Thursday, November 29, 2007

Porcupine! ;)

Sitting through a sitcom and laughing away is cool, but finding humor when you least expect it
is cooler! After 15 mins of fidgeting around the channels, i finally landed on HGTV.
Yep, Home and Garden Television.

A programme on Condos was running. These modern day condos with huge glass windows overlooking something amazing like a mountain or a river or something. It kind of reminded me of Fountainhead, when Roark builds such apartments. So i wanted to see more. Initially i was paying attention to the building wondering how you can live without walls. A huge hall defined only by different kinds of furniture placed here and there. Then i noticed this old couple who owned this condo being interviewed by this guy from HGTV.

They both looked very bright and there was something quirky about the old gentleman and the lady herself was an ardent student of yoga who was strictly vegetarian. They looked perfect together, he smiled easily but it was getting obvious that he was getting mildly irritated by this young fellow who was asking all sorts of serious and sometimes dumb questions. This gentleman was trying to lighten the mood but our man persisted on.

By now they were in the last room(er..place) which was the kitchen. She was vegetarian but the old man was not. He tried to experiment with many things crawling, walking, swimming... Our man was bang on the question

our man: What? she is veg.. you are not. How do you manage? You don't have 2 kitchen spaces, i find it difficult to imagine how you do that!

ol' man: (took a moment b4 replying) Just like how porcupines make love, CAREFULLY!

I was laughing my sides off and our man stood rooted, zapped.




Wednesday, November 28, 2007

All about my darling!

As i was going through my posts today i realised that the posts i most enjoyed writing about
were about my daughter Tanya. There is something about the way kids grow that makes you want to cry and laugh at the same time.
I miss her early years. But entertainment never stops ;)

She has now started telling us stories. Her own stories.
Her stories are never complete without a dinosaur and a monkey. (Aliens are a new addition thanks to Ben 10) We'll pop up here and there of course. One thing that surprised me the most was that she is not always the heroine of her stories. You would think that a 3 year old will like that very much. But she doesn't seem to mind getting hurt and someone else saving her!
And her stories i realised are very detail oriented and action packed. Big, small, dark, blue, red, a lot of kicking, jumping and running. By now, she gets all excited and jumps down from my lap and uses her hands, legs, eyes and movements and brings her story alive. 

After she's done, we clap our hands, totally amazed and blissfully happy. She is beaming now and for some reason runs blindly, throws herself at the sofa and hides her face, laughing! Is that shyness i see? By now i sense a small lump in my throat. 

She is a big girl now, isn't she?





  

Sunday, November 25, 2007

CONCEPTS

Theory of the Absolute.
Vedas.
Teachings of Buddha.

Stephen Hawkings
Lucifer
The Bible
Shakespeare

A handful of people seem to have shaped the present society.

Not all from the list above. (These are mere popular names and concepts!)
Nor does the list end here.



A handful of people seem to have propelled the initial impetus formation of concepts, sentiments, ideas and thoughts.
It has stopped now.
Add to this list are all those names that have never been printed or heard
Pre-historic names
Obscure authors of great stories.
The first leader of the first tribe who laid the first of the rules in this world.
These unknown people have perhaps contributed more than we’ll ever dare to accept.

Today, all we do is discuss already existing concepts or if you extend your imagination then take a thread from an already existing theory, idea and give it a brand new look
that manages to trick us into thinking that it is ORIGINAL.

The discussions, the arguments, the essays on things
are only a reflection of something that has been said by 1000s if not millions
already.

Think about it, we are talking about the same things over and over again.
In stories.
In movies.
In books.
In blogs.
In media.

Right and wrong
Good and bad.
life and death.
Sin and love and so on.

All our arguments, our thoughts and our sentiments on things are merely our acceptance or rejection of certain schools of thought.
Somebody else put all those thoughts into our heads through various means.
Parents, schools, teachers, society, friends, books, media other mediums etc.

Discussions on right and wrong!
They all seem so futile. Who came up with what is right and what is wrong?
Anybody who supports whichever sentiments is not going to say anything remarkable.
They are merely going to recall something that has been said by someone and that someone heard it from someone and this goes on.
Words may be new but ideas, ancient.

Wearing clothes is a compulsion because human body cannot endure certain extremities in the weather.
But whoever said a woman should be covered waist above and below to be considered decent whereas waist below would suffice for a man?
What is ‘decency’ by the way?

I’m not trying a feminist angle or anything. Just stating one particular well accepted CONCEPT. Whoever said it first was very successful and their idea became popular and is now a norm. Wow, how original is that!

Here is another one. When man first evolved he must’ve been an atheist.
After few years of this, the man or a woman who came up with a concept of something superior existing in this world is what i call an ORIGINAL thinker.
But if God is not a concept, if he does exist (discrediting Darwin’s theory) then this particular man or a woman merely chanced upon His presence which makes God himself ORIGINAL and nobody else!
(This is not a philosophical discussion. An example to make it easy for me to express myself)

All we are doing now is take sides. That is all there is.
For or Against?

Discoveries are no longer remarkable.
They have existed before. We chanced upon them now.
So existence of Electricity, X-ray, Protons and other millions odd discoveries that science makes still confirms that God is the only original thinker(If he exists that is!)

If we give this idea a break and think that discovering something, is something and not nothing then
Discovering new lands are out of fashion. We have covered pretty much everything.
Space is an old idea. Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Hawkings, Isaac Asimov and a few others have covered pretty much everything. All other futuristic concepts based on space and time are mere threads taken from their work.

Likewise if we look deeper we’ll find bare bones of our society and we’ll realise how these people who are long dead and gone still hold the strings of our race.
A handful i say. Just a handful.
Today the world is filled with imitations and we revel in them.
Mediocrity is celebrated.

Movies, books, T.V channels, Blogs are filled with things we already know about.
They are all taking sides to state concepts using a different language depending upon their skills.
So next time you are browsing the net or the T.V and nothing seems to hold your interest then rest assured that there is no problem with you.
The world has stopped producing original thinkers.

So where do you see originality?
Music
Inventions.

Is there even a list beyond this?

Friday, November 23, 2007

Hey there delilah!

Hey there delilah! is this cute, beautiful song from Plain White T's.
It tops the charts in 2007, eventhough it got released in 2005! A slow pick up.

Anyway, moving beyond these statistics is a cute story and a story within a story as well.
So brace yourselves.

Tom Higgenson, the lead artist from Chicago apparently visited New York sometime in late 2004.
A friend of his introduced him to a girl named Delilah.
He fell in love with her immediately,
he was totally blown away, proposed to her and wrote the song Hey there Delilah for her!
This is one of those OH MY GOD! moments for the girls
but our heroine was already in a relationship so she said 'take it easy'.
But this song went on and became a hit in 2007.
Every radio station, every music chart, any decent jukebox has this playing for months now.
The song, the unrequited love story, the lyrics has got Americans swaying.

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way


Hey there Delilah
You be good and don't you miss me
Two more years and you'll be done with school
And I'll be making history like I do
You'll know it's all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here's to you
This ones for you

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me


(If you like what you see here ,google for the complete lyrics.
i tried pasting the link, some error is popping up)

Now comes the story within the story,
Both me and Aravind got our curiosity piqued and wanted to see what was so special about her.
(Searched for her pic)
Actually it was more for aravind's sake since he found this
mysterious, apparently beautiful woman and a song for her, all too interesting ;)
So we searched the all knowing web

look what we found!
i know the whole story about where the song came from, but i was wondering if anyone could find a picture of her? i googled her name (delilah dicresenzo) and pictures of a track runner came up, and i know she was an olympic hopeful when he met her, so it might be her, but im not sure. thanks.

More such jobless morons doing the same stuff, this was from yahoo search!! he he heeee
finally got her pic with our dude

So the mystery was solved
the complete circle.
But poor Aravind didn't find her all that beautiful and was disappointed!
Sometimes things are not meant to be solved, if he had let the mystery be
the song would still have had that spell on him i think.

But hey it is a wonderful song
If you are in a mood for some sweet song, plug it in and let the music tell you its story!


Monday, November 19, 2007

Monday, tuesday, thursday, wednesday

People of the world - here are the rules.

Monday’s arrest of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who took over the Sicilian mafia from former Mafia kingpin Bernardo Provenzano led to the retrieval of the rules. The FBI has the original now :)

The Ten Commandments are:

1. No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.

2. Never look at the wives of friends.

3. Never be seen with cops.

4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.

5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife’s about to give birth.

6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.

7. Wives must be treated with respect.

8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.

9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.

10. People who can’t be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.


Please pay close attention to rule no:10 No admittance for those who 'doesn't hold to moral values'. Ha that's cute.
And chk out rule no. 7, I love'em folks.
Even though No.5, seems to over ride it. mmm...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Clouds..gray silver white..magic

There is magic in this world.
You can find it everywhere if you but take the effort to
sprinkle a little of the heavenly dust on your eyes, don't you think?

I realised this in the most beautiful way possible.
After having moved here, there has been much to see.
Our home is very close to a beautiful riverside walk path.
The other side of the river being the New York City itself.
If you enjoy watching skylines, this is a place to be.
About two weeks back, real Autumn started setting in.
I could see the subtle changes in the clothing.
Boots, Scarfs and mild jackets were popping here and there.
I knew that the trees would soon start changing their colours
and i was at the fag end of everything green.
Lets say i was lamenting a wee bit on the windy days ahead and the frosty
ones that'll soon follow.
With such murky thoughts i was taking a long walk by the riverside
with my daughter and i saw something that in a way brought about a change
It gave me such pure delight and humbled me in a way that was an affirmation of the existence of something superior whose fingers touch upon us when you least expect it.

I saw bundles of clouds, black and gray with golden rims twirling and lingering on all the tall buildings of the New York City.
I have always associated clouds with mountains, blue green and white.
But this was a sight to behold.
White wisps hopping from The Empire State to Chrysler to Metlife and a few other odd tall buildings as if they were dancing in this wonder themselves.
I wanted to grab the passers-by and share this rare moment.
The buildings which always looked lonely dressed in gray suddenly found themselves in the company of rolls of clouds hugging them tight.
I'm sure it must've been the best days of the buildings there and they wait every year for these foggy days.
What can i say?
I felt blessed to be there and witness such intimate moments.
Then i thought soon these buildings will be snow-capped!
My own snow-capped mountains just down the road and across the river.
I shall now wait.
Wait for thsoe frosty days ahead!