The most common question asked in the world!

"What is the time?" is probably the most common question that is asked across the world. It reflects a unique connection between time and man. One that has been true for eternity. 

To quote an Irish saying - 

"When God made time, he made plenty of it."

I had been on a visit to a sleepy town, to attend a wedding revelry. Having arrived much ahead of the date, I was left with the truism of the statement above. 

Where I live, there are only a few moments of easy breathing possible, mostly when it is time to snore. Else your every breath is counted and accounted for. Where I visited was a place where no one was ever in a hurry. The leisure is very welcoming in the beginning and then begins to overwhelm you very quickly.

I was left to wonder if the units of measurement varied greatly between the places I mentioned. It did not, and not that things were never done on time in this leisure town. Everything happened with time to spare without anyone so much as breaking into a serious sweat. 

How? Yes, just like you, I too thought the same. I still do not have any clue about the answer. 

Perhaps it is something to do with our perception of time and the ability to deal with every moment. If you are overwhelming yourself all the time, then perhaps you will exhaust yourself very quickly. May be we need to see what is important and then time will bend for you to make sure that all else is arranged accordingly. I took away this simple lesson. Whether i am going to benefit or not, I do not know, but it is about time I gave it a shot.

Happy New Year!

Life's Trinkets

The year has been an enjoyable celebration of life, meeting new people and experiencing new things so far. In betwixt all these, there have been subtle warnings about how life is still precariously close to a downward spiral after the brakes have been removed. It is not easy to comprehend such extremes of life's lessons in a such short duration. Even if I did comprehend some of it, I have taken action on none so far. 

A lot of people I have met this new year have come from different backgrounds and lead lives that are aspirational and decidedly plush. You seek such a life and dream that you were in it. You think of all the wonderful gatherings you would be invited to. You think of the little yarns that you would spin at the table. The room would be regaled by your wit and charm. All would seek your attention while you strengthen your own. And then you meet more people. Your life changes further still. The fancy drink that friends discussed in the backyard is a luxury no more. Now you want that every time you get home from a hard day's work. And then just like that your reverie is broken. You realize that it is indeed aspirational. But life gave you a little trinket of a memory. An experience to meet such people and aspire.

I keep seeing a hoarding near my work place, It reads - "Those who work never make money and Those who make money never work". The hoarding is pretty dusted and it asks you to call this person who can tell you how to do the latter. Pangs of disappointment hit me when I sometimes bracket myself in the first category, and then wonder about the kind of people in the second type. Is this hoarding really telling the truth? Is that how it really works. I have not gotten around to solving this cryptic piece of modern Hieroglyphics, but the day I will, I will let us all know. However, this interesting experience has left me wondering each and everyday am I doing what I really love. Very aspirational question, but for me more importantly, am I making enough money?

I am attempting to do some course corrections to my career, but I have a compass that does not work. The night sky is starless and I wake up only at noon and stay sane for an hour. The wind sets the sails by its whims, and I flow along, playing each tide sent my way. It does not sound like an ideal way to be a sailor of life. But at least I am not being pirated!

Another precious life's trinket.

A man is nothing but a bundle of experiences, said someone. Very true. Each experience is like a trinket, showy and seems like mere trifle when you pass through it. Many times later when you are rummaging the closet of your life, you look at them and think, I could have had a larger and more expensive closet you know....

May you know better times and may you get many trinkets along the way!

Circumstantial Indifference

That is what I would want to call all pending tasks. With a high degree of Opacity clouding my ability to be agile and active, the list of pending tasks have made themselves mountains after starting out as mole-hills. This indifference will need to make its maker this new season. That maker being myself, I do not expect the interview to last for too long. Icily, I will slay the demon and morph anew.

Attempts have been encouraging so far. I have written a note to some of my old colleagues from another age. I have managed to remember most of them that need to be on that list. One of them has responded, the others presumably have marked mails from me as junk. Considering it is coming from a reformed man, this is valuable junk! Pray! Treasure it, not sure how long this resolve will last.

My other aspiration-al pursuits for the new calendar include slimming down, raising my chances of getting into clothes that revolt at my very sight. Considering that the revolting population has increased in my wardrobe, it is a problem that I cannot slither out of. I have never been a coveted possession, but my chances of being glanced at has waned faster than the moon at dawn. There is little inspiration to this aspiration except that I may be better blessed with health. It remains to be seen if this can be achieved. I have not courted hardwork too well in the past.

There are other pending tasks that have been wailing for attention. I have often stuck a candy in their mouths to appease them occasionally. But those have melted and the heat pricks again. Before the wailing reaches disproportionate levels, I will attempt to trim that mountain to size. Perhaps my endeavors may make passable reading.

Everything starts from the abyss, the flight from there will be without tethers!

Born Again Blogger

It is mostly in the midst of chaos that I find the calm to think. As opposing the environment is to the need, this alliance has suited me the most. And without fail, Life has always presented itself with this unique alignment of stars to make this complex state of mind a reality.

It would not however imply that my lack of writing up blogs for the past year or so means that my life has been any less chaotic. If anything else, it was more chaotic than ever. A lot of balance has been brought into my life and there were some dear course corrections needed and made. The ship creaks less now and the complaints are new but not entirely unwelcome.

Blogging for me was initially a freedom of expression. Unhindered by the lack of creativity and exceptionally flawed nature of grammar that I possessed and still posses. It gave rise to a multitude of shallow expressions that were treaded upon by more mortals than I thought. With it brought enlightenment that I would now be judged and there was a need to bring about a sense of character to the blogs.

That is where I fail without fail. My blogs are attempts at humor before knowing whom to make laugh. My blogs contain opinions on various aspects of life without knowing whom to make the point to. My blogs contain no facts that can be confirmed with any agency. My blog is a friend to none and enemy to none. That in itself could be its uniqueness, a blog that is absolutely pointless. Its resurrection is not in being the phoenix, but in being the ash that cinders way beyond expectations and fulfilling none.

The New Avtar

Before you dismiss my attempts at getting a new avatar, I plead that you consider that humans were apes before they become humans. It was early this year, when I found myself unable to stare at my toes straight down. Not that it has ever alarmed me, but I found solace in the fact that neither could Garfield do it. He was my hero and I was content to follow my idol. Society being an interesting group, forces you to review your own perspective often. You are thrown amidst well built and sharply dressed folks and you see a glow around their faces. I saw a mirror nearby and caught my own reflection. Ironically, there was an old newspaper cutting just behind me and it read something about the size of Sumo wrestlers.

I also noticed that people recognized me instantly despite not having seen me in a very long time. My hair style has not changed, not because of the want of creativity, but because of the want of hair on my scalp. I continue to be high on the criminals list of the fashion police and the less said about my looks the better the world would be. So in a very different way, I managed to create my own niche. If you want to know me in a party, then look out for the worst dressed and worst looking. Chances are that our acquaintance would be short lived. None the less it would be a great entry in your diary of having met the worst looking person in your life.

After thus ridiculing myself for many years, I learnt that it is indeed getting monotonous and there are no takers for this barb any more. So I started to run. I live in a house that could be Goliath's matchbox. Across this wandering meadow I would run for twenty minutes each day and feel like a marathon runner by the fifth minute. Thankfully my neighbour in the house below my own works sane hours and he is not at home when I am upto my antics. Thus devoid of any persistent protests, I carried on persistently. A few weeks later, I found that my toe nails could indeed be seen. A few weeks more and an old trouser that which would threaten to tear even if I looked at, seemed to condescendingly accede to my request of wearing it. A triumph to the spirit of human determination I thought. That weekend I had beer and the trouser revolted again.

So lessons learnt that you either keep at it and keep buying new trousers with bigger sizes. As always my friends had a great laugh when I told them with great pride that I ran around the house to get into shape. Earlier I used to be happy to let them have a great laugh. But this time things were different. I was determined to lay some old ghosts to rest. I visited the office gym and noticed that there were no one around at midnight. I devised a plan that could help me avoid embarrassment and also let me do some justice to my sides. So at midnight on many days, the security guard outside the gym noticed a weird creature running around the treadmills instead of on it and then try some feeble arm swings. He must have had a great laugh! Again, happy to bring joy to the world.

My bone chilling antics took better organized shape post humours narration with my friends. They realized that the intentions were genuine and gave me tips on better arm swings and better tread mill usage.

Well, it has been some months now and I do look very different from the hippopotamus that used to roam the urban jungle until sometime back. I am not exactly a gazelle now, but have trimmed down to a hyena atleast. This new avatar has not changed my luck with the opposite sex one bit. I guess that time is done and over with. I have many loved ones call me a loser trying to get fresh with some gorgeous creations of God. But hey! I cannot stop trying, I cannot stop being me! :)

So the next time some one I know sees me, I hope they are not alarmed, the body might be trying to change, but the brains are just under developed and spirits are just as high!!

Nuances of Silence

A lot of the times, we think that we understand a person very well. We form opinions based on our experiences with them. We consolidate our thinking about them by predicting their behaviour. If we are right, we think we know it all. It is funny, considering that we are only right a few times and yet we think we know everything about that person. This breeds what I think is the doom of relationships or friendships. Somewhere down the line we start to take the person for granted. We predict that they would react in a certain manner and are readily surprised when they do not behave as we predicted.

I have come to realize that understanding a person is an ongoing process. It takes years of spending time with each other and then anticipating each other's behaviour before you can be sure. But perhaps there is a better way to know someone. I think we should not spend our time trying to learn about somebody. People are not objects of interest that need to be read like a prescription or a technical guide. They are at the end of the day, people and the only thing constant about people is that they are always unpredictable. It would benefit immensely if the time spent with an individual was done with only happiness and companionship in mind. They say that you learn more when you are having fun. Then knowing a person while having fun should not be an exception. 

There will be things you like about a person and dislike a few more, but when the mind is clear and is happy, many things will be overlooked for that moment but will be learnt for life. If someone has clumsy eating habits, it can be laughed off in that moment of joy, It can also be corrected at a more appropriate time. This learning process could take a while and may not work miracles from day one. But I am sure that it will surely help in understanding a person better.

I have been taken for granted a few times and things have turned sour often. And I have also returned the favour a few times and things have soured. In both cases as you saw, things turned sour.

I wish that people I knew were more open and communicative to me. There have been times when I have accused of not knowing the reason for a trough in the relationship. I want to correct that and I often seek help by asking where I went wrong and what I did, was wrong. Silence or changing the topic at those times has not really helped anybody. Well, there are lessons learnt all the time and this one is no exception. 

With hope that there is room for understanding and time aplenty with the loved ones that you so dearly care for.

The Really Fake first day at the IPL

The contract was signed and I was to represent the Thanjavur tigers. It was literally a rip roaring team. All of them spoke very loudly and inconsolably at all times. Given that my connection with Thanjavur was very ancient, I quickly got into the stride and started talking loudly as well. All of my team mates were decidedly well built and very muscular. It was very easy to identify me in the first team picture. All you needed to do was to sight the lamp post amongst the trees. 

A day later we were given our official dress. Pink t-shirt with Thanjavur written in gold. Ofcourse the trousers were purple. The tailor, it turned out was colorblind. After seeing us, most of the photographers who gathered also turned colorblind. Not to be outdone, our team sponsorer also put a tinge of lipstick on our lips to make us look like Tamil Matinee Idols. We even had a team punch line of sorts a la Nike style. It was written in Tamil on the front and back, loosely translated to "Keep doing it". I still have not been able to figure out what we are supposed to be doing. Post the photo shoot, our mascot, a pink tiger, fainted due to sun stroke. I am not sure it was a great idea to conduct the photo shoot outside a temple at two in the afternoon. Even worse considering it was the peak of summer.

We reached Johannesburg and quickly after alighting, there were many security guards running towards us. I soon realised that my zealous team mates were falling on the ground and praying at something. They soon realized that it was a mistake. It was covered in black alright, it was certainly huge alright, but it certainly was not "amma". I might possibly be killed for reporting this but you sure know whom to interrogate in case this happened. Mr. Vel Well Muruku, our team manager managed to find out the only hotel in town that strictly adhered to vaasthu. It was run by a man queerly named "Sube se Maniyan". I thought he was a local, but when he started to welcome us, the volume decided his origin. He was one of us.

Our first game was against Mizoram missiles. Thapa, their captain gave us a strong thapad by sending us in first to bat. I was busy savouring the sights of the stadium that I forgot that I was the opening batsman. They timed me out and we lost a wicket even before a ball was bowled. I was interviewed by enthusiastic reporters and was very happy that I had started making headlines. I was determined to prove my worth. My princely contract of five rupees and twenty five paise per game was at stake. I think I earned back a lot on day one.  We made great progress and very soon all our batsman progressed to the middle of the ground and back into the dugout.

Not to be outdone, our opening howler, sorry bowler - Searing pace muthukrishnan seared in and flung the ball hard. He had to be reminded that he needs to bowl on the pitch. The injured spectator was carried to an emergency ward where to our great relief he recovered. The missiles thrashed our bowlers around. It was a savage attack. I could not bear to see it. I promptly pulled a muscle in my head (Yes, with legends it is possible) and went back to the dug out. There I flexed my arms and showed off my muscles. The children started crying and women ran away. 

During the strategy break, I gave my ideas to the captain. They needed motivation and I told them that there was a great idly joint and they served sambar to the table through hose pipes. The effect of my genius was seismic to say the least. Our chief spinner Tension Natarajan spun out the Mizoram Missiles and we won with lots to spare. We then had to unwind Tension as he himself had spun into a bundle after spinning so much. The Idly joint did great business and the hose pipe ran dry. We only paid half the bill and ran away after they called the cops. 

We are preparing for our next game, this is going to be a real nasty one. It is against our arch rivals, Guntur Gunners. We saw them at practice.... at a nearby shooting range. I only hope they miss their targets.

In the meanwhile, please do popularise this team as you have done to other blog about Fake IPL players. How he got my variginal idea is beyond me. My arms and legs are aching from standing at that dugout and flexing them to unflattered audience. Got some work ahead of me. Catch me sometime soon.