My trip to the ...

Innocent and studious, I sit at my comp browsing at harmless sites when all of a sudden there is that nefarious ring of a cow-bell…. a long live, die hard buddy who has this sweetest of thoughts to catch up with matters of greater importance on that devilish thing called Google talk. “bum…. Where are the US pics? Why the bloody hell haven’t you uploaded your holiday snaps yet?” …. “HOLIDAY” … just imagine, the company’s most sincere employee was sent to the parent org in the US to WORK … mind you to work…. And here are these people asking for pics of my US holiday …. Atrocious. Well…. Of course there were those Saturdays and Sundays.

Oh!... ok here it is …. a) I was lazy and b) Some how I wanted to break away from the usual stupid and dumb habits of a nerd who goes abroad …. To list a few:

- take a few pics wearing the thickest and heaviest of overcoats, sunglasses and standing by the snow and grinning like a jackass. Upload the same pic on ur orkut profile and update ur status to “Now in US” …. Can’t believe that there are so many out there who do this.

- Keep mailing all close friends news items of better interest in the US, as if these ever mattered to anyone anywhere.

- Call up every number on your contacts and ask a stupid question – “Hi, its been a long time. How are u and WHERE ARE U?” and keep your fingers crossed for them to ask you the same question in return so that you could beam and tell them with puffed up chest that your abroad.

- Ask friends, relatives and country men how the weather is back at home; and fuzz about saying how cold it is in US and how well you adapted to the climate change. As if you were an African penguin relocated to the South pole!!!

- Wait till the entire world begs on bent knees for snaps you have so languidly clicked away on lazy afternoons of well maintained US. (God! .. and you bloody feel off as if NASA is asking their Mars probe machine for those prized pictures for the surface snaps.)

And now … here I am forced to do all those that I have listed above as things I detest most ;-). Anyway …. If my fan clubs all across India would find joy herein … I see no harm in giving in ….

The Dimple on God's Cheeks

Often I’ve come across people whose very existence is beautiful. They are not people of importance, they are not people of influence… they are not even perfectionists. But they are those, who are a universe onto themselves. They do what they do because they believe strongly in it. They are like wild flowers that bloom by the way side, in all their beauty and color. They don’t bloom for someone to stop and smell their fragrance. I don’t know why, but these people appear like the best fitting creations in God’s world. I guess what appeals to me is … no part of their life or being is affected by what someone else would think of them. They don’t look for fame; they aren’t bogged down by cold sniggers. Surprisingly, everything … almost everything we do in our lives revolves primarily around how we believe the world we live in will judge us. Our dreams, our ambitions, our wants … and last but not the least even our bloody needs are centered around what our neighbor/colleague/friend or whoever it is, will think of us …It is saddening to realize that most of our lives are a farce.

On the other hand these people, the dimple on God’s smiling cheeks, like children they believe in a perfect and beautiful world, where everyone loves everyone and there is nothing bad ... (Oh... now and then they do get to see the nasty things … but … they choose to brush it off and act as if they saw nothing.) They are like the smooth perfectly shaped pebbles that sit snuggly on the sea shore while the whole world twists, twirls and lashes all around them like mad waves. And when the sea recedes and the sun smiles down warmly on them … they silently offer the sapling whose seed they have been holding for long, the truth of their simple but perfect lives.

God!... Oooopppsss, I was about to make a prayer to God asking for strength to shape myself like these people I admire, when I stopped myself. God has bestowed each one of us with all the powers to make anything out of our lives. He just chooses to sit by the side and watch what we do with it all.

Freebies Galore ...

I came across a very interesting site that gave away 1 quality software for free everyday. Infact, I downloaded a couple of them too. From the user comments for every software that is put up for download, you can gather the usefulness or installation impact of it on your machine. More to it!... they even give away a game of the day. I am not sure of the quality of the games they give away ... for I am not much into gaming myself.

Ok ok.... stop gnashing your teeth ... I can feel the impatience bubbling in your veins. The site is ....The Giveaway of the Day . Go ahead, lush green foliage all for yourself. You can download to your hearts content. These are useful, safe and non-adware/spyware/or whatever God! damned ware softwares. I followed the softwares offered by this site for a few days at a stretch. What I noticed was that these softwares that are being offered for free are in fact pretty costly ones. However, just for that one day, the firm that creates that software agrees to allow this site to give away the software for free as a promotional initiative. Ofcourse, it comes with the usual agreement that you don't share it with others ... how nasty of them.. and so on and so forth. Hmmm.. well not all the softwares offered are interesting .. But hey .. they are doing a great job by offering goodies for free ... so they need to be applauded, not smirked at!

Back to Innocence

I was happening to watch a film while flipping channels on a lazy Sunday afternoon laying sprawled on my bed. I knew not of the name of the film or cared less to find what channel it was being aired on. It was a scene of a sunny day in a village where an middle aged son was back home after winning a piano in a rowdy bet at a drinking hole down at the town's square. It was a poor and simple peasant family of a loving mother, a sweet and beautiful sister and a couple of brother's (oh! well I didn't get the details actually.) The whole family was pleasantly shocked to find a piano arrive at their door step. Except for the mother none of the other sibling had ever seen a piano in their lives. But they knew for sure that it was something of awe. The mother was so delighted; you could almost feel her overwhelming emotions reach out of the screen like tentacles of powdery smoke grabbing at you. I was beginning to smile without my knowledge.

It was the same pure child like joy that fills any moment of innocent surprise. The same kind of joy that would light up the mischievous eyes of little kids I play with.

It makes you ache in your heart ... a tug somewhere deep in your being, an urge to go back to that innocence, giving up all the funny false pursuits in your world. Back to that time of timeless joy. Where every emotion is felt completely. Where you can cry like a child and laugh like a kid.

Your head goes up in a race of mad swirl and you can almost hear yourself praying aloud asking the being above to grab you back into His warm folds never to let you go again... never ... never ....

At the New Yorkers

Wooooo! There was a mad spate of ultra frequent eat outs in a short span of a month, that I couldn’t simply sit down to pen my thoughts on any one of them. So here I am back … but this time around I want to write about all the gloriously warm and dull lit, softly aroma filled restaurants I chanced visiting.

To begin with ... the entire tide of outings got spurred by the simple occurrence of the Georgian remembrance of my decent on planet Earth, my BIG BRIGHT RED LETTERED DAY! On that evening I had been out, with family to this pretty popular place, opposite “The Park”, called “The New Yorkers”. It was a very pizza-kinda place. However, I guess it must have been the time we went in, for it was sparingly dotted with people. We were five of us wanting to spend some quality time together relishing out-of-the-world-food, food that we have never before seen on our regular menus. Following crossword and puzzle filled paper mats, came the much looked forward to menu. There was Mexican, Italian, American and Lebanese food.

I was so hungry that I could have nibbled at the edges of the sofa I sat on. So the first thing I wanted was a good piping hot soup. So there it was sweet corn and cream of tomato soup, on the menu. And oh!...what about the starters … cheese balls filled with American corn and spice. Adding to the magic of the starters and soups was the Mexican salsa sauce. I could have almost kissed the chef’s hands for that amazing taste.

Main course - there was Pizza (a bad idea to order that one here), lasagna in tomato sauce, garlic bread, burrito and a couple of other goodies. The food was filling and worth every penny (though a bit steep than elsewhere.) We were in a kind of pleasant mood, so by Gods’ ultimate grace my sis was for once not cribbing about food being served cold or freezing the poor server with those wretched blinding stares and worse still, her biting words. Commenting favorably for every mouthful we spooned, we kept appreciating ourselves for having chosen the right place for a decent family outing. Well the best is yet to come.

Ting-Tong!!! Time for desserts! There were very few to choose from though. So we called for the sizzler brownie and a chocolate something. (That’s a bad habit I have got myself into …. “Ice cream = chocolate syndrome”, I must get out of it some how. Anyway, prompt it arrived on a flat wooden dish holding a square piece of cake and a large helping of vanilla ice cream. The moment it was laid on the table, the server poured smoking hot chocolate sauce and threw at it a handful of nuts. And in we dived with our spoons. Whoo … it was a hell of an ice cream. I can’t explain what it felt like to have hot chocolate melting the ice cream and nuts in your mouths. It was the crowning glory of the night’s dinner. A perfect way to end a fabulous birth day.

Oooopppsss … I did it again. One more account of flab kissing foodie adventure that runs father than a page’s length. Hmmmm… I‘ll get back when I’ve practiced it enough to write crisp and clear … instead of ranting on and on …..blah blah blah ….