Doggesses

Oh, the gender counterpart of a dog is such an abuse! I dared not post that as head in my blog, lest it should invite a lawsuit!

This is about two of these divine creatures (who is not?) that live out of our house. I mean, literally. They were with the caretaker who was positioned in this house by the owner. One is a white furred pomrenian and the other is her daughter, a prize from a smart Roadesian. Together, they used to think this house as their own. When I first came to see this house, the furred one growled and the other one just kept running round the building, as if the planets have just delegated their job to her! So much so, we called her 'runner'. The furred one was named Shiro by my son, a la that naughty character Shin Chan's ( Japanese cartoon child, who is a menace for his parents, teachers, neighbours and friends due to his precocious naughtiness) mongrel.

Now, Shiro was operated upon by the local municipality fellow and can't be conceive. So it has remained playful, aggressive and extremely funny kind of character. In fact, its a ritual for her to chase a two - wheeler (much to the panic of the riders) or even a truck, with all her worth (she'll remind you of a Cheetah after a hunt) when she sees me returning from somewhere. May be that's her way to confirm that she is not having food daily for nothing - she serves! She is almost a terror for dos double her size, she can chase any one of them away.

Runner, on the contrary, was very playful when I first saw her about 14 months back. She was a child then. This year, she had her share of suitors and delivered a cowardly, creepy little fellow ehich survived the street toughies. That fellow has mellowed down. Incidentally, she was hit once by a car and he front paw almost gave way. We got a doctor and dresses, medicated her. The paw survived and after natural healing, she is back on her four. Her obligation should be seen in her eyes whenever she meets me. We do a paw-shake whenever we meet.

They brighten up my day whenever it is sombre (and its so damned frequent!). These four-legged sweeties are real charmers. I shall post their pics soon.

Ciao

Spring, summer, fall, winter..... and spring

That's the name of the South Korean I watched awe-struck on NDTV Lumiere (Thanks for the guys who conceived showing cinema in its core artistic, a-commercial essence to all of us masses)

It was the story of a tiny little monastery floating on a raft across a lake surrounded by idyllic mountains. The director or the guy who chose the spot gets full marks as heaven can't possibly be more beautiful than this. A monk who stays alone there receives an abandoned child. Life of this carefree child (spring) as he grows into his passionate youth (summer), runs away from his master to follow the girl who came to get cured into this monastery and eventually murders her on finding her cheating (fall), comes back to the monastery for penance where he is taken by the law and returns again on being released from jail amidst snow to find his master gone (winter), gets another abandoned child from an unhappy mother and goes on rearing him (.... spring) - is painted in this movie (whoo...... what a long sentence, dear.. let me catch some breath!!! :))

The movie is a masterpiece with not a single frame wandering purposelessly, but there was no overt expression. There is an incident in which the little boy ties a stone through thread around a fish, a frog and a snake just for fun.. as little boys used to do before we snatched them all from the mother Nature and packed them off for urbane careers. The Master sees this, ties a heavy stone around the boy with a rope when he is sleeping. Next morning, he commands the boy to go to the same spot with the stone tied up, find out and free the fish, the frog and the snake. He says a Masterly sentence, ".. if you find any of them dead, you will bear this stone in your heart forever". The boy finds only the frog alive, the way he sobs on seeing the vile snake dead is breath-taking. You feel so One with the Nature that even a snake seems like your dearest friend! such is the power of this master craft called cinema. Even the sexuality is narrated so unapologetically that you feel relieved that after all, the human body is not something sinful!

Wish you catch up with this movie someday, they will keep repeating this throughout this month.

When the heart is full, words seem so empty. So long, dear..........

Expect - for thus is fuelled life

It has become so laden these days with self imposed 'relationship' managers running amok! They will make you feel cringing on your having expectations from relationships. They 'expect' everyone to be a recluse and keep on their Karmic trajectory in the Gita recommended manner with no attachments towards fruit. Why? Why is expectation converted to such derogatory and grief inviting attitude? If an event of failure of expectations cause grief, can you deny the innumerable moments expectations bless you with the bliss of relaisation regarding your worth? Is it wrong for parents to expect that their offsprings will support them when they are old and dependent? Is it absurd for a child to expect that she will get unconditional / unjudgmental support from her parents? Why should it be considered silly if an acquintance unfolds itself to a matured relationship and sharing of little joys and deep griefs happen naturally? Should it be a sin if sexuality determines a relationship and heaven is experienced in conjunction?

My best and happiest moments, I realise now (having been relieved of this burden of 'to expect or not to expect' dilemma,  happened when I badly expected something to happen and IT HAPPENED. Moments of grief on not getting the expectation relaised fades out, can't even remember them for long.

So dear, expect. For thus is fuelled life.

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.