Storytellers

Its partytime for the worms in Bangalore, the book kind that is.... all thanks to the Strand Book Festival.. one of the few things that rock our home's otherwise carefully managed financial boat..:)

and last weekend was no exception, as Sherlock Holmes, Calvin, Asimov, Mughals and assorted other stars came into our living room, and a slightly different kind of printed paper went out.. and like always, theres not even an iota of guilt..hehe

And since D preferred to do eyebrows while I browsed through rows and rows of storytellers, it gave me time to send a little note of thanks heavenwards, to the first storyteller i ever knew, and the best...To my grandmother, who used to tell me a story every night before i slept, who used to make sure i got my 'Poompatta' every month, and insisted that my dad bought me 'Amar Chitra Katha' regularly.. the storyteller whose stories were only for me, whose characters always seemed to be my age, or the kind that i liked... whose stories were imaginative, inspiring, heartwarming and everything else that stories should be.. who made sure that i would love stories for the rest of my life...

and since i know i can never be that good a storyteller, the books i buy are perhaps my way of passing on my favourite stories to those who come after me, for i understand that only the very fortunate ones end up getting a great storyteller as a granny...

until next time, live happily ever after...

Calls...........

Nature sends messages.
If you dont respond, she calls...
There is no such thing as a missed call.....

until next time, dont get pissed off...

Fix you...

Once again, so what exactly is it that we would love to do.. while it is an interesting debate whether we would stop loving things if we began to get paid for it, are there still things that fall outside that set, and which we would love doing irrespective of anything else...

I, for one, would love to sing for a living, not at concerts, but more of a wandering bard...would love to write a book, and be happy if 5 people read it, loved it and felt it had made a difference in their lives.. would love to have my own chat shows and crack the kind of PJs that would help create homicidal maniacs..:).. some of the above are stuff which i might be able to pull off, and some i might realise that i wasnt quite cut out for...maybe thats what living a full life is all about... doing all these and being able to say that i tried everything.. maybe thats what makes happiness...

or maybe its about knowing exactly what is it that you can do and want to do.. and then setting about achieving it whatever be the odds...which is perhaps what makes alonso world champion at 24, or sachin a treat to watch after more than decade of watching him... or an amitabh bachchan a star twice over.. maybe thats what makes happiness....

maybe its about finding love, and keeping it, and knowing that whatever else happens, that person will always be by your side.. maybe thats what makes happiness...

and meanwhile we walk the paths, some common, some uncommon and hope that God is singing to us(instead of Coldplay)

Lights will guide you home..

and ignite your bones...

and i will try and fix you...

until next time, are we in a fix??

Private eye

A few weeks back, a lil spat reminded me of the fact that we really dont know each other at all.. we are connected only by thoughts and words, and while it could be that our personality is reflected in blogs, the reverse could also hold true.. that we are competely different from our blogs..

And its not just blogs, our entire persona thats on display all the time, may only be a part of what we are.. and there may be parts of us which we even hide from ourselves.. a secret that we keep even from ourselves, thoughts and emotions which, if expressed might end up hurting ourselves and others, and could be totally against the social norms that we follow...

and while we judge people on a regular basis, unwittingly, we also end up judging ourselves..judging ourselves with a private eye, that reveals itself rarely, and lets us know that perhaps even we dont know ourselves well enough.. maybe i should try and discover more about myself .... and get in touch with the private I...
until next time, maybe we should also respect privacy....

G MS Y?

While all the wars were being fought in recent times over virtual space, one player was conspicuous by its absence - but some announcements in the last few days got the gates backwide open...

the good part is, i am not geek enough to analyse the services of the three major players in virtual space... the bad news is, that doesnt stop me from writing about it...:)

Good Ol' Bill is an icon, theres no denying it... but unfortunately he has never been able to translate that into a favourable opinion about his enterprise... while there are a lot of us who display 'Get firefox' icons, havent seen any 'I use E' (yup, bad one acknowledged) buttons... also, theres no denying the fact to a lot of us, Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc are still THE applications and they have indeed made lives a lot easier (hmm, not powerpoint,on second thoughts..hehe), and when you add MSN chat and Hotmail into the mix, MS automatically becomes an integral part of our automated life.. normally that gives a load of ammunition forworship, but surprisingly all that doesnt make us say 'I Love MS'...

Is it that we love the underdog? or is it that we hate the way MS has been getting too many dollar bills? if it is the latter, is there too much of a harm in a guy making money out ofhis ideas and work? isnt that supposed to be the mantra of knowledge working and the basis of copyrights? why should we be having a problem with the money being made? why should it be open source??

i wonder if the 'no love' is because it has changed the way we work... or is it something like school?.. none of us liked it when we had to go to school, but down the line there is also a realisation that perhaps it did do some good for us, or more importantly, it made a difference in the direction of our lives...perhaps, Bill, you have to wait some more for the idolising...

until next time, yahoo!!! Gmail is moving towards 3 GB....:)

Twins

After putting aside concepts like love and money, perhaps the two most important things in life would be the marriage and the career... and if you put a lil bit of thought to it, there are some striking similarities..

Both are things that you get to hear about early in life, but get to experience only at a relatively later stage.. and you get to hear about it from anyone who's remotely elder to you.. there are so many versions... and when its happening to you, everyone has an interest in it and an advice to give on it... and anything 'different' from the norm is usually met with a frown...

in both cases, there are roughly two paths you can take - one that you want to do due to your desire and aspiration, and the other thats financially and socially seen as 'safe'..in both the cases,the exceptions are also similar... you might want to be a doctor/engineer etc and you get to do exactly that.. and you happen to love a girl/guy who meets all the conditions and succeeds in all the parameters that are set out by those who are supposed to decide your fate - parents, relatives etc, and can therefore marry him/her without a problem.. whether the path has been by choice or forced on one, both perhaps require a certain amount of compromise.. you might end up liking the career you had no specific interest initially, and you might end up liking your arranged spouse..in both the cases, you might realise after a point of time, that it is no longer what you want, and there's something or someone else that you really want to spend your time and energy on..and yes, getting fired in both cases, is a pain....

you want to maintain that correct balance between both, and yes, most importantly, you expect both to be some kind of anchor in your life, and to derive some joy out of the experiences..and like everything else, you know that both have to end, at some point of time..

until next time, identical or non identical??

ITs a Dog's life....?

From the recently concluded IT.com in Bangalore (Image courtesy: The Hindu)

ITs gone to the dogs, you think??

A Higher Power

An entity that is revered by millions, who are driven by a desire just to be in its presence.. its physical manifestation can be touched and felt, but nothing beyond that... as with other higher powers, there is a human who can guide you on... in front of it, superstars and common man are all alike.. people stare all agog at the throes of despair and ecstasy that it bestows on those who appear before it.. it affects people so much that it is almost treated as a human, rather than a different entity.. and yes, they say it helps those who help themselves..it knows all the answers, and offers lifelines to those who come before it..it can change your fortune, on weekends, on star plus at 9.00, its computerji on KBC dvitiya!!

until next time, oh, samay samaapt!!