Highlight of the day

Salon, Jelebis and this -



Heh!

I've been down and
I'm wondering why
These little black clouds
Keep walking around
With me
With me

It wastes time
And I'd rather be high
Think I'll walk me outside
And buy a rainbow smile
But be free
They're all free

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

I look around at a beautiful life
Been the upperside of down
Been the inside of out
But we breathe
We breathe

I wanna breeze and an open mind
I wanna swim in the ocean
Wanna take my time for me
All me

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

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Connecting with self

I've been reading a lot on the Law of Attraction and it's various sub-laws, over the last few months. In order to get myself in-sync, I've even tried meditating. But I guess you really need to learn the basics from someone who's well-versed in the subject. I've been meaning to approach someone for the same. As the law might have it (Heh!), I found myself at the Art of Living, International Center, Bangalore.

Spent the weekend attending one of their courses. Liked what they had to offer and absolutely enjoyed the tranquility of the place. I think I'm going to find myself visiting this place more often.

Ofcourse, there is the occasional irritation of having to see people flock in dozens to touch Mr. Ravi Shankar's feet or seek his blessings (arrgh..), but that's for a fraction of a second. Look around and understand what he's trying to communicate, and none of that irritation persists :)!

*Photo courtesy - Discover Bangalore

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Food for thought - 4

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

- Randy Pausch, Professor, Carnegie Mellon

(w.r.t road-blocks one faces)

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Finally - Once

After a long, LONG wait, I finally manage to get my hands on this movie. A simple story, repeated a million times over maybe; and told in the most beautiful way! Icing on cake - the music!



"how often do you find the right person?!... once"

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Mystery solved

Rains are such joy. Hot pakoras, steaming coffees, warm quilts and couches...*sigh* absolute BLISS! Oh and there's the hot water bath! Although, for a few days now, the hot water faucet's been gurgling out some weird stuff. Last few days I've been seeing a lot of feathers in my bucket! While I didn't want to admit, at the back of my mind was a thought that maybe - just maybe - I'm dealing with a...! (Hey, I'm just really good with my imagination, so don't squirm!) I let the thought pass. And the feathers. They kept appearing. Today, I found a leg. With claws. One leg. (I told you my thoughts turn to reality! )

We spent the whole morning cleaning tanks - underground sump, cold water tank, hot water tank... and nothing... phew. There was not a single piece of evidence that it was a bird. But I swear I found a leg! So we decided to drain all pipelines. And nasty as it may sound - bit-by-bit, degenerated chunk of flesh kept finding it's way out through the hot water faucets. YUCK!

Now, the big mystery is - how did it find it's way into the water?! No tank is open. All have solid covers - metal or stone ones. There's absolutely no way some stupid bird flew down and got caught! The verdict?! - BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply & Sewage Board).

And the verdict was unanimous.

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Suggestions Required

Santosh's dad sent him a list of books. He's trying to figure out which ones he should buy for his old man. I've read just one from this list - A Beautiful Mind - and was hoping you guys might suggest some from these -

1. Fermat's Last Theorem - Simon Singh
2. The Code Book - Simon Singh
3. A beautiful mind - Sylvia Nasar
4. The Man who loved only numbers - Paul Hoffman
5. The Victorian Internet - Tom Standage
6. Fingerprints - Colin Beaven
7. Can Reindeer fly? - Roger Highfield
8. Mendeleyev's Dream - Paul Strathern
9. Snowball earth - Gabrielle Walker
10. The fifth miracle - Paul Davies
11. Strange beauty - George Jonson
12. The Cogwheel Brain - Doron Swade
13. The making of the atomic bomb - Richard Rhodes
14. Chaos - James Gleick
15. Flatland - Edwin. A. Abbott
16. A Mathematician's apology - G. H. Hardy
17. Our final century - Martin Rees
18. The surgeon of Crowthrone - Simon Winchester
19. The Pahntom Tollboth - Norton Juster
20. Roses In December - M. C. Chagla
21. Artificial Intellegence and Natural man - Margaret. A. Boden
22. Dimensions of creativity - Margaret. A. Boden
23. The Philosophy of Artificial Life - Margaret. A. Boden
24. Swami Rama - Swami Ajaya
25. The Traditions of The Himalyan Masters - Pandit Rajamani Tigumant
26. The Emperor's New Mind - Roger Penrose
27. Theories of Everything - Joh. D. Barrow
28. Don't You Have time to Think - Richard Feynman
29. Narrative - Fredrick Douglars
30. Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro - Samuel Ringold Ward
31. The Fugitive Blacksmith - J. W. C. Pennigton

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Classics

HBO featured a 'Top 10' tear-jerker's list. 'The Notebook' stands at the number 2 spot. I hadn't heard about the movie, but that's not what I'm writing about. So I download the movie and 30 minutes into it, this song plays in the background. It's one of my favorites and it goes well with the movie. Here it is -



Hope you like!

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More Lists

Another one from Deepti -

1. Wings
2. The Broadway Melody
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. Cimarron
5. Grand Hotel
6. Cavalcade
7. It Happened One Night
8. Mutiny on the Bounty
9. The Great Ziegfeld
10. The Life of Emile Zola
11. You Can't Take It with You
12. Gone With the Wind
13. Rebecca
14. How Green Was My Valley
15. Mrs. Miniver
16. Casablanca
17. Going My Way
18. The Lost Weekend
19. The Best Years of Our Lives
20. Gentleman's Agreement
21. Hamlet
22. All the King's Men
23. All About Eve
24. An American in Paris
25. The Greatest Show on Earth
26. From Here to Eternity
27. On the Waterfront
28. Marty
29. Around the World in 80 Days
30. The Bridge on the River Kwai
31. Gigi
32. Ben Hur
33. The Apartment
34. West Side Story
35. Lawrence of Arabia
36. Tom Jones
37. My Fair Lady
38. The Sound of Music
39. A Man for All Seasons
40. In the Heat of the Night
41. Oliver!
42. Midnight Cowboy
43. Patton
44. The French Connection
45. The Godfather
46. The Sting
47. The Godfather Part II
48. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
49. Rocky
50. Annie Hall
51. The Deer Hunter
52. Kramer v. Kramer
53. Ordinary People
54. Chariots of Fire
55. Gandhi
56. Terms of Endearment
57. Amadeus
58. Out of Africa
59. Platoon
60. The Last Emperor
61. Rain Man
62. Driving Miss Daisy
63. Dances with Wolves
64. The Silence of the Lambs
65. Unforgiven
66. Schindler's List
67. Forrest Gump
68. Braveheart
69. The English Patient
70. Titanic
71. Shakespeare in Love
72. American Beauty
73. Gladiator
74. A Beautiful Mind
75. Chicago
76. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
77. Million Dollar Baby
78. Crash
79. The Departed
80. No Country for Old Men
    

Bold - the ones I've watched.

Not bad eh?!

Update: (June 9th) Two more classics suggested by Smini -

1. Mackenna's Gold
2. King Solomon's Mines
   

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Flavours

Yesterday was refreshingly different. To begin with, it marked 3 years of my return from the U.S of A. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem so long!

The first half flew by engrossed in work. It's amazing how some results can make you feel on top of the world! Spent the afternoon watching some high-budget, poor-performance movies (and they make plenty of those in LA!). Evening was a teaser with a slight shower and a beautiful, beautiful rainbow! It was so enchanting, I didn't want to run upstairs to get my camera! For those who missed it - Rajesh has a snap of it. The spell of rain lasted barely 20-25 minutes. This was followed by anxious neighbors comforting a fellow resident, whose house had been robbed in broad daylight (that's a rare thing in this part of town), a murky discussion - over phone - with someone terribly confused, an enlightening conversation with Baba on some old Marathi music, some physical assault on a cold-infected brother (muhahaha), preparing Rasam, having dinner and another lethargic movie!

Life's good. It's so bloody amazingly good :)!

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Let's hear it for Obama

With Step-Father, Mother, Step-Sister - Barack Obama

...or should we wait until November?

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Calling it a day

I absolutely long for Friday nights. Not 'coz the weekend's a respite from all the week's work (I work 6 hours, 7 days a week; so no weekends for me), but because Ujji comes home for the weekend. And it's fun when he's around. Of course, that only means a drop in the number of hours I can put in on these days. Which I then have to make up for on Mondays and Tuesdays. Normally, these aren't bad either. This week has been an exception.

Work has been K.R.A.Z.Z.Y! Yes, that bad! Two continuous 16 hour days with barely a breather between. I'm so pooped... *phew*...

Gonna slump into that bean-bag and watch a couple of movies with a steaming cup of coffee and nothing - absolutely nothing - to eat. My stomach feels like it can go without food for a whole week! That's something I've gotto stop doing; crunch time and my routine's pretty much - Food-Laptop-Food-Laptop-Food-Laptop... If I repeat the word 'f.o.o.d' again, I might throw up!

So that's that. TV, here I come.

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I MISS THIS SHOW SO MUCH

I SO need to go get the DVD collection for these!

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Maa-Baap ka PYAAR

We had dinner at India Gate on 100ft road, Friday night. Lovely dinner. Good drinks too. Aai ofcourse, always avoids drinks (not that she drives after that; she'd probably cause more damage without being drunk - Baba's words). So on our way out, I was busy messaging someone, my brother was picking up some extra saunf and Baba as usual, is way ahead. In that split second when all this is happening, my brother and me hear a THUD!, turn around and see Aai on the floor!

Apparently, she didn't realize there was a step and was happily thanking the manager for his services (my mom). So anyways, we helped her up, massaged her ankle and walked out. The first thing she can come up with - "Maazha mhaataaraa kuthey gelaa"?! - rather irritated.

Baba was holding the elevator for us, he went - "Buddhi padli-re-padli"! - with a BIG grin!

If there's anything I enjoy more than stand-up comedy... it's my parents addressing each other. One helluva couple!

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Why I love the Internet

Years ago, there used to be this add on TV. Well, I don't quite remember the add. Or the year. All I remember is the background score - "I'm in the mood for love". Now basically, this is a really popular number with over 2 dozen artists recording it in their respective voices. And I'm looking for this one particular artist, whose voice plays in the background of that particular add. So I go hither-tither looking for this track, with no name for the artist, no add details and no year (nice)... and I find this -

I'm in the Mood for Love

Now, I'm not sure THIS is the artist or THE VOICE in the background of THAT particular add. But hey! it's close - real close!

Lyrics -
I'm in the mood for love
Simply because you're near me
Funny, but when you're near me
I'm in the mood for love

Heaven is in your eyes
Bright as the stars we're under
Oh, is it any wonder?
I'm in the mood for love

Why stop to think of whether
This little dream might fade?
We've put our hearts together
Now we are one, I'm not afraid

If there's a cloud above
If it should rain, we'll let it
But, for tonight, forget it
I'm in the mood for love

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