It's here!!!

Here is my new phone! Finally!!

I'm very sorry about being irregular with my posts. It's just that i've been out of brain juice... There is something brewing though... Hopefully in a couple of days...

Tagged

Chriz tagged me intentionally and Jollyroger sort of sneak tagged me. So here goes.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
I have this scar on my left heel. It sort of runs from one side to the other. I put my leg in between cycle spokes. And the rest is an indelible identification mark.

2.What does your phone look like?
(Disclaimer: Not for the weak hearted.)

Errr… Do you really want to know?

Don't tell me I didn't warn you…

This is a four-year old antique piece. Priceless. I have also added pictures of all the major scars that my mobile incurred during its four year existence.

However, within a week or so my phone could look like this.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?
A hair-line crack.

4. What is your current desktop picture?
A picture of my best buddy and i.

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
No

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
Sleep! No, wait… I want to travel. I'm itching to travel.

7 . What time were you born?
6.24 am

8. Are your parents still together?
Nope. Dad died long ago.

9. Last person who made you cry?
Myself

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne?
Tommy Girl and Tommy Girl 10.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?
Never really thought about it really.

12. What are you listening to?
Some generator running somewhere, masons working in the next building, our front office person on the phone…

13. Do you get scared of the dark?
Nope.

14. Do you like pain killers?
Don't believe in them except when in extreme pain. Refer answer to Q. 1

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Ummm… I believe that the guy should do the asking…

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
Chocolate mousse cake. The one that Anju talks about...

17. Who was the last person you made you mad?
Must be those crazy guys on the road. Don't know which one, but definitely someone who wouldn't give me way…

18. Who was the last person who made you smile?
My friend... The one whose picture is my desktop wallpaper...

Reality check

On the way to work
The usual route
Unusual traffic pile up
Bumper to bumper traffic
Four-road junction
A car stopped in the middle of the road
A fallen bike
Crowd of people
Pool of blood clotting on the road

Not a question of whose fault it was
But a matter of a life potentially lost...

Please wear a helmet...

(This is a reminder to me as well)

*Smiles*

Some of the things that made me smile/laugh/happy in the last 24 hours... (If it's an image, click to enlarge.)

I went grocery shopping. Took my bike (bicycle). Was caught in a downpour on the way back. It was nice riding in the rain. *smile*

A friend drew this graffiti for me. *laugh*




I got this in the mail today. I have printed it and put up on desk. *ROFLOL*




Another work mail that i received... *LOLOL*

8 + 4 random stuff...

Jollyroger tagged me ages ago. And since I haven't written in a long time I thought I will do this meme. However, I don't think I will be tagging anyone. Well, let's just say consider yourself tagged when you do comment to this post, but then again not if you don't want to be tagged. So, here goes my 8 (+ 3… + 1)

I am supposed to write 8 random facts about myself. And I have chosen to write about things I have been currently (pre)occupied with… In other words, the reasons why I haven't been regular with my blog.

1. Work - Yes. I know it sounds lame, but the slow days seem to be kind of over. It happens in seasons for me. So, may be more during the next slow season.

2. I have started getting my life back in order. With a few 'goodbyes' and fewer 'welcome backs' all one after the other, my life had gone haywire. Now I am slowly building back my schedules. And I will learn to fit in blogging into that as well. Until then please be gracious.

3. Brain drain - Did mention that I am working hard? A lot of my work over the last month involved racking my brain real hard. And that had drained all my brain juices. Hence, I wasn't able to think up any new stuff. I still am not able to think about any new stuff. I don't even want to try. I am THAT tired.

4. Swimming has been going on regularly. I wanted to be disciplined about that. This was part of putting the schedule back in order. Also, I have been trying to go to bed earlier than usual. All this has affected my blogging.

5. I have been hooked to Scrabbles on Facebook. Oops. I have let the cat out of the bag…

6. I have started reading the newpaper! I know, I know… Once upon a time, I was going to write a whole post on why I don't read the newspaper.

7. I am trying to get a lot more reading done. And I have been pretty good with that. I am currently in the middle of three books. One fiction. One non fiction. One faith-related.

8. Talking about faith, I am also trying to be disciplined about my time spent alone with God.

9. The city traffic! It has been getting worse. And I kid not. It is not an illusion… Added to this is the increased amount of travel within the city (work-related travel that is).

This has added to my stress levels and preoccupation levels.

10. I have been watching a lot of movies lately. At least, a lot more than usual.

11. Been spending more time with people face-to-face than during the last two months.

12. Guess I am tired of thinking and troubling my poor little head. So, I just took a break from thinking. Now that I have started reading the newspaper, guess I will begin to stir up the gray matter more and more. So hopefully…

Ten Commandments of riding/driving in Chennai

1. You shall have no other goal other than travelling from point a to point b. Well, riding for pleasure is ok. But your goal shall not be, I repeat, shall not be racing to win some unsuspecting person who doesn't even know that a race is on!
2. You shall start early so as to avoid cussing, rash-driving, killing others to make it on time.
3. You shall love a fellow traveller as yourself. Well, just imagine this. You cut across or be nasty to this person and you realise that this person is none other than your good friend or relative or boss…
4. You shall not envy another person's bike or car or lorry or bus… Whichever is applicable.
5. You shall not act like you are the king of the road just because you blew up a lot of money in buying your fancy-pansy bike/car.
6. Show mercy and you will be shown mercy. Well, actually you may not be shown any mercy even if you show mercy. But be merciful to the ones with lesser vehicles and pedestrians.
7. Patience is a virtue. Trust me, it won't kill you.
8. You shall not honk unnecessarily. Remember, honkers are not movers. It shows that you cannot drive. It is like you are announcing "EVERYBODY! OUTTA MY WAY! DON"T KNOW HOW TO STOP THIS THING!"
9. If you are a bike guy, don't fix a car horn. And the other kind of horn that needs to be avoided are those annoying many pitch ones… And those with those nerve-racking tunes… Or that irritating… Oh never mind…
10. If you can't go but you can let a smaller guy go, let him go. Don't be a dog in the manger.

And because I don't like to stop with 10…
11. Be nice. Smile when people let you pass or let you cross. Try and say or signal thank you when you can.

Battlefield

"Evil encroaches in tiny footsteps on every great idea. And evil can outrun most great ideas, but finally, in the end, there is light in the world."

"The jungle is never far from the surface of our skin. No, I'm never surprised by evil, but I'm much more excited about what people are capable of."

"Well, as you get older, your idea of good guys and bad guys changes. As we moved from the eighties to the nineties, I stopped throwing rocks at the obvious symbols of power and the abuse of it. I started throwing rocks at my own hypocrisy."

Taken from 'Bono on Bono'

The picture that we often have of the poor is 'victims'. They are victims, no doubt. They are victims of the injustice in the society, the systems that have been worked out to keep them in their place, and of the rich and powerful using these systems to oppress them.

The nagging question in my head was what if the tables were turned? If the poor were made rich and powerful? My guess is that the same struggle will continue - between the powerful and the oppressed. Only the players will be different. What I am trying to say here is that the rich aren't all evil and the poor aren't all good. This is not a comic book where the evil persons are at war with the good persons.

When this one person with the good and the evil residing in him/her has the power, they have the choice to wield the power however they choose. And it seems like there is more evil than good. The choices are more selfish. In his post on morality, JollyRoger has explored 'collateral damage'. Oftentimes, those doing the damage don't look back to see the trail of disaster they leave behind - simply because of their selfish ways.

We work to put systems in place for either of the two purposes - to keep the evil from invading and imprisoning the 'victims' or to retain the power. Again, there are two sides to this. When the systems are established with great ideals of goodness and justice, they can still be infiltrated by evil. The converse is also true. When systems are put in place to retain power and to continue the oppression, the goodness of human nature does shine through.

In the end, the hero and the villain is the same person and the real battlefield is the heart.

Note: Some of what I read in Bono on Bono prodded me along this line of thought. It gave more form and structure to proceed with this thought-wrestling process. A chat with Jude and today's message at church helped me give structure and form to it. Thanks to Roger too. I was surprised to see that he had wrestled with similar thoughts and his thoughts on this subject further provided fodder for my post.

That heaven of freedom

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore

This has been one of favorite poems ever since I was a kid.
And this is my prayer as we celebrate 60 years of independence...

The burden of the ideal: The dreamer

The dreamer dreams of the perfect world. She wonders at why it cannot be. She works towards the ideal. She strives. She struggle.
Alas, she is but one. What can she do?

The dreamer laments the imperfection without. Would running away from the imperfect world help? No. The imperfection is truly from within.
Alas, even she is one. What has she done?

The burden of the ideal: The quest

Dreams come easy to dreamers. To wonder at what could be, to see the potential in things and people, to hope for the best, to look for the silver lining, and to see the light at the end of the tunnel… All this only till the dream has a head-on collision with reality. Nothing can confuse the dreamer like reality. Questions and doubts invade the terrain which was once inhabited by dreams of possibilities.

Even in the midst of growing cynicism and increasing doubts and questions, the dreamer carries on the quest for the ideal. This incongruity between the ideal and the real remains a thorn in the flesh of the dreamer refusing to go away. The strife between what could be and why it cannot be disillusions. The bubble bursts.

The bursting bubble doesn't keep the dreamer from dreaming.
The bursting bubble doesn't keep the dreamer from being disillusioned.
Dreams and disillusionments. They co-exist. They feed on one another.