literally owns Tamil Nadu…okay the government’s strategy was to keep the scams coming, so that the public gets immune to it….Oh yes, and we do, don’t we??.. how else can we retain the optimism to go on….Like the oft repeated joke, how else do we retain the spirit to grow “inspite” of the Indian government…okay so we did. We went on with our lives – even as they shattered trust in the PM, who seems so dignified – we kept going on….

But then comes along Ms.Radia….with all the skeletons of Tatas, Ambanis, and yes media…I’m still with the Tatas and Ambanis – to succeed in a country so used to corruption there is no other way… you’ve got to be an Indian to do business in India…We all know there is no way they could grow this big without oiling the machines.. But the whole bloody fucking media????
The media that ran 24X7 new coverage when other scams came out…when Dhoni sneezed, when Rahul Gandhi had a emotional breakdown, when Rakhi Sawant had a wardrobe malfunction…CHOSE to conveniently not address this issue.

“I do not deny that these conversations happened, but the tapes have been doctored and the context tampered to give the conversations a certain slant,” – Vir Sanghvi, HT – He means to say its his job to do that and is agitated that someone else did it to him.
O yes, the much hated Burkha Dutt for her infamous coverage of 26/11, claims “ I was just humoring source” and has been defended by her CEO as ““To caricature the professional sourcing of information as ‘lobbying’ is not just baseless, but preposterous”.

O really? So when you’ve done something that’s baseless its unfair to publish it, but its ok for you to do the same to other huh?!!!!! How many bloody times did you have the wonderful and precious opportunity to shape public opinion but squandered it for personal favors and money? How many fucking times….You’re not just a bunch of jokers to be dismissed with a wave of the hand but a squad of terrorists to be shot down…

You know what dear Media? With great powers come greater responsibilities. Power like that of politicians is like a gun – you can only kill a person with it or not. But the media power is like a magic wand – you can make a donkey out of a man or a conscious citizen out of a man…But no, its easier to entertain a donkey, by running the same coverages over and over right?! You’re treading thin ice – only till you break it, once the ice breaks, you’ll freeze…to death.

Screw the whole bloody lot of you!! India will continue to be built

Good to Great

2010-11-22T15:05:00.003+04:00

This has been a season for concerts and live shows for me...Attended a concert by Usha Uthup this weekend. Despite the delay and somewhat lousy event management - everything just vanished into thin air, the moment she came on stage...What energy, what a voice, what humility, what excitement, I really cant explain it with words - the presence of that single person, made the evening so electrifyingly, brilliantly phenomenal....If I respected the woman and loved her voice before, I am now in adulation of this woman - Usha Uthup, who has no formal training in music, has a non-conventional voice, was mocked at by musicians and puritans, yet had the courage to become the face of Western music in India...Didi, we really love you.. You're simply awesome..

In my mind, Usha Uthup was all about "pop" songs.. but when she sang "Kanne kalaimaane", originally a KJ Yesudoss number -a voice so far away from Usha's and I surprised myself by moving to tears...rather streaming with tears...I loved the song always, but her rendition so deeply moved me and at that moment I realised that there are clearly only 2 things that sets apart the genius, super talented people from the maestros...

1. There are several talented people in the world, but the ones who scale greatness carry an attitude - so comfortable in their skin, with their individuality that they can side step all stereotypes confidently, creatively and boldly and be their own unique personalities with no qualms.
2. Whatever it is that great people do, be it music, art, management, research or anything random... it is done for their own pleasure, for their own love of that which they pursue - not to prove a point to anyone...it manifests as dedication that's unsurpassable - moments of complete involvement where they stop existing as separate from their pursuit - they are the music, they are the art, they are the plan, they are the thesis, they are the process, they are the outcome...

Dont wonder why I get so intense about things - the real experiene of life, is all about intensity...else you are simply bovine..If you have one of those charecterstics in anything you do, you'll go a long way - if you have both, you'll become great someday. Now, thats wundergal's verdict - take it or leave it, but please dont argue!

Sublimation

2010-11-11T12:22:00.003+04:00

Was at an abhang concert by Aruna Sairam yesterday...I figured out what sublimation means..once again.

Divinity, I realise is a very human and humbling experience - nothing too far away...If you can try and feel the dedication of a sculptor ( see the details and symmetry in the thousand pillar hall at Meenakshi temple in Madurai or the Tanjore temple to start with), the notes of a musician (like yesterday's concert, or sabir khan's sarangi, Zakir's tabla, Vaidya's veena... the list is endless), in the details of a painting (have no favorites to talk about), in the creatvity of a poet (Rumi, Gibran, Mira, Vairamuthu - and more), in the happy smile of a deprived child and many more such things including that of nature - if you can internalise these into yourself and sublimate your being into that moment, - that comes as close to divinity as I can imagine....God is in the details, in the small things - we pass by everyday..O well so much for my spirituality....

I just wanted to say the concert rocked - bigtime!

Tell us about yourself!

2010-10-20T10:35:00.002+04:00

Everytime I am asked this question, it becomes an extremely introspective, philosophical conundrum, that bothers me deeply...here's the newest version, I wrote somewhere...I guess that's Wundergal Version.(lost count)

"I'm an artist & a biotechnologist, an aspiring writer & an decently established management professional, a wannabe activist hell bent on changing the world yet a citizen unwilling to rise above my comfort zone...In essence I am the common Indian, torn between who I have to be and who I want to be - the only differnetiating factor being after this many years most other Indians have come to terms with their "have to be" personality..I hope to transecend that wall of collectvism and reclaim my individualism...eventually!"

Life is all about discovery and rediscovery of oneself I suppose....Like Didier states in Shantharam " A fully mature man has about 2 seconds left to live" or the even more hilarious HHGG quote- "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable" - true for individuals also, I guess.......

Ideas....

2010-10-08T15:20:00.002+04:00

I have been following ted.com for a while now and I find many of the talks fascinating if not inspiring...I recently saw this talk by Steven Johnson on where good ideas come from - it's the first first Ted talk that prompted me to write...He mentioned that coffee houses are places were ideas have sex :D - an expression I loved because it explained something so potent, in such a simple way - yet it cannot be expressed more precisely....

But no that's not what this post is about, it is about this infant incubator in Africa which is designed from locally available car parts - because the expensive sophisticated machinery that is imported cannot be serviced if broken and then the whole point is lost....For those interested, here's the link to the talk and the incubator design..http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html http://designthatmatters.org/portfolio/projects/incubator/

Ideas like these rock not because they are new, not because they're creative, not because they're cool....but because they simplified a complexity that never existed in the first place. People thought incubators were complex, but in effect it was not - it was just a collection of simple machinery connected intelligently...Thinking about it - how much of the technological adavncement that happens, ever reaches whosoever its meant to reach....most of it gets lost in the sophistication, in the perceived complexity.... I wish we did more of this and reached out to more and more and more people...

Binging sucks!!

2010-10-08T15:08:00.003+04:00

I know I am too late... writing about Bing after its old enough to be dead and buried...but what the heck, I just happened to use it now - by mistake and I realise, what a big mistake it was....Maybe for a very common word search, Google and Bing dont throw up different results, but the more techincal or specific or narrower your searches become, Bing really sucks..I have been wondering why all my searches at work are throwing up useless results and then Bingo!, I was binging, not googling....

Now I know there are a lot of anti-googlers out there who'll give me some techie shit about how bing has this technology that makes it good and that other feature that makes it awesome - who cares? I want search results that I can use - If you've not got it, I'm not gonna use it.. I am slow for not realising that the search bar on my IE menu comes with a default Bing option now...But eventually when I did, I just said,

Google God, I have always saluted thee, I fall on your feet now.....
Google simply rocks -what would the world be without it!!!

Joke!

2010-09-28T18:48:00.003+04:00

Yet again...taking life as it comes...The future has a lot of answers I am looking for....Nothing intelligent to say, except remembering a quote oft repeated by one of my best friends,

"If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your future plans" :D

Burden?

2010-09-15T09:58:00.004+04:00

They say...

Let the bygones begones

Leave the past in the past...

Let go of your baggage

And be free of all attachments...

I say,

Dearest people,

Could Jesus be Christ, without His crucifix?

How could I be me if it weren't for my past?

Each on carries their own,

Let me carry mine till the crucifixion

Burden it is...Yet

The pleasure is mine!

The best irony I have heard in a while..

2010-08-25T17:36:00.002+04:00

Hitler may have had Jewish and African roots

- could not help but, smile at this ultimate satire of life!

Traveling by bus..

2010-08-19T10:29:00.002+04:00

Its been ages since I did significant bus travel and I realise what I have been missing - better buses, better roads, better sceneries and most importantly clean rest areas all at a price that's much lower than the lousy airlines I've gotten used to, with none of the special features listed above :(… in fact I am typing this off the bus, with a power option for my laptop - Is’nt that awesome?! For a person, who likes lounging around (like me that is :P)this is a live travel & living show on somewhat remote areas of Southern India….As I saw the greenery run past me I felt the need to pull out my laptop and type this… Good Fun! - If my datacard was working I would have posted this off the bus too..not at all bad huh?!

I have to also tell you what I am seeing - A lot of lush green farms, sprawled under the shadow of rocky hills... the clouds hovering around menacingly, with an imminent threat of a downpour, the farm workers who pay no heed and go about doing some odd jobs around the farm, the birds witnessing all off this from the vantage point of electric wires and an occasional butterfly or sparrow that tries in all futility to race with the bus...I am loving this - Imagine that Garfield like smug-contented grin on my face...

Stuck..

2010-07-13T15:30:00.002+04:00

I feel the need to write...something, anything...- philosophy, experiences, venting....but somewhere between my ribcage and brain cells - there is a traffic jam. Thoughts are happening..but they're becoming faceless, preferring anonymity to shocking revelations...

The scarcity of words in comparison to density of thought results in a syndrome of non-genuine, depthless people who either hide from their identities or hide their identities.

Am I joining the majority brigade...or am I just performing a "living meditation", focusing inwards for a change?

You wont know, neither do I!!!

Artfest 2010 - Proof:P

2010-07-05T13:47:00.003+04:00

Its been a long time, since I've been here.

Ok here is proof that I did go to an art exhibition.

Pune was awesome - I met some nice people. Found out what an third grade artist I am :D, saw some master's at work - on the whole it was one of the best experiences I have had in a while. A quick visit to the Osho zen garden was a bonus - I'll post those pictures too - for now, I am uploading the video of the exhibition - Dont bother to see unless you're really interested in painting - this is more for my documentation purposes.

I'll be back to regular blogging soon (read as, my painful philosophies on life shall be preached further)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrtistttt...........

2010-05-27T18:52:00.004+04:00

Wundergal establishes her amateur "artistship" avatar - Applause!!! Spotlight.....Graceful bow by WG...Exit (before getting thrown out) :DDD

Check link below...

http://www.indiaart.com/Sowmya.Vel.asp

I know this is shameless self proclamation - but I am awfully happy for myself that I have to share it :DDD

once again...Applause please :P

A far green country.....

2010-05-13T16:02:00.006+04:00

Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path.....one that we all must take.The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back.....and all turns to silver glass and then you see it.
Pippin: What, Gandalf? See what?
Gandalf : White shores......and beyond.A far green country...under a swift sunrise

Pippin: Well......that isn't so bad
Gandalf : No.No, it isn't.

This oft quoted sequnce from Lord of The Rings...makes a lot of sense. Life is meant to be highs and lows - there is no other way you can have it. Life's job is to give you a high that makes you fly and then switch on the gravity so that you come falling down with huge THUD! As you get up and brush of your bruises - the hardest part.. a new high will be sent your way...I dont know what the funda behind this great design is - but thats the way it is, thats the way it is!

Nostalgia

2010-05-09T12:10:00.001+04:00

I was in Chennai, my last 2 weekends to visit family..there I dont have the luxury of stepping into an A/C car and out into an A/C office and coming back into a no power-cut home or shopping in super markets....instead the "boiling in a sauna" type of summer in Chennai has to be battled mostly in autorickshaws, haggling with street side vendors amidst a crowd of shoving,heat-irritated people, two showers a day that dont make any difference to how much you sweat - and NO, I was NOT complaining...I loved it.

It reminded me of a summer hols when I was younger..Of waking up to the prickly morning heat, the bright sun making it impossible to sleep any longer, looking forward to days of nothing, of fooling around with a gang of friends, of broken teeth and the taste of blood, of raw mangoes "self procured" fresh off the trees, the salted sourness that would make me squint my eyes and salivate to that intense taste, cycle races with no helmets or no knee caps, of hot air that billowed my hair much like a hair dryer set on 3, water melons, dust and mud and grime and the nonchalance with which we wallowed in it like a bunch of hooligans playing and screaming and fighting...futile attempts to attend art classes..and Amma's complete exasperation when we dint turn up in time for meals..and so much more...I felt younger once again.

I am reading William Darlymple's "Nine LIves" - its a different type of a travelogue on India. His description on Trichy, my hometown and my childhood memories was also a trigger to my nostalgia and I need to post it here.

"The rich soils of the Kaveri delta spread out below: a flat plain , the essence of green, broken in mirrored patchwork of flooded paddy fields, each square glinting with a slightly different refraction in the light of the late afternoon sun. Through the middle ran the thin silver ribbon of the kaveri, winding its way slowly through an avenue of plans that line the banks of this rich delta, before looping itself around the island temple of Srirangam and the freat smooth rock of Thrichinopoly"

I will never know, why we are in such a hurry to grow up and realise the preciousness of those innocent days ONLY in retrospect...Human stupidity as always!

Reaching Out...

2010-05-04T19:16:00.005+04:00

She thought it was the window panes..

That kept her away from reaching out to the moon...

Little did she know that the real barrier

Was all the empty space in between...

The Strikethrough...

2010-04-22T19:55:00.008+04:00

Not so long ago, sitting at my desk

I painted meaningful verses...

On the white of crisp paper

A beautifully woven embroidery

Of words in black ink....

Yet when I look at it now,

All that meets my eye

Are the words I struck out,

Thoughts I murdered,

And the emotions I denied expression...

Blotched with ink,

Those desperate attempts to bury.....

Shadow all the splendor of my verses,

- An immortal memorial to

All that's dead in me!

Conversations....

2010-04-15T18:26:00.003+04:00

People relax with books, TV, playing, lounging...to me its conversations. Not just any conversation - I'm pretty finicky about them. I need meaningful, intellectually stimulating, funny without being mindless, soul seeking - soul touching conversations... on topics that two people are passionate about...

Nothing beats it. I've been missing action on that front for a while :(

Life happens, as it pleases. O whatever!

Crib mode switch off!

Being myself -IV -completed!

2010-03-29T21:06:00.002+04:00

So to discover the power of being myself, which I by the way, have'nt yet - I need to get comfortable with being the real me that I am....In some dimensions of my life I have done that successfully. I've established a "brand" for me from childhood, due to my "left -handedness", later on for my loud voice, further on for my characteristic laughter - at uncomfortable decibel levels, more recently for my caustic yet, good natured sarcasm and scandulous on-the-face humor - but these were all really "me" - no preservatives added version....its interesting, how these have formed an "identity" for me - in certain compartments of my life this identity, is inspiring to some, intriguing to others and just plain amusing to some others. Its kinda cool.

In other parts of my life, this very image is uncomfortable to don....because its "inappropriate" or I am out of other's bandwidth or people just dont get who I am...or what I mean.. I clearly feel misfitted and unsync-ed and ALONE. All of us go through " situations" of misfit....I'm not referring to that. I am referring to life and the world around you feeling alien to the real person you are.

Once someone told me - "When things are not working, something is wrong with you or the situation you're in - the solution lies in changing yourself or the context around you - one of these has to work".

I did the first - dint work. Need to try the second now..... the trepidation that change brings is as constant as change itself...But you know those butterflies in your stomach right before the roller coaster or before a big presentation...they last only till you start...I guess I'll be okay. Wish me luck in finally living with "me" that I have discovered and accepted with great effort....

That closes this topic. Be back later with something else that's eating my head.

Difficulty of being you (me?) - III

2010-03-23T20:09:00.006+04:00

The story clearly turns towards me, my analysis and my life here - hence the question in the parenthesis.

As I delve into this, so called difficulty of being myself - or to put it more precisely, the guilt of being myself at the cost of someone else's disapproval stems from one big phenomenon - Liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 - somehow it hastened the disintegration of joint families into nuclear families, gave us the choice between Pepsi and Coke, took away our summer outdoor days to "monopoly", "life" and "barbies", from the family dramas of DD to the "wonder years" of Star TV, made extinct the mammoth called Ambassador cars, exchanged home tailored dresses with designer labels...it kept changing us with the freedom to choose - pizzas, coffee shops, designer labels, international brands, private colleges, laptops, cell phones...eventually we got used to choosing everything for ourselves - including how to live...

Yet, the generation before us was blind to it...still stuck in their 80's life - it had'nt dawned on them that 5 years is a "generation apart" and our parents were now 2-3 generations apart...Generation gap - had never been so stark! So was born the biggest dilemma of this generation of Indians "to be or not to be"...

I think many of the pre 1995 era kids or the pre-liberalisation era kids in India go through this confusion - I face this dilemma between my communist,family-bound, collectivist childhood and "its my life capitalism" based adolescence and increasingly individualistic adulthood...This dilemma has always existed in the past generations - but those who chose their own lives were clearly "rebels" in that era. Now its far more magnified in this generation, by the empowerment and opportunities that liberalization brought to us - its no longer rebelling to be individualistic, it becomes as basic a "right to live my life the way I want to"

Fighting for this right can be taxing on one's life and it has been for me...more later!

Difficulty of being you..- II

2010-03-23T19:01:00.005+04:00

Yeah, I am officially changing the name of these posts from Power of being you to Difficulty of being you...you'll know why as I go along.

In a society like India and I assume in many collectivist societies in the East, individualism is looked down upon - you dont have to be "seriously" different, like being gay or physically disabled ( with no contempt whatsoever- I think they're normal people) - all I need is one step over what "society" deems right - it could be, a girl having short hair cut, choosing commerce as a career in 10th std, wearing a bath suit in the swimming pool, wanting to be a cricketer/artist when IT is "hot", choosing to be single, choosing to not have kids, choosing a life partner - decisions small to big....are constrained by "everyone's" happiness - it always prevents you from taking so-called "selfish"decisions or take you on painful guilt trips - for not having catered to other's wishes, or ungratefulness. Honestly, I used to buy it a few years ago....Taking decision to keep people happy...but hey

WTF? really What the bloody F***!! "everyone" is not living my life, "society" is not facing the consequences of the "decision" that they took for me....Its my life, with no offense - it really is my life. Let me share something that moved me a few weeks ago...

I sat on a panel, interviewing some MBA grads from their campus. There sat this 24 year old guy, who said, I wanted to operate submarines - he wrote the navy exam and cleared it. But his parent's said navy is not a good career. He says "so I'm here. At this point after losing my navy opportunity, my job doesnt make a difference to me"...We asked him about submarines and his persona changed - he was passionate, his eyes glinted - obviously it meant a great deal to him....We dint offer him a job - we knew he could'nt sustain motivation in a 9-5 job. - A living example of Madhavan in 3 idiots!

- He might not have had a great career in navy - but if had done it and then realised it and made his own decision to quit, he would'nt be so disenchanted with life. For all you know, he might have been happier, making less money, just being able to feed his passion...We never know. I know one thing for sure - a good career, is not the same to everyone, a good life, a great partner - these are very individualistic tastes - nobody can define life for me or you. Each one our own.

So, in your life, let your decision be yours - think of "you" living with "your" decision versus "ëveryone's" decision every day for an extended period of your life...

more soon.

The power of being you! - Part I

2010-03-21T10:35:00.004+04:00

At the risk of sounding like a self help guru, or a "paid to talk for an hour"counsellor or a crappy over- bearing self proclaimed guardian, I am going to write a few posts on being "you". I doing this, because, the blog is about my take on life and as life as gone on, I have realised a few things about being me, that seem worth sharing...

In the late 1980's, I started watching tennis for a girl, few years older than me, in pink flowery tennis dresses, giggling at her own mistakes and clapping when the opponent returned a brilliant shot she could'nt attempt, taking losses very sportively, her aggression coming through only in her game - At that age, I identified with her, I dont know why....I loved tennis for her - Monica Seles. When she was attacked in 1993 and stopped playing, my interest for tennis died there...I still watch it once in a while, but very dispassionately.

She has remained an inspiration of sorts for me... the earliest and most entrenched...recently, D gifted me, Monica's autobiography and as I read it...I can understand, why I identified with her..All this intro for an excerpt from the book that I am going to put here as a prelude the posts that will follow,

" I have come up with a three point plan for surviving the tempests in life:

1. Clean house: This means getting rid of everything that is'nt essential in your life at that moment

2. Dont be afraid to say the magic word: It is'nt please. It's "no". People wont be as upset as you think they will be.

3.Embrace the power of being you, without apology: It's a power that is too often overlooked and squashed by others and by you."

The reason, why I am quoting this is because, I want to talk more elaborately on point 2 and 3 in the following posts. Collectivist societies in the East, ingrain in us the opposite of these rules and I personally have had enough in my life, trying to live up to others' expectations, saying yes when I want to say no and being guilty for being "me".

Soon...

Confessions of an ardent Calvinist

2010-02-28T19:34:00.004+04:00

A long time desire...

Always felt guilty about actually doing it..

- Owning the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes...

Extremely expensive stuff..

Is'nt it ridiculous to spend so much on books?!!!

Finally, the devil won...

Temptation succeeded, especially since there was a discount

Yes.. I gifted myself the C&H collector's edition

An indulgence, that was much needed..

Feeling a wee bit guilty, balanced by immense excitement and happiness..

So its OK i guess...

"Calvin: Life's a lot more fun when you aren't responsible for your actions."

To blog or not to blog...

2010-02-08T19:03:00.004+04:00

I wonder sometimes, if my rantings are good enough to maintain what can be classified an interesting yet informative blog...

Issues like this -

A Turkish teenage girl found dead in a hole next to her house was probably buried alive, a post-mortem examination has revealed.

For what: talking to boys

Her age : 16

Full link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8501181.stm

How unnatural can we get? An adolescent girl talks to boys and you just bury her alive... in the name of honor killing!! Wow! What a world we live in...

This is an issue I want to blog about - because, honor killing is the limit of all the small atrocities that women are put through in many societies across the world. It would be good, if there is person in the crowd of a bus, or on the road, or in the family who will stand up for a harassed girl...It can make a difference.

Issues like this:

Save the tiger campaign that's currently being popularised in India by Aircel communications..Only 1411 tigers are left in the world

Will someone please tell me..how blogging about an extincting species will help save them? Even if thousands are aware of it, can anyone who is educated enough to read blogs really go save a tiger in the forest? And for such an educated person, who is already in a field related to saving tigers, is it my blog thats going to make him aware??. I dont think so..

Aircel has decided to "use" tigers to prove its social responsibility - very bad idea. very opportunistic.

Though inadvertently, I have blogged about it....its an issue thats useless to blog about - I dont want to be used a Aircel's brand ambassador, unbeknownst to myself..

O Well.. thats the eccentric me, showing up :)

Moments of truth

2010-01-30T19:50:00.004+04:00

"He was forced to confront the fact that he had tolerated certain artificial constructs to uphold his existence. When you build on lies, you build strong and solid. It is truth that undoes you. He could'nt knock down the lies or else the past would crumble and therefore the present!" - Kiran Desai in Inheritance of Loss

Sometimes when things that dont usually make sense, start making sense - then you realise that you're not walking on solid ground, but precariously betting your life on a fault line that would give away any moment now. Interesting life, I should say!

Human Nature!

2010-01-24T20:45:00.003+04:00

"Hobbes, do you think human nature is good or evil? I mean, do you think people are basically good, with a few bad tendencies, or basically bad, with a few good tendencies? Or, as a third possibility, do you think people are just crazy and who knows why they do anything?"

- Calvin

I salute thee. Calvin and Hobbes, shall be my religion, if I had to choose...Hey, I am in pursuit of understanding the Gita and Mahabharatha and even it poses the same question in more complex terms - when C&H is funnier and more colorful and more rebellious, why not?

But the underlying fact is that, In 5000 years, human beings still remain un-understood - The species has evolved, but the collective complexity of the kind evolved quicker and we never caught up :(. Questions are good though!

Antarnaad!

2010-01-19T20:43:00.002+04:00

I am having trouble embedding the you tube video of this event that happened in Pune last week..

here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX9i_tUCv4E&feature=fvsr

If you have the time, definitely watch this or rather just close your eyes and listen to it on headphones -its awesome...

As I have mentioned several times before, I am not religious person, neither do i subscribe to any modern day gurus.. but I believe in spirituality. This event in which 2500 odd classical vocalist chant Om Namshivaya with Shankar Mahadevan leading the choir(?) is an intensely spiritual experience even when I listen to it on You Tube - I cant imagine, what it would have been for those present live and the singers, all of them creating a positive energy, thinking the same thought of God would have electrified the atmosphere, much like a rock concert - except that the energies would have been more channelised - I guess it would be the equivalent of a spiritual orgasm (apologies for the blasphemy, but once you experience God in the mind - thats what it is) - its awesome...

Really, do take the time and listen to it...

Outrage!

2010-01-08T19:43:00.005+04:00

Two Ministers watch as cop bleeds to death
Video link: http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1191324

After a long time, I am terribly outraged...Even as we digest every unjust thing that happens around us, somethings are plain revolting that you cant help but let the blood boil over...

Indian politicians, once again establish themselves as inhuman bastards, who must have been born out of a combination of monstrous beasts - FUCKING ASSHOLES! I know a lot of us do this everyday - see an accident and walk by.. but 2 fucking ministers and a collector and whole bloody convoy...with all their power, dint have the guts.. of 60 odd people, not a single person had a conscience...one of those extremely rare occasions when I am NOT proud to be an Indian.

And the guy who was shooting this video, from his car - last in the convoy he claims - a coward who had a conscience and killed it...I am so appalled that words fail me!

Dharma prevails over Adharma? where and when? Its all bullshit....

May the cop who died not rest in peace and haunt every single asshole who could have, but dint save him! I am not sure what a corrupt cop you were - but you dint deserve death like this.

Thoughts...

2009-11-20T19:41:00.003+04:00

A million of them fly by me everyday..Want to document them..Wanted to revamp this blog, wanted to get a fresh perspective to life, wanted to revitalise and renew everything around me...But only the intent remains, until it eventually devolves and becomes a bitter realisation of times gone by, without having "lived", without having done what could be done only in the past....Sigh!

Calvin comes to rescue to explain this state of mind:

"I'm not going to do my maths homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here's a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts."
"I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths."
"I prefer to savour the mystery."

What he did with Maths I am doing with life and the thoughts that swamp me!

The centurieth post!

2009-08-25T16:38:00.001+04:00

O well...about 3.5 years of this insane writing spree, and a one year sabattical in between - and its time for the century - the 100 th post..I wanted to write something meaningful for this one (Yeah people I do realise, that I write useless $%%@ otherwise...) I was wondering what to write about and something happened last Friday, which made me extremely proud and made life seem profoundly meaningful in that moment..and it deserves to be here on this occasion...

I was going back from office with Shakthi and she tells me " Amma, today in school ma'm asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. X said he wants to be police, Y said doctor, someone said teacher and then they asked me and I said I want to be like my Mummy - everyone laughed at me. But when I grow up I want to be exactly like you Amma" - God! I cant tell you how emotional that made me feel...how much that one minute compensates for all the sleepless nights, for all the smelly diapers, for the painful delivery, for the transformed life, for the missed parties...for everything....

Motherhood rocks!! Its like this dark tunnel you keep manuevering thru, feeling like giving up every now and then, except for occasional moments of brilliance like these, that makes all the warm emotions of the universe just wrap you up in a neat cocoon and you want to go on, simply because there is a little finger holding your hand..and it needs you...I know ten years down the lane, as a teenager, she's gonna cringe at the sight of me and we're gonna have some crazy fights..I'm gonna hate every bit of it - just like I hated her toddler years...I'm pretty sure it'll have its own moments of brilliance..let see..you'll get to know if this blog survives :)Ok and here's the unglamorous part - the warm and fuzzy feeling lasted for about exactly 30 seconds till she threw a tantrum for a chocolate, making me wonder if she was getting manipulative and luring me with flattery..

Ok bloggie, you're now a big blog, 100 posts old and all, no more craving for attention, no more asking me to write posts often, no more wanting your sitemeter to tick faster... Act mature..But then you should also not think too much of yourself, because there are blogs out there that are so much better, so much more well written and have gone thru far more suffering. So as per my whim and fancy, I'll expect you to act grown up or like child - it all depends on the "situation"!!

Talk about mothers- they're all the bloody same...I am no different....

Conoction of Contentions!

2009-08-11T20:00:00.006+04:00

Conducting a concert

Of complex conundrums

With contrastingly conflicting crescendos,

Concluding in cacophony

In the Conscience....

The conscience

Already countered

With countless conflicts

Of continuing this contrived concord

Is condemned to conquer

This contemporary confluence

Of commotions with candor!

Consequence -

Incongruous misconduct

Of a disconcerted non-coformist!

OK now, dont ask me why I came up with that "con"ny write up...Attempted for something landed up with this - so like life that is!

Writing...

2009-08-07T20:23:00.003+04:00

"I desire that I write for myself alone. It is when that which is buried in me finds expression in words, that I myself come to truly know what was buried in me. It may well be that the reason that I write is because I feel that I may discover more and more and come to know what else may be inside me. As I continue to write, and as more and more experiences unfold from within me, and as I become subject to these experiences, it seems to me that I may, in a way, make it possible for me to know who I am."

- Sundara Ramasamy (translation by Nadesan Satyendra from the Tamil original) - Found this on tamilnation.org.

This stands absolutely true for me - If I had written this myself I could not have phrased it better than this. I write when I am happy, when sad, when I want to capture moments (they work better than photographs for me), when I am frustrated or depressed all I need is a keyboard or a pen to let the thoughts flow out of me and take a form outside of me..Its the bestest relief, for me. I write anonymously on various forums - because it is not appreciation that I seek, it is the liberation of mind's claustrophobia with its own thougts...

As a sidetrack , I find Tamilnation a great resource to understand Tamil literature - makes you realise how much more interesting Tamil classes in school should have actually been!!!

Upanishads!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-06-26T20:44:00.004+04:00

I dint growup in a religious or highly intellectual family or surrounding...went to a Christian mission school, so I'm rather ignorant of much of the practices of Hinduism, especially when it comes to understanding all the slokas that are chanted for specific ceremonies - I mean I dont know by rote, or understand even the basic ones...Its a shame..but me happening to be me, dont really care much for religion. As is, I'm happy to "talk"to God, in my own language, that I understand - He better know all languages to clear His basic qualification of being Omniscient. So that was that. Never bothered.

But then, I have heard the following Sanskrit verse for years now - and suddenly I felt stupid for not knowing what it meant...

"Asatoma Sat Gamaya
Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya
Mrityorma Anritam Gamaya"

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Using the "google"God, I figured out what this meant...the translation as follows..

"Lead me from the unreal to the Real
Lead me from the darkness to the Light
Lead me from the temporary to the Eternal"

Cant deny the profoundness of that Prayer...But hey, I have a question, who decides the Real and Unreal, the darkness and light, the temporary and eternal? Lets get this straight, the world does not run by a rule book, whats my Real is your unreal - Usually we all stand in light, everthing around us looking rather dark - everything temporary becomes eternal and everything seemingly eternal becomes temporary in the course of life!!

Well, to simplify, I beleive, all rules we define for our life are contextual to be conveniently broken as the context changes...So as long as there is a Supreme guy out there, making a very personalised call on the parameters that moves actions, motives and emotions of people along the reality, light and timelessness scale, normalising it to specific circumstances of the individual - Great!! But then we all know how the world functions - Hi Ha.... So much for an idealistic world!

Poetry personified!!

2009-06-22T19:02:00.004+04:00

Never blogged a poem - But this one, I simply loved it for the way its written...

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me"

- Alfred Tennyson...

Dude you rock - too senti but too good!

Arbitowski!

2009-06-08T12:36:00.004+04:00

Typically when I'm on this space I have fairly clear idea of what I am going to dawdle about. Today I dont - I'm blogging for the heck of it..cos writing - just anything seems like a relief...Hence the topic...

Incident#1: Was at crossword yest with my daughter who is now 4 and my 7 yr kiddy niece. The 7 year old looked at some puppet books that the 4 year old was reading and she goes " Wow! how much fun these younger kids have. When I was four years old, I never had anything like this"

My reaction- Welcome to the real world of growing up! - Nothing is ever enough and it sucks mighty big time...

Incident #2: Monsoon showers in Hyderabad -downpour it was - beautiful as always. Rain brings out the romantic in me.. always. Drizzle feels like powdered sugar being sprinkled on chocolate cake, rain drops rippling into fresh puddles with that one jumping drop of water (see picture)- my heart jumps with it, the rain breeze loaded with chillness of the oncoming rain, is like a million feathers pouring down, the most unbeatable of them all, the scent of wet earth - it creates this sense of Deja Vu and I'm back to my childhood - I simply love the monsoons..and its here for another 3 months in Hyd..Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Down the memory lane 2.1: Last year, when the first rains happened, I was driving and I decided to pull over the car in one of the bylane junctions of Banjara hills and decided to savour the moment. I remember, the water pouring down the windshield and the window panes, some hazy greenery dancing wildly in the wind, the people and vehicles a blur, crystal clear melodies playing from from my Sony Xplod, felt like I was in a bubble, stagnated in time, watching the world go by - its a transcendental experience.... Try it!

Incident#3: My first visit to the GVK mall happened. A mall is a mall is mall theory still holds true. The aquarium was the only difference. They had the " blue tang" variety - the fish that comes as Dory in Finding Nemo -happens to be my fav character in the movie -glad to know that the fish actually looks stupid in real life. I would have been disappointed otherwise.

Thought #4: Read this on somebody's email signature - was worth mentioning here.

" Once you've figured out what you want in life, before going for it, figure out what you need to give up to get it - most often than not, the asking price is too high"

Alright, that helped clear my clogged brain..thanks for suffering this incoherent writing....

Elusiveness of Dreams...

2009-05-11T11:50:00.003+04:00

First of all, before I start writing - this is my pet theory which will win the Nobel Peace Prize fifty years down the lane.. now read on...

All of us have dreams and aspirations and typically well prioritzed ones. Some people dream more intensly than others who dream less intensely than the some people (Duh! that was intendedly constrcuted to be funny - atleast smile now).

The "others" who dream less intensely, I term as bovine, with no offense whatsoever! I envy them - imagine our very useful mooey friends - they graze, they sit in the shade and ruminate, sleep long hours, aspiring only to make more milk or meat which happens by design than them putting any special effort into it...well I see this harmless contented nature in people too - if you're one of them, please just go to the house of your religion, TODAY and offer the lavishest contribution you can afford - you're lucky. You have no clue of suffering.

Moving on to the "some people" who are relatively less in proportion as opposed to the bovine people - they are the subjects of this theory. We'll call them "Rogered to Death for Dreaming" or RDD. So RDDs aspire, they dream, of things that they rather not talk about lest they be sent to the asylum, the dreams are the meaning of their lives, they live to see these dreams come true, irrespective of how unreachable the dream is to anyone else, the RDDs belive they'll get there and plod on each day....Alas! there is one more truth to the life of an RDD -they always see people who live RDD's much coveted dream, extremely easily, without an effort....

Now that the subject of my theory is well defined - here is the hypothesis of my theory....

"Any person who is an RDD, will always face obstacles directly proportional to the importance/intensity of the dream, in the path to achieving it. To any other person who is living the RDD's dream, that dream does NOT seem precious - beacause they are either bovine in which case it doesnt matter, or if its another RDD, he is frustrated trying to reach his own dream. Once and if an RDD realises his dream, he would have paid such a high price on the way to achieving it, that it might not seem worth it

Thus as a combination of intense wishing and utter frustration of seeing other individuals achieve their dream, RDDs are unhappy for the major part of their lives trying to realise their dream and spend an unhappier rest of their lives trying to make that dream last...."

I am in the process of collecting data on RDD's and bovines to prove this hypothesis. I already have statisitcally significant proof that this hypothesis is right. But I'd like a larger sample size.

If this theory is proven then I'd propogate the strategy to live as follows:

1. Are you a bovine or an RDD? - Run the self diagnosis test priced at 9.99$ (corporate discounts available)

2. If you are a bovine you can carry on and live happily everafter

3. If you are an RDD - first of all we are sorry to hear that. But you'll be even more sorry to hear that, in case you really want happiness, then you need an expensive brain surgery that places an exicitement nullifier (under invention - may have to be personalised) in the hyperactive regions of your brain as result of which you start exhibiting bovine charecterstics

4. In case you do not want to undergo the surgery, we suggest that you get used to being unhappy or try mediation to calm your nerves.

Overall the theory may sound vaguely close to the concpet of Nirvana that was popularised by Buddha a few centuries ago. However, I swear this was all my own thinking and there are several addendums that are as yet unexplored in this philosophy.

Well, I get the peace prize, because if I succeed, then everybody would become bovine and there'll be no conflicts in a world that has no desires... See, I'm smart:P But, the only caveat to this entire theory being, RDD's are so strongly imbibed with a need to desire, somewhat intensely that too, so they might start desiring "bovinism" intensely and therefore be unhappy.... Well life's like that!

Slumdog or Millionaire?

2009-02-16T16:42:00.003+04:00

Watched the movie yesterday....Good one, definitely. But nothing deserving of all the "great accolades" its been winning which makes me doubt the fairness, authenticity, PR and lobbying that goes behind these awards - but thats a separate topic...

The movie is somewhat like a BBCD (British born confused desi), really not knowing where it belongs - I could classify it in several genres - childhood affection that matures into love and wins with persistence, destiny to be rich, good wins over bad, poverty all of them mish mashed and kathi rolled into the game show concept which, I agree is a novel idea and the only novel idea in the movie.

Even in the treatment of all the genres, you're not focussing on one for too long and therefore you're left feeling blankness and not one strong emotion at the end of it. Agreed, that the initial, slum scenes, child trafficking and all that jolt you - even though it is a reality that all of us face everyday at every traffic signal, not without a guilt that rushes through us, but choose to block out for purposes of a sane life - I am not being callous, or even saracastic here, this is the truth of the nation and shown in macabre details, it makes you hate yourself for the lifestyle you lead (survivor's guilt). But if that was the intended impact, then, without dwelling on it, the movie moves on to other themes, lost love, mafia and the works - it does not make a choice between being on the face or being euphemistic - therefore landing up being somewhere on the borderline of hypocritic.

My only reasoning, for it gaining so much popularity, is probably because, Westerners, dont know that this is the truth of any big Indian city (maybe a little less so in other cities, yet mostly true)..And this being a revelation to them, they are probably appalled enough to give away enough awards...Well whatever it be, it doesnt really matter, if all this culminates into something more than just awards and actually helps someone in need.

Well, but the kid who acted as Jamal, in the slum, he was just brilliant - the innocence in those doe eyes and the suffering that he goes thru, but the natural honesty in them - he just touched my heart. My sense of self went for a huge toss, when he goes to Maman, and says he would sing, if given 50 bucks, because he is a professional singer, with dreamy eyes unknowing of the harm that awaits him..

Movie review apart, reading, or seeing such things, makes me wonder, why are some people's lives so much tougher than others? It bothers me, that I had it easy, atleast relative to such sufferings....I know there are no black and white answers in life, the world needs a color scheme for it to run, and we are all distributed in the varying shades of gray to let it happen....But the justice of the design bothers me - " If God exists he is either cruel or incompetent or both and he better have a really good excuse" - Woody Allen's quotes that come to my mind...

Life as it happens.....

2009-01-29T13:00:00.003+04:00

This picture was sent to me by a friend, from Flickr.... It made me feel gloomy and hopeful at the same time - oxy"moronic" emotions that define me...I started writing something on it - turned out to be decent poetry, with a dash of cynincal hopelessness - but I guess its true that we do lose most of our present in analysing the future. Read on....and let me know what you think.

LIFE AS IT HAPPENS........
Feeling lost..
Either way out looks gloomy,
But I am not left with other options...

Should I stay in and not move on...
Or should I move on and not look back...
I know the hues in here are despairing
But here's where I belong!!
The road at the end of moving on beckons with light and laughter,
As does the fire to the fly with love and then slaughter....
Should I stay in and not move on...
Or should I move on and not look back...

I kept looking and thinking
Undecided on deciding...
Staring into blank space and misting my eyes
Oblivious and deaf to the sounds of the present,
Left speechless by the enormity of possibilities
Yet too numbed to move for the fear of obstacles..

Feeling Lost...
I lost my present, to the future,
The future that happened
when I was still looking and thinking...
Now that the future has happened,
I am still lost - albeit in a new place,
Still wondering,
Should I stay in and not move on...
Or should I move on and not look back...

Words are Fillers....

2009-01-10T20:39:00.004+04:00

Was having a tremendously interesting conversation today with a person who would qualify by the same adjective...and at the end of the day we concluded words are ONLY fillers. Words are useful only in a third person perspective....like when you are narrating your life to the world - there words are everything. The beauty of emotion can be captured only in words and we are NOT talking about that.

But when there are two people really close to each other - be it parents, spouses, friends, kids, siblings - whoever - If there is a real connect, words are pointless. A meaningful look, a soothing touch, a warm hug, a comforting hand on the shoulder, an encouraging pat on the back, an affectionate kiss on the forehead, a mild rustling of hair, a reassuring holding of hands, a drop of tear...and other lil gestures - that speak a million words in the few microseconds that they last....are all the communication that is needed. Similarly when in distress, a change in voice, smile, mannerism, the tear streaked eye, the stress behind the laughter can be picked up by people you connect to -no words there either. So whether you are at the giving end or recieving end - words are only the last resort to explaining your mind. More importantly, if you do connect with a person, words are only redundant fillers. In fact, the utility of words is inversely proportional to the intensity of emotion...and at the highest intensity of emotion, only - ONLY a gesture will do.

I know! Nothing earth shattering about this finding - but somethings are so implicit in our minds, that when you give form and structure to the obvious it seems like a whole new concept - much like an MBA!!! And in case, you dont have person whom you connect to without words - please open up your mind, your heart or soul and CONNECT - its a beautiful feeling....

PS: Thanks to the most useless person I have to work with whose rediscovery of my blog, is making me write once again...You were finally useful for something :P

2009-01-06T15:26:00.002+04:00

Came to my blog after ages...read my old posts - and suddenly realised how much I've grown up in the past year and half - my writing seems so amateur to me - not in style but in content. Life's gone on. Things have changed in me outside me. Others have remained constant - and will remain for a few decades to come.....New settings, new activites, new people when I wrote my old post are now part of my everyday, my comfort zone. Life baffles me and scares me in its bizarre ability to flow by, noiselessly and so quickly for you to capture the frames coherently. When you are moving up, you dont look back and you hardly ever care about the missing frames...but then when life drops you down the precipice, you look back. Look back and ache for the memories you left behind, the frames that were left uncaptured....
The desperation of failure, unfulfilled dreams, pain of loneliness, the agony of separation, the unshed tears, the raging helplessness of what could have been, but cannot be - we hide it, and mask it in the mundaness of routine, the meaningless laughter, the pointless arguments and the much propagandised auto-suggestive, convincing definition of "good life". Everything works until, life brings the mirror of the past and you dont recognise the masked person anymore.....Then life makes you choose - to live with the mask and change yourself fundamentally or to tear it down and be what you are. The former is a easy on the world and the latter is easy on you - And as I see, talk, interact and understand more people including myself, I realise, most people find it convenient to live with a mask for the greater good of the universe.....Peace be with the world!!

Not done yet!

2007-07-16T13:00:00.000+04:00

Well.. have postponed this for too long...but then there are times when no level of epxression is as good as writing and so here I am back to my blog...

Life after ISB has been realxing for most people..In my case it has been more realxed than at ISB but my travails as a toddler's mom doing the balancing act continues...Setting up home, buying stuff, finding a good play school, managing work hours and home hours and trying to act like a b-school grad is taking a lot of energy leaving little time to do much else. After a long long time I went blog hopping today and there were markstrat and macroeco talks in all the 2008 blogs -I winced - Its a year!!! I cannot beleive it. Sometimes, when u just keep doing ur things mechnaically you forget time, place and all other dimensions. Suddenly one day when u stop and take perspective of wats been happening it hits u like a bludger in quidditch (alrite I am a die-hard HP fan and the excitemnt is getting on me) and all you can do is swoon under the impact....Today thats wat happened!

My job has been going good....Happy with my choice so far. The business unit I work for has not broken even yet and is somewhat in a start up mode. So I am getting best of both the worlds...Hope to be here more often...Lets see!

Wish me luck!

2007-04-05T11:53:00.000+04:00

Alrite here goes my last post from ISB....graduating tomm, leaving this place in 2 days.....mixed feelings...cant say I am too upset, just a little apprehensive - yes exactly apprehensive about wat awaits me outside ISB.. well things will take care of them as they always ahve...

This one year has been great, mainly in terms of revitalising the competetive spirit in me which had started lazing around in the US of A...varied people, varied expereinces - on the whole a highly recommended concoction to make it big in tomm's corporate world... oh whatever!!

I had and do have loads and loads of gyaan to give.. which i guess am too lazy to blog abt.. but hey u newcomers, u wont know how lucky u r till april 2008.. but just remember its really hard to hand this place over to u guys... but life goes on - so have fun and remember to chill out, u dont get to do this again....

Bye...I will be back from a different place with a whole new set of things..

Wassup people?

2007-03-08T17:03:00.000+04:00

Well thats the question I ask when I see someone after a loooooooooooooooooooooong time....

Hope you caught all the ISB action in the other blogs and I know I may have disappointed you by not writing the crucial details that many of you might have been interested in. And if you are thinking i was so caught up in placment prepping and in the aftermath of it -u r soooooo wrong....the truth is I wanted to take time off from blogging....and not just blogging...from everything (Ok dont get too curious - I am just glorifying laziness here :)

After a nerve racking placement prep, and even more stressful placement week (well i am one of those who did the entire week on purpose - dont u remember my masocihistic tendnecies??), a few days of confusion and quagmire, another great birthdaywhich was smeared with Holi colors - all this supplemented by SS whose growing like she's drunk the magic potion (not physically, but in terms of what she understands and talks) and D's visit in 2 weeks... my life has been nothing short of action-packed...... and at ISB dont expect anyting else!!

For those of u curious cats, i shall hang around right here in Hyderbad and have joined the only big pharma company in Hyd....Right now departure blues or setting in. Familiar faces, wonderful surroundings, spoilt life - everything is abt to change in a month....the first 11 months at ISB u r runnnig around so much that you miss everything around u.. and finally when u settle down on the chaise with that deep blue drink to enjoy ISB, the demon of time drives u away to another place where u start a new race - Such is life...

I will be writing more regularly now....maybe an Ode to ISB!

The Final countdown

2007-01-08T22:51:00.000+04:00

I dont believe it! I am a 75% MBA and almost seeing light at the end of the tunnel (hope its not my hallucination)..The last quarter of my MBA is no less rigorous except that there is a focus shift from academics into placements...the campus is all ablaze with interview preps and stress levels are soaring -it'll hit an all time high in mid-Feb I guess.....

As for me, New year it is... but the same old crap happening.. after all the day still dawns the same way...I really missed Sam and D on new year..This is the first time in 5 years that I have had a new year without either of them...I have not taken pains to apply to the big two consultants....but almost half the batch has!! I have finally got done with my ELP and thats a great relief. Otherwise in general all is peaceful in the small ISB village...

But, then seems like all is not well with the world outside.... - two separate incidents that have left me shaking with rage..

The Hanging of Saddam - I am not pro-Saddam and I have no doubts that he deserved to die, but who the hell is the Almighty US of A to stick its long nose into another coutnry's issues. So should we hang the greatest American president of all times because the war on terror has killed countless Iraqis and a few thousand Americans. Shudnt we atleast fire him for his non-explanation of Guatanamo Bay?? Btw Mr.President, wasnt the war on terror supposed to be against the perpetrators of 9/11 who were primarily from Saudi - cudnt hurt ur oil business huh?!

The Noida killings - I am not taken aback so much by the goriness of the crime as much as I was by the callousness of the state. All those dead kids were poor, no money, no influence - would that Psychoapath gone unnoticed if one of those kids had been from a rich family. 38 missing and 17 bodies found...Can u believe it, some of them as young as 3 years!!! All of them literally went down the drain for a few lakh rupees of bribe in the police pockets... and a minister calls this "choti moti " baath....I cud even excuse that Moninder guy from capital punishment cos he really must have been out of his mind to commit these heinous crimes...But that fucking politician needs to be shot dead in public!!!

Thats it from me for now...

Happy New Year everyone!!!

2006-12-31T23:13:00.000+04:00

Another year gone by, another year to live, some dreams achieved and a lot more to aspire for, more little joys, littler sorrows and whole new set of possbilites ..Let s have fun and yet not forget to do what we are here to do....

Wishing you all a successful, happy and most enjoyable 2007...

Have fun. Will catch up with u soon!!!

Happy Birthday Bloggie!!

2006-12-21T22:44:00.000+04:00

yes..my blog is a year old today and I'm really proud...9700 visitors - not bad at all.....Though my posts have been dwindling and I really dont track it as much as I used to in the inital days...though life here is keeping me busy with a zillion stuff - i am happy i atleast blog once in a while and its funny how most ppl know wundergal and not me....one of my friends here, told me the other that she knew there is a wundergal and dint know it was me till a few days ago when i put my photo on the blog....it has been a great vent to some frustrations and lovely way to express myself . Lets here wat my blog has to say about me,

"Well, it's my birthday and I'm not sure how many more happy returns I will have, considering that WG is a lazy goose and hasnt been taking proper care of me. she thinks of me atleast half a dozen times a day.. but then there is this little devil of a daughter that she has, who doesnt let her do anytihng much. leave alone taking care of lowly blog like me. I'll let u in on a lil secret, u know y wundergal calls herself that? If u were thinking she is great enough comparing herself to superheroes, please trash the idea.. she calls herself WG because she is wundering all the time and never really knows wat to do..it is that kind of wunder u see! But all that said and done I am happy I am still surviving. Lets hope i'll make another speech of martyrdom on my 2nd birthday"

I cant see wat my blog's written about me - hope it had some nice things to say abt me :)

Bfore i go, congrats to all those who've gotten admits in the first round. This is a great place to be and u its great that u guys made it. But ISB is not heaven and u wont get everything u prayed for - set ur expectations right and u can have a wonderful time here..GOOD LUCK!

I am not dead yet!

2006-12-04T22:49:00.000+04:00

If u have given up on me as one of those ISB blog drop outs...I can understand... and i have noticed my counter is ticking very slowly too....fair enough...but I have blogged a zillion times in my mind and there are like 15 posts im my mind which are porabably too outdated now...So like a dutiful blooger, i decided I'll give my blog some life before it disappears into oblivion ..

But then the past month has been traumatic to say the least... being down with malaria and having SS admitted in the hospital with wheezing and then still keeping up with all the ISB stuff was more than several handfuls and I have only 2...that apart life's been running the ISB way - faster than the speed of light....

When Einstein was asked to exlpain theory of relativity in simple words he said

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity."

At ISB there is a weird kind of relativity - during the term u feel like u are sitting on the stove, but once u r done and look back, its like time spent with a beautiful girl.. so Mr.Einstein any thots?

Well that said, I gotta say that the healthcare summit rocked - maybe a lil late (actually over a month..) but being on of the organisers i cant go without bragging abt it...

The campus is alive with case study sessions and interview preps and i am doing nothing more that jus chilling out...had a few sour experiences with international placements.. but have gotten over it gracefully :)

So this is term 6 and I have taken this interesting course called creativity, innovation and design where are first assignemnt was to write a 55 words story and here is mine..

"He promised fun and told me the view up there was beautiful.

When we reached there however, I was roughed up, thrown around in contorted angles and finally pushed over a precipice – no pain, just shock. I couldn’t believe he did this to me.

I swore never to take the roller-coaster again"

Let me know how u like it....ciao

Really...

2006-10-25T10:58:00.000+04:00

For once, I do have a real excuse for not blogging...past few days have been absolutely and positively crazy. And beleive me I have started typing this post like 5 times and then had to run for something else.....

Well, much has happend in this absence - u wud be bored if i told u everything....but the juicy ones cant be missed...

After that blissfull break however pseudo it was, Monday morning dawned on ISB waking up unusually long and sad faces trudging to classes and starting the grulleing routine all over again.
We got to "sample" the elective courses during the first week - I must tell u it was a lot of fun, liek being is this excellent buffet where u wanna eat- all - u -can, but alas there isa restriction of four entree's that u can have and depending on how much that item was in demand u had to pay more or less to get it...Well, after dropping and adding and haggling, i filled my plate with my choicest dishes.... u know waht i mean!

And then we had the much awaited exam that was postponed which turned out to be one of the easiest we've had so far and then the much more awaited meeting to discuss what led to the postponement.... well it was just a interesting tug-of-war whihc no one won! The GSB rep, must have some associations with George Bush, cos he wnet around the smae bush a zillion times when a simple apology would have done the job... and on the studnets part, they turned it into a personal battle and the whole thing was meaningless!

Diwali was fun at Madurai, with my family....but the travelling was not...but wat the heck? it was worth it... Hope u all had a Happy Diwali too..

Other than the courses, the application evaluations are happening and for the Bangaloreans who are lined up for ur interviews first - good luck! From the applicaiton quality I see, it is going to be tough job this year....

We have been toiling for the Healthcare summit and the website is up and running at

http://www.isb.edu/healthcaresummit/

Do have a look..and Novemeber 4th might be good day for u to visit the campus in case u r planning to - so that u can have a view of the scale of events being conducted here + and the general visit, which u cant otherwise do!

Well, thats it I guess.. hope to be back sooner next time....

Wundergal returns!

2006-10-10T10:39:00.000+04:00

ok here i come after a long laziness leave (wish corporates really had such a vacation excuse) with the the usual chit-chat....
After a colorful Dandiya night and breathtaking dances the much awaited Sam's homecoming happened... it is great to be back together as a family again...SS's reaction on seeing her dad was just beautiful, even if I had a million words I cant explain it to u....to put it simply - its a lots of fun, esp this week being a break is all the more better!

The exam fiasco, when one of our exams got postponed in the last minute is still unexplained...and I for one am really pissed off abt it...as for other exams nothing to really mention - more guaranteed B's on my transcript I suppose!

The break is really just a pseudo break - there is tons of stuff to do for ELP and PAEV and there are like a gazillion interesting competitions happening everyday and I am trying to be part of atleast some of them, application evaluations, then some resume tailoring and repair is also happening - to top it all I am trying to make most of this break to spend time with SS and Sam, going out shopping, planning to take the lil one to the zoo - since she has started recognising animals and seems fascinated by animal planet on TV more than POGO....I am just a lil short of going crazy with sleeplessness, fatigue and time management - but like always hoping not much harm will be done to my system!! (atleast inthe short term) Hell! i shud be staying away form some of the optional stuff u r saying....Remember, I told u before, I am a masochist!

Btw, we at the healthcare club are organising a heathcare summit on November 4 th. It would be a great networking event + a lot of gyaan on the present healthcare scenario in in India...Healthcare is booming in India and might a be good industry to switch into in case you are bored of wat u r already doing....so if u can make it, do drop in on Nov.4th. Once our website is up and running I'll post the link..

Alrightie! see ya later.......

Loads to tell...

2006-09-26T09:07:00.000+04:00

I was supposed to wirte about the Tie-ISB, life sciences track like three days ago....A lil late now.. but still the session was so impressive that I've got to tell u wat happened. The panel was extremely was great consisting of a person from Dept of Biotechnology, India, Dr.Srini Akkiraju, a venture capitalist who specialises in small biotechs (later I realised that Forbes has ranked him 82nd top deal makers -Midas something list), Mr.Gene Williams, CEO Cambridge Healthcare, MA, USA, Mr.Krishna Ella, CEO of Bharath biotech and the CEO of Claris life sciences India. The session gave me a lot of inputs on what an entrepreuner in life sciences should focus on, what are the possible opportunities in this field and wat might make VCs fund u...On the whole, the event was immensely useful, yet very interesting - I listened with full concnetration for around 3 and half hours and that says it all considering the fact that my usual attention span is usually 10-15 minutes. It was a great networking opportunity to be talking and lunching with all these biggies - on the whole I was feeling really good and happy and very satisified when disaster struck...I lost my brand new cell phone - boooooooo hoooooooo....I had fallen in love with my phone and I am still not over the loss!

After a ritualistic, midterm exam in Investment Analysis, a take home exam in govt, society & business and a group presentation later....Section A decided to have a farewell party of sorts at Bottles & Chimneys - a pub in the city.... Man wat a party that was......the booze was flowing, the music was awesome, the food was good and the dance floor bubbling with enthusiasm and spirit (literally)...we all got kinda senti towards the end....I feel really bad moving away from this comfort zone and I'll miss my study group A1 terribly - we have had a lot of wonderful times....and some bad ones.. but we've lived through it all and come out unscathed. Managing group dynamics has been a major crib of most people on campus - but for us it worked out perfectly!!! Three cheers to group A1...We just rock!!!

One thing I have to mention...the song "tere bin" from"bas ek pal" is mine and AV's top favorite...we've played it atleast twice in every one of the past few group meetings...and yesterday when the song started playing in the party - I went frantically looking for AV and there he emerges from the DJ's den grinning year to year...the song made us (A1) all more senti and we were hugging each other and grinning for fotos and just generally feeling good & happy...
Finally, they had to drive us all out of the pub at 12.45 (usually closes at 12 i guess) and what a shame it was.. we wud have danced and boozed all night....Well all good thing have to come to an end and so it did!!

Of deadlines and more...

2006-09-21T09:30:00.000+04:00

Deadlines - whoever named it that, i want to fall on his/her feet, he or she had so much insight. Are u wondering why.. well when u r trying to met deadlines, u either die trying to meet them or die if u dont meet them - and that is why it is deadline - when u reach the line u r dead!!..see now u agree that whoever coined the term was a visionary:)))

Well, that comes out of a few consecutive days of sleepless nights trying to meet deadlines for assignments, ELP, competitions and whatever else is there!! Things dont happen until that deadline is one feet away and you know if u dont start even now you'll die...and as always, when u start that close to the deadline my favorite philosophy gets proven "If u do things in the last minute - it takes only a minute":))) Oh! how I love that adrenaline rush that happens in the last minute......But one interesting observation - people I have noticed, have a propensity to die meeting the deadlines rather than not meet them (that includes me too!)

Tie-ISB Connect is happening and there is a lot of fun stuff to know about starting your own ventures. I'll give u more insight after attending some sessions tommorrow. The CM was here for the inaugural causing some noise pollution on the campus. Other than that there is an elevator pitch happening for real wannabes to real VC's - of course for obvious reasons it is not an open-to-all event....I would have loved to attend it otherwise!!

I'll sign off right here.. bye......

Shocked!!

2006-09-18T15:15:00.001+04:00

If I asked which is the most backward continent, I am sure all of you would say Africa without batting an eyelid....

Well here are some comparitive statistics that Prof.ShivaKumar, told us in the Government, Society & Business class today..

Female Literacy:
India - 47%
Sub-Saharan Africa: 54%

Child Malnutrition:
India - 47%
SS Africa: lesser than that (cant recall exact number)

Assuming African data is fudged, the Indian data is supposedly very reliable..So even without the comparison why are our numbers so pathetic?!!

South Asia (which is mostly India) is the hub of atrocious gender inequality - read this article by Amartya Sen - "More than 100 million Indian women are missing"

My reaction - WTF? Incredible India it is..... for all the wrong reasons!

PS: My blog has been reading like a human rights activists' blog for the past coupla posts...I am not one yet, have some aspirations though.. Will change gears to other things soon!

Where is the line?!

2006-09-15T10:53:00.000+04:00

Yesterday in the Management of organisations class, we had a case study about "IKEA" and how it dealt with child labor and the floor was opened for discussion on child labor and man wat a discussion it was... this was probably the first time that even after the discussion was broken up and during the break, every person was still discussing the class topic - and it was not the usual casual talk, it was heart felt, passionate and vehement discussions that I saw....good to know that there was so much compassion lurking behind the unassuming personlaities I see everyday. I hope one day, even if 1% of the words I heard went into action, child laborers could see some substantial change in their plight.
My take on the issue of child labor -
I very strongly feel, no child should be robbed out of his/her childhood - that is the biggest injustice and the most inhuman atrocity that can happen to a person....but is not emplying children the solution?

let me explain with an example...

the small town of Sivakasi in TN, is famous for its fireworks and notorious for child labour. The whole factory town thirves on making fireworks mostly for the Diwali season... and there was one Diwali when we all boycoted fireworks because of child labor and the inhuman conditions of work the children were subjected to. The big companies drove out all thier child labourers - because they had no option. Drastic reduction in Diwali sales meant losses of several crores...and they obliged tothe demand of customers that no child labor should be employed!

But wat happened? Immediately following that, there was a sudden spike in the number of children who were trafficked...the numbers were huge( I dont remember them now) - 10 and 12 year olds sold to brothel houses, sold as slaves to middle-east countries and Malaysia, as bonded laborers without pay (they were bought for as low as 10000Rs. and thats it), and some more gruesome stuff! And then the NGOs that called for the boycott realised their mistake - these children were doomed for child labor unless their parents were shot down.... if not the dangerous firworks factory it was an even darker job that beckoned them - not a great education and a good future. So then they went back to these companies and asked them to employ these kids back, but provide them less dangerous jobs - like sticking labels on covers, stacking boxes - the ones that dint involve chemicals, reduce work hours, increase payand at the same time have night/evening schools for them....

I hear that the big companies complied to some of the conditions and now there is a night school.. but how much is really true - I dont know!

Child labor abolished in the name of "corporate responisbility" is just a sham to stay in the right light and keep sales going... they dont really care!

So am I saying child labor is ok? Not exactly.. but wat is the altrenative is my question...there is no black and white answer.. there are several grey areas in varying shade of grey too...I really dont know where I stand, but one thing I know...even if I can make the life of one such kid better that would be great!

How far can u go?

2006-09-12T10:13:00.000+04:00

After "India shining" till it shone too bright and people incredulously visiting "Incredible India" guess wats in the line next for branding? Its our very own father of the nation - Mr.M.K.Gandhi who needs an image booster amongst the present generation. Businessweek states that "Gandhi" as a brand is among the top selling export merchandise....and they are making a kill as we celebrate the centenary of satyagraha today!!! But wat is the scenario within India?

Economic times conducted a survey among CEOs and MBA students on who their role model was and Bill Gates beat Gandhi by a cool 20% if I remember it right...But is it surprising that the given sample set chose Gates over Gandhi?!! Not to me...But it was heartening that majority of them thoguht Gandhi was not a mere fad, he had some substance. Though it is true that most of us in this generation (and that includes me) do not relate to Gandhi or his principles, it does not justify making over Gandhi as a jean-clad modern avatar (which was one of the sugessitons offered in the survey)...that would be blasphemy!!! After all Gandhi is not spiderman or batman, he a was a REAL hero who has survived the vagaries of time and even today recognised across the world...

But if we dont brand him and make him "cool" enough for this and coming generations he would become confined to framed pictures in government offices (and that has happend already)...Having said that, I really doubt if ahimsa or any of his other principles of simple living would be worth a try in today's world - I guess not. However, there is something about him that overwhelms me - his determination. I dont think it was his principles that got the British, but it was his focus towards his goal and his fanatic determination to achieve it that is scary and intmidating.....and that is wat I admire in him - His courage, focus and determination and he surely is my role model when it comes to that. I read that an animation movie about his life is on its way....now, that is something good and will help revive his image, just like it helped hanuman and krishna (those are the latest animation movies and children of all ages are ga-ga abt it).....But I really do hope a personality like him does not get lost in the hype, but remains special to Indians (atleast) over several generations to come.

Anyways, as we revel in the freedom that we so take for granted, today on the 100th anniversary of the first satyagraha let us take a minute to salute the hero who made it possible!!!

"Be the change you want to see in the world"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ups and downs....

2006-09-07T10:05:00.000+04:00

Another long leave of absence and whole hoard of things happened...no excuses to give, except that it has been extremely difficult to focus my mental energies for the past few weeks and having vowed to attempt a conversion from chornicling to more opinionated blogging, I realise that it will be trading off frequency vs. content - Wundergal is still wundering wat to do...so bear with me till my confuesed mind figures things out....

In the meanwhile, some good news - my bro got married last week.. a much awaited marriage, finally happened. And another- Sam will be here this month end, so all of u ISBians wondering who the unlucky guy is, here is ur chance.....

As is the norm at ISB, grades have been pouring in, and exams have been happening....doesnt bother anyone anymore...But the place where I have been gaining most knowledge has been speaker sessions....these are awesome ways to gain knowledge. But, the important thing is to choose the right ones to attend - so far I have been lucky. Among all the talks I ahve attended by some very succeesful entrepreuners there is one striking charectersitic I noticed - they all have different recipes to success but they all believed in their idea and were ready to give up everything else for it. It was almost like their religion - aspiring entrepreuners, please note that down!

4 term, is gonna be one hectic term - my masochistic tendencies had got me hooked u into 2 of the most labor intensive courses at ISB - Planning an Entrpreunerial Venture (PaEV) and Experiential Learning Program (ELP).....these courses span over 3 terms and have both kicked off in full throttle. So essentially I am dealing with 6 courses this term...and from what I see there is no dearth of masochists here at ISB!!!

From the ups, to the neutrals here come the downs....our team got selected in the first round of a paper presentation competition...but we couldnt make it to the second round, becuase of logistical issues - it was extremely frustrating and upsetting. And another major emotional upset, I'd rather not talk about in my blog.....but recovery from the upset has been extremely difficult, partly a reason for staying away from blogging (I tend to write a lot of crap when I am upset, and it was a good idea to rather shut up). As far as I see, things are not taking a turn for the better any time soon....but I keep hoping!

Well, I guess that is a decent update on all that I had to say...I promise once again, I'll try to be more regular...but I can only try!

2006-08-16T00:11:00.000+04:00

As a part of "Bandhan" an event that the Net impact club at ISB organised, we got to celebrate Independence with kids from several NGOs. It was a great feel-good experience, like a Karan Johar movie....yeah exactly like that, feeling good about something meaningless. The kids were excited to be here - no doubts abt it. But how did it change their lives. And wat am I (or any of us here)? I am no celebrity, none great enough to be awed abt!!! why are we expecting the kids to be "happy" just because "I" am spending time with them....I really dont know...So at the end of the day, I did feel good that I spent few hours of my "precious" time for those kids and was pleased with my own magnanimity - but there was this voice from within me, heckling at my selfishess, which I am ignoring!!! (No offense to all those who organised the event....but it is my opinion that this could have been icing on the cake, not the cake itself)

Apart from all that, I must mention that the kids were impressive. Given the resources available to them, the cultural events they put up were sometimes better than what I have seen in Inter-college culturals during my undergrad. When we were playing games, some of them were so quick, agile and smart that I was spell bound. Special mention to those hearing impaired kids who danced for "Rang de Basanti" - you wouldnt have known that they were dancing by count rather than by hearing the rhythm, if the MC had not told us. We had to give them a stadnig ovation becuase they dint hear our applause. I hope that each and everyone of these kids and those who are worse than them, get a fair chance in life and when I get out of here I wish I could do something "real" for them.....

So that was my independance day.

One more thing, I was annoyed, that BBC chose to highlight the partition bloodshed that happened in 1947 at the time of independance, when they could have chosen to tell the world how India is back on track after stuggling for more than half a century after all the squandering they did. But it is an open sign that they feel threatened...and my dearest journalists at BBC, a little ngative publicity wont ruin us....we are doing way too well for that!

Fall out!!!!

2006-08-10T15:51:00.000+04:00

I am really sorry folks.. lately I have been falling out with my blog. I wont lie - I had ample time to spend ten minutes to blog....but there was something holding me back.. infact I have refrained from looking at my blog for the past week...I dont know why!!!

But, I really feel the need to change the focus of my blog - I'll still write about ISB, my life and other useless stuff, but now and then I also feel the need to do something useful. Since blogs are gaining popularity as a powerful medium of communication, I wonder, if mine is serving the purpose....

other than that life here is much the same...mid terms in two days (I wonder why exams always make me feel like blogging), loan applications, polishing resumes, basket ball,assignments, cases (look at my list, my priorities are sure screwed up big time) and the list stretches to infinity...

I'll be back very soon....

Inertia..

2006-07-28T11:33:00.000+04:00

The moment exams are over, I feel like a taking a break from everything...and once I do it becomes really diffcult to get back into the grind - same for blogging. I 've been wanting to blog since the day I got back I've been meaning to blog, but the inertia has been so high and it took four days for my guilt of not blogging to take over the inertia and finally here I am!

Term break, was predominantly spent on shopping in Chennai.... went to some places which used to be favorite hangouts during undergrad days..Struck by pangs nostalgia....D I really missed u, especially at Spencer's plaza where we used to be driven out of shops for the atrocious window shopping we used to indulge in and Pizza hut, where every Rs.300 meal was a huge splurge considering our budget...man those were golden days without a doubt....Nothing else in my life will ever match the fun we had in undergrad!

Then back at ISB as term 3 beckons....and I am as disaster struck as ever. Bidding for electives, exchange programs, getting ideas to write a business plan, healthcare club and courses on top of it - it is a whirlwind as ever.

SS has graduted from an infant to a toddler - she walks all the time, no crawling and learning a lot of things very quickly...its tougher for me because she has started making a fuss when I go out these days. Dodging her everyday is becoming something of a huge creative challenge. The tug of war between work and home gets on my nerves..but usually the home side does win!!! Atleast I have no regrets there....

Hey, and another exciting thing is I am back on court and am able to play - that is a huge morale booster for me....and there is going to be inter section basket ball tournament at ISB next week, and of course I am in my section team:))) Wish me luck.....

wat can I say?

2006-07-16T17:44:00.000+04:00

News about exams at ISB is now so stale and happens every other week that u readers are going to kick me if I start off with my "Boo hoo, I have exams.."cribbing..Well if your life was plagued with exams like mine is u would empathise with me.
Yup, so here we are , at the end of second term, 25% MBAs, brains steaming with the overload of knowledge while u out there have sinfully wasted and enjoyed ur weekend (Hey I do have the right to be jealous, envious maybe even a tad bit vindictinve)
Like Calvin says, the funny thing about life is, it never gets so bad that it cant get worse! Today has been really bad for me, and u would understand y I quoted Calvin in the previous line!
Two more days to freedom....if I survive......(ok that was a lil exaggerated but it always creates the effect)

Tagged!

2006-07-12T21:39:00.000+04:00

I have been tagged twice over first by Bonet and then by Swapnil.. high time I took care of it.. SO here we go...

I am thinking - what is the world coming to!

I said – Life is to live, just live it out!

I want- A world where there is no suffering and violence (No - I am not contesting for a beauty pageant or elections - I really mean it)

I wish – A fairy would come to me and grant me wat I want (above)

I miss – Sam & D

I hear – all the garble SS blurts out and even try to make sense out of it

I wonder – Why some people have easier and better lives than others...

I regret – nothing

I am - a die hard optimist

I sing – all the time

I dance – with passion when there is my kinda music

I am not –thin

I write – to destress and sometimes to vent frustrations

I hate - cowards

I confuse – career and family

I should – act more professional, be more aggressive and work a lot harder!

I tag- Megha, Boo (high time this tag went out of ISB:))

PS : though I wan to write about several things, for some reason I dont feel like doing it.. so forgive the long gap between posts!

Snap shots from the last week!

2006-07-07T17:01:00.001+04:00

Sunday - My first dunking at ISB...got arbitly dunked on A's birthday, cos I hadnt been dunked before. Wish the day had been warmer! It was great fun to get dunked, but not so much when I had to drag my heavy wet jeans & t-shirt back home with chill winds making me shiver!!!

Tuesday: DMOP class
The CP king of sec A is in deep conversation with Prof.Milind Sohoni and suddenly SK's computer goes "Tujhe dekha tho ye jaana sanam..."[another casualty of unmuted laptops]...We were all laughing and the prof waited for us settle down and then goes "I dint know u had such feelings for him[CP king]" leading to another round of guffaws....

Wednesday: GLEC class
5 minutes into the class SM gets off her seat walks up to the prof, and suddenly starts rummaging the table [where extra handouts usually lie]. The prof is perplexed...and SM says " I dint get handouts". Prof is even more perplexed, " they were given out in last class". SM returns with a sheepish grin while the entire class had a good laugh!

Thursday: Marketing Decision making class:
We discussed the "optical distortion.Inc" (ODI)- a case study about how a Harvard MBA develops contact lenses for poultry chickens, in order to reduce cannibalisation and food intake in the birds, thereby yielding economic benefits for the farmer. My takeaway from the case - "When you are too passionate about wat u r doing, u fail to see the shortcomings of whatever it is u r indulging in. Always analyse ur ideas from a detached third person perspective to see it's "real" value. Else ur mistakes will come back to haunt u."
We had to create a marketing plan for these lenses and our groups promo statement for the lens was "ODI - Kill the cannibal in your chicken"(Courtesy: ME:))

So life at the peaceful campus if ISB goes on..(err..that is the influence of reading too much Asterix )

For this year's ISB applicant..

2006-07-01T17:44:00.000+04:00

If u are a seriously considering ISB for next year, here is some info for u:

The deadlines have been preponed by a month this year. The deadline is on Oct 3 for the first cycle - so start NOW if you are serious
The fees might look staggering initially, but condsidering the facilities that are available and the quality of education received, it is worth it. Loans are availed quite easily and there are about hundred ISB scholarships.
The no. of seats is going to remain the same at 425 and we are expecting a few thousand applications this year.
ISB Info sessions are coming to metros and some other cities - Please attend them, it could be of great help! If u can drop by the campus that is even better.
As much as your GMAT score, please pay equal, if not more attention to ur essays. All the blemishes in your career can be justified and made beautiful by your essays. Your essays can make or break your application. Please dont make up stuff, rather write down -to- earth essays that are beleivable.
When making ur decision please dont start comparing ISB with IIMs, American & European Business schools. Each is good in their own league and it is not fair to say " The plum vendors are cheating us, look how much bigger & cheaper the pineapples are!!" - I hope u get the drift!

Those are just my tips. If u have specific questions, feel free to email me or leave a comment. And before I finish, my sales pitch for ISB - "It is an awesome place to be in and there is a 95% probability that you wont regret your decision"(Well done wundergal, spoken like a true MBA student)

GOOD LUCK! Have fun apping!

Here we go again!

2006-06-28T18:40:00.000+04:00

I am just settling into the 2nd term, getting cushy, playing markstrat, watching commanding heights, gettting used to bad grades and here they go again - MIDTERMS!!! Can u believe that??? well I cudnt - so I lived in denial til yesterday after which I realised more denial might deny my chance of graduating from here....So here I go again, deep into my books, optimally distributing my time, wondering about the comparative advantage of studying macroeconomics over decision models to maxmise grades [Hey, see I can apply my concepts in the real world:)) I'm sorry if you are not an ISBian u might not appreciate my application oriented statement]

There has been so much written on the dabbawallas' presentation, that I dont want to reiterate it further other than saying I was mighty impressed. But there was another talk, much less publicised, by the marketing head of Yash Raj Films - it was a good talk...I got introduced to the concpet of "content marketing" which was quite interesting. And another one by the VP of Nokia, India on brand marketing. Again there were a lot of excellent takeaways. On the whole, attending the speaker series organised by different clubs is an excellent way of adding newer, real-life dimensions to concepts learnt in class.....

There is always more to write... but right now I better get back to my books.........

This and that..

2006-06-16T23:16:00.000+04:00

There is so much happening around that there is a lot of disconnect in my thoughts and so this post is going to be as scattered as my mind is right now!

As bewildered as I am this term, I must say I am enjoying this pace - call me a masochist, call me an idiot, call me a gloat - but I prefer my life to move like a tornado rather than being a breeze. If u r the kind who loves some adrenalin rushing in ur system at all times this is the place to be!!

Had been to "liquids"(a pub around here) last week...felt really good to get out of the campus. I missed the "Arabian nights" thing on campus, but for once instead of just networking, I got to spend time with people who mean something to me [hopefully it is the other way round too], let some steam out, complained and bitched about everything under the sun, and had lotsa fun! But remember never take an auto after 2 long island iced teas !!!

After the initial days of hanging out with nobody in general, now I have developed an idea of where I am wanted, where I belong, my "comfort zones", where I dont want to be, etc. Also, I am might pleased with my performance in the first term - no, I dint ace any exam - just hovering around the average. But, I always gauge my perofrmance only by the ratio of input to output and on that gauge I have been clearly very efficient. Sadly, I also realise that it mightnot work in this term.

I lost the elections for sports club - which I knew was coming!

A conversation at the dining hall,
PP: "Where the F*** do u get the time to blog?"
Me: "When I leave the f*** out of my life I do get the time to blog.."

I know thats like a real PJ ....But apparently PP, DR, and S who were at the table found it very hilarious and requested I put it on the blog -So here it is! PS: If u r wondering WTF why do u *** the F word -WTF I dunno, jus becos everyone else does!

With that I'll leave u all to spend ur time doing more constructive things....

The one good thing....

2006-06-16T19:49:00.000+04:00

The buzz word on campus is "Mark Strat"... Everyone I meet asks "Have u made ur markstrat decision" - the pressure is greater than that for my matrimony decision!!! For those unenlightened, Markstrat is simulation game all 420 of us are hooked on to...Each group is a firm that competes with all the other "firms" on the campus in terms of products, strategies, etc. If u r wondering why the hell we would play simualation games when we dont have time to study - the answer is, thats becos if we win the game we get better grades!!!! [U should have known that we ISBians are not that fool-hardy]

Amidst piling pre-reads, intmidating cold calls in class, unfathomable subjects, "u get 4 hours to sleep, eat, change, pee, etc." schedules, and sudden release of woeful term1 grades, life at ISB goes on...Gone are those sweet days of term 1 [u can imagine the sad state of affairs if I am pushed to say something like that]...Those luxurious pre-ISB when I could afford 10 hours sleep, 2 hours TV, and 2 hours gym guiltlessly, days seem Jurassic to me!!!,[now if u notice that sentence, the keyword is in italics to emphasise the fact that I still stick to my old schedule but with my heart full of guilt]. And if u r thinking markstrat was the one good thing that happened to me - Nope...

I spent the last 2 insightful hours in the auditorium, watching some parts of "Commanding heights" - a PBS series which is a snapshot of evolution of Global economic principles over the past century. Whatever views I am presenting here are my own and may seem quite naive to the economics gurus out there.. Spare me!!

The following were main takeaways for me from the video:

1. The world economy has wandered between being a controlled/centralised economy [close to communistic - but not exactly, cos the government was in charge of only a few "important" industries like railroads, mining which were called commanding heights but planned the rest of the economy ] and being free markets [which in my perception is capitalism].

2.After several years of trying to have planned economies for their countries, governments realised how growth was stagnating and inflation was rising - but they refused to budge their stance.

3. What the men did'nt have the guts to do one woman did - Margaret Thatcher - thank her for the free markets we see today. It was today I realised why she is called the "Iron Lady" and how much she deserves it - you must be made of iron to ignore an "almost" revolution happening around you and stick to your stance.

4. This is just an theorem, well proved by point 3:
Whatever damage many men can cause over several years can be set right by one woman in a fraction of the time the damge was caused! :)
[point 3 is only one of the several proofs of this theorem]

5. When one market opened up and succeeded, it was like chain reaction and almost all countries followed suit - and voila, the world is flat!

6. I know all of us at ISB have asked ourselves atleast once in the past 2 months " why the hell did I leave a great job and come here..Am I a masochist?". I have too. I realised why today! At work, it was more like controlled market - I knew all I had to do was reach the minimum required and I would get paid anyways. There was little or no competetion. Obviously, my efficiency was low, I was not working to my fullest capacity, and I dint have an incentive to slog my butt off!!! I knew I was stagnating and I decided to try a free market called ISB and here I have incentive to put in my fullest -else I'll be trampled over by competition...So I work at maximum capacity, full efficiency and so the overall output is excellent!!! Hope u got the analogy.

I guess that was a long post and I have bugged u enough.. bye

Abandoned blog - II

2006-06-13T10:49:00.002+04:00

So one flight and one overnight train later I found myself in Trichy for a 3 day term break [if u can call it that]. But I was extremely happy to see my little one whom I had packed off in lieu of exams. One week is the longest I've been without her and I missed her - but she dint seem to care- as long as there was someone around to pamper her she is a happy soul! She is learning to walk, one laborious step after another - it was really exciting. So that is how I spent my three days cuddling with her, lotsa junk food, two books and some TV.

Of the two books I read, one was Da Vinci code - the one book I have put off reading for the longest period of time... But finally finished it in a day [I am addicted to books - if I start a book I cant sleep without finishing it! And that applies only for fiction.] Maybe I was expecting too much from the book - it dint impress me as much as I expected it would.

So, now I am back on campus, ready for the grind of Term 2 which according to alum experience was the worst of the 8 monsters. Having slain term 1 successfully and having acquired some experinetial learning on the do's and dont's I am wiser and must supposedly act more sensibly this term [though history tells me otherwise -hope is always good]....

Here I come term 2.......

Abandoned Blog

2006-06-12T10:45:00.000+04:00

I have been away for too long - by my standards..... and there is loads to catch up on..

So yes! the first term is officially over and we start term 2 today. As for the end term exams, I am really not sure how exactly I did, but I know did decently enough not to flunk, so I am happy. I felt like a convict wh escaped prison the day the exams were over - I could not handle the freedom of doing whatever I want to with my time....I made a zillion plans to attend every other party that happend on and off-campus..Yet when I got home all I did was hit the bed and woke after a good 12 hours!

And I woefully realised I hade to endure 2 days of Leadership Development [LDP] before I earn my term break...As frustrated as I was with the program I am surprised it did go well and at the end of it I really learnt a lot about my speaking and presentation skills. We utilised the one evening we got to get out into the city. My group and our allies in LDP -group A2 went out for dinner to "Southern Spice" - and spice it was....loads of it.. but the food was good, company was even better and there was no dearth of fun!

And what I did for term break will follow soon cos' at this point I am sick of typing!

The begining of the end of the begining...

2006-06-01T19:02:00.000+04:00

Ok now...dont kill me for that topic. I just meant that the climax of the first part of our MBA has started. Had our last classes of the term today and the countdown for the endterm exams has begun. Though the atmosphere is tense but it aint as much as it was for the midterms..people have gotten an idea of where they belong and accepted it I guess.

I realised one thing, just listening and assimilating the content of these classes changes ur perspective of the world. Already, my thought processes are getting focussed towards, demand, statistical significance, marketing strategies... I will write more about this on my next post. Its a whole new world out there!

I did something very impulsive today - I filed my nomination for the post of the Sports club President. It was a five minute decision and I just went in without people to even propose and second my nomination - hey I dint know...So anyways I did file a nomination and lets see how it goes. Will let u all know wat happens.

Time to buckle up and start studying [I am not sure how much that helps - but no harm trying:)))].....

Once upon a time...

2006-05-29T22:29:00.000+04:00

Its fairy tale time...
Once upon a time there was a happy girl who lived a very happy life. She had not a single care in her life, and she had sooooo much fun in life. One not so fine day, her parents told her that they had met a prince, held so high in virtue and of noble birth - an excellent match for their daughter. The girl was shocked - she had so many plans for her life and marriage was clearly not on her agenda. Anyways who was this stupid prince to marry her and imprison her in his harem. So she protested, pleaded and begged.....but so did her parents...happy girl hated others being unhappy.... She was so young and immature that she decided to "give a shot at marriage" as if it were going to a restaurant.So she agreed to marry the prince.

When everything was in place for the wedding, the girl realised her mistake but it was a point of no return....She hated the prince for having impressed her parents, she hated everything and she knew she would hate him too. All her dreams of romance were shattered and she was very miserable.

But, she didnt know that she was going to be swept off her feet by this unassuming prince - the quiet, silent Mr. Nice guy. He was so patient with her, put up with all her tantrums, and encouraged her to pursue her dreams and the girl could not but help, but fall hopelessly in love with him. He surely was not the red rose-diamond ring- candle light dinner kinda romantic guy.. but he had his own little gestures of love and care that meant more than all the superficial things...So the happy girl thanked her lucky stars for having brought the prince to her.

Soon they had a beautiful daughter and lived happily everafter.

I wrote this post becos today is their 4th wedding anniversary.....and if u havent figured who the couple is...I am sorry - u'll have to die of curiosity!

On my own feet!!

2006-05-28T00:49:00.000+04:00

Feels great to be back on my own feet - yup! the cast is gone and I am walking without a crutch, albeit with little limp...But, hey I am walking. I understand that most of u r not catching my enthusiasm, but let me tell u, u seldom realise the value of what u've got until u lose it.....I dint relaise the worth of my legs till I broke them - I had to miss so much of the fun stuff that happened and I hated my immobility... Well anyways, now that I am okay, I'll make up....But I must say I miss my Ferrari!!!! Well, trade offs are an integral part of life :)))

The rains have cooled the terrains of ISB, the weather's been awesome and the campus so picturesque for the past week...It is the one thing that has been relaxing in here.. else it is always a quiz or an assignment or a discussion or some sign of impending doom. With the mid term results out and the end term around the corner, I feel like the guy in the above cartoon which my groupie A sent to me a while back...

A post long overdue......

2006-05-22T21:32:00.000+04:00

The past few days I have been going through a myriad of emotions -

Surprise -
I barely had time to realise a thing and its more than half term already

A feeling of loss -
when Prof . Bob Stine who taught stats told us last week that it was his last class, I could not help but feel sad. He was a phenomenal teacher and his knowledge base was astonishing. I have taken a stats course at the grad and undergrad level, but this time around stats was a revelation - it was not just a combination of means and errors and variances- it was amazingly interesting bcos I learnt wat each of these meant in the context of the real world. Thanks Bob!

Deja Vu -
of undergrad days, where most of the time - open book exam meant "DANGER" and studying doesnt matter if u r not a pro at the subject already. The economics mid-term was a disaster to others who were very disappointed....to me it was no surprise, I was expecting a tough paper and knew it was going to be disaster for me - But I was not expecting such a large scale massacre!

Exhaustion-
my "to do" list is always atleast 15 items long and most of the time I keep carrying over stuff for several days before I get done. On top of the assignments, and quizzes I also need some time to spend with SS and that is becoming increasingly difficult as time goes by. All this with a broken leg just makes things all the more interesting [if u know wat I mean!]

Solace-
the only solace I have been getting apart from all the great support from everyone around me is my Ferrari [aka my wheelchair]....I think it has helped in the healing of my leg quite a lot and I'm loving the feeling of whizzing on it...However it will be gone soon.

Relief -
Doc says my hairline fracture is healing pretty well and my cast shud come off this weekend

Outrage-
As is evident from my previous post.

So...as always life here is a very mixed bag of emotions - just a lot more variety to choose from:)))

Screw u Mr.Arjun Singh!!!

2006-05-20T21:46:00.000+04:00

Mr.Arjun Singh, how can u be so damn cheap as to barter the country's education system for a some thousand votes....Do u f*****g know who exactly is using the reservations now...I'll tell u - the kids of top executives in public sectors and industry owners who were convent educated from their kindergarten, driven to and fro in chauffered cars, are the ones using the system now...Why would my classmate, whose dad is my dad's colleague, who scores less than me be given preferential treatment??? Are u trying to recreate the caste system in retrograde manner?

And if at all u do have a brain inside that head of urs, do u realise that the people who really need the reservations havent even got their primary education? Some of the really deserving backward classes dont have a clue that they have reservations...Go and first take care of their basic education will ya moron?

And hello, do u think u will gain more votes through this reservation than the ones you are losing by all the atrocities you are unleashing on the anti reservation activists? The media might ignore it but, do u think we dont know how students are being beaten up like animals and chased like thieves - ur police force always does a good job of such things doesnt it?!!

After all this, I am not anti-reservation.. I am for a reservation that is designed more like what krishnan's got on his blog...It has its own set of loopholes... But the world we live in is not utopia and I still think a reservation based on economic and parent's educational background is far more sensible than one that's based on caste sytem. The caste system that our constitution so abhors on the other hand is made stronger each day by such stupid reservations.

How I really wish, our country was in better hands!!!!

What the heck!!

2006-05-18T23:45:00.000+04:00

Now, why am I blogging while I 'm supposed to be studying for the mid-term tomm?
The obvious excuse is I am taking a break...But the truth is that too much studying muddles me more than too much booze and I 'm trying not to confuse the 2 exams tommorrow..sometime back I was wondering wat the confidence intervals for marginal costs would be... [well if u dunno stats and economics u wont appreciate how screwed up I am... and u must be a very blessed soul]. Well anyways, exams will come and go and there are always the parties to drown ur sorrows in...
In the meanwhile Mr.President has been elected. He is a suave personality and I'm sure will project an excellent image as a representative of the ISBians. The president also happens to be my neighbor...[any favors? let's negotiate] !!!

Ok..now I have a big decision to make - to sleep or study??? wat the heck! sleep always wins hands down...gudnite!

Owner's Pride Neighbors envy....

2006-05-14T08:49:00.000+04:00

Nope - not Onida; it is my motorised wheel chair thats becoming everyone's envy. There have been a lot of questions like,

"Is it free?"
"Do I get it ONLY if I break my leg?"
"Can I take a ride on it??"

So, yes I am basking in my new found glory of the girl who drives the wheel chair and it does spare me the hike across the ISB terrain to class everyday. Its a lot of fun, except for the broken ankle of course! Someone suggested I paint the chiar red and call it Ferrari - How I wish !!!!

Apart from that, the campus is abuzz with election activity. I hope someone would realise the value of sympathy votes and pay me to campaign for them - I've been dreaming about waving the victory sign, sitting on my wheelchair, telling my sob story and how the candidate I support is the most compassionate person in the world. Of course, my motorised wheel chair will be switched to manual mode and the candidate will be pushing me around to create the "effect". Any candidate ready to negotiate???

It is my groupie A's b'day today and his was the first official b'day dunking I attended. It was fun [of course as long as someone else is getting dunked and kicked and plastered with cake on their face]. Midterms are around the corner. Everyone is waiting with bated breath.....I hear that some people are living in the LRC - God bless them! Me? dont u know I have broken my leg, and I am suffering of low morale and depression and hence have been unable to study:)))))

News Flash!!!

2006-05-10T17:49:00.000+04:00

Remember that scene in Superman and Spiderman movies when the superheroes lose their powers for some odd reason and tumble down from the buildings! Lo and behold but for minor scratches they are ok!! But alas, wundergal dint try to jump over Manhattan skyscrapers... she couldnt perfrom a regular task of passing the ball during a game of basket ball, and alas she landed up with a broken ankle on a wheel chair! [Yeah if u dint realise it, I DID take the liberty of comparing myself with super heroes:))))]

Yup, so thats the campus buzz right now - me on the wheelchair and if I practice well enough by tomm it will be me with a crutch... I am hearing that people are scared to go play or use the gym for the fear of a breaking or tearing something...Hey! by Murphys law when misfortune attacks it catches only one and lets others scot free [ OK.. yeah I made that one up...Nobody knows the number of Murphy's law that exist and I know for sure people get more convinced by Murphy than wundergal]

Right when I was gearing up toward the game I love so much, and which for several reasons I havent been able to play... breaking my leg sucks - BIG TIME! And even worse being confiend to home is so uncharacteristic of me...But u know wat...I am forced to study this way... May be God's [or whatever that power is] way of telling me ' Girl u better buckle up and start doing something about ur acads, before u flunk them' .... As for SS, she is giving me weird looks and I do get to spend more time with her 'cos I still choose playing with her over studying....So it aint all bad u see [Ok.. that is a symptom of the Obsessive Compulsive Optimism I suffer of]

Before I finish, I would like to dedicate this post to the Class of 07 for their overwhelming support and readiness to help....I am really touched by all their kind gestures.. .THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Foto shoot!

2006-05-08T23:01:00.000+04:00

So we had our foto shoot in formals today... We all took the greatest pains to get dressed and then they took one mug shot [we were holding a board that had our ID written on it ] and profile shot in less than 2 minutes [wat was i expecting ? some half n hour modelling session...I dont know] So we decided to make better use of the sunk time [similar to sunk cost - see I am learning economics and I gotta flaunt it] we had invested in getting dressed we took some pictures of ourselves. The group shots are in Venkat's blog ... check it out!!!

Neck deep to Knee deep!!!

2006-05-06T22:40:00.000+04:00

Having struggled through the flurry of assignments, that were given for our first "weekend" [if u would call it that!!!]... I have succesfully completed them [well, not exactly 2/3 is pretty close to 3/3 right???.. by a 70% confidence interval maybe!!!]. And thank God, my groupies are brainy, smart and helpful - full credit to all of them!

Yup... so let me update u on wat is happening in my life,

I try to pre read for each class, but as u all very well know I am only trying!!! And then aften 2 hours of OHT [Over head transfer - for all those unenlightened souls who dont know wat OHT is ] in each class I vow to myself I will go home and understand everything....back home, SS would most probably be taking a nap [lucky thing!!!] and I decide I need to refresh my brain before I start studying and give SS some company in sleeping - so there goes an hour down the drain. Once I wake up, in order for my brain to clear up from the sleep hangover, I play basket ball [ that sure is one good thing that is happening in my life - I am playing full court games after almost 6 years, and I'm really not as rusty as I expected myself to be] which is another hour and I get back home, have dinner, play with SS, chat with Sam and D, do some blog hopping, write a post if I am up to it.. and ooops, its 1am....I realise I have time only to to rush through the next days' pre reads....And the cycle continues...

But thats just me! When I look around, it is like a battleground, of a different kind- it is a combat of brains over assignements, challenges of profs to students, serious strategy building on how to take on the monster courses, avoiding those geeks who-know-everythings lest u feel like u r scum - the competition is so intense that it gets on u. But there are two ways people react to pressure, either go with the crowd and start working hard or just relax and take things easy - I am seeing both kinds around me... As for me I am not too much into my books and not too out of it either... I make sure I have a life and I am enjoying every bit of it!

This is just the opening scene of the ISB drama - I am sure as we proceed, roles will reverse and characters will change - of course trauma will transform!!! Let us see what unfolds ahead of us...........So long folks!

Trade-offs...

2006-05-03T15:06:00.000+04:00

Since the other ISB blogs have extensively covered the core term classes, I shall refrain from further stressing the few details that are there...

Instead, I was thinking of trade-off , which seems to be the central concept of all the classes in this term and I am sure for many of the courses that are yet to come! Trade off is basically having to choose some product becos of the several constraints we face, resulting in trading off our real/best choice.

Well if u see,

Financial accounting: It is always a choice between increasing ur assets [by further investment] or retaining the profits and not taking further risks [actually this is the course where we discussed trade offs to the minimum]

Marketing Managment: There is a trade off in marketing two similar items from the same company, or in choosing one marketing strategy over another equally good one.

Statisitcs: This course helps u decide using statistical methods, which would be better trade-off - A or B?

Economics: The basis of this course itself is, peoples' choices - essentially trade-offs- resulting in supply-demand and so on..

Isnt it interesting the simple choices we make like Bournvita over Complan, Lux over Cinthol, Maruti over Hyundai are studied so extensively [of course there are complex ones too..I just dont know about them!].. And the corporate giants really need us MBA's to study that stuff and help them ....HaHaHaHa...

But on a serious note, [I always seem to have one at the end of a post]...Isnt life full of choices? difficult ones that too? Like, having fun or working hard, Career or family, money or satisfaction, etc. etc....There are some choices that cant be undone - so think again and again, again and again.. and finally dont forget to stick with ur choice, whatever the trade off maybe!

Before I get lost, here is something that happened in class today..

There was this PPT slide up in front of us..and I was reading it before the Prof reached it... there was this word that I just could not understand and it dint make any sense in the context either. The word was "apply" and maybe too much reading got on to me and I was reading the word as apple -y , u know wat I mean? something like an apple!!!! And when the Prof finally prounounced the word apply... I was so full of wisdom. See thats wat happens when u read too many complex things - u tend to think even simple things must be complicated!!! So long friends, Catch ya later!

Of Kaavya, Chetan and the Honor code....

2006-04-30T08:39:00.000+04:00

From the day we stepped on campus, the conseqeunces of violating the honor code have been drilled into our minds. For those of u who dont know, the honor code or the horror code as we ISBians choose to call it, is about copying, collaborating during assignments, plagiarism, copyright violation, cooking up resume, etc., Life can be hell or even worse if u violate the code is wat we are being told....

So who are Kaavya and Chetan?... no, they are not students who violated the honor code..

Kaavya is the 19 year old author of "How Opal Mehta got kissed, got wild and got a life". She was basking in the glory of her successful book when, suddenly the book has been withdrawn on charges of plagiarising from Mcafferty's books - as many as 40 copied passages were found!!!!

Chetan is Chetan Bagat the author of Five point someone, a book that most of u have probably read....In the book he talks about Cooperate 2 dominate [C2D], a method of distributive studying, doing assignmetns and attending classes. So the 3 friends had to do bear only 1/3 rd of the workload each...and I am sure most of us have done that during college....

So, I was thinking after all these threats why would someone violate the horror code? The above stated things came to my mind and then I realised,

First off, we students in India dont see this as wrong at all, in fact that is how most of us have cleared our degrees. The three IITian friends in Chetan's book belong to this category. What is the harm in copy pasting a research article as ur assignment? that is the way we think... But alas we dont realise we are infringing on someone else's originality. When someone else builds his own house, u dont put ur name plate on the gate and claim that the house is urs right? A similar concept holds good.

Secondly, people think they can get away with it...I think Kaavya was of this category... But think for a moment.. what if u dont??? I catch myself thinking every once in a while, how ashamed does Kaavya feel now, how is she facing the people she knew!

I am writing this becos I have gone through bad experiences myself. When I went to the US for my Master's, we all desis wrote an assignment together, becos we are so used to it and one fine morning all of us were summoned and threatened on charges of plagiarism!!!! It was shocking...After a lot of pleading and shamefully explaining that is how the "system" in India works we were warned and let free.....It was an unintentional mistake, but it scared the wits out of me!!!!!

So, wat I am trying to say is - it might not seem like a big deal..... but it is REALLY A VERY BIG DEAL!!!!

Being gauche!!!

2006-04-27T17:41:00.000+04:00

I am a gauche person...any three guesses as to wat it means?!
I know u dint get it!! It means I am a south paw....
U still dont understand u right handed idiot?!!! I said I am left handed...

Dont yell back "SO WAT?"

Well, ever since I started using my hands, people have thought I am weird [I am... but that happend later in life] becos I am left handed.. I remember one of my kindergarten teachers had a grudge against me becos she told me to use my right hand and I dint... She saw me when I was in 10th class and her first question was "So u still write with ur left hand?".... I was the biggest sinner she had come across!!! And then there used to be exam times when those senior students used to block any space that my left hand needed for support....Oh how I hated those bullies....Oops and not to mention the family functions, when as a good tamil ponnu I used to serve food in the "pandhi" [simply put it is a mass eating session].....and people where so offended when I served food with my strong hand. Some even insisted that I use my right hand, which essentially meant sambhar on the white dhothi or payasam on that costly Kanjevaram pattu sari...unintentionally of course:)))) And many gadgets including the computer mouse and musical instruments are designed for the dominant majority.....making my arms ache when I play minesweeper [of course it is important] and handicapping my ability to play veena [ No that is not a LAME excuse ]

That apart, my left handedness has been quite a boon - because it provdied me an identity. People [read teachers and superiors] spotted me easily in a class of 70 people... and for some odd reason people think LHers are intelligent... Whoa.. what a joke! and even worse one of my friends thinks lefties are hot just becos they are left handed...The reason why this post came up was that today someone told me " U r a LHed, you should be good at Math" and that is as far from truth as Pluto [not the cartoon] from the Sun. ...

So here are some truths about handedness,

Ur handedness is genetic to some extent. For right handed people, the left side of the brain is dominant and vice versa for the Left handed - this is a much debated concept, but still the most interesting one I found. Well so much for the woes [and wins] of a gauche.....

A year ago..

2006-04-25T12:33:00.000+04:00

exactly at this moment I was in the labor ward of the Baptist hospital in Memphis, delivering my little bundle of joy...Yes today as she turns one, I am celebrating a year of motherhood! She is too young to understand why everyone is calling and singing songs to her on phone.. but to me it is a milestone, better than most others I have acheived in my life....Being a mother is a experience in its own right! For instance, u would never understand how something so troublesome, irritating, tiring, obnoxious, and another string of bad adjectives could feel like an angel, unless u are a parent...It's been a lot of fun and a whole load of learning and I've loved every moment of it...And here again without the support of my dearest hus and my mom [in the initial days], I would have turned insane by now..so kudos to them for their patience in handling me and my kid!!!! Thanks to D and my Bro for teaching her all the bad habits in the world like hitting and biting and screaming... sometimes I'm wonder if I am fostering a monster in the confines of my home!!!

And I am wondering, can the core terms get as bad as the first two months that u ahve a new born at home...I'll tell u when I am going through them!!!!

US life with Indian luxuries!!!

2006-04-23T15:54:00.000+04:00

Yesterday, I decided I wanted to go out into the city to get some stuff and once I was out of campus, I was suddenly struck by all the commotion, pollution, heat, crowd, etc.... it was as if I was woken from sleep and told "Wundergal U R IN INDIA"....Yes, the ISB campus is so far away from the city, so pristinely maintained and designed such that it gives me a feel of being in US!!! The quality of people and the service provided also add on to that aura. Yet, we get people to do the cleaning, ironing and washing - someththing unaffordable in the US...We are getting the best of both worlds and I should say I'm getting completely spoiled!!
Well, not sometihng I'll ever complain about :)))

The section showdown, left us in Section A pretty disappointed and Sec B took the trophy!!!! But that dint deter the Classy ClassA from partying late into the night yesterday. The party was toast to the team effort that we have been putting in for the past week. Thanks to the DJ, MK we had one Tamil song that brought out all my "kuthu" [it is a crass form of folk dance in rythm with fast drum beats] instincts. It's a long time since I danced like that and I really had loads of fun....

But the fun ends today.. and pre-term starts tomm and the books are still unopened. I am closing my eyes and waiting for the plunge into acads.

aaaaAAAAA ClassA!!!!!!

2006-04-21T23:39:00.000+04:00

As I mentioned in my earlier post.. I am in class A. I already feel patriotic about section A and have been an active cheer leader for all activities....Btw, the topic of this post, is the chant we use for cheering our teams and ClassA sounds like Classy! We won the frisbee match yesterday and man wat a match it was !!!!!! The victory was followed by some dunkings with drums, cheering and all other fanfare. Today, for the talent nite we put up 2 really good shows but I think, we made 2 mistakes - one was that we dint focus on novelty and the second was we failed to catch the pulse of the crowd...but both the song and dance were excellent team efforts and were really good...

That said, tomm at the section showdown we'll know whether we won or not!!!!

Some interesting titbits,

Today after the morning session, all the girls were asked to stay back....and for the silliest reason ever IMO! But most others did find it useful....Well wat the announcement was about - I'll let u guess....

During the career perspective session, there was this interesting quote by one of the sepakers and I have it here for u,
" A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing"

Another intersting thing that I learnt during orientation, is the meaning of the ISB logo -

The half globe at the bottom stands for a rock solid foundation of knowledge and the flying birds represent innovation and flying high with that knowledge!!!

Cool huh!

Get set..and GO!!!

2006-04-19T23:03:00.000+04:00

Alrite the first week at ISB has started with a BANG!!!

To start with the campus is really impressive.... and I love the cozy studio that I have been alloted with a balcony that faces Microsoft..The people - the staff, the alumni, the housekeeping and my batchmates are all just awesome...the organisation is fantastic... and I am stopping here before I run out of adjectives!

The past 5 days have been packed with activity and after the first 2 days, I have realised the futitlity of trying to attend every single presenation and every single session! I have interacted with lots of people now.. but I remember a only a handful of them. I am in the first most study group of the batch with an impressive mix of people. The parties are extreme fun....My laptop was out for formatting and now that its back I think I shall capture moments and thoughts more regulary and in greater detail!

But the days have been so full , that I am beginning to wonder how I am gonna balance things if this continues/worsens...I hope, I will make it through just like every other time!!!

Extended vacation!!!

2006-04-13T20:00:00.000+04:00

I know I have taken off for more than the intended 10 days.. but that is wat vacations for are for - to extend. But blogging is something I enjoy doing and I ahve missed it in the past 3 weeks!!! But these 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and my access to internet has been pretty limited... so my absence is justified...In 2 days I shall be in wonderland [or slogger's paradise] - ISB... I am excited, nervous, scared, apprehensive, curious and another million emotions running through my mind. Well. to ISB and all my faceless friends I have known through the blogosphere and yahoo groups.. here I come....in 48 hours

My next post shall follow from ISB..Wait and watch out for a live telecast of ISB life...[hopefully I will keep up with blogging amidst the gruelling schedule]!!!!

Grant me leave for 10 days!

2006-03-25T10:26:00.000+04:00

Less than a week to go to leave USof A and I am still sitting on my ass not doing anything.. Dont have much time to fix the template.. please bear for a while [meaning till I get settled in ISB] ... Dont think I can blog for a while [meaning till I get back to India]. Will update the blog list after I get a finalised list of all bloggers - am too lazy to keep updating it...Am planning to meet the Chennaiites..lets see if things work out!!! Dont have too many updates as of now.. but within a month I am sure I am not gonna know wat to write and wat to leave....See ya ppl in like 10 days!!! Till then take care..Tata.