A little bit of this and that!

Now come on!!! Dont tell me you NEVER feel that urge to hurl something at someone and that you are the kind who cruises through life with a smile plastered on your face! That you never feel like buttoxing your BEST friend's nose at times so badly that she just has to get a nose job done! That you never just call someone with an intention to touch a cool casual  nerve and watch with relish and amusement the riot of colors and feelings that come across the line! That you are the kind who dosent in some level dread the day your best friend would get married....coz WHATEVER people may say about their changeless, eternal and evergreen friendships...something sure changes after marriage and I know this first hand so no kidding!

The Blue one is me and the pink one is my friend after her marriage!

I mean, sometimes its just nice to be this mysterious person who glides along with an immaculate self control and always knows how to make an entrance in a gathering that make heads turn! The kind who knows that she wants a lake view room in the 72nd floor of the hotel and pre-books it months in advance. The kind whose mere glance can mean a thousand things and men are floored with just the prospect of trying to remove the layers of meaning in her words! And some times its kinda liberating to be the one who is clueless about stuff , falls flat on her face and mumbles for words in an opening speech, and just stumbles across success and is suddenly gobsmacked with a happiness you never knew you were capable of feeling!The kind who reads Sophie Kinsella's latest bombshell upto 2:00am in the night and when the alarm dosent go up in the morning wakes up causually at 10:30am when she should actually have been in office attending an important life changing "Call". And then frantically fabricates a story about how her neighbors dog bit her on the way to office and so speechless with pain was she that she was hardly able to string 2 words and convey her inability to attend office on time to a seriously concerned boss. (Of course she makes sure to confirm that the dog bit her in an unpublishable area!! Thats Important).

The kind who just made a meticulous budget plan and then to the incredulous shock of all concerned including herself, ends up purchasing a COMPLETELY unnecessary accessory simply because it looked so temptingly inviting in the racks and she COULDNT bear the thought of leaving it orphaned in the shop!

You could be a person who would just be talking with great vigor and intellectual snobbery the great achievements of Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, the complexity and psychological insight of an Ayn Rand book, the genius in a Kadri Gopalnath performance, the intricacy in a Tanjore painting and the divinity in a Tagore verse. And Bang! In the same breath, you could be talking about the release of Princess's Diaries III, the latest crush of James Mc Avoy, the reigning gossip on next door Padma aunty and her daughter's futile attempts to study medicine, win a "Tyre Race" with the colony kids gang and fight with the neighbors 7 year old son for eating your share of chocolate cake!

If you dissected my thoughts at some point - it would look like this:-)

The beauty and menaninglessness of some of our actions are impressed upon us only when we also know the most meaningful parts of life is, and somehow this knowledge makes the meaningless things much more meaningful,  giving an individual almost a surreal world to live in, from which she could either be pulled into despair or lifted into ecstasy . I mean, I have so often heard people say, wow - what woman of substance!!! -  when they see a woman with a meaningful career and a serene smile on her face gliding past a crowd. Well - I have nothing against the institution of serenity, believe me, but the basic question is, if you have not been able to experience the depths of despair at some point, how can you appreciate the heights of ecstasy??? Like they say, the passion with which you love a friday evening is directly proportional to the hatred with which you face a Monday! The beauty is that we do not have to choose between these polar opposites because if there is something which excites interest in a character - its variety! If you are alone on a rainy Saturday evening with a Mills and Boon in hand, a documentary on carbon dating on the television and a friend online trying to decide a place to hang out during the evening - well.... - Will you be my friend???

The Bluessss!! - Part 2

Well well well!!! Who would have expected my boss to actually read this post of mine - http://thesilhouetteoflove.blogspot.com/2011/09/monday-mornings.html and ACTUALLY mail me her reply!!!

Well - I think just laughed out LOUD at her way of looking at it and HAD to share it - I couldnt rob you guys off the pleasure of a well deserved laugh! So here goes - 

As sent to my official mail ID sent from my BOSS - 

"Further to the blog below (in true corporate mail etiquette), appended are a few thoughts from the so called “boss bomb”….

Funny really…me a boss and funnier still…me a bomb?!!! How exciting it would have been to just be the latter with an added suffix of “shell” added…but again I too am digressing.

Firstly in my 5 years of hard core corporate experience I’ve never understood why some people just have  to work over the weekend and get your mail box flooded even before you start feeling the blues of the Monday. Get a life dude…if you don’t have one please sleep off your weekend…why screw things  for those who do have a life and have fun things to do? 10.00am and still only 25% through my mailbox and  I make a deal…Next week, it would be my turn to make other people’s life miserable over the weekend! But then every Monday the weekend’s history repeats itself…adding a deeper tinge of blue to the blue.

And boss…its tough being a boss…u have to boss others and there is someone to boss you…so you are like the mashed alu-pyaaz in between a grilled sandwich…u feel the heat either ways….either your boss gets heated or the ones you boss get heated (pardon my language). And on Monday mornings…invariably both do. And in some cases…there will be that odd employee or business lead who will take pleasure in digging out you poor alu-pyaz and gulping you directly…while leaving aside the boss and the team just ‘coz he loves alu-pyaz better than the sandwich bread…(pardon my language again)

Sigh…wish one could sleep just a little more, and spend just an hour more with the newspaper and yes some bit more chatting over breakfast….and then just let the day go at its own pace. I wonder, how does a Vijay Mallya spend start his Monday or a Bill Gates or for that matter Padma, my cleaning lady….

But what is light without darkness and sadness without happiness….and what so what pleasure would a Sunday have without a Monday !! To all the Mondays that have gone and will come again…there is light at the end of the week!"

The Bluesss!!! Part 1

There's a weird weight in my heart and it interferes with the movie that Iam watching!  I feel a gnawing pain in my stomach and my nerves shoot up like a premonition of an approaching disaster...I quickly try to put my hand on the problem at hand.....Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! There I have it!It's a Sunday Night!! )(*)((**&^^%%^!!!

Its most often on sunday nights that my philosophical side kicks in....and I wonder about what a material existence mine is....I wake up everyday and rush to office....check my calendar for the impending disasters of the day and arrange my mood and temper levels accordingly....I work my positioning in office depending upon my boss's seating arrangement....My distance from her is usually inversely proportional to the number of "actionables" that she would need status from me on that particular day for...Actually...its not my boss's fault...she is a very nice woman...she just cant help being a boss - and we all know what all Boss's are! My cousin's husband is a team lead and when I told him this, he said with a confident smile brimming in his complacent face, that HIS team dosent feel that way and that they all love him as a boss....well....I pity him...I can practically visualize the swear words that flip across their minds as they bitch about him during every possible boss-free break! Poor him - blissfully unaware of the universality of Boss hatred, continues to labor in his misconceptions and I, out of kindness for his feelings, spare him the trouble of going into details!

Anyways - Iam digressing...I was saying that I walk into office and after my seating is arranged startegically, I sink into the volumes of weight that my inbox heroically bore for me over the weekend! You know,the worst part is that  - I do love my job, I love the variety and the scope and the opportunities in my role and the unpredictability of the day when I leave for office every morning. But on Monday mornings- I HATE MY JOB! I wonder about the surfaceality and meaninglessness of the work that I do on Monday mornings....I remember the many lives which are suffering outside who are waiting for my benevolence and kindness on Monday mornings....I remember the offer I got to work from a primary school near my house(9:00am to 2:00pm) and think about taking a course on journalism on Monday mornings to pursue my high school dream...And it takes all my strength of character to kick myself on my butt and tell myself that Iam NOT being philosophical - iam just being royally LAZY!....Trust me....I could well be dreaming about a  range of jobs where I could be from a designer role in Ralph Lauren (where I would most certainly be kicked out for my abysmal sense of fashion!) to a food and exotic place anchor in some majorly popular TV show (Where I would most certainly be a failure as my tolerance with different cuisines are on the lines of what Hitler thought about democracy.... Aand Iam a vegetarian! )

Or till Friday evening comes - whichever way you want it!

Yeah!- all this lasts only for the first 3 hours of work on Monday mornings...once Iam into the rigor of the day, I hardly give a thought to these notions. But to make this an honest account - they do recur  occasionally when I screw something up royally and wait for the boss bomb to blast (yeah! and those who know me well will know that that's not rare!)

This is to all the Monday Mornings that have terrified me and  all the Monday mornings looming large in the horizon.....well - Here I come - Iam ready for you guys! They say time and tide waits for no man - well Catch me if you can!!!

In the land of the Dragon!

From the beginning of my interest in economics, I have heard about how China as a country has made it into world economics with as unconventional menthods as is known to the world and stands to day with a population of 1.4 billion and a GDP of about 8 trillion.

The culture and heritage of this 2000 years (and more) old civilization has sure fascinated the world and brought lakhs of tourists to view the forbidden city and divulge the stories behind the great wall that they have only heard of in folklore!

My initial impressions of China were one of wonder and mystery - I was introduced to a deeper understanding of this country through the books - "a letter from Peking; Imperial woman and pavilion of women all written by Pearl S Buck - great books which reflected the rich culture of the country even as communism wrecked through the consciousness of every chinese citizen. The factor which keeps me still with awe is the patriotism of every chinese - their firm belief that country comes before everything - family, love or God! What is even more impressive is the fact that it comes very effortlessly to them - they do not have to be reminded of their freedom struggles, their great culture and heritage or their great achievements in world history, for their patriotism to surge - its as natural to them as their breath itself and reflects in every activity of theirs - with an increased quotient of environmental consciousness and social welfare.

The only glitch that every chinese indiviual regret to quite an extent is their illiteracy in English - and they do respect and stand in awe of those who can speak the language. Their respect and deference for those from the west is easily explained by this factor alone.

Another interesting fact is that the Chinese (However grudgingly) do feel the need for freedom at times and admire India for this very reason - the complete freedom enjoyed by every Indian is terms of expression and everyday living is alien to them who wouldnt even dream of doing an ctivity which might be outside the rule book.

Which is probably the reason why the Chinese may not be great at innovation and discovery but are indeed the benchmarks in producing a product already introduced to them in greater scale and lower cost - an expertise which has come on handy in their endeavour to rule the world markets!

When I landed in Beijing on 8th July, I was indeed expectingto be faced with a great culture and good food. What I was not expecting was to be hit my high rise buildings matched or surpassing those from the famed land of skyscrapers (NY) or any other place I have heard of - The matchless infratsructure in this country and its economic centres makes one breathless only to be furthered by the markets which can be best named as bargain centres.

The variety of goods which are named after the best known brands in the world sold at dirt cheap prices make China a shoppers haven - especially if you know the local language and can percolate your way through the shopkeeper's defences.

The trick is to learn the local language - Mandarin - as quickly as possible - it will indeed pave your way through the shops, restaraunts, malls, and into the hearts of the friendly Chinese common man who is only too shy to venture a sentence in English.

It is indeed hard to believe that a country ruled in communism can function with a smooth capitalist economy - Polls say that a larger number of Chinese citizens believe that their country is going in the right direction as compared to Americans or Indians which are the world's biggest democracies! It is probably because of the fact that the Chinese government can make complex decisions quickly and implement them effectively without having to bother about coalition governments, people strikes or losing elections. These are leaders who have come into power having risen from grassroots through peasant rebellions which have felt the injustice of their imperialist predecessors and therfore have a huge respect for the abilities of an average Chinese common man and direct their economic policies towards uplifting the affected ends of the society.

While many critical hostorians and economists continue to foresee China's economic downfall due to its lack of democracy - I personally see no reason why a system which has worked so well for so long and a system which is backed by the support of its people should fail in the short term or in the long term - Iam a self proclaimed admirer of the country and sure do look forward to its realizing its true potential - which happens to be the reason behind the existence of every individual or every country!

Can you keep a secret???

I just read this book by Sophie Kinsella on a 6 hour journey from Genting to Singapore over the weekend and I have this mad and obsessive rush to spill out mine too!!! Dear friend/reader - beware - these secrets might not make a bestseller but they sure are some of the most sacred and close secrets and if you should happen to land on this page and read this - you are hereby bound by an eternal oath of secrecy!

Well - Iam a normal girl and have some small and big secrets - some of which I remember and smile to myself as I write this down.....and amazed at myself for taking this huuuuuge risk...I mean - what of my boss or someone concerned should chance upon this...Iam soooooo screwed - but its ok - whats life if not for a few risks- the risks are what make life worth living right? So here goes -

1) I have faked quite a few faints and illnesses and skived off work (almost once a fortnight)...and I manage to pull it off quite convincingly - I think I might start a profitable venture through a consultancy based on this expertise!

Hahahah- Thats ME - in case you are wondering:-)

 
2) I love wearing short skirts to sleep
2) Sometimes when Iam on call with friends...they might be going on about something and Iam only pretending to listen...iam actually busy watching a serial or reading a book - (some friends have detected this pattern and can catch me at it due to sheer experience like Suls! )
3) I thought love and relationships were only for "bad" people who did not listen to their parents till about 6 years ago.
4) I learnt about how people make babies in my 12th grade and a lot many things still puzzle me xtremly and though I pretend to understand...I don't get many A jokes in the first go!

Cute one right???

5) I have never gone through the torture of doing an upper lip simply because - its a TORTURE to get it done - i think its worse than a delivery and thats saying something!
6) I really like Justin Beiber(s) songs.
7) I have lost 3 mobiles till now - 2 in autos and 1 in Pizza hut! ( And I truly believed and believe to this day that the automan/pizza hut manager would find me and give it to me some day)
8) I failed in Maths in 5th standard! And got a belting from my dad for that - trust me - for the amount I cursed my maths teacher that day - iam surprised she didn't have an accident the next day! I expected her to come straight to me and say - Preethi - I am very sorry but the math paper was a mistake.......u have actually scored the highest!......

9) I dont like animation pictures! I feel they are stupid!I like fantasy and action movies and CANT understand HOW people can be interested in the life of a few drawings come to life!!!
10) My favourite book in the world is "Archie's comics" ...dont mistake me - all my friends know me as a voracious reader and maybe some other day I will tell you a list of all the books which have "moved" me and taught me a lesson! But now that iam on a roll and being honest - Archies it is.....and I want him...really want him to end up with Betty! and thats only after she gives him a good kick on his shin! and after he proposed to her a 50 times at least!
11) I think the person I love most in this world is my Father...after that my mother and brothers!
12) I think my parents love my brothers more than me....always....I dont know why...but I feel somewhere that if someday terrorists come home and ask for any 1 life....I would be the one easily to be killed....I know its stupid....but hey its a secret and I just had to spill it out!
13) I have wondered and been truly worried for some time that Iam a lesbian! I dont know WHY i had this doubt - maybe when I found emma watson SO VERY cute rather than admiring Cedric Diggory! (Hey its all cleared now and I am STRAIGHT without a doubt!)
14) I sometimes think iam an athiest....especially when I lost my mobiles and think that they have not yet been returned to me.....
15) I often have this recurring dream about me being dropped from a top floor and Iam falling falling...and then this super hero (Iam not sure if it is superman or Krishna in wings....) grabs me and helps me try on a parachute!
16) I also often dream of snakes (thankfully i wake up just before they bite me)...when I looked it up in the dream dictionary...it said its because I have hidden passion....well....ooooooooh!
17) There is a part of me which believes that I will get a letter from hogwarts and will be invited and i truly get nervous about the fact that I might be selected to be a slytherin!

18) I once spread a rumour about a girl in school that she had 2 boy friends.....and that she is trying for a third! (only because she stole my rabbit shaped shiny rubber and WOULDNT admit it!)
19) I had this majjjjor crush on this guy who was my first (kinda) boss only to find that he was already married with a KID!!

PHEW! That was too many confessions for one sitting!!!! My heart does feel kinda light after that!!! Guys Guys.......please remember your oath - SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I trust you and have your word of HONOR that you wont breathe a WORD!

Tagore...

MUCH have you given to me,
Yet I ask for more.
I come to you not merely for the

draught of water, but for the

spring ;
Not for guidance to the door alone,

but to the Master's hall ; not only

for the gift of love, but for the

lover himself.
There are some things which make our heart brim and overflow with emotion....it takes a Taare Zameen Par, an MS rendition of "kurai ondrum illai", an orange and pink filled morning sky with the sun at the horizon, the sound of a sanskrit shlok in a foreign land or a Tagore poem.... The above one I read about 7 years ago and it has stayed etched on gold in my memory.....from its sheer beauty of expression!

This poem actually got me reading about Tagore and his works and I was rewarded with a few more nuggets from his compositions....i dedicate this post to Tagore and the emotions that accompany every rendition of his....
A handsome portrait indeed! Well what is to be said of this great poet, writer, playwright, social reformer and educationist that has not been written about and said before?
He started writing poems from the age of 7! In fact, Tagore has never been stable for too long...a man of varied interests and ideas, he found that he could not root himself to a single spot for too long. Right from his schooling days, he found that he was not comfortable with the conventional education methods and preferred having governesses come home to teach him...
He then planned to complete his college education from England and set sail for this purpose westward but returned back to India before completing his college as he wanted to be with this family!
You hide yourself in your own glory,
my King.

The sand-grain and the dew-drop are
more proudly apparent than your-
self.

The world unabashed calls all things
its own that are yours yet it is
never brought to shame.

You make room for us while standing
aside in silence; therefore love
lights her own lamp to seek you
and comes to your worship un-
bidden.

&

WHEN from the house of feast I came
back home, the spell of the mid-
night quieted the dance in my
blood.

My heart became silent at once like
a deserted theatre with its lamps
out.

My mind crossed the dark and stood
among the stars, and I saw that
we were playing unafraid in the
silent courtyard of our King's
palace.

Wow! It would surely take a person who has truly realized and felt the unfathomable love of the creator above to be able to express himself as eloquently as this! He was of course drawn to disapprove any act of inhuman proportions which made him repudiate his knighthood in his historic letter to Lord Chelmsford in 1919 as a protest against the barbaric Jallianwallabagh massacre - an act which must have twisted the chords in the heart of a delicate and sensitive character which he expresses himself as through his poems...
NONE needs be thrust aside to make
room for you.

When love prepares your seat she
prepares it for all.

Where the earthly King appears,
guards keep out the crowd, but
when you come, my King, the
whole world comes in your wake.

His sense of a loving and fair world was what made him a part of the freedom fight as this was against his natural instincts of love and humanity!

MY songs are the same as are the spring

flowers, they come from you.
Yet I bring these to you as my own.
You smile and accept them, and you

are glad at my joy of pride.
If my song flowers are frail and they

fade and drop in the dust, I shall

never grieve.
For absence is not loss in your hand,

and the fugitive moments that

blossom in beauty are kept ever

fresh in your wreath.

How true! A realization that nothing can be regarded as our own in an ephemeral world must have prodded him to actually initiate funding and establish his attempt at a lasting educational institution through which he tried to immortalize a convergence of Indian and western philosophy! A true visionary he was indeed who realized that imitating cultures was a waste and that true development could be achieved only by a synergy of ideas from the orient and the Occident!
You allowed your kingly power to
vanish, Shajahan, but your wish was
to make imperishable a tear-drop of
love.

Time has no pity for the human
heart, he laughs at its sad struggle to
remember.

You allured him with beauty, made
him captive, and crowned the formless
death with fadeless form.
he secret whispered in the hush of
night to the ear of your love is wrought
in the perpetual silence of stone.

Though empires crumble to dust,

and centuries are lost in shadows, the

marble still sighs to the stars, " I
remember."

" I remember." But life forgets,
for she has her call to the Endless :
and she goes on her voyage un-
burdened, leaving her memories to
the forlorn forms of beauty.
What better tribute can the Tajmahal hope to have than these immortalized words of Tagore, as beautiful as the monument itself! While historians may satisfy their cynicism by pointing out that the Taj can hardly be considered to be an of the love of a man for one woman, and can more likely be accounted for as the work of an unrealistic monarch infatuated with his own grandeur, it truly takes a belief in the warmth and love that humanity has left in it, to credit the intentions behind the making of the Taj to pure love as attributed by Tagore in these verses!

HER neighbours call her dark in the
village but she is a lily to my heart,
yes, a lily though not fair. Light
came muffled with clouds when first
I saw her in the field ; her head was
bare, her veil was off, her braided hair
hanging loose on her neck. She may
be dark as they say in the village, but
I have seen her black eyes and am
glad.

The pulse of the air boded storm.
She rushed out of the hut when she
heard her dappled cow low in dismay.
For a moment she turned her large
eyes to the clouds, and felt a stir of the
coming rain in the sky. I stood at
the corner of the rice-field, if she
noticed me, it was known only to her
(and perhaps I know it). She is dark as
the message of the shower in summer,
dark as the shade of the flowering wood-
land ; she is dark as the longing for
unknown love in the wistful night of
May.
The romantic in tagore is rampant in these verses as he describes the inner beauty in woman that he so admired and worshipped! Makes me wonder what a delight he must have been as a partner to Mrinalini Devi, his consort through life!

THOU hast given me thy seat at thy
window from the early hour.

I have spoken to thy silent servants
of the road running on thy
errands, and have sung with thy
choir of the sky.

I have seen the sea in calm bearing
its immeasurable silence, and in
storm struggling to break open
its own mystery of depth.

I have watched the earth in its pro-
digal feast of youth, and in its
slow hours of brooding shadows.

Those who went to sow seeds have
heard my greetings, and those
who brought their harvest home
or their empty baskets have passed
by my songs.

Thus at last my day has ended and
now in the evening I sing my last
song to say that I have loved thy
world.

So sang the man who breathed his last after having loved and enjoyed his transient stay in this playground of the lord....he had played his best - a gentleman's game, and now lives on in the hearts of all those who worship his expression of thought, beauty and romance!