This post I owe to my dad.
I was walking back to my place with my dad from the parking lot and he randomly pointed out to this baby peepal plant and said that it was his inspiration. I thought that he had used the wrong word so I put on my "Ha! I am smarter than you!" expression and pointed it out. He got back at me by saying that he knew what inspiration meant.
He went on to tell me that that peepal plant had been cut down atleast five times in the past few years and had regrown. Since it was on the premises of a government building, it was cut down every time it grew a bit. After it kept regrowing, they got tired of cutting it and decided to uproot it completely. They dug a hole into the ground where it grew and pulled it out from its roots. This was a few months back. Still, here it is today, a fresh sapling.
He went on to tell me how we must never loose hope in life. Even thought we may have major setbacks, we must always regrow and replenish ourselves and believes in ourselves. Obstacles will come and go but we have got to keep going. I already knew this from before and had read several stories with this moral but this small little lesson that my dad gave me actually brought a wide long-lasting smile to my face. I don't know whether it was because I realised the beauty of Nature in the smallest of things or whether it was seeing the love and care in my dad's eyes when he told me the story. Whatever it was, the tiny little sapling made my day!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
A visit to the toy store...
Today my parents actually forced me to leave work early because they realised how much I hated it and because since Friday is the Sunday of the Gulf countries, dad had a half day at work so we had a shopping trip planned for the evening. My brother had his football playing session lined up so he didn't join us so it was just my parents and me. We went to a boring mall with a great electronics store and some others. After my dad pondered over which foot massager to buy(yes, a foot massager!) and didn't end up buying one, we thought we would drop into 'toys r' us' which is one of the biggest toy store chain in the world(?). I wanted to get a stuffed toy for myself so i dragged my parents along with me. We looked at a thousand soft toys but I didn't find any good enough so we just walked around the store looking for some toys for my cousins back in India.
Walking through those shelves full of toys really really brought back memories for me. I actually felt like a kid again. We used to frequent the store alot when we were young and all 3 of us siblings used to disperse, my brother to the action figures section, sister to the grown up peoples section, me to the whole store. When I was younger, I had a stuffed blue bunny who I used to hug to sleep. It had been sewed and fixed so many times by my Mom that it even looked a bit distorted, but I just would not let my Mom throw it away. Fortunately for her, one day, my brother, who had an incessantly annoying and very weird habit of throwing anything he could get his hands on out of the window when he saw it open, threw my bunny out. I never saw him again.
While walking around in the store today I could actually picture everything that I used to see as a kid. All the colours, the evil men, the cute soft toys, the board games. Kids running around, parents looking for the perfect gift for their little children, grandparents trying to run behind their grandchildren. A small thing like a visit to the toy store can actually make you see soo many emotions all in one place.
It got me so excited walking through those aisles that I actually clapped everytime I saw something I liked or remembered and walked with a hop in my step. My parents were amazed at how small a kid I still was. Later on on the drive back home I sat back and thought about it. It doesn't really take much to change a person's mood. A simple look at a memory could make you laugh or cry, no matter how agitated you are, a glance at the serene and supportive faces of your parents can immediately calm you down, your anger can melt away in a moment just by a little squeeze of your hand by the person you love, the silliest of jokes can make you smile admidst all your tears. Life isn't easy, no one said it would be, but easy or not, it is beautiful.
The world around you is not out to get you. It is just around you always in it's various forms, colours and messages. It just takes a positive mind set from your side to make it look beautiful...
And all that...from a visit to the toy store!
Note to self:Stop thinking too much!
Walking through those shelves full of toys really really brought back memories for me. I actually felt like a kid again. We used to frequent the store alot when we were young and all 3 of us siblings used to disperse, my brother to the action figures section, sister to the grown up peoples section, me to the whole store. When I was younger, I had a stuffed blue bunny who I used to hug to sleep. It had been sewed and fixed so many times by my Mom that it even looked a bit distorted, but I just would not let my Mom throw it away. Fortunately for her, one day, my brother, who had an incessantly annoying and very weird habit of throwing anything he could get his hands on out of the window when he saw it open, threw my bunny out. I never saw him again.
While walking around in the store today I could actually picture everything that I used to see as a kid. All the colours, the evil men, the cute soft toys, the board games. Kids running around, parents looking for the perfect gift for their little children, grandparents trying to run behind their grandchildren. A small thing like a visit to the toy store can actually make you see soo many emotions all in one place.
It got me so excited walking through those aisles that I actually clapped everytime I saw something I liked or remembered and walked with a hop in my step. My parents were amazed at how small a kid I still was. Later on on the drive back home I sat back and thought about it. It doesn't really take much to change a person's mood. A simple look at a memory could make you laugh or cry, no matter how agitated you are, a glance at the serene and supportive faces of your parents can immediately calm you down, your anger can melt away in a moment just by a little squeeze of your hand by the person you love, the silliest of jokes can make you smile admidst all your tears. Life isn't easy, no one said it would be, but easy or not, it is beautiful.
The world around you is not out to get you. It is just around you always in it's various forms, colours and messages. It just takes a positive mind set from your side to make it look beautiful...
And all that...from a visit to the toy store!
Note to self:Stop thinking too much!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The life of an introvert...
Often people say, "you should try to be slightly more 'extrovertish'". It's easy for them to say. Being an introvert is much more complicated than just being shy. Ofcourse, the basic root is shyness but there is a lot more involved in a person's behaviour as an introvert.
"Oh my God! That guy is looking at me! What must he be thinking? Does he expect me to say anything? Do I look awful? Is my hair too messy? Are there too many wrinkles on my shirt? Are my shoes dirty? Should I just walk away? Should I look back at him or avoid his gaze? Ahhh!!!"
That is the general train of thought that goes through an introvert's mind each and every time a person does so much as look at them! Imagine how mentally tiring a day at the mall must be!
Being an introvert roots from being insecure and having low self esteem. People who are very secure about themselves, specially their appearances, are mostly extroverts. They like talking to people, interacting, socialising, because they know that the opposite person is enjoying their company. For an introvert, however, it isn't easy to even approach a person. The lack of self esteem makes them think that it would be better if they just kept to themselves because they are too boring or too ugly to be in the presence of confident people so they just prefer staying out of the social scene.
Ofcourse this is no hard and fast rule, it's just something I have come to notice in the people around me and even in myself to some extent. There are even people out there who prefer not socialising because they think that they themselves are their best company. So, if you are an extrovert, the next time you see a person who looks unconfident, approach them and make them feel comfortable, it'll work much better than saying "you should try to be slightly more 'extrovertish'".
"Oh my God! That guy is looking at me! What must he be thinking? Does he expect me to say anything? Do I look awful? Is my hair too messy? Are there too many wrinkles on my shirt? Are my shoes dirty? Should I just walk away? Should I look back at him or avoid his gaze? Ahhh!!!"
That is the general train of thought that goes through an introvert's mind each and every time a person does so much as look at them! Imagine how mentally tiring a day at the mall must be!
Being an introvert roots from being insecure and having low self esteem. People who are very secure about themselves, specially their appearances, are mostly extroverts. They like talking to people, interacting, socialising, because they know that the opposite person is enjoying their company. For an introvert, however, it isn't easy to even approach a person. The lack of self esteem makes them think that it would be better if they just kept to themselves because they are too boring or too ugly to be in the presence of confident people so they just prefer staying out of the social scene.
Ofcourse this is no hard and fast rule, it's just something I have come to notice in the people around me and even in myself to some extent. There are even people out there who prefer not socialising because they think that they themselves are their best company. So, if you are an extrovert, the next time you see a person who looks unconfident, approach them and make them feel comfortable, it'll work much better than saying "you should try to be slightly more 'extrovertish'".
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
LAN gaming memories
One of my fondest memories of my last year at school are of the I.T. centre at our school. Since the number of girls in our batch who took computer science as their sixth subject was much lower compared to the boys, we only got a chance to occupy the new state-of-the-art I.T. centre in our 12th grade. Ofcourse it turned out to be not so state-of-the-art but it was much better than the dingy senior computer lab so we considered ourselves lucky nonetheless.
The boys had already installed a very old version of the Unreal Tournament on the systems and we thought we would try playing just for the heck of it. All of us were beginners but somehow that game became a crazy addiction. Every computer class we used to finish our programming assignment as quickly as we could and then start our gaming sessions. Our teacher was too busy with her work to be bothered. All she saw was that our fingers were moving their way across the keyboard and she thought we were working and satisfied herself with that and ofcourse, being the angels that we were, we took full advantage of her ignorance.
We used to play "Capture the flag" the most. I remember initially shooting in the direction of every movement I came across on the screen, ending up killing my team mates half the time, which not only cost us the game but much more. The team mate I had killed would exclaim loud enough for our teacher to hear and would result in additional programs to write which would last us the entire class. We even played with the boys a couple of times but got thrashed badly because they had had much more practice, considering they had hogged the I.T. centre for two years before we could even get the privelege of entering it! (hmph!). The boys used to keep amazingly random names for their computers on the network. I mention this because one very vivid memory that I have is of a screen with words flashing on it saying "Pope kills God!" That is something you will never ever get to see! All that apart, it was just so much of a blast being a part of the computer science batch of 2005 and I would do anything to just get one more go at it! We did get better at the game by the end of the year ofcourse. We did! really!
The boys had already installed a very old version of the Unreal Tournament on the systems and we thought we would try playing just for the heck of it. All of us were beginners but somehow that game became a crazy addiction. Every computer class we used to finish our programming assignment as quickly as we could and then start our gaming sessions. Our teacher was too busy with her work to be bothered. All she saw was that our fingers were moving their way across the keyboard and she thought we were working and satisfied herself with that and ofcourse, being the angels that we were, we took full advantage of her ignorance.
We used to play "Capture the flag" the most. I remember initially shooting in the direction of every movement I came across on the screen, ending up killing my team mates half the time, which not only cost us the game but much more. The team mate I had killed would exclaim loud enough for our teacher to hear and would result in additional programs to write which would last us the entire class. We even played with the boys a couple of times but got thrashed badly because they had had much more practice, considering they had hogged the I.T. centre for two years before we could even get the privelege of entering it! (hmph!). The boys used to keep amazingly random names for their computers on the network. I mention this because one very vivid memory that I have is of a screen with words flashing on it saying "Pope kills God!" That is something you will never ever get to see! All that apart, it was just so much of a blast being a part of the computer science batch of 2005 and I would do anything to just get one more go at it! We did get better at the game by the end of the year ofcourse. We did! really!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Ode to Mario Bros.!
I really don't know how this really random topic came to my mind but when it did, I kind of abandoned all my other thoughts and just couldn't help but write about this!
For the people who have no clue of what I am talking about, Mario Bros. is a very old videogame. It has 2 characters, namely Mario and Luigi. It is my all time favourite in videogames. Even though nowadays there are state of the art animation techniques being used with the super high resolution, I still think this game had and still has it's own charm which does not need any sort of high resolution video streaming to be appreciated.
It has some totally random moves like jumping and hitting bricks which get you coins(points), chasing stars to gain lives, getting killed if you jump on evil looking flowers which keep popping out of flower pots(imagine how hard it must've been to actually get flowers to look evil!), gathering coins suspended in mid-air, throwing stones at mutant turtles and then jumping on their shells to make them skid towards the rest of the duck and turtle enemies to kill them...oh what a game it is!
Even if you aren't much of a videogame person, try this one out! You will get addicted!
For the people who have no clue of what I am talking about, Mario Bros. is a very old videogame. It has 2 characters, namely Mario and Luigi. It is my all time favourite in videogames. Even though nowadays there are state of the art animation techniques being used with the super high resolution, I still think this game had and still has it's own charm which does not need any sort of high resolution video streaming to be appreciated.
It has some totally random moves like jumping and hitting bricks which get you coins(points), chasing stars to gain lives, getting killed if you jump on evil looking flowers which keep popping out of flower pots(imagine how hard it must've been to actually get flowers to look evil!), gathering coins suspended in mid-air, throwing stones at mutant turtles and then jumping on their shells to make them skid towards the rest of the duck and turtle enemies to kill them...oh what a game it is!
Even if you aren't much of a videogame person, try this one out! You will get addicted!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Before you go knockin' on heaven's door
Just yesterday as I was saying my daily prayers, it suddenly struck me - "who exactly am I praying to? Is God a man or a woman??". Since I could not decide on which gender to support, I postponed my prayers till I could clear the conflict in my mind. So, I got thinking...To begin, I started to think of every picture I had ever seen of God; the problem just got worse, according to my religion, there are several Gods and Goddesses up in heaven, and not being a very religious person, I could only vaguely recall a few images of some of them. After that, I had to reframe the question in my mind; the new question was - "Is the Almighty a man or a woman??", just to be specific.
Since my past knowledge wasn't helping in any way, I decided to just debate it out with myself. I took out a sheet of paper and weighed the cons of each gender in their suitability for the greatest job of all. Following are my observations and inferences:
Job description:
-Deciding the fate of the mortals on Earth
-Answering prayers and troubleshooting for the mortals
Male:
-too impulsive (job includes offering practical solutions to problems)
-short-tempered
-impatient (job includes listening to prayers all day long)
-weak communication skills (job includes frequent communication with mortal clients)
Conclusion: Applicant found to be inefficient in listening to, and answering prayers.
Female:
-indecisive (job includes decision making)
-uptight (job includes deciding futures in a composed state of mind)
-too sensitive (job includes impartial decision making)
Conclusion: Applicant found to be inefficient in making fateful decisions.
Hence, neither men nor women proved to be good enough to be the Almighty. How could I possibly continue praying to someone I didn't even know the gender of! After a couple of hours of scrutiny and intense thinking, I decided to just improvise. Hence, I arrived at the conclusion that the Almighty is a mighty ball of light which is male when it needs to decide our fate and female when we need some help. Satisfied with my decision (which took me approximately 4 hours of speculation), I got back to my prayers;
"Dear God,
Please let me do a good job at work tomorrow"
"Dear Goddess,
Please help me at work tomorrow..."
:)
Since my past knowledge wasn't helping in any way, I decided to just debate it out with myself. I took out a sheet of paper and weighed the cons of each gender in their suitability for the greatest job of all. Following are my observations and inferences:
Job description:
-Deciding the fate of the mortals on Earth
-Answering prayers and troubleshooting for the mortals
Male:
-too impulsive (job includes offering practical solutions to problems)
-short-tempered
-impatient (job includes listening to prayers all day long)
-weak communication skills (job includes frequent communication with mortal clients)
Conclusion: Applicant found to be inefficient in listening to, and answering prayers.
Female:
-indecisive (job includes decision making)
-uptight (job includes deciding futures in a composed state of mind)
-too sensitive (job includes impartial decision making)
Conclusion: Applicant found to be inefficient in making fateful decisions.
Hence, neither men nor women proved to be good enough to be the Almighty. How could I possibly continue praying to someone I didn't even know the gender of! After a couple of hours of scrutiny and intense thinking, I decided to just improvise. Hence, I arrived at the conclusion that the Almighty is a mighty ball of light which is male when it needs to decide our fate and female when we need some help. Satisfied with my decision (which took me approximately 4 hours of speculation), I got back to my prayers;
"Dear God,
Please let me do a good job at work tomorrow"
"Dear Goddess,
Please help me at work tomorrow..."
:)
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The Comfort Zone
Ever so often in life, we get so comfortable with something or someone that we forget what it is like to do new things or be with new people...ever had that feeling?
No?
Well..I have. It can be the most satisfying feeling ever. Nothing to care about, nothing to be concerned about. You have your bed, your blanket and your cute little pug always waiting for you when you return home from work. All you have to do is kick off your shoes, change into your ever-so-comfortable pyjamas, and get into bed. You feel all the fatigue and frustrations draining out of your body as you sink deeper and deeper into your ever-so-comfortable (and not to forget expensive) mattress. Then all you do is lie there reading all evening until you finally have to get up to answer nature's call. And then perhaps a little hunger kicks in, you get yourself some snacks to nibble upon and aloha! you are back in your very own ever-so-comfortable bed with your ever-so-comfortable and expensive mattress under your ever-so-comfortable and warm blanket. That is what we do day in and day out on every working day of the week. Come the weekend and we realise we have loads of work to do around the house, cleaning, dishwashing, laundry etc. etc. and by the time you are done with all of them, ahh there is the monday again. And then again we goto work, get back and return to our ever-so-comfortable life.
In this hectic life, where do we find the time to do things that we are good at?
Things that make us happy? Things that bring out our talents?
We get so comfortable with our lives that we forget what it is like to take risks. We stop socialising, stop doing new things and stop taking risks. Life goes on with its rhythmic monotony and it's droning background music. We really have to wake up and smell the flowers. Start doing new things, meeting new people.
Throw out the old comfortable bed, get yourself a new perspective. Life isn't over, it's never too late to start over. Take risks, let your hair down and shoot for the stars.
Ok I'm done...now back to bed...:)
No?
Well..I have. It can be the most satisfying feeling ever. Nothing to care about, nothing to be concerned about. You have your bed, your blanket and your cute little pug always waiting for you when you return home from work. All you have to do is kick off your shoes, change into your ever-so-comfortable pyjamas, and get into bed. You feel all the fatigue and frustrations draining out of your body as you sink deeper and deeper into your ever-so-comfortable (and not to forget expensive) mattress. Then all you do is lie there reading all evening until you finally have to get up to answer nature's call. And then perhaps a little hunger kicks in, you get yourself some snacks to nibble upon and aloha! you are back in your very own ever-so-comfortable bed with your ever-so-comfortable and expensive mattress under your ever-so-comfortable and warm blanket. That is what we do day in and day out on every working day of the week. Come the weekend and we realise we have loads of work to do around the house, cleaning, dishwashing, laundry etc. etc. and by the time you are done with all of them, ahh there is the monday again. And then again we goto work, get back and return to our ever-so-comfortable life.
In this hectic life, where do we find the time to do things that we are good at?
Things that make us happy? Things that bring out our talents?
We get so comfortable with our lives that we forget what it is like to take risks. We stop socialising, stop doing new things and stop taking risks. Life goes on with its rhythmic monotony and it's droning background music. We really have to wake up and smell the flowers. Start doing new things, meeting new people.
Throw out the old comfortable bed, get yourself a new perspective. Life isn't over, it's never too late to start over. Take risks, let your hair down and shoot for the stars.
Ok I'm done...now back to bed...:)
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