This weekend, Lets pray

One of the best weekend messages I received in recent months!
This weekend, Lets pray

Conversations with mom

It was difficult looking at her face like this..especially because my cheeks were hot, it felt different. and i felt shy, i had never spoken anything like this to her before, nor had i felt anything like this before.. quietly confused, but not very troubled, I turned away from her face, but curled up in her loving arms.

Its hard to see my mother like this, relaxed. I hardly ever saw her relaxing. This was an exceptional sunday afternoon and we were just lying down for an afternoon nap.

She nudged me on.."Go on, tell me..". I was smiling away from her, she couldn't see my face, but felt my smile anyway. "She hugged me warmly and said "its ok molu, tell me"

"Mom...mummy, there is this guy in school.."

"hmm...?"

"he is very nice. he talks to me sometimes.. he is very funny and he looks..you know"

"hmm.."

Now I felt my mother smile. "I just like looking at him. I mean.. when we stand at the main grounds during the assembly sessions, he is very tall. I keep looking at him"

"He is the leader of his class so he stands first in his class line, you know all classes form lines, separate girls' line and boys' line.."

My mother was stroking my hair gently, probably musing over the fact that her little girl had suddenly grown up and now she as a mother was facing the difficult task of guiding her through the years of distractions that lay ahead of her young life.

She cleared her throat, still hugging me and stroking my hair, she said "When you grow up, its natural that you feel like this.. It is a feeling that comes and goes. It need not mean anything, sometimes if you see something that you like in a person, you get attracted to it.. It can be anything, for example - you like tall people, so when you see tall guys, you will naturally have a liking to that person. And when you see more things that are good in that person, you develop more liking towards him"

Though I was listening to my mother, in my head, I was playing again and again the last conversation that he had with me. He had liked my drawings and he told me that I should enter in the drawing competition that was coming up.

"Its not wrong to feel this, but you have to remember, you have to study first, get good marks. Get a nice job."

"If you get distracted now, how will you do your homework and get good marks"

That hit home, I was suddenly all attention. tall boy's face popped away like a bubble. I wasn't sure about the job part, but I definitely wanted the marks. If I dont get really good marks, Madhu would get the general proficiency prize this year. I couldn't possibly let that happen.

"There is time for that also, you know, to get interested in boys. Its all a matter of.."

"Ok mummy, what time is it?? I will go study now, tomorrow we have the science test" Suddenly Madhu's face started floating around in my little head. I jumped out of the bed and started walking away. The moment had passed and all of a sudden, I got troubled.. What would my mom think of me now that my little dirty secret is out? Maybe I shouldnt have spoken about it.. She must be really disappointed in me..

Before I left the room, I turned and looked at my mother. there was a smile on her face - that was the one reason that holds this memory in my not so little head, even now..

Sneha

Stephen Covey* and John Grisham** revisit paatti vada sutta kadhai

The way it was:
The paatti was making hot delectable vada under the tree. The crow stole the vada and just when he was about to eat it, there came the fox with his own plans of eating the vada. Since the crow was on top of the tree and out of reach, the fox decided to be mean. the crow had the vada in his beak. The fox told the crow that he had a wonderful voice and would he sing a song for him? Flattered, the crow opened his mouth to sing and lo, the vada slipped down. The fox caught it in mid air and off he went with his tasty lunch!

Bringing on the paradigm:
Irreversible and un-pardonable.. The 'paatty' should be given a total paradigm view of the events that followed her unthoughtful action of open-fire cooking of the vada.
Gravely important events that were caused/could have been caused:

1. By making the vada in the open space, she endangered the surrounding trees from a forest fire! She chaffed the whole grass area with her firewood anyway. She would be sued by the Friends of Green Trust
2. The crow stole the vada. This could have been tactically avoided if paatty had thought through her strategy before sending everybody concerned into a downward spiral. This case needs a new paradigm: The paatty had put the crow in the way of unsolicited temptation, the crow was the victim of the situation.
3. The fox not only humiliated the crow with his ill intentions, but put the crow in a situation where he had to face his insecurities
4. The crow went into depression, fell into bad company and started taking party drugs to dance through the night and to get over the emotional trauma. He had to be checked in to rehab by 'Mrs.Crow' - Who in the first place had not cared enough to make lunch for Mr.Crow and indirectly caused him to steal the vada. This is what happens when you do not love and care for your family. Always give care for your loved ones, Make this your nineth habit.

Last I heard, the crow was going to sue the paatti for punitive damages.

Reference:
*Stephen Covey - author of self help books like 7 habits of highly effective people
**John Grisham - author of several legal dramas (fiction)

Sneha

The guilty generation

• Punishing yourself for no apparent reason.
• Living a loser's life by letting go what could be yours if you had focussed and worked towards it,
• Wanting to have no interest in people, work and the things around you...

In other words,

• Penance,
• Sacrifice,
• Denial of worldly pleasures..

Sometimes we are a confused lot. What should ideally be considered as a psychiatric condition that should be cured is considered as righteousness and spirituality. If a person loses interest in everything around him, inflicts pain on himself, runs away from happiness like its a plague, shouldnt we take him to a doctor and get his head examined? Much worse, what if he starts preaching these things to other people and calls it religion?

Should we acknowledge and agree that we should feel guilty for happiness or should we just tell him to shut up and get lost?

The sour grape sob

Well, somebody stole my DSLR camera, the one which I got after years of yearning and saving :(
Ever since, I have been consoling myself with facts and stories. Here is the latest one, I call it the the sour grape sob-

You know...actually its ok that I do not have a DSLR. A camera is a camera, A point and shoot camera takes pictures too! And thats basically the purpose, to take pictures.

Have you checked the prices of DSLRs? I am appalled by the amount of money that one has to pay for each and every added feature in the DSLR. Live view on the screen adds atleast 10 K to 15 K. Capturing video easily costs about 30 K more. I would get all these features and more in a P&S, and I wont have to pay a fortune.

And the weight of that thing?? I could carry the P&S camera in the pocket, but the DSLR equipment actually needs a big bag! Who wants to carry an exclusive bag just for the camera?

The pictures come out nice, of course, but its expensive, it needs care, its heavy, besides... that grape is so sour! for folks who are wondering what the connection is, kindly refer to the story of the fox and the grape to understand the emotions involved..
Sneha

A gay day

Inching to number one in various area, in population growth, in software production, in tea exports..would like to be first in so many other areas, but 118th position in accepting change. I read in a daily that 117 countries had legalised and acknowledged the freedom of a homosexual individual's sexual preference as a natural right before an Indian high court could take a change of stand about it, 2 days ago.

Still not without opposition, religious 'leaders', self proclaimed moral polices and all and sundry rising the cry of violating the order of nature, India finally, but not totally willingly opens an eye to what its majority considers a stigma. On a landmark day, a landmark judgement was made and now love is legal for a special minority. Indian judiciary does not consider homosexuality a criminal offense anymore. The judgement was passed in the high court, yes, media people are debating the fact that there still could be cranky straight people who cannot accept this judgement and might appeal in the supreme court. That possibility is not entirely closed.

Though things look nice and pink on paper, few more decades may have to pass before Indians stop looking at homosexuality as a stigma. What is very worrying is the level of ignorance among people about this. Many still think that homosexuality is a choice of the individual. We have spent so much of time designing and refining our 'orders of nature' that it is not going to be easy for us to realise that our design is not actually perfect.

A sunset a day

Yes! I was there! on the cleanest beach that i had ever seen. Now you would say 'thats not saying much!'. Thats precisely why I uploaded the photo. check out the different shades of blue on the waters. While some blues are caused by cloud shadows, most shades are caused due to difference in the depth.

The purpose of boasting about the crystal clear waters, the pristine beach and the sunset is not just to get you jealous. Its to get you jealous over the fact that I was there, not on vacation, but on work!! Yes, I am evil again >:D

And well, i have photos of almost every sunset of the 2 weeks that I had (!) to be there. But then you see, it will use up my blog space. So I am gonna spare you for now. Bay of Nacala in Mozambique, south east coast of Africa. Jokes apart.. the place is really beautiful.