Brain is listening to me

My marks in the tests taken for the course are improving. It needed some tuning, thats all it seems/ Feeling lighter, was losing confidence altogether. Good work , Tapan

26/11

Today, I am happy for the sheer fact of being alive. As Mrs Karkare (Widow of Mumbai Police ATS chief slain Mr Hemant Karkare), when ATS chief's life is not secured, mere citizens should feel blessed to be just alive in this part of the world. I have a strong belief that terrorism can be abated ONLY by a zero tolerance approach by the government and resumed social networking skills (NOT through websites, but in flesh and blood!!) among the citizens. Till we don't care to know that who lives next door, we will miss out on information and hence, social, natural vigilance on the 'new man in the 2nd house from the corner'. No politics on abetting sentiments of anyone which can fan terrorism and politicans / administrators really walking the talk.
Wish it happens fast so that no such date like today's fets imprinted in minds and history or all the wrong reasons.

Studenthood, revisited

Oh, I am definitely going to be a softer, more considerable father now. Somewhat thrown in the churn and caught in the net of the Project Management Professional Certification from PMI. I was unsure about my decision to complete this certification contact hours, but it seems informative. After practising project management int he most unorganised ways conceivable by the experts, the only consolation was that some projects were really finished on time and within cost!! Today, I am learning that many of the ways of 'getting things done' we follow in this country, don't qualify as 'right answers' to thequestions from PMP guys!! It is so humbing to score poorly in exams, that too, when you are taking these after so many years :)

So what's there to 'Khush Raho' in this pitiable situation of mine, you may ask. Oh, I am becoming a better father and a manager, at least whenever I'd think of scolding someone (which is like standard with me, no scolding from me means the guy is a veggie in my eyes!!), my poor scores of today's tests will firmly anchor me to the ground :)))

The wheelchair

Today, I saw a dressed, office going youth in a manual wheelchair. He was successfully negotiating a crowded street with uncontrolled vehicle movement, so typical of Bangalore (Traffic Police can take a leaf or two out of the retrograde Kolkata, these guys here just feel lost in streaming traffic :) ). Then came one of  those breathtaking overbridges of Bangalore - steep enough to make you slide if brakes are not on, logged enough not to allow you move as there must be one police or another (mis) directing the vehicles and merrily contributing to the prevalent commotion. I wondered how he should climb this near-cliff. I marvelled at his ingenuity, which must have been his daily practice - he latched on to a climbing auto-rickshaw - with enough power to let him ride through the barrier and slow enough not to make the young man lose control. The auto-rickshaw driver and the girl sitting in it, both seemed absolutely okay and normal with this brave parasite.

Long live Indian symbiosis! 3 cheers !!!

Gymnasium

The name comes from the Greek term gymnos meaning naked! Athletes competed in the nude, a practice said to encourage aesthetic appreciation of the male body and a tribute to the Gods.

Jushht Imageeen!! (I loved this expression of that bumpkin in Krrish)  All the fatsos and 'I wanna be at leaast Salman' wannabes in full b'day suit! Shiv-sena, Bajrang Dal, Jamaat-e-Islami, Ku Klux Klans - are you aware of such unparalleled sacrilege of every religiosity? That too by the culture which almost invented religion!

(No offence, Hindus, you didn't invent religion. Yours was always a philosophy and not a practised dogma, till Sankaracharya popularized the achar in the scriptures instead of vichar as followed so far in an attempt to counter the sweeping Buddhism. It was worse than a crusade, but thats another story)

I hit the gym today after a long break. Wish me perseverence.

Great quality processed pictures

Check this link friends
http://www.smashingapps.com/2009/11/14/50-awesome-examples-of-out-of-bounds-photos.html

Know any such amazing link?

The happy blind beggar family

Quite sometime back - I was waiting for my train at the platform of Asansol junction - for you, its a decadent industrial town trying a desperate facelift and, as it happens with all of us at old age refusing to let youth go, its neither here nor there. Indian platforms, in case you have time in hand and a relaxed, fatalistic, innate 'Indian-ness' in you, are great podia to watch live, unedited reality shows.
With a little luggage to be cautious about and a train that was not to appear in the meandering horizon of railway lines for another hour, I was immersed in myself watching clippings of different lives - families counting luggage pieces and members, lovers fighting silly over some failed appointment, hawkers vending magazines, snacks, tid-bits - not an idle time-pass I can say.
Then they emerged. From the other end of the platform, a desolate, lifeless end merging into the dusty sidewalks to wilderness, I saw this couple. A beggar couple with their 5-7 year old daughter. The couple was blind, but were laughing over some personal jokes, the girl guiding the parents to the platform - it was a start of another day of ordeal for them, or so we 'muggles' would perhaps think in indulgent compassion - that moment it seemed a happy little family, so rare in our own cliche-ridden intelligentsia 'we should have got more' circles. It was just a happy family snippet that we often 'pose' for under friendly requests or when we are tourists - natural, giving two hoots to that son of the gun called 'destiny'. Laughing out of a divine conspiracy? Who knows! But the scene was a pure moment of bliss and got etched in my mind forever. Whenever I am dead grounded, I remember that family and life pours in.

Pagol saanp - lodo khelchhe bidhataar songe

" The mad vagabond is playing sankes and ladders with the Almighty" - a song by Suman, bengali ballad singer, now a Member of Parliament - why can't this man see sense and stick to his songs? What prompts such brilliant artiste this dalliance with politics?

Wake Up Sid !!

Just flowed with the 'Boi'! You know, that's what we call a movie in Bangla. It literally means book, of course, but guys back then relished both the same way, I'd guess!
Thought would see a future tense for Abhi, my 13 year old - ended up getting a wake up call for myself! Not a bad deal, what do you say?
Things that give us joys are right there, may be one unexpected turn while driving, one turn of the head towards left, one step backwards - its just there - little joys - Chhoti Masti Bade Pack Mein - oops, marketeers would kill me for this faux pas!

Carpe diem ... cras ne veniat
Seize the day.... for tomorrow may never come

Ciao! See you with a smile :) On hardest days - that's a promise.