Leap to the New Year

2 hours more and it would be new year. Mostly at the end of every year, one gets a feeling that the year just swooshed by. But somehow for this year I am getting mixed feelings regarding that. The newspapers are talking about the glories of India this year ( quite a rare phenomenon this year) and first one on the list is course the World Cup victory. But somehow it feels as if it happened long long time back. May be overdose of cricket is the reason for it. On the other hand, while looking at the recent pics of one of my cousin's baby, I was quite surprised to see that the baby is almost a year old now.
Today, being a relaxed Saturday, while surfing through the TV channels, I was annoyed to find all "End of the World" movies playing in the afternoon. And it didn't quite strike me, till I stopped by one of the channels and checked out the movie name. It was "2012". Oh...That's the reason. TV channels seem to have taken the responsibility to prepare us for the Apocalypse. May be we will soon start having drills on the lines of Fire drills, but hopefully people will take it more seriously than Fire drills.
Anyways, I think I have completed my quota of babbling on this blog this year. So it's 11 posts for 2011. Hope I do better than what the series suggests :)

Alice in Wonderland

Before you read further let me warn you that people staying in the close vicinity of trees and flowers and blah blah blah should probably skip this blog. I would not want you all to waste your precious 5-10 min and end up shrugging your shoulders and giving a “Big Deal” cry at the end of it. But the nature lovers feeling like misfits in the concrete jungle may choose to go on. Anyways, I guess enough of the disclaimer.

On the busiest roads, with sparse greenery and suffocating pollution I got the first pleasant surprise of the day. Fluttering in a random motion was a beautiful yellow butterfly looking truly lost (or so I thought). There was not a shrub to hide or flower to rest on, so it decided to ride a nearby autorickshaw briefly. Of course it did not opt for the usual riding seats. And just like that it was lost in the commotion. My bus chugged ahead, but my thoughts still dwelled on the strange visitor. The polluted stretch was followed by not so polluted stretch. And there amongst the potted plants of a roadside building, another specimen of this lovely species greeted me. But this one was brownish in colour, designs if any were not that identifiable. I couldn’t believe my luck. Two butterflies in a day? Could there be more? I was on high alert now. I looked at every stretch of grass or shrubs that had grown. Somebody twittered recently about the incessant rains in Mumbai, “If nobody lived here, it would probably be a thick jungle”. So true. Isolated plants seemed to have sprouted at quite a few places. Shrubs left to survive along the divider on the highway were swaying in the slight breeze. And there I spotted a black one with yellow dots on it hopping towards the shelter.

I probably would have ended up seeing more but I was close to my destination. With the almost concluded rains, I am sure to catch some more visitors to this wonderland : "You are more than welcome, dear."

as you're there for me too...

It was already late by the time I reached office. The mailbox showed many unread mails from the client which indicated loads of upcoming work. It was going to be a looooooooooong day just like the day before and day before that. On any normal day, I would have been flustered and irritated and would probably have given a “Why, God Why” cry sometimes in my head and sometimes aloud. But today was different. I was still smiling. And so it continued throughout the day. It was as if I had a Felix Felicis to drink. Twinkling eyes, shared laughter and uncountable memories stayed with me throughout the day . I had just met my closest and oldest friend after a gap of four years.

She has been my friends for ten years now. Yes, it may not seem so old to other people. People have friends from the time they were in school. Unfortunately having been in multiple schools I don’t have such friends. In this gap of four years, we didn’t talk every now and then. Even the mails were once in a while. Technology has its limitations. You can’t say everything you want to unless the person is right in front of you. She missed my marriage and I missed hers.

Even now it seemed very unlikely that we would meet. But finally, overcoming all odds, we were there, sitting opposite each other in a restaurant, the way we had done so many no. of times during the college days. We both had so much of catching up to do. During the phone calls generally the milestones get shared but not the journey. Its only after talking to her I realised that I had missed this total frankness for quite some time now. The interruptions by the waiter who had mistakenly thought that we had come for a quick breakfast was a constant reminder that we had limited time. Anyways I don’t think any amount of time would have been sufficient enough. But even this small dose of Luck lasted me the day. Hope it lasted for you too, my friend.

Mightier than Sword?

Last used it for – making a ‘To do’ list. Even that was almost two weeks back. I look through the fat notebook lying on my desk. Only ten pages filled. Its use has reached an abysmal level for me. I look through my purse and surprisingly find 4 of them. And all of them working!!!

Feeling pleased, I open the notebook. The first page is blank. And like a school child, I enter my most prized possession on right hand corner--- My name. It is said that whenever testing out a new pen, most people will write their name.

It ‘s almost end of the day and there is no need to make a To do list. So what can I use it for? Well…I could write a blog post using it. My head starts to work feverishly : I will write my latest post on piece of paper in my ‘beautiful’ handwriting, scan it and post it. What a novel idea !!! I try searching for a blank piece of paper. After a lot of searching, I finally find one with one side printed. Doable, I say to myself.

Then why isn’t it here? Why this typed post in the same old font and format and the weird simple present tense (which I realized just now).

Well…I lied about my handwriting. As I started writing slowly and even carefully, after almost a paragraph, I looked back and realized that my ‘n’ s were indistinguishable from ‘u’s and ‘r’ was readable only due to the context. The sentences were slanting towards top right. And font size had gone from 12 to 8.

So I give up. However great my love for the pen may be, my thoughts cannot be ‘penned’.

As for the simple present tense, don't really know why...it is just how it played in my head as I tried to capture the flow of events.

Big Canvas

I looked out of the window to see darkness all around. It wasn't even 5p.m yet. As I moved out of the building I tried to see how far the darkness spread. And the view was just out of this world. Clouds hung so low that I felt if I could just pull a string attached to them, they may just touch the ground. My words can't do justice to the hues of grey, blue and black and white interspersed in a manner only an artiste can accomplish. For a second, I felt that after looking at the picturesque sky, when I look ahead to what is around me, I would not see the concrete buildings or cemented roads. But they were still there. The disconnect was imminent and unnerving.
I kept looking up so that the imprint would stay with me forever. And I guess it has.

Hopping Lamp

I hate it when my mother comments, " You are watching cartoon?" And not that I don't like Cartoons, but because it is so much more than that,I end up defending it, "It's Animation". If you were to see my list of all time favorites and most re-watched movies, animation films would probably top my list.
So no wonder when I was trying to choose a movie on Netflix yesterday, Toy Story-3 was the obvious choice. And then I saw something else that caught my attention : The Pixar Story, Documentary on Pixar Corporation. Any animation movie buff, would be aware of them. I think it was Bug's Life that first made me Google them. This one and a half hour documentary takes you through the rise of this extra ordinarily creative company and the people behind it. I had known that Steve Jobs had acquired this company early on, but I was oblivious to the real team behind it.
Most inspiring was John Lasseter, the creative head of Pixar. From traditional 2D animation at Disney, to experimentation at George Lucas Studios and finally making of Toy Story, first feature film made entirely with CGI. What impressed me the most, was their focus on technology only as a tool for telling story in as real form as possible, instead of creating stories to show off technology. The characters and scenes that seem so simple, like the colorful under-water world in Finding Nemo or the nearly microscopic life of Ants and Bugs are actually the biggest challenges. Getting the right look for Human hair , when it is wet vs. when it is blowing in the wind, it is these details that make the movie.
Thinking of inanimate objects having feelings had always fascinated me and these people were bringing this imagination to life. After 10 min of Wall-E you don't think of it as just a machine. The Hopping Luxo Lamp, their Logo completely reflects this DNA.
To see the sketch of Mike from Monsters' Inc on paper to him singing on screen, it is no less than magic.
My blogs generally don't have any pictures. But for this I nearly thought that I could sketch my favorite characters and post it on the blog. Just kidding, magic can't happen, at least in this area :)
Just a snippet here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUuwOl8CZw4&feature=related

Cogito ergo sum

I think therefore I am...Well said, but I was wondering whether we or may be some of us overuse it. I know Descartes did not mean it in the context that I am referring it to. But yes, sometimes I believe life would be less complicated if we reduce, if not completely eliminate thinking about everything under the Sun. Trying to answer every question, analyzing every incident however trivial and insignificant, introspecting our faults. Does anyone else also feel the same. Exhausted after unnecessary solitary brain activity. The Unstoppable frenzy of mindless or rather mindful activities. It could be related to your work or your life in general and sometimes even about the universe surrounding you.
And there are two aspects that make it worse...One, that you are sometimes not even aware of it and two (which follows the first point), it goes on parallely with other things that you are doing. And thus it simply tires you coz you have not even tried to stop it as you were not aware of it. And naturally the other task that you were doing gets affected too.
The so called extension of the quote, Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum could be even worse (again the quote is not in same reference completely). Doubt accelerates thinking. It does the wide range of permutations of 'ifs and buts' to sometimes make you reach the conclusion and sometimes drive you away from it.
There is no push button to stop it, no regulator to tone it down. It takes practice to hold a leash over it. As for me... I have not even begun.

Feeling Blue

I saw it leaping towards me with child like enthusiasm. My anticipation of meeting it was growing as well. In two seconds it would reach me. But in a flash it was lost. Just like that. But even before I could regret over the missed rendezvous, another one came and hugged me. I gave a delightful laughter. It settled down before wishing a slow good bye. I stood still, waiting to have another such experience. And there were many that I did have. Sometimes I tried to follow them closely, to see the one that was coming, trying to estimate how far they will reach, by their sound or by their height. Sometimes I was right, and sometimes they tricked me.
I don't know how long I stood there. Then even though I could continue like that for hours, I came back and sat down on the soft sand, glistening in the bright Sun. It was blue, as blue as it could be, as far as I could see. I closed my eyes, and sound of the waves felt closer. Saltiness in the air was unmistakable. The vastness of it, made me feel like an insignificant dot. And I stayed like that for a long time, breathing the beautiful Sea around me.
When I had seen it from a height, it had looked so serene and placid. Almost like a huge lake. But from at this close quarter, it still seemed serene, and yet you could feel the strength and potential within it. Who knows what could be churning miles away from the coast, and deep in its belly. As I see the pictures of Tsunami ravaged cities from Japan, the videos of huge waves rushing towards buildings and swallowing them up, I know it's the same sea.

To Err is Human

I sometime wonder whether we really believe it...If that was the case, every error would be called a goof up. Rather we have hundreds of synonyms for it,that even clarify magnitude of the same-- error, mistake, defect, blunder.....and no one laughs them off unlike a goof up. Computer age has brought another word to describe the same (as if there were less already)- bug. And in my coding days, we used to say, "However hard you test the solution, at least one bug will still remain". I guess that is true in life as well. We will always keep on making mistakes. What is worse that the Error Class has so many objects in it that, even if we were to never repeat it, it will still last us a life time. Sometimes it is the caution that we use to prevent repetition of a previous mistake that leads us to another. Don't you sometimes wish we had the eraser to rub off the bad lines

We have all made mistakes, sometimes as small as errors, some time as big as blunders. Sometimes, ages later, blunders seem like goof up and sometimes even errors seem like blunders depending on how they affect our life or that of others.

With the cricket fever on, I could not help wondering what goes on in the mind of a batsman when he gets out or when a bowler is hit for a six.

So every time I make a mistake ( am already thinking that writing this post was a mistake) , I am going to think of Sachin getting out on duck and not care too much about anything else.

Rambings

This is the shortest gap between two blogs for me....Actually for a long time internet was not working at my home...And I was holding it responsible for my infrequent blog updates. Even though at some level I knew that even if it was up and running there would not be much change in my blogging frequency.

But I realized, that less frequently u blogged, more was the urge to blog about something spectacular instead of just some random thought that pops in ur head....I have shot down many such thoughts with the stern ...."Na..not worth blogging about"....

It reminded me of a conversation with my friend. She argued...that her boyfriend had never bought her a gift. And the fault was not his. Every time they visited a store when he wanted to gift her, she just could not pick up a thing; once given a choice, she wanted to pick something that was spectacular and exquisite, something that she could never buy for herself and even tad expensive. Somehow, nothing could qualify all the three filters. Quite true, isn't it?

And I realized that less frequent blogs were creating a similar situation for me. Longer the gap, more exquisite and spectacular I wanted the post to be. (Though, looking at my previous posts, you may wonder whether this was my definition of "Spectacular") May be not exquisite, but definitely something unique.

But hey...I had never started out to write something spectacular...It was supposed to be for all the nonsensical, seemingly logical or illogical things that interest or amuse me. I am tired of my ramblings and so is Blogger.com and may be means to say , "Tathastu"

Like a Green wave in the Sky

I have often be chided by my significant other for walking inattentively on the road leading to frequent ankle twists and toe bruises (it is possible too). And my defense generally is, "I am not inattentive; rather there are better things on the road that catch my attention instead of say a speed breaker in front of me." Doesn't a a colorful looking shop or a hawker selling wooden dinosaur deserve my curiosity?
But yesterday, I was actually proud of my "idhar-udhar dekho" habit. I was walking towards the station looking at the sky walk that has recently opened to the public. Unlike hundred other sky walks that have been built throughout the city, this one actually had people using it.
And suddenly out of no where a green wave spread across the sky. And like a wave it retreated. And then again it rose....this time it was less dense but again it fell. This time I carefully followed it. 15-20 parrots were the creators of object of my amusement. I have seen parrots number of times before, even in groups but never before had I seen a collective flight like this. Even their color is so distinct. Blame it on too much use of Color coding in Excel,looking at them, I remembered the parrot green color appearing in a square box in the color grid in excel. While shouldn't it be the other way around.
The parrots had somehow found shelter in a palm tree close to the railway station. Strange. Surely it must be a stop over. But yes it acted as a perfect launch pad. After two or three iterations, they seemed to have got bored. Two of the parrots had now glided to the window grill in a building close by. I kept looking at them for a while, waiting to see the wave effect again. But now they seemed stationary.

I was getting late...and decided to move on...And as I finally focused ahead on the actual road , I saw people like me going to their daily destinations, absorbed in their own thoughts with their heads down or even held straight but none of them staring at the sky: You missed it folks.