2012 is it really the end or the beginning.

As hackneyed as it may sound.

Sounds & Feels like no casual year. Will be a do or die for many of us

For some to forge for some to figure out and for some to sustain.

Most of the folks around me have embarked on a new life. Maybe because it’s just the stage all my circle of influence is in or not to deny my facebook friend are at. So that probably triggers such thoughts in my head. But nevertheless all I see is transition around me.

Struggle to get what one wanted has never been more than we ever desired

Be it a new job that one has been aspiring for and pulling ourselves out of.

Money has no limits this year. So more and more money this year is what all of us have as a goal in mind, again probably triggered by the changes happening in all our lives.

This year sounds like an year of accumulation of money or assets. We are all settling for the best and our credit cards are optimally utilized.

Our finances are reaching an equilibrium for some and for some the other extreme. A total washout.

For some a loving partner for a happy and sustainable future coming with a lot of interior designing requirements .

An year of codependence as majority of us tie the nuptial knots, joint accounts, joint loans, joint cars etc..

An year of international jaunts and settling down at geographies which you probably just saw on the school atlas or ate a brand of chocolates from.

An year of new entrants into the family and overall world scene some having bonus deliveries. No wonder 2011 ended with some huge losses to the world art and technology centrestage.2012 ought to just give it back to us.

An year of change in way the people approach, be it cinema, Game , Television ,Technology or polity.

Its sure will be an action packed year.

I may sound like a astrologer who studies the position of stars and constellations, but I’m probably surrounded by or planning for a lot of change myself . New developments, planning for new journeys to embark on. It has never been so close and so real as it sounds now.

But guess what I know it’s coming and I am waiting for it with open arms and the barney stinson thumbs up!

Here She Comes





Here she comes like an angel, and takes you away on a pleasant hike

She stirs your hidden emotions to bring the best by your side.

She looks at you with a softness , a dampness in her eyes.

She washes away all your low currents like the oceans in high tide.



She accepts you each season , ready to share all your pains.

She holds your hand and rests her shoulder each time it starts to rain,

She can walk besides you , yet lets you lead the way.

She gives you all her moments letting go of her own space.



She looks on to you through the mirror, perfectly settling your tie

She keeps your wine ready and waits until you dine.

She dresses the best for you, dancing with you on those hurting heals

She still wears that old pendant, which you bought her from the streets



She tells you her little stories and smiles for hours at yours

She carries all your baggage till the time you open the doors

She looks for you lost in the crowd , runs and holds you tight

She never tells you how she feels when you desert her for a night

She can love you like a dove and jolt you like the storm

She sings to you like a bird to you your own songs

She makes you the man , with all her womeness inside

She fills up your senses, fitting perfectly pieces of your life.

Happy Womens day.

A Ticket to the NY moment

Life teaches you lessons You always hate to learn ,

It give you stubborn choices, You thought you could take for fun

It shows you dumps and ditches, But doesn’t warn you of the fall

It’s your obsession for the dark side, That dodges you like a clumsy ball.

You step into the dark corners, You think you can take control

Soon you make choices, And you turn back forlorn

See there the bright sunshine, Its right on your jumbled head

Let the sand out from your fists, The pieces you can still mend

Pull up and join together bits, To dress your own collage

The times not really wrong, jus that you end up trusting a mirage.

Outbound!

Should I fly away with time or stop and 'cease' the moment

Should I trust the divine or doubt each new & touching fragment

Should I rest my choices or keep looking for what’s around

Should I settle in my hollow’s or fight for what’s outbound

Just wanting to move like the clouds, should I settle, burst and rain

Yet go unnoticed as if each was no different and no two were the same..

 

Pic- My artwork - titled 'sow' Deception

For Starters and till desserts

Life amuses me and so humour is what I find in everything around :-D
He plans, we goof-up and vice versa.

Here is some crazy food for thought.Take it with a pinch(or pitcher) of malt;-)

If only god had a base on earth
If only his strat team was dispersed
Would he be kind enough to have a one to one
Before he charts out a destiny for us
So that his plan and our course
Would never slip out of control
Present confusion, past & future joys n pains
Would never see a mismatch in plans again.
A slight hint here and a slight trick there
If only we had our own Da Vinci codes
Cracking them would be more fun
Than relying on our silly & logical conundrums
Whoever thought we could start from nowhere
Life's venture capitalism had to be a failed concept
So if at all a course correction now be done
I would strongly recommend he set up office on earth.

P.S : I love this pic for some live reactions.

The World Is Changing

And I woke up, to how swiftly time had moved, not a moment to rethink.
The grass was washed and was now as green and pious with the dew drops fallen from the night,
The times were changing , the guitar notes were done with.
The melodies were fresh , and in the azure sky the doorways to new smiles had opened with some gracefull exits and long drawn pauses.
Suddenly the abnormal made me happy, and I lived the life I never imagined would bring me joy.
Believing what came to you at first go , with no space for maladies.
And then there is now so much going inside but millions of miles away there is a composed note ringing in the head incessantly but calmly so.
And then you look at newer and newer turns and you wait for the morning with no second thoughts.
Look above and down and around and you have never been so sure.
And then you step in the sunshine and dance like the music would never end.
Like the darkness would never set in, like the raindrops would never hurt you again.
And then you begin to see the sunrise like you never saw it.

Like a butterfly just got wings shimmering with vibrant hues.

And here I was, walking in all this and more.

For real.

Pic- New decade- Jan 2011

Of crooked streets & snow

Some memories leave a mark, bundled with moments with an undying spark

That every time you click rewind. You just sit back and smile.

Some people make you feel so loved, their ways not just words

You just can’t leave the feeling behind that you haven’t yet gone half the mile.

Some bonds are forever, meant to nurture and for keeps

Just a tear there and a smile here, not enough with their passing remarks and deed

But then everytime and day, when you jump closer to the now of things

Missing then is part of the loving now, memories bottled forever.

Pic - Taken Dec'10 Cincinnati

Just when Are you?

Just when the world is doing the usual, Are you fighting with yourself for a change ! Drastically

Just when the usual is making them all happy, Are you pushing back all those deals! Casually

Just when they are sealing it off, Are you eroding all the past layers! Clearly

Just when they are all piling cash, Are you looking at ways to clear bank accounts! Comfortably

Just when the clocks ticking,  Are you looking at making the circumference bigger! Insanely

Just when they are working at falling in love, Are you looking at ways to fall out of it all! Passively

Just when they are all gung-ho about Diwali, Are you waiting to celebrate your first Haloween! Weirdly

I Am , Are you?

Pic- A coffee shop in a quaint hill station around Bangalore. Sept,10

Stand Out

Do whatever , But Do like noone has ever done before

Reach wherever, But be sure you can get back to the shore

Love forever  , and never leave that one asking for more

Die whenever , but thank life for what  it had in store

Hurt if ever,  but then make sure you can heal the soul

Lose however,  but fight till you find your goal.


My Photo- City of Bath , UK

Pre and post nothing Happiness Syndrome

Is there something like a happy moodswing?
After prolonged days of being morose and bored , dying for a change, where your boss reminds you of Dogbert , when your work life starts to suck, when you are swearing on the men you don’t want to be with and running behind the state you actually want . This state shocks me. Makes me think what is that I am doing right. So I could hold on to this forever.

After those emotional controls hanging from your ceiling fan making your head go round and round strangulating your minds independence.
There are these days when you have happy mood swings. When you are in the state of loving all that surrounds you. Where everything means a thing. Where you live in the ‘now’ of affairs and not ‘later’.


That’s when you realize that these are days when your are actually doing things for yourself. You are not knocking things down for later. You are not avoiding your own self. You are not being that self depressed lazy butt. You are not judgemental about people who love you. You are not holding back. You are just settled.

and P.S Mr. Clooney my love, why does one even need a back pack when one has no baggage to carry.
Pic - April'10 , Bangalore

Les pluies de l'été

The thirsty drops of rain tingling onto my head,

Barren thoughts of joy that it seems to have bred .

Its the misty cloud and the virgin vapours insight ,

Its not me that seems to have indulged in this fight.

I lift up my cramped self to walk in the cool breeze ,

Thanks to the coy clouds that ease out all the crease.

Its not me to be blamed for I have no tempest needs,

Its the rain that has caressed and dampened all the seeds..

photo: London, April '09

Maladies Mentales

ü- Stuck in the middle !! And so life moves on, getting closer to the best,( ah ! you must be kidding ).Our process analysis of any situation tells us we are moving towards the worse. downside - Lifes circle getting smaller , narrower set of friends and best fits. Upside- we are getting better at coping up with things that bring change. In a hell of a manner everytime, but atleast you are reaching points when you can uproot yourself , correcting pendulum like behaviour devoid of new risks/returns. Switching on and off is better than hibernating mode each time.

ü- Sans Change!! Personalities definitely change and evolve, you are what you have chosen you want to be with no external virus attacks, What my image is and what I want to represent is our forte, though I still do not know what works best for me, changes over time (that’s fine), but I do know that I can keep experimenting till the time I have to stop and walk away with a dab of confidence and a tint of arrogance in MY chosen direction .

ü- Questioning at x per hr!! Well we all do that a zillion times a day,

" Where is it going? Why did he call me, Why did he not call me, Will he do what he says, does he say what he does ?, Why did not she and why don’t they,What do they think, How do I get out of this now, Do I really need to say that, When will I actually buy that car, Does that dress make me look fatter, Have I got a tummy which is more than the one I got last time I went home. Is that even a worry for her, that she sounds so worried. Look at the mess he created, why did I ever get so fast into that, it is so unreal, What is that they are actually doing ? Stop! Should I make a full stop now it’s going way overboard."

Breathe ! We keep punching questions that keep punchering our mind over a typical span of a humans week, now sit back and ponder over the weekend that all those futile questions on which no action was taken , if not asked would have left no difference in our state of being and the way we spent our friday nights or monday mornings.

ü- Keep the pin labels away!! We still would have laughed and cried and ate the same amount of junk courses, because at not one point of life is life so certain. Yet we try to pin it to any kind of surety sometimes to the extent that we base our decisions on others graphs. Keep the pin boxes away, they only pinch and poke you.

ü- Repulsion sydnrome!! You will see that each time you cross a line you will want to push back. But then you will still lie in the same parallels of momentary pleasures . It’s like a constant given in any equation over a period of time even though the variables keep multiplying.

ü- Expectation is the ghost!! Another common ailment is over expectations, the fact where you decide how you should be treated while you slip control from the way you've got to treat yourself. Its got nothing to do with them or you, it is just happening because it ought to happen, all you need to do is disassociate from the conflicts and when it makes less than incomplete sense and the timing is right you will know what to do next.

01.01.10

On the year gone by

2009..its been about self discovery...personal accomplishments..travel and learning..crossing of a few bridges, good to bad to worse choices, some calculative and some natural feats.. here's completing the act...2010 I see brings another rollercoaster ride...

Here's to yet another block..
The sound bells of silence,
Ringing through the head
The melange of the past
Some alive, some dead
Some tickle, some scare
Awefull enough to shut your eyes
Candid enough to make you stare,,
A year that came full circle
And concaved before it ends..
Now an encaspulated journey
Meandering with reckless bends,,
Are you caught by those white noises
But they can’t really hear you out..
Are you dumbfounded by choices
But you can’t live any beyond doubt,,
Does it turn into Farce
When you turn to give meaning
Does it all vanish into vapour
When you harden it to feel it,,
But those moments that we walked
Natural acts with an obvious ploy
Even that lasted for a whisker
No regrets nor any burdens of joy,,
And tiptoeing we walk on the fences
Keep moving for a final stop
On this bed and that soil
To just one more block,,

P.S : On deliberation this poem has a negative element , not the intended mood and tone..
Photo - Canary Wharf, April 09

The push and pull factor in confusion.

These days I am fearing/hating /abhoring myself of loving to live life in my comfort zone. Guess we all enjoy entangling ourself into the chain of certainity that we have woven , the circle of friends , the job where everyone knows you and smiles at , the world that we live in and all the silly to horrendously silly circle of influences that surround us.

We feel that being where we are is more than the perfect state of being for us . Any shift or drift will mean a jolt and our life will never again be the same.

To a certain extent this confusion drives most of us and to some offcourse it just does not drive they are stuck in the middle , so this is not for that fortunate set.

"Status quo" definately in management books and everywhere else in the world where life is difficult to manage means low risk… life gets simpler , you are in control of things and are getting controlled by comfort and end of the day your just an ounce more of it . Your body clock is set you don’t even need any alarms in your life.. instead they alarm you if they do ever ring. Well that’s exactly the point I am reaching to and maybe many of you reading will have already made it there..

So Welcome on board!

Now you have made that choice of leading a simple life sans change and challenge.. but then are you really growing beyond numbers and proportions , receding hairline and appearing facial lines. We may like pruning the branches every now and then , but few of us want to pull of the roots and plant ourselves on a different soil.

Personal discovery and doing something new each day seems like a line woven with way too much of philosophy or asking too much from life and so you would just want to give it an askance and not read further..


Plucking yourself out from routine and jumping into another pond , learning to swim and touching the shore and not simply floating like a lifeless log of wood devoid of direction. I know easy to say in some poetic bullshit but a tuff call to take and worst of it all most of the time you don’t know when the timing is right.

Personally I have rotated in this idea, which to me now seems like a fear which I call "comfortophobia"
Am I willing to take the risk and plunging into a rather uncertain job , a new relationship, a personal union or a different country or city to inhabitate.

I am completely a woman of contradiction here , at all times I constantly need to pep myself to make life less boring on the other I get habituated and attached to things, people, circumstances, coffee mugs, bed sheets, colours, patterns of anything big and small and all other materialistic blocks standing around me.

What I am trying to say that I take much longer time to come out of the perfect circumstance that I push myself to making , as I don’t really live in less than what I really want, once I am there coming out of it is a task and coaxing myself for something different and better becomes rather a herculean task .

We do get pulled into directions one which lets us discover more about us but definitely brings change and sometimes causes havoc in our comfort areas , the other which lets us a beat more closer to a mundane life.

Well I still can’t fathom ways to come out of it every now and then , but I have been able to arrive at a few gruesome reasons that leave me/us in such a muddle.

Is it - fear of loosing your independence - Danger of not knowing youself completely and getting on to your wrong side - Confusion of what does and does not work best in favour and bring you closer to the desired end - Risk of not being able to go back to where you made a good start. - Being pushed by contradictory goals and motivations - Not trusting or getting influenced by anyone too much, but your self... you are the factor and you have to live with it..

Single focus , Double Thoughts..
Go where you want to spread the torch..
Take the string and pull the chord..
Look up in search of the lord..

Dig through deep hollow wells..
Take me there to the road that ends..
Show me the window which opens to the hill..
Pass by me even if your shadows will..

Switch it on when the time says play..
Open in the dark and close by the day..

Flicker the flame when the wind stood still.
Cheat the chest on those wind mills..

Blow the trumpet if the curtains go down..
Take your arrow and shoot the clowns..
Push the wall that lies between..
Colour all those open and opaque screens..

Prick the thorns that lie on the stems..
Tick the times when you are at the bends..
Tailor the stiches that lie within..
Clamp your feet and Roger that film..

Deep below there lies a golden chest..
In your hunger for the quest..
Into oblivion your several dreams..
But the undying focus still screams..

Photo: Atlantic wharf, Cardiff

black and white idiosyncrasies..

The dualities of life , I will talk to you about this probably in a completely meaningless fashion.

For me they start with the colour black and white, yes thats what catches my eye the most for quite sometime now and maybe that is beacuse of the duality it throws out together, its comforting to my eyes. Dont we all love to live in this state of mind, a little bit of both the worlds.
I wanted to read the colour black , so i started with wikipedia here is what it gave me:)
Some blah blah..

Black is a multi-dimensional color that can mean classic or new.

• It has an ominous characteristic, symbolizing death. Particularly Western cultures use black for funerals.
• It has an air of intelligence (graduation robes), marked with rebellion (the bad guy), shrouded in mystery (space).
• Black’s evil symbolism, complements the good in the world.

black symbolises - modernity, power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, style, evil, death in Western cultures, fear, seriousness, conventionality, rebellion, anarchism, unity, sorrow, life, rebirth in ancient Egypt , professionalism's and slimming quality in fashion.

Now Some of my scientific dervations of the colour : There are two school of thoughts :the colour theory and the light theory (i think ) - a little bit of a background on both .

Black is not a colour but the absence of colour ,where there are no photons of light.
White is a colour according to the additive colour theory of light, ie to say that when all colours emitted as light come together like the sunlight,what is emitted is white light.
The other theory says :
Black is a colour because if u combine the three primary colours you will get a shade of black or something close to that, however if you do a similar mixing of colours you will never be able to get white, hence white is not a colour as it cannot be derived from its very or any source.

Existence of colour also depends on sight... ehh... imagine if we could either see white or black or none or both and still not be able to differentiate the two.

Now can u decipher thoughts (unless you have an innate ability to read minds) positive or negative with the signs and conscious and unconscious signals of the brain, unless expressed you cant , hence duality creeps in any kind of expression , emotion, every thing you say or do can be interpreted in black and white. Yes a certain amount of grey too and thats open for an ongoing debate..

Let me tell you more of what is happening around.. things seem big as these are times of recession, of not only the economy but of interest and motivation . I am happy and it makes quite a few people around me happy.. and thats the only thing in life that has no duality at the moment..

I am also learning the nuances of business and i know I have a long way to go and many more things will inspire me on the way, the people around me, i do not how i am different from them but yes i can truly differentiate how one set of them is different from the other, their priorities are without any dualities, their life is free of falling in the middle of things, they are not in any conundrum of what they really want, they know where to get and how, these questions which we all ask ourselves are so full of double thoughts.

We want this and we want that as well, what sounds best professionally is not our best personal aim, they are always at tangents, we want to live dual and parallel lives to be able to be truly happy, we want work but then we dont want to work hard enough, we want money but we also do not want that we end up with only and too much of it, we want the cute person around to approach us, but we also do not want that we have to succumb to his charm and be dictated by it, we want to get slender each day but we also do not want to give up the briyani around the corner or the ice creamed coffee on every turn..

But lucky are those for whom the dual worlds come together.. one by virtue of my age and state of mind:- when you have the thing which loves and holds you together and leaves you independant at the same time..this is the ideal state of duality for me;)

If you were to ask me over a tete a tete.. Where do i see myself two years from now? i'd be zapped.. blank in a state of nothingness...
As after all why should i live again with the burden of duality, simply enough we will either be doing less than or more than what we want . We would be in a single state of mind of which is good or bad, content or discontent. This state of mind cannot be predicted sitting now in the quiteness of our lifes. So why live the moment with such a baggage, and that is why i havnt believed in planning my future. There is only a course of action for present and not the future, there is only one way and that is doing the thing that gives each day a purpose, could be small thank you note, a follow up call, a cup of capucinno , a look of admiration , a right note on your guitar or a small recognition that the job is done the way it ought to...

of learning the things you love...

"So have you loved painting, paint for youself the sunrise every mornin, you love music sing passionately even in the bathroom, not enough.. bathe more than the average number of times you would, love the strings of the guitar, buy youself one you'll treasure all your life as your first love,love the mountains travel all by yourself incognito...love to dance, join the troupe so what if you have the ugliest partner, love to cook and bake do that for every person you love..if thats not enough start loving more and more people to have enough cakes to bake...love photography keep your cam wherever you go coz you never know when life gives you the perfect shot.. just dont wait for loving the things you learn or ought to learn in life but learn things you have loved (jus plain vanila is sometimes better than a nutty butterscotch life afterall ;) "

Broken Spirits

A friend of mine spurred the thought in me of how inspiration lies behind every piece of art and opinion, I know you would agree to this as much as I don’t , but on second thoughts now, it would actually serve a purpose and that would be that I could use this forum to talk about the lines of Tagore written way back in the first decade of the century we left behind.
For those reading this I would say that i am regressively inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's words.
And so looking back now makes you and me feel that it is all so misplaced in today’s setting ,

Here he goes ..

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....Geetanjali 1910

In contrast..here i go..

Where the wings don’t fly, where the arms can’t try...
Where there is fear and scare, where even truth can’t dare...
Where the unarmed suffer, while they glorify their supper...
Where you and I fight for reasons so weak, for the good we fail to take the lead
Where there is distress and distrust in each soul, where we all tend to harbor selfish goals...
Where young women are left alone to bleed , where the men of faith pay no heed...
Where we sit rounds and rounds of big talks, where we screen hours and take stocks...
Where we love to blame and play the mock, where we watch them crumble away our blocks...
Where the will to take charge has died, where we have learnt to conveniently hide...
Where that one spark gets lost in the crowd, when his voice is snubbed even before he could shout...
Where they fight with peace for the chair, where we choose to give them an actionless stare...
Where the power comes to a house of crime, where the power in truth is still not sublime...
Where the sun goes down with no hope, where you rise each day to see the injustice scope...
Where the needy cries out his soul, when there’s not enough in his child’s bowl...

Where two right men make no good, where they are crushed even before they could...
Where your name decides your destiny, where religion becomes the cause of tyranny...
Where life’s taken for saffron and green, where holy faith turns into a fanatic scene...
Is that the India from where you and I hail, that’s yet again where my country fails...
Yet we say we had set to teach the world and today what we were we forget...
Yet again we feel so taken, Yet again our worlds shaken...
Now again we lie in broken spirits, still waiting to rise from our own debris.... 2008

In happy times and in bends
a flip and flop with new found friends
a laughter a hope and a slapstick joke..
a low a high and your deep down broke
a pick a drop, a slurp and a chop,
a wink a smirk till eyes drop
a clap a hail, for trick a mail.
a walk a sip and a new found trail
a tip a lead a nip in the bud
a smoke a scratch in the forest mud
a jeep a grip a wind a bird
a click a bond a peacocks pond
a spark a lull a secular bunch
a peg a treble with a soda punch .
a yin a yang a flick to stall
a dawn a bell a wake up call
a trim a daze in the morning haze
a song a tear and a look of craze
a peddle a push a right a scare
a hill a bridge a tan to dare
a fist a splash a vibe to match.
a bump a toast a thrill to most
a dig a cross from south to nord
a time a trip at river tern lodge...