Ode to this morning!

I am not a morning person but there was something peculiarly fresh about the gently chilly wintry morning today. It had rained out of the blue last night and the air was smelling absolutely fresh. The lazy looking sun mirrored my lethargy of getting up for the grind as it spreads its bright arms around.

I slept like a baby in my baby's arms and got up so loved. Hmmmm didn't want to get out of bed today. Mom and dad head back to Shimla today. And though (or maybe because) I didn't spend much time with them (feeling guilty now), I am going to miss them terribly.

I laid my head on ma's "godi" and told her that I will miss her. As Ma's soft touch caressed my forehead ever so lovingly, my discerning senses heard the voice of astir birds blend into the mellow devotional music playing in the neighborhood. And a hot cup of tea and a satisfying breakfast of hot puris and lal mirchi pickle sets the palate (and the day) moving. Time to head for work...

Hmmm.. The day doesn't seem so bad after all. A good morning indeed to all!

Of friends and complicated situations

VB and A broke up after four years of marriage. And even though I've always known that they were not right for each other and that they had made a mistake in tying the knot in the first place, the news still shocked me. I guess I am still the conservative kind.

To me marriage is an institution that two people build over the years. And to see it fall apart just shakes up the very foundation of my beliefs. But the fact remains we had known all along that VB and A had a very shaky relationship. They were two entirely different people who had very little in common. We've known VB for a very long time and he is one of the most sensitive and affectionate individuals I've known. He is funny and he can make anyone smile and he is always a joy to have around. When VB fell in love with A, we were all a little taken aback because A was very different from any of us. I do not know whether it was because she was from a different background and culture, or it was the way she was brought up, but she was dominating, materialistic and demanding. We never thought VB would end up marrying A but when he announced that he was getting married, none of us had the courage to dispel his cloud of happiness by telling him how wrong they were for each other.

Right after they got married A told VB that she did not like interacting with his friends and she was not happy when he chatted with them in Hindi because she was unable to follow the conversation. A was a Tam Bram. So VB stopped calling his friends. We hoped with time A would feel more secure in her marriage and things would change. But they got worse. They fought all the time. I guess it boils down to having two very different people who had very different expectations out of life, being thrown together in a relation that neither of them were prepared for. So after four years of bitterness and bickering and following the birth of their son, VB and A decided to call it quits.

I guess what has me most disturbed about the matter is that this could have been prevented if VB had realized before he got married that A was not the right girl for him. But he was blinded with passion at that time and nobody helped him see through the haze. Now, they have not only messed up their own lives, they have brought a little child into the world who will grow up not knowing a proper family. I think it is tragic.

Why is it that we find it so difficult to tell the people we care about that we want the very best for them and that they would be better off not getting involved with the wrong person? Probably because it is none of my business or anyone else's for that matter. Perhaps it is the fear of hurting the person and losing the friendship. May be it is the apprehension that the truth will not be acceptable to my friend and he will reject it and hate me for telling him such "untruths". What does one do under these circumstances? I wish I knew............

Sniffles strike back!!

I'm sick. (sniff sniff)
I've got the sniffles. (atchoooo!..wherez de disshu?)
Aches and pain in every bone and muscle in my body.
Blurry red eyes, runny red nose and a tongue that feels like I've eaten a bagful of sawdust.

Arggh!I HATE being sick. Oh lordy! I was down all weekend with a temperature and chills and aches. I took off yesterday because we were having a piece of furniture delivered. Fortunately, the delivery came early in the day so I was able to return to bed, where I had been the past three days.

This morning, I was feeling a little better and decided I could return to work. BIG MISTAKE. I feel lousy now and the damn chills and tiredness is back. I have been surviving on hot soup the whole day. And when I get back home, I'm going to soak myself in the hot tub. That should kill the darn cold!!

All the Vicks Action500 that I popped in is making me groggy and the evil "count dracula" of a boss is making life even more miserable. He tells me I am growing old and should take retirement. Grrr.. will show him.

On a happier note, my solider boy and me made up with kisses, hugs, cuddles and snuggles! Thanks to Abhi for being the messenger boy and RM, GR, AC, TK & SP for putting up with a very boorish GG yesterday.

*muaaah* Love you all!

Wise words from Calvin

We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us, that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are. Days go by and we hardly notice them. Life becomes a blur. Often, it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we've made. But it's too late to change anything. -Calvin & Hobbes, Weirdos From Another Planet!

Today I felt like my emotions went on a roller-coaster ride. Tried so hard to rationalise things. Wasn't easy, but I managed. Calvin helped put a whole lot of things in perspective like live in the present since "life is beautiful" right now. Why think of the future and ruin the "now"?

Don't walk away!

I was in no mood to post today but forced myself.. for RMs sake! You see its my buddy's birthday and this is my tribute to him.

I know just what you're doing
You don't want to put the hurt on someone
You've been trying to convince yourself
You're better off if you just turn and run

But I'm gonna hold on tight
I've got a feeling
You'll only happen once to me
And no one not even you
Is ever gonna make you wrong for me

Don't walk away
Or are you looking for a price to pay
Is that your master plan
Don't walk away
I'll do everything to make you stay
I've got to make a stand
Don't walk away
I'm not afraid
Don't walk away

I don't know where you're going
But I know what you've got on your mind
And I think your fear is showing
You don't leave things like fear behind

And I hate to be the one
To break it to you that
We're only human after all
I can mend a broken wing
I'll give you everything I have
(words and music by Rick Springfield)

These words bring a poignant question to my mind. Are you a stronger person for walking away or for staying? Allow me to elaborate.

If you are in a relationship and its not working out, but you want it to work, are you stronger for walking away even though you don't want to, or for staying and trying to work it out?

RM and I were discussing this just today and concluded that it really depends on the person. If it is someone, like me, who is more likely to bolt because of a fear of future pain, then the strongest choice is to stay because it would take a lot more to get me to stay. If it were someone (like Ranjit!) who always tries to make it work no matter what, then it would be stronger for them to walk away, because it goes against their natural inclinations. Right?

I admire RM for his mettle and patience. We have had our share of nasty fights (RM has a mega bump on his head to prove it). I must have walked away from this relationship a million times (RM can be so exasperating!!!) in the last (6 +) years but he kept it going... RM reasoned with me (I agree that can be tough!) and convinced me every time to give it another shot. That investment (in time, energy and patience) paid off and we share a wonderful friendship today.

Thanks RM for your tenacity! Wish you a happy 28th birthday! yes i found out!! Advantage of being in HR.

A dark shadow

There are many who make me smile, but only he can make me cry.

It was such a glorious morning. I got up totally fresh and revved-up to face the world. A mail from a (rather special) friend completely took away my wind (or rather the air from my tyres) and left me totally flat.

I can't really share what was in the mail but can tell you that I am in the pits right now. I don't know why I am feeling so emotional and have been crying my eyes (and heart) out. To be fair to the poor man.. he didn't really say anything rude - Just plain old truth about me and how I have been letting my life rule me.

Do you know that paper can cut like a razor?

Just white paper,
An unwritten letter
Makes me bleed today.
~Angel Gonzalez

It was like looking in the mirror and that got me all sad. Now, there is an emptiness within me and I can't put a finger to it. I wonder why though the blues hit me so often? I use to be such a "happy-go-lucky" person. Whatever happened to me? I remember I use to laugh all the time! I really miss that the most, and how easily and naturally it used to come. I never really thought about laughter until it became scarce. That is because like air, it is taken for granted until it is in short supply.

:o(

I'll do it . . . . . . tomorrow

I'm a procrastinator. BIG TIME!

I always have good intentions. Really I do!! (you out there... you can wipe that smirk off your face!) I have several reports that I need to get done by Monday. Infact, I actually volunteered to do these ;o) All I need to do is walk to my comp and start hammering at the keyboards. The self-set deadline for finishing the reports has come and gone twice. And have I started yet? Hmmmmm, no.

If you looked up procrastinator in the dictionary, it would say this:
Pronunciation: pr&-'kras-t&-"nAt, prO-
Function: verb
: GG is a lazy bum who puts things off intentionally and habitually
: GG postpones the doing of something till "push comes to shove".

Why am I this way?
* Is it because I know that when the time comes that my stuff ABSOLUTELY needs to be done, I know that it will be and it will be done well?
* Is it because I'm suffer from sloth and laziness?
* Is it because I like to love to work under pressure which happens invariably when I put things off till the nth minute?
* Is it because its my nature to do so? God created me this way. Who am I to disagree with God?

Procrastination is merely a matter of perspective. One may say to oneself, "Will the world come to an end if this work isn't completed right away?" The answer is, invariably, NO. With this in mind, one can easily put tasks off indefinitely until they are due.

I also have to have to start going to the gym again. Skipped gym all this week and now I feel like a fat cow. I really will start in earnest .... from tomorrow :)

Procrastination, thy name is GG. To top it all, am getting into the holiday mood, which is not helping at all!! And it is quite cold here. Just want to eat, sleep, and hibernate. ;-)

Butter Fingers

Yahoo! Messenger has become a way of life, especially after Yahoo added in all the cool features like messaging to mobiles, the cool avatars and of course Launchcast. And though I detest online chatting, certain fast and furious typists have kept me enthralled with some matchless typos. Here are three gems:

Niru to Avinash: "Send it fat Avi !"
(The noble intention: "Send it fast, Avi !")

TK to GG: "OK, forge tit !"

Rohit: "Please Sona, bare with me!"
:-O !!!

Well, I hope they were typos!

Where have all the cards gone?

This was the night before Christmas. When all through the house, not a creature was stirring……Except my cell phone!

It beeped, it rang and very nearly leapt off the table in excitement. It jiggled its way through Christmas day and by the end of it, had rung in some 43 text messages and over a dozen calls from friends scattered across the world. A parallel stream of emails and e-cards also poured in including some from the bottom of people's heart!! One was happily inundated with wishes of every kind… Except the ones that are delivered by the friendly neighbourhood postman!

I was struck by the complete absence of Christmas cards this year. There were virtual greetings aplenty, but how in the name of Dancer, Prancer and Rudolph are you going to string them over the fireplace? (No fireplace here, but isn’t wishful thinking permitted at Christmas time?)

It set me thinking: Have people given up on the simple thrill of a greeting card? The rush of excitement at seeing one’s name on the envelope? The faint suspense until the cover is torn open? And then the unbridled delight? Compare this with an email which says, ‘xyz has sent you an e-card. To view it, copy and paste this hotchpotch of letters, numbers and signs, that in some way, which you won’t care to understand, will lead you to a grotty card, which will try your patience as it downloads…..’

For me, greeting cards have always been the harbinger of things special. They made the agonising wait for the birthday a little sweeter. They brought in the festive cheer. They even gave you a heady sense of your own popularity. I remember being over the moon in College one year, when I received 23 birthday cards! With messages ranging from corny (‘Roses are red, cookies are chewy… another year of your life, just went ka-blooey’!) to schmaltzy (‘It’s a good thing you can’t put a price tag on friendship… coz I could never afford a friend like you!’) to downright wicked (Heard you like sex on you birthday?... That’s strange, most people like it more often!!!)

I still have a sizeable collection of most of the cards I’ve received, the earliest dating back to my 5th birthday. A few years ago, I discovered a hitherto latent calligraphy skill, and combined with a whit of wit, set about making my own cards for family and friends. I still indulge in it whenever I can.

Still it was very heartening to receive a hand-made birthday card this year from my little niece - B. What looked like different coloured pens being tried out was actually her message, ‘Dear S mausi, I love U loooots. Com sooon. B". It’s going to take B and me a while to revive the heading-for-extinction greeting card industry, but hey, we’ll get there.

Mera wala dream

I dream a lot... normally while sleeping (and at times while awake too). My dreams are vivid, detailed and in color. My dreams are normally very happy ones and mostly related to the plot of a book I have been reading or a movie I just finished watching. In them, I meet family, friends (some I have not seen since childhood), and people whom I've never seen before.

Dreaming is a natural thing. I wonder then, why some people do not dream and if and when they do, their dreams are silent. No one talks, no noise, nothing! To understand dreams better, I pulled out my old psycho books and here are some excerpts (now stay focused.. Don't doze off)

Dreaming is the subjective experience of imaginary images, sounds/voices, thoughts or sensations during sleep, usually involuntarily. Dreaming is associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which occur at roughly 60-90 minute intervals throughout the night and which contain the dreams which are the most vivid and most often remembered.

Sleep has been classified into: sleep onset (hypnagogia or stage 1), non-REM sleep (deep sleep or stages 2,3, and 4), and REM (or paradoxical) sleep.

Most scientists believe that dreams occur in all humans with about equal frequency per amount of sleep. Therefore, if a person subjectively feels that he did not dream or that he only had one dream in any given night, it is because his memory of the dream has faded. This "memory erasure" aspect of the dream state is mostly found when a person naturally awakes via a smooth transition from REM sleep through delta sleep to the awake state. If a person is awoken directly from REM sleep (e.g. by an alarm clock), they will much more likely remember their dream from that REM cycle (although it's most likely that not all their dreams will be remembered because they occur in REM cycles, which are interrupted by periods of delta sleep which in turn have a tendency to cause the memory of previous dreams to fade.)

The world needs more dreamers perhaps. If we were all dreaming there would probably be less warmongering and more peace to be achieved. But alas, we live in a world where being a dreamer is laughable, where you're encouraged to bring your head out of the clouds and have your feet placed firmly on the ground so that you are in touch with reality.

Truly if we did dare to dream, would we end up like Don Quixote ... going off on adventures, fighting in the name of honor and virtue, helping the helpless and possibly saving the world??? Who knows, most dreamers I think don't live to tell the tale or their dreaming is cut short by a stab of reality.....

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but Im not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

--- Thanks John Lennon