





How in the world can anyone not fall in love with a place like this. And to share it with the most beloved one.....aaah soooo romantic!
Hence....its decided!
Sayonara!
"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." - To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Extroverts
| Introverts
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Sensing types
| Intuitive types
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Thinking types
| Feeling types
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Perceiving types
| Judging types
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I’m feeling very lonely. It’s been a week of terrible loneliness as everyone that I hang out with has been busy/away. And the worst part is if I tell my friends I am feeling lonely, a statement which I had stated once about wanting to be left alone, gets thrown right into my face. And then I’m left wondering that if I’m feeling lonely whom do I turn to? I want to go home…I used to think that friends are everything, but now I think that though friends are very very important, but its your family in the end who will stand by you(and also probably wont taunt you about things you said in the past even if you contradict them) no matter what…I guess I better get used to this stupid thing.
I saw “Water” recently, and that movie really touched my heart. It does not have many dialogues, no exaggerated emotions, no violence, hardly any glossy showy clothing. But yet, it was one of the most effective movies that I saw since a long time. After watching this movie, I felt that to reach out, you don’t need violence, or gaudy, flashy emotional scenes, but what you need is the truth…..simple plain truth, told in simplest of ways. Another significant thing that hit home, was something that Gandhiji has said – “Mujhe lagta tha ki Ishwar hi satya hai, par mein yeh jaan
Sometimes… okay not sometimes, almost always life turns out to be rather a disappointment when you expected otherwise and vice-versa. I never had big expectations from professional life, but it still managed to disappoint me and sadden me. Yes, you earn money. Yes you are independent. Yes, you can do what you want i.e. if you mange to find time. Sitting here in my office cubicle, I wonder where my life is going. I had always dreamt of becoming somebody important, had always wanted to do new innovative things, which I couldn’t before because I did not want to burden my parents unnecessarily. And here I am, after almost 5 months of professional life, I don’t see much that I have done except for reading many books (though that I used to do before also) and write a lot of blogs.
Everyday I come to office to straight faced strangers I see in the elevator and on my work-floor. The only words of “hi” & “gm” (short for good morning) that I exchange is on chat. I talk to people and joke around, but the only people whom I think are not pretending are hardly two or three. Sometimes I get a feeling that all of us are robots sitting in these four wooden walls, not even finding time to go and see the sunset from the balcony or go to a garden perhaps. Robots, who come alive only when they are chatting on Google talk. Robots who seem human only on weekends. I am afraid that I will turn into one of them. There’s a lot of pretense and strangeness in the air. And it suffocates me and makes me think do I really want such a life. Do all these people want such a life. Isn’t there more to life than eating, sleeping & working?
And while I am at it…Just wanted to share something that I found, something that can only be read about :)
ONE-POINT OFFICE DARES
1) Run one lap around the office at top speed.
2) Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
3) Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say,
" Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye. "
4) To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears
and grimace.
5) Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "
Sorry, I really prefer it this way. "
6) Walk sideways to the photocopier.
7) While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors
open.
THREE-POINT DARES
1) Say to your boss, " I like your style " and shoot him with
double-barreled fingers.
2) Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask, " Did you get all
that, I don't want to have to repeat it. "
3) Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
4) Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle
(there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
5) Shout random numbers while someone is counting.
FIVE POINT DARES
1) At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to
conclude with the singing of the national anthem (5 extra points if you
actually launch into it yourself).
2) Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with
growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
3) For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as " Bob. "
4) Announce to everyone in a meeting that you " really have to go do a
number two. "
5) After every sentence, say 'Mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As
in " The report's on your desk, Mon. " Keep this up for 1 hour.
6) While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.
7) In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and
mutter, " Shut up, all of you just shut up! "
8) At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, " As God as my
witness, I'll never go hungry again. "
9) In a colleague's DAY PLANNER, write in the 10 am slot: " See how I
look in tights. " (5 Extra points if it is a male, 5 more if he is your
boss)
10) Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask, " You wanna
trade? "
11) Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: " Do
you hear that? " " What? " " Never mind, it's gone now. "
12) Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, " I can't
talk about it. "
13) Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a
lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
14) Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very
important conference call.
15) Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
16) Hang a 2' long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and
act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
17) Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuits,
smashing each biscuit with your fist.
18) During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the
door.
19) Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee,
move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.
I was supposed to catch an early morning flight back to Pune from Chennai today. I reached the airport exactly one hour before the take-off time i.e. at 4.30...yep I reached 4.30 in morning. As soon as I went inside I stood in this long queue for screening the check-in baggage. It was a sluggishly moving line & mostly because passengers of almost 3-4 airlines had to stand in the same queue to get their baggage screened in that single spot. The next queue was to get a boarding pass and check in the check-in baggage. And it was moving very very slow. On top of it, to increase my frustration, I saw a guy (well actually a well educated man of about 35-40) cut the line of the second counter and directly move in the front with 13 bags to check in & to collect 13 boarding passes! And the worst part was that nobody in that line objected!! I mean COME ONNNN!!!!!! I finally got my boarding pass and sighed in relief, cos I knew the next part was simple and does not generally take much time. I was supposed to go for security and then board my flight.
But again, just when you think things are going well, we all know life has a way of screwing things for us. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were two (not one but TWO!!) very long queues for security, encompassing almost half of the HUGE lounge. And as luck would have it, I went and stood into just the one which was progressing slowly. I mean its not like I felt the other queue was moving faster, but it was in fact moving faster! I saw our very own policemen do the job of a monitor of class 3rd here, as they were asking people to form a single straight file and trying to stop people from cutting in and go ahead. I mean, they are supposed to be there for security purposes not to discipline the passengers. It’s high time we learn to stand in queue and respect people who are already standing there patiently. You are not the only one in a hurry man!! After an excruciatingly long & painful process of standing in the queue and watching people try to cut in and trying to not let them do that without getting into a row, finally I cleared the security check. As I had already guessed there would be queue to board the flight too, but it was fast-moving and progressed without much hassle (thankfully!). After I finally arrived to my seat and sat there looking out the airplane window to see other planes gearing up to fly in the dim morning light, I reflected on whatever had happened in the last forty-five minutes. I sadly realized that this was happening everywhere. I mean people in
Cheers!
An excerpt from the book – Oliver’s Story (sequel of the famous “Love Story” by Erich Segal, both are absolutely beautiful books)
I really like how “love” is perceived in this –
A little background- the hero (Oliver) is recounting. He has lost his wife (college sweetheart) – Jenny, whom he was totally and madly in love with. So much that he couldn’t move on for whole of 2 yrs after her death…and in some ways still misses her. He’s in another relationship right now with Marcie/Marce but somehow he’s not that happy and is trying to analyze why…
What the hell do I know of relationships? All I've ever been is married. And it doesn't seem appropriate to make comparisons with Jenny. I mean, I only know the two of us were very much in love. At the time, of course, I wasn't analytical. I didn't scrutinize my feelings through a psychiatric microscope. And I can't articulate precisely why with Jenny I was so supremely happy.
Yet the funny thing is Jen and I had so much less in common. She was passionately unimpressed by sports. When I watched football she would read a book across the room.
I taught her how to swim.
I never did succeed in teaching her to drive.
But what the hell — is being man and wife some kind of educational experience?
You bet your ass it is.
But not in swimming, driving or in reading maps. Or even — as I recently had tried to recreate the situation — in teaching someone how to light a stove.
It means you learn about yourself from constant dialogue with one another. Establishing new circuits in the satellite transmitting your emotions.
Jenny would have nightmares and would wake me up. In those days, before we knew how sick she was, she'd ask me, genuinely scared, 'If I can't have a baby, Oliver — would you still feel the same?'
Which didn't prompt a knee-jerk reassurance on my part. Instead, it opened up a whole new complex of emotions that I hadn't known were there. Yes, Jen, it would upset my ego not to have a baby born of you, the person that I love.
This didn't alter our relationship. Instead, her honest qualm provoking such an honest question made me realize that I wasn't such a hero. That I wasn't really ready to face childlessness with great maturity and big bravado. I told her I would need some help from her. And then we knew ourselves a whole lot better, thanks to our admissions of self-doubt.
And we were closer.
'Jesus, Oliver, you didn't bullshit.'
'Did the unheroic truth upset you, Jenny?'
'No, I'm glad.'
'How come?'
'Because I know you never bullshit, Oliver.'
Marce and I don't have that kind of conversation yet. I mean, she tells me when she's down and when she's nervous. And that she worries sometimes when she's on the road that
Maybe that's because I have exaggerated expectations. I'm impatient. People who have had a happy marriage know exactly what they need. And lack. But it's unfair to make precipitous demands of someone who has never had a . . . friend . . . that she could trust.
Still, I'm hoping someday she will need me more. That she will maybe even wake me up and ask me something like:
'If I can't have a baby, would you feel the same?'
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Beautiful, isn’t it? Simple and Beautiful!!
I wish people wouldn't force their loved ones into being them, but rather appreciate the differences and love each other FOR it.
Cheers!
“I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.”
—Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist—1964
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit them, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”
“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles them.”
And lastly a confession – I fell in love with Atticus by the time I finished the book. Other characters are lovable too, but the father…oh boy! A must read for all book-lovers!! Please please read it as early as possible!
Jab tak rishtey mein ehsaas barkarar hai, tab tak jhagde mayne nahi rakhte - Quoted by one of my very good friends!!
What a delightful thought....Jus wanted to share it with everyone :)
“Yes?” Said the rickshaw driver whom I had just stopped flashing a hand on a small-time street in Malad (
Still I consoled my confused and shocked mind by thinking maybe he just picked the line from somebody! After some more distance we saw a woman with 2 kids waving a hand in a hope to stop the rickshaw. She immediately left the effort once she saw I was in it. What happened next was something which I had never expected to see in my life! He slowed the rickshaw and offered the lady “Come on, we’ll drop you till the main road”. I was speechless for a long time after that. Upon asking him about this he said he’s just learning English because sometimes he gets only-english-speaking customers. Its hard to believe but all my conversation with him was in English thereafter! He told me where he lived, showed me a college and a school on the way. He was not only a rickshaw driver but also a delightful guide during the journey (however short it was!)
That ride is till date the most remarkable of my life!
Not only his grasping power and the determination of mastering the language greatly impressed me, but also his politeness and chivalry. I wondered if he had got education in a good school and more opportunities in life what heights would he have reached! It made me realize too that maybe I should more appreciate the opportunities that I have got in my life and make something worthwhile out of it. We always complain about the things that we don’t get; the facilities that we don’t have; keep saying “I would have done it if I had this and that”! What did he have? Not even any guidance from anybody. But he still managed to speak the language as good as anybody out of a Convent school! That is something!!
This posting is for you- “Rickshaw-Driver-Who-Speaks-Very-Good-English”; my way of appreciating your efforts. A standing ovation!
Cheers!