Bangalore as I perceive

Slurrrpp!! amazing crisp masala dosais, easily accessible and refreshing filter coffee, evening chat centers....this is 'Namma Bangaluru'.

Fly-overs, multiplexes, multi-ethnic clothes swarming the malls and style signatures made by pretty damsels all over MG Road and Commercial streets. The slow moving traffic has increased PQ--> Patience quotient among people although their HQ--> Health quotient seems to have deteriorated a bit.

Good ol' Bangalore is changing a part for good and part bad. After two long years when I just started merging with the colors on the canavas of Bangalore life , I hear about this terrorist attack in IISc. Gosh! I had worked here just a week ago. And I was probably travelling around IISc a little before the attack happened.

The rumours of serial/parallel blasts planned ofcourse have been revealed before hand. Thanks to all people involved in this effort.

The IT industry has made so much difference in clogging brain drain. I never imagined that it would be a major cause in the cross-over phenomenon. Well,non resident Indians, the merger of bollywood-hollywood spectra, and students going abroad for higher studies have made the world such a small place overriding intercltural, cross-continental barriers.

The magnitude of changes I am seeing never cease to amaze me. I still hope to think these changes will keep surprising me as pleasantly as they have been...

Its time now...

Its time now to go to back where I belong.I feel like a child, I feel like a woman....going back home after a reallieee long time could be as beautiful as painful as it can get.

The beautiful part needs no description, the painful part is something which cannot fit into words.

My mind is getting torn between the past,present, future and all the spaces between them. I need just bout two seconds for my heart to race. I am living and breathing excitement, expectations and fear. Tears dont fear barricades...wonder if I can hold them!

Is there anything more overwhelming than going back to where you belong? I'm still in a daze..

well...

stress test,heart rate variability, depression, hectic life style,..chronic heart failure....gawdd!! these are the terms I keep reading for my term paper..

well! I sometimes wonder the deadlines being so tight I might as well end up being a sample of study

I think I can run an engine with the amount of steam in my head...lord help!!

funny lill paradox

Theres a time when you have so many meaningful things occupying your life and you dont hav time to think about them...

And then there is a time when you have all the time in the world to think and life seems still,meaningless and stagnant.

Life could be all about striking a balance between them or atleast the effort is worth it...

Just finished another innings

There were like bout 20 ppl in my house. I was helping my pals with cooking and serving. I was collecting a coupla gifts too.

I saw a few new faces. Most of them kept to business i.e., eating the food and sipping coke. Some of them even shook hands with me, but most of them were busy.

Then the clock struck and I had to cut the cake. I warned every body that if even the smallest piece of cake touched my face I'd kil 'em all and go to jail. Well, they agreed not to waste the cake.

Then when the clock struck 12 they put a whole cup of sour cream on my face and clarified that they had kept their word.

I hardly got to eat my favorite cake 'Tiramasu' and the party was over. Some of them came in ,ate, drank and left and forgot to wish me on my B'day.

Hehe well, I like straight forward people who keep to their business.

Back to square Fall

Fall it is and so is Fall...apart that I feel a surge of nostalgia that the season brings along with itself...

Its been two years now all blown off my feet in a jiffy. Feels like I have stayed still and things around me changed without even seeking my opinon or knowing what I want.

I have changed I must say,quite a bit, adapting and eroding to the changes in and around me. Thats the magic of winds of change. They touch you as much as you want them to.

I see new faces on campus...some hopeful,some scared and lonely and some a bit of both. I see myself in them...as I was two years ago. Life has been as good to me as I deserved.

I see people falling on and off the pages of my personal diary. A very good few many stay on. I have no complaints. I know my dear pal,well called as Almighty has big plans and all this is a small twist and turn in his roadmap.

Well, be it all and be it mighty!

What matters is that I have stayed on with myself as he oversees me....

Back to blogging :)

Its been ages since I have posted a blog. I felt a volcano of creative desires dormant in me...I must admit blogging has been a good way of steaming out my thoughts..

If I could write in air and let it stay the world around me would be crowded with clouds of thoughts and rain in emotions..

Look outside the window...thers lovely foliage bathing in green,brown,red and delicate saffron fading into yellow...and the leaves rejoicing in the breeze touching their bodies..

Ohh how I love 'fall'!

..the best part of my life would be all the 'fall chapters' of the calender of my lifetime...no matter what my personal/professional life be, as I step out into the open air I feel like things are just as perfect as they could get.....

Rendezvous

I gaze through the winds......youthful serene clouds adorned in satin blues...where are they headed to?

The lush lawns seem endless leaving me smitten....the eyes are hungry for more and more....as the delicate spotless blankets of grass change colors with the overcast clouds , is this heaven or earth?

Am I imagining or dreaming? Mother Nature at her fullest expression....Is she mesmerizing me...Cant be so perfect,can it? I'm savoring it all with every sense God ever gave me...

The sun shies away from this beauty behind the clouds....and his arrogance blends into the mild,cool crisp rays as if it caused the skies to blush in pink saffron....and people around me call it evening,for me its beauty in infinity...

That was Virginia .... God you blessed me this weeked, with this unforgettable rendevous with nature..

Am I dreaming, please dont wake me up!

sMiLeS

I sleep like a baby and smile...warm smiles...they keep surfacing like the gentle waves on the ocean bed...wiping away the old sand as it brings it back again to the shore....

Is it the warm touch my mom put me to sleep with or papa's tender voice....smiles

That old old crush who seems so stupid now ages later when I meet him ....smiles...

My first stage performance where I did my own steps in a group dance ...smiles...

That day i walked up to my prof and screamed he was wrong....and today I know I was all wrong....and remember the way he subsided his giggles...smiles...

All those days when I lied to my parents and spent my time on rehearsals...smiles..

Those moments when the other person thought me to be stupid and tried to impress me while I dissected her/him cleanly ....smiles...

When I give a naughty smile in a serious discussion (was remembering a joke)and suddenly the speaker forgot his/her lines...smiles...

Jeez I have the most important meeting of my life tomorrow...I'm supposed to night out ...Bloody...**** some one kick me out of my comforter!!!

Dil Chahta Hai

The winds are splitting my hair as they touch my cheeks. I'm looking outside from the Hyundai Santro I'm in,and enjoying the privilige of a pillion rider. There is Dil Chahta Hai(DCH) playing in the background.

As every song plays, it sprays across my eyes a million thoughts and memories. I am yet to think of a movie so thoroughly refreshing as DCH.The first time I watched the movie, that was about 4-5 years ago, I kept wondering what the title of the movie had to do with the story. Ofcourse I have watched the movie whenever I could,a dozen times or over. Everything about the movie : be it the dialogue,background score or even the backdrop say,is thoroughly etched along the aisles of my mind.

I know its too late to write a review for this movie...but some things get fresher and fresher as you revisit them. This movie is one such and I can surely claim it. The base of the movie spans so many aspects of life that almost anyone and everyone can relate to it.

Akash,Sameer and Sidh...well, I could choose to be any of them in real life. Akash for his keen sense of sarcasm,humour and carefree nature. Sameer for being so confused in life that he got his friends to care for him hopelessly and Sidh ofcourse, for the way he let his heart rule his mind...

Preity,Sonali and Dimple neither over/underplayed their characters, which kept the focus of the movie on the main track.

Every song was suitably introduced and the locations and sets were absolutely appropriate. Shades of blue dominated .Who can forget the awesome lyrics by Javed Akthar. I think he is at his pristine best in Tanhayee...'Ab tootey khwabon key sheeshey chubthey hain in aankhon main'......I'd die or kill for that statement

Well,I now can somewhat see why its called Dil Chahta Hai and people fondly rem'r it to be so. The movie makes you look at what your heart desires. Be it as a boy/girl ,a man/woman or father/mother...and the so-called unnamed slots on the peg board of life...the desires of the heart have been pictured as clearly as the theme of the movie could..

Sitting on a broken wall, staring into the ocean ahead , three friends share an unspoken bondage of their minds, hearts, bodies ...and probably a lifetime. May be thats what Dil Chahta Hai is all about and ....I still keep wondering and wandering

Trickling down my cheeks

I feel thes droplets trickling down my cheeks..

....I see them on my palm and smile..

And I think awhile...

Is it passion or pain?

For all the feelings I sustain...

I save them in my heart...nearly

They are mine and mine alone,so very dearly..

Happy or sad , I dont care

Its life...Oh dear life..I 'm aware ...

I feel thes droplets trickling down my cheeks..

Caught between noise and spaces

Most of the day has flown like bursts of wind....adorned with spaces of silence. Are these thoughts or noises cluttering my mind. A silent man could be witholding a storm and you'd never know when he'd break!

Well ofcourse its not my thoughts coz I'm living amidst noise everywhere...the music, or TV or the machines buzzing by on and off....its all tampering with the stillness in the ear...

Basically life is noisy anyway....we need a break and we watch a movie or go out...and thats noise again....or we listen to music and its noise again...or we read...and thoughts noisy again..

Noise here is anything as opposed to the stillness of the mind and inner tranquility....

I wish I could feel so much at peace with myself that all noise would turn into pleasant blankness...within me...

So I come out of my workplace and sit in the lawn welcoming the medical college gates...pleasant sharp sun rays make way into the earth between the grass blades...the breeze so careful as not to disturb the music of silence....I sit here and feel the stability which Mother Earth infects me..

Here I am fresh again and ready to take on the world...its wonderous how a mother's touch could heal without words or medicines..!

giggles

Warm, hot and humid...thats how I felt at 8 in the morning....here goes the saying,"Whether its the early bird or late....its the same fate...get roasted!!"

Another summer day.....and my skin shimmeringly brown now ... am I the same skin conscious person who I was back in India? It doesnt matter anymore how much cream I have on my skin . I know I am getting darker day by day and ,"Mirror mirror on the wall fair or dark, its ME afterall".

Work seems to have stuck at an eternal glitch. I hav done enough philosophizing now and nothing seems to get me the output...ofcourse there has been some kind of hard work as well (giggles)

Shuttupp and get back to wrk CHILD WOMAN!! Grow upp!!!

Inspiration

Yet another day...so mundane. I booked tickets to India. Finished cooking...plannin to start my wrk. Things hav been slow yet steady, lately....like the sand dunes moving to the orchestra of winds...knowing yet not knowing their direction of journey....

My friend used to say..." We are like the ants on the back of an elephant. We try to move south and think it our direction of life..whilst the elephant may be heading north."

I close my eyes to connect to myself and I feel the inspiration driving me day and night. Life is nothing without inspiration. Some of us find it inside, some look for it elsewhere....

The fragrance of a flower cannot be seen,yet it heralds its existance. And I think that our inspirations are driving us towards the cause of our existance....yet they r not quite evident

We r all so quite bogged by the small upheavals in our path of life.We should probably follow the light of inspiration...then,all we see is the sky and the so-called obstacles vanish.

Random thots

I wake up this morning and smell sweet sweat dancing on my forehead.....welcome summer!....see my roomies couching in bed....finding it hard to propel themselves forward on a long weekend morning....they all hav a lazy smile...something naughty and satisfying:Its weekend and no hurrying to go to work. I feel no better...:)

I stand in front of the mirror....whom do I see? Half awake ,half asleep....I see last nights thoughts surfacing in the mirror image.....I look so much like mom....do i look better or lesser..? huh! what has US done to me. Am a lill grown, lill serious now....A lill corrupt eh? I hav quite learnt to break and bend rules....Am not able to meet my eyes for have so much wrk to do and Ive gladly spent the weekend. But still I hav the arrogant grin...

I wonder wher is me? What is me? I still wanna see that me, 40 yrs from now....no matter what the winds of change might have eroded off me....

Like everysong has an essence ,embellishments apart.....I want the song of my soul to pour into my being when I see myself....and paradoxically, I mostly know I'd need a lifetime to realise this song!

When I grow up I wanna be a child

'When I grow up I wanna be a child',my best friend used to say this to me....Ive never seen anyone who matured so fast for their age,as she did....and she thought I was quite immature for mine.....may be thats y we r the best of the pals even today :) :)......

....I wish to keep that naivity which people complain I do retain. It sometimes bothers me....but subconsciously its tantalizing....

And what grown ups r we if we havent retained our childhood within...or havent beheld the blankness of innocence...?

I remember how I admired every view in Philadelphia when I first came here....I was so happy for the advent of spring...and the first droplets of snow melting in my palm,brought the widest smile to my heart.

Today the familiarity has paved way for boredom...some ppl also say I hav matured over the past year.....well I'm part happy ,but somehwer I hav lost the innocence and heartfelt admiration that ignorance and so bliss, bring to the mind....

When I was a child I yearned to grow up and fit into my mom's clothes and now when Im growing...I so still wanna stay a child....and leave that fragrance of wonder thru my eyes..:)

Its been 1.5 yrs and all my life now

Feels like yesterday when the plane took off from India.... I held my breath,closed my eyes and tried to imagine what my future would be like......as far as I can remember, all I saw was a mixture of a million questions,insecurities and hopes backing it all.....

1.5 yrs hav gone by since I landed in US....its been as swift as a feather blown off the palm.....feels more like home here now....yet not completely....

I wudnt wish to be what I was 18 months ago...nor am I fully at peace with what I am....how funny the changes in life are...they keep us wanting to go back, but we are working to get ahead!

I see my room on the webcam in the background...I see my fathers aging forehead and hopeful eyes....I see my mother touching the screen to feel me...and I realise more that I need to get far and ahead.These are the moments which form the juice of a lifetime....

I dont regret for having lost the past, nor do I repent the changes I am casting into my future (at present)....I think life is beautiful. It shows me its nature in a million unthinkable ways. And I sit and think and think till I figure ....how insignificant I am in this marvellous jigsaw puzzle of God....

One summer day on the footpath

Its summer out here....simmering 40 deg centigrade heat. Yet another day at wrk, but a short one...my boss was at home fixing central air conditioner....hehe! God bless him...I left early from wrk!

Was walking to the shuttle stop...and lo! the bus just breezed across and I missd it...well, another 20 miniutes of time to kill b4 I get the next shuttle..I saw tanned fair backs, legs ...tall hunks and babes stancing by...enuff of it now..time to do something different!

I sit down by the footpath at the shuttlestop, get out my laptop......Bingo! I hav wireless net and I start playing my fav bollywood melodies loud (dint hav my head set damn!) and chatting a good friend..i think hardly nyone cared to notice....hehe! I almost thot," Dont I look like a begger,playing music on the road and sitting on the bare floor!??".... But no one even bothered to look...they wer all so busy striding by .... I dint care either!

Thats one thing I like bout US...thers so much freedom to be urself as long as u dont step on ur neighbour's foot....ppl just leave u. The cool breeze swept in like a mirage in the desert and I waited the for the shuttle hoping it wud be late ;)

the hiking xperience

Scorching heat was feeding on my sweat as we set out for river rafting with cartloads of energy...headed towards Poconos.we hired 2 cars...and we wer supposed to follow the former...but in due time...one of our pals had an unexpected notice for exam and we had to wait till he wound up...we lost our way and went to anothr rafting place looking at the wrong sign board


It so happened we missed the rafts....and sat all down en out...Kavi was like..."all happens for good' and enquired what else is available...unfortunately it was biking and we wudnt be allowed without license. We wer all moodout and screaming and ranting en ofcourse sweating...

We finally decided to hike...I was seeing my skin grow from pale to copper brown...and my hat was wet in my body salts...dear dear anjum was making a fool of herself and everyone...and we all set off gigglin and steamin off...

As we trudged on...we came across the sign board, "Shades of Death trail" and we walked into it right away...after 2.5 hours of trekking on the knife edge steep
rocks we finally reached a beautiful beach wher a huge lot of pplwer sunning en swimming...we all had a dip and felt refreshed...

Later we met the other lot who rafted...they had a good time too...5 hours of rafting...huh!

But we had our share of fun 2 and more than we asked for....the heat had died down and the clouds had risen to cast shdows and cool breeze on our burned skins...

In life we always get what we deserve more than what we desire...i hav no complaints!!

Kissed to childhood

On and off I have tripped in becoming a grown up....stumbling amidst boulders of ignorance and stepping on shoulders of maturity I have reached where I am...

Often I wonder what it wud like to be totally grown up...and be in control of me and my life ...?? hehe.....thats a wanderous wonderous thought for me...

Stung by youth and kissed by childhood, I am basking in imperfection...I like it this way.....

Part innocence....part perfection...life is a messy delicious cocktail of rich experiences ....lov u life!

One more fleeting thought

Was a hectic day yesterday...trying to wind up my Term-project. The project means more than grades to me....my area of core competancy...and the trails of my interest goes back to that moment where I decided that I would choose Biomed Engg as a way of my thinking....and life ofcourse

Being alone kindaa sucks...so I play movies or songs when I wrk...Watched 2 movies....Mrs Minivier and JFK. Both of them dealing with the war as an industry of power and revenue....and ofcourse license to kill and satisfy the wild aimless animal in us!

In one of the scenes in the former, the heroine says to her mom-in-law,'I'd rather lov my husband every moment he's alive and not cry, coz I know after he died in the war, ther wud be a lifetime for tears'.

The second movie JFK,dealt with the plot which lead to asssasination of Kennedy by some fanatics...who believed in war ... and not peace...and Kennedy probably dared to change the status quo...Well, the kindaa ppl who killed him soon after came to power...and likeminded-men still rule USA today....who promote wars to bring in revenue to the country..

All in all I felt lost thinking that the world is so shallow a place, and the apparent good is good-good.....I wonder if these ppl who abide by injustice survive the justice of the D-day or sleep peacefully in their grave.They who live by justifying selfishness....well, God waits and watches.....but truth triumphs and ppl with open eyes to their souls can see it

Colors of the life-bow

Ppl read books to gain perspective, to obtain knowledge....to transcend the obvious and get into the subtler dimensions...

I guess the greatest open book staring into our face is Life......the most scientific and most enigmatic.

Those multitude of experiences and range of colors life has in its rain bow....say I call it the Life-bow with the million VIBGYORs in life...hehe!

Living in a stretched moment, running till the edge of the knife.....pleasant titillating aroma of love ...... memories which linger on but refuse to go ....wounds of heartbreak.......roller coasters of success and failure....a mother's tender kiss.....a father's stable eyes....the touch of sound....and the tunes of the wind.....

And what not...every new moment holds the key to a new lesson.....coming in full circles.....wher u more or less gain as much as u lose....

And what else.....I thank God for giving me the ability to read life....and savor it both ends....

Well, I'm high on life....and the life-bow ride :)

I'm a joker

I feel like a joker today ,wearing a smile and juggling stuff and that too so badly.....hehe...have been dropping the ball now and then...

I wish I wud get paid suitably for that...but I think I'm feeling pretty good jugglin bcoz whatever the end result may be ppl r gonna applaud and make me feel good

Different issue...only I know whether I won or lost.....feels great...flying under a cartload of deadlines...my shoulders r bent but my heart seems to soar....hope I feel the same when my grades r out!

Wilderness....

Clad in ruthless sensuality the elements of life becon me to shake hand with wilderness....stepping from childhood to maturity and way back again...

Its fun, when u dont care bout results...swaying ur body to the tunes of change....casting glances of superiority...

How I like these chains of conscience which hold me back and make me want newer things more than ever...

Am getting caught in the spell of a spectrum of changes.....I'm likin it...but it wudnt change one wee bit of a thing...judge me if u can...:)

I'm ...u know

Gimme a happy moment
I wanna live life in it
Gimme a sad life
I wanna blow it as tear
Gimme a smile
I'll save it in my heart
Gimme light
I'll fill my eyes with it
Gimme darkness
I'll hide my sadness in it
Gimme tears
I'll make it a vehichle of prayer
Gimme the oceans
I'll seek silence in its depths
Gimme a song
I'll feel its pulse in silence
Gimme phrases
I'll melt it into music
I'm a woman
and I lov being so :)

Sleepless in Philly

Its one of those days when nothing comes ur way and as u expect......ofcourse packed with surprises....

Had a ruff ruff day at wrk...something which I really slogged 4 all weekend...actually, for quite sometime now dint come thru...was breaking in pain...and called a coupla my pals....Here u go!,actually they had the same thing to crib bout. "Good! I'm not alone in the Titanic'.....am I not a sadist ;)?

Wanted to come home and fix the lose ends at wrk.....but I caught up on a movie.When I got it from library, I just saw it had Meg Ryan and TomHanks on its cover....hadnt read the name...thats how sad I was....

The movie's 'Sleepless in Seattle'... was totally rejuvinated after watching it...some elements of the movie wer real mushy....some too stupid to believe...but the point is that I wud hav exactly done the same stupid things if I wer her....hehe....was a totally fulfillin xperience....God bless Meg Ryan and the dialogue writer....:)....Ofcourse Tom Hanks was totally adorable

I'm sleepless now wondering bout the thot of 2 strangers made for each other somewher..the usual Yash Chopra movie theme....I wonder everytime why it sounds so new!!

Hehe....Life cud be ruff....things cud not wrk out....but I gues thers a lesson if we giv one hard look and ofcourse the better things in life always counter the sadness....I'm glad I hav ppl around to care and love me! Thanq god!

Back to my wrk now...3 AM in the morning....I'm sippin coffee....I'm so bloody spoilt...some one shake me up!

Another start

The sun's rays caress my eyelashes as the darkness breaks into dawn and widens into daylight

......the night has not ended...the thoughts still smell so fresh....are they dew drops or seeds of thought? my mind is racing on the charriots of time...

I have a lazy smile on the edges of my lip...a feeling of content only I know....as I peek out into the fresh air....I feel I'm reborn

Guess whatt I did a night out on a Sunday..jusfinished my assigntment! Done for good...grrr!

Good morning folks :)

Looking back

Have been in some hurry for quite a few months now..to go on...get on...ahead and far..

And for one sudden moment I pause the frames of time and look back...and I express 'My!'....how the winds of change hav eroded the stable plain lands into canyons so steep....

I must say time has the magic .... it knows it all and it does it all....to change one's life..to help one grow....smiles of fullfilment and pains of dissatisfaction flash in front of my eyes...I must admit I have changed so much...!

I have departed from myself in countless ways...and I am trygin to connect to the superior things...so called superior things...in the other ways...

A sort of uneasy feeling creeps in....all these oscillations some temporary some permanent...what would it all mean...I donno now ..but I will wait...

But the answers to all these lie in me, sooner or later I know....its upto me to look at it with simple eyes. The world has brought in so much dust in the eye that I'm unable to see my soul...:)

Nevermind...thers a new day..and a new way....and ofcourse time knows it all

Warm cosy dreams

Just watched a movie with my usual multi tasking of work,dinner and incomplete 'hi' ,'hello' business ...

I hav had a steadily hectic day....thers so much more to go...and here I lay cuddled in my cosy comforter totally shielded from the truths and illusions....

I am happy as a child , no worry ,no pain....no losses no gain....I dwell in this bliss in an eternally large single moment....blanking myself into a thoughtless space...

I'm happy for this moment...I'm happy for this silence....I'm happy to connect to not to 'what I am',' but to who I am'.....the gentle warm fingers of angels caress my forehead and whisper luulabies into my dreams...

adios..im in heaven...and a blank page...gnite :)

Love and Sun

As I walk down the silent streets of the Medical College Campus, I notice the fences and window sills endowed with a delicate bunch of fresh greenery and budding life...they all look at the sun..

Every leaf, every plant reaches out for the packets of light flowing thru the part delicate, part harsh, rays of sun.....and smile cheerfully...

It quite so similar to life....we all look for acheivement,success, money and materials...and drag the paths of life to reach them...

We knock down every milestone and move forward.....and look for the next one...and so on and so forth.....

But is it all this we'r looking for....? May be not....thers something deeper and stronger ruling thes material pleasures....ruling success and acheivements all along....something called love...

Like it or not, the ultimate undercurrent controlling factors of life is love...where science and technology have failed...love and faith in known or unknown elements have taken over...

Undeniably love adds meaning to life....may be shapes life better than we think we do :)

Musical and muses

>The heavens are blue
Proclaiming to you
The golry of God thy Creator

The sunset thats bright
What a beautiful sight
And they say all the glory of God

Author of beauty of beauty God on high....etc


>Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things......etc

What wonderful words....pearls of thoughts knit into garlands of muses...musical and heart warming......

I love playing with words.....all the fiddle-diddle....and hustle bustle....and all new meaning emerging out of every effort....

Life is all about thoughts or actions or words....:)

Hi Ther

This is my first post on the blog. I've been on an open diary for quite some time and have created ardent critics and fans...

Here u go...shades and shades!!

Shades of blue...and shades of gray....my moods and secrets they portray.....

The depths of oceans , in their silence .......... part describe the urge of passions..

Alllrite allrite....that was a badly written poem....:). Im in a dreamy mood now...and need to do hellotsa wrk.....

Bbye 4 now