I have moved
13 May 2011
10 May 2011
The sound of Silence
A masterpiece of a song. I love the lyrics.
Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEmyeQlS5M
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Beneath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence
Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEmyeQlS5M
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Beneath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence
06 May 2011
This and that.
I was on the verge of going underground again, to deal with some of the mess I have going on in my mind. You know, situations where you feel lost, confused, frustrated and cannot seem to pin point on a particular reason for your state of mind..and hence, clearing out the mess becomes a tad difficult..yea.. I was in that state of mind. I do realize now, that most of the confusion and stress was self created. As in, I was worrying and fretting for no apparent reason. Happens a lot with me. :(
Anyways, a lot happened over the past few days. S rammed our car in a tree and we had to buy a new car. That meant searching on craigslist, taking the bus to work, a lot of walking around to run the errands, being tired and yes, being tired. In the middle of all this, I spent a week in Colorado for work, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The training I was attending used to get over at 4 everyday, and I had pretty much the rest of the day to myself. So, it was all fun. And a welcome change. Spent the evenings taking long walks by myself, driving around on random roads without any particular destination in mind and taking a LOT of snaps. I think I took record number of snaps on this trip. I feel there is something very attractive about "just driving". No GPS to tell you the destination, no allotted time within which you have to reach that destination.. Just keep on driving. Take a random exit to watch the sunset, breath in the cold countryside air, and just soak in the nature and surroundings. That is what I had been doing almost all evenings of the week. I did get lost one time, but reached the hotel safe and sound by bed-time :D. The only thing that sucked was eating outside food for so long. As much as I love to eat out, eating hotel food for 7 days sucked. On day 3 I was so fed up of restaurant food, that I was craving for simple dal-chawal, and unable to find it anywhere close by I skipped meals that day :|.
A dear friend mailed saying he is the proud daddy of a cute baby girl .. :) I am still digesting the news. It is hard to imagine my batchmates as moms and dads. The other day, another batchmate-friend of mine and I were talking about how we don't feel grown-up enough. I mean, I have been married for about a year, and I don't feel "married". Maybe that is because all around me people seem to change after marriage. They lose touch, always seem busy and seem so "grown up" in general. The other day, mom mentioned in passing how I haven't changed a bit after marriage. I took that as a compliment. And that lead to further discussions with mom on what change she was expecting me to undergo. She said that ideally marriage in particular should not be the reason for any sudden change in a person. You do change over a course of time, but many a times, marriage does impose a lot of sudden responsibilities, lifestyle changes, habit changes that you seem to become a whole another person. So yes, she was in general happy that marriage as such has not brought about any catastrophic change in my life.
Anyways, I shall take leave now, and promise to come back with a better and meaningful post. Till then happy Friday and have a good weekend :)
Anyways, a lot happened over the past few days. S rammed our car in a tree and we had to buy a new car. That meant searching on craigslist, taking the bus to work, a lot of walking around to run the errands, being tired and yes, being tired. In the middle of all this, I spent a week in Colorado for work, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The training I was attending used to get over at 4 everyday, and I had pretty much the rest of the day to myself. So, it was all fun. And a welcome change. Spent the evenings taking long walks by myself, driving around on random roads without any particular destination in mind and taking a LOT of snaps. I think I took record number of snaps on this trip. I feel there is something very attractive about "just driving". No GPS to tell you the destination, no allotted time within which you have to reach that destination.. Just keep on driving. Take a random exit to watch the sunset, breath in the cold countryside air, and just soak in the nature and surroundings. That is what I had been doing almost all evenings of the week. I did get lost one time, but reached the hotel safe and sound by bed-time :D. The only thing that sucked was eating outside food for so long. As much as I love to eat out, eating hotel food for 7 days sucked. On day 3 I was so fed up of restaurant food, that I was craving for simple dal-chawal, and unable to find it anywhere close by I skipped meals that day :|.
A dear friend mailed saying he is the proud daddy of a cute baby girl .. :) I am still digesting the news. It is hard to imagine my batchmates as moms and dads. The other day, another batchmate-friend of mine and I were talking about how we don't feel grown-up enough. I mean, I have been married for about a year, and I don't feel "married". Maybe that is because all around me people seem to change after marriage. They lose touch, always seem busy and seem so "grown up" in general. The other day, mom mentioned in passing how I haven't changed a bit after marriage. I took that as a compliment. And that lead to further discussions with mom on what change she was expecting me to undergo. She said that ideally marriage in particular should not be the reason for any sudden change in a person. You do change over a course of time, but many a times, marriage does impose a lot of sudden responsibilities, lifestyle changes, habit changes that you seem to become a whole another person. So yes, she was in general happy that marriage as such has not brought about any catastrophic change in my life.
Anyways, I shall take leave now, and promise to come back with a better and meaningful post. Till then happy Friday and have a good weekend :)
17 April 2011
Hum Tum..
*Click on the image to see details*
1) Sometimes we yell and sulk..
2) Sometimes we are just the drama queens/kings ...
3) But then we do make up :-)
4) And are happy just to be with each other..
Few days back I was plonked on the couch one evening after work, and saw these two very cute birds on the patio railing. I had put some haldiram on the railing for the birds, and these two stopped by for a snack. They were doing such funny antics, that I made a mad dash for my camera and clicked away madly. Unfortunately, I didn't have my zoom lens attached, and had to be satisfied with super cropped images.
1) Sometimes we yell and sulk..
2) Sometimes we are just the drama queens/kings ...
3) But then we do make up :-)
4) And are happy just to be with each other..
Few days back I was plonked on the couch one evening after work, and saw these two very cute birds on the patio railing. I had put some haldiram on the railing for the birds, and these two stopped by for a snack. They were doing such funny antics, that I made a mad dash for my camera and clicked away madly. Unfortunately, I didn't have my zoom lens attached, and had to be satisfied with super cropped images.
15 April 2011
A note and a poem.
I had gone underground past few weeks. From posting anything on the blog, that is. So, Past few weeks, I have been reading a lot about some issues: child abuse (April is the month dedicated to child abuse awareness, btw), gender inequality, the skewed sex ratio in India. And I was just so bogged down by all this. Its not like Im reading about all these things for the first time. These issues are really close to my heart, and I always try and read up as much as I can about them, but the past few weeks have been different, for some reason. I was just feeling so hopelessly frustrated seeing so much injustice around me. And helpless too. So, I have been conditioning myself, tutoring myself on how to look at all these things without them affecting my peace of mind. I do want to follow up on all these issues, talk, discuss, spread awareness and help with these issues, and I guess the first thing I need to do is make myself immune to the pain and injustice involved in the issues. Only then, I will be able to think clearly, objectively, without being biased and most importantly, without making me lose my peace of mind over them. So, thats what I have been trying to do. Trying to calm myself down. :-)
In keeping up with the non-humorous, serious tone of this post, let me share with you a poem I came across recently. Such beautiful, deep and meaningful lines.
On Marriage
Kahlil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
In keeping up with the non-humorous, serious tone of this post, let me share with you a poem I came across recently. Such beautiful, deep and meaningful lines.
On Marriage
Kahlil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
01 April 2011
i am not back. Yet.
The owner of this website is undergoing maintenance. She shall be back soon. Please dont worry (or do worry) whatever suits you ;-)
09 March 2011
The so called 'woman's day'
Few days back, the hubby and I were discussing how women did not protest when the songs sheila ki jawani and munni came out. And more so, when they won awards! It nauseated me to a great extent that these songs were appreciated. I feel they are plain derogatory. I mean, the dhobis put up a protest when Dhobi Ghat released, and no one protested when these songs were lauded!! But anyways, I will reserve my opinion on how we should come out of seeing ourselves and other women as objects of attraction, for some other day. What I will write instead is about this "anthem" that Start plus released for woman's day. (Check out the link, before you read further!)
My 2 cents on this:
You know what, let me first poke fun at this idiotic video, and then share my opinions :P
1) There are so many 'technical' bugs in this video.
You wake up looking all fresh with nicely done hair? seriously? When I wake up, I have a new hairstyle (which resembles the rockstar spikey hairstyle) and I have trouble opening my eyes completely till hubby pokes me in my tummy.
2) Then, you cook and send off your kids, spend time with the elders while the husband sleeps. Seriously, what time do you even wake up to squeeze in all of this?! And till what time does the husband sleep?!!
3) Then, you chase away people. Yes, run around wearing a "saree" (why am i not surprised!), become a substitute police inspector (are you kidding me?!), play with the kids, dance, and then go to work. Seriously, it would take me a day to do all of the above things before I went to work. Either the woman has more than 24 hours in her day (or maybe sleeps for an hour) or maybe I am not a Super-woman like her and dont understand all this. I prefer the second option!
4) And to top it, the song 'tu hi tu' is irritating.
When I saw this video on IHM's blog, I got confused. Clearly, I had new material to write about (or should i say, rant about). But the ridiculousness level was so high, that I got confused on what to write about. The channel's mindless portrayal of a woman and the media's carelessness and TRP greed, or its unfairness towards the women, or the unfairness towards the men (seriously, the man in the video looks like a wimp..who just wakes up, drinks tea and goes off to work, while the wife slogs away! You wouldn't want to be portrayed like that now, would you ? ;)). I will reserve the media bashing for some other day, and concentrate on how the advertisement is unfair. And no, even if it is Star Plus which publishes crap, it is high time we start paying attention to these portrayals and condemning them instead of 'not paying them any attention'.
To start with, what I don't understand is, why do we need to 'celebrate' woman-hood. What is there to celebrate? The fact that women (as they have shown in this advertisement) wake up before everyone, tends to the elders and husband and kids, cook, chase away people, dance, work, come back late and yet, on top of this, manage to keep a smile on their face?
Why put unnecessary pressure on women that they 'need' to do all these things in order to gain approval from the people around you? Why the need to be the super woman who "juggles career and home". Because seriously, life becomes simple if both (and all family members, in case of joint family) partners contribute to house work, and in that case the woman does not 'need' to juggle everything. It is too high a expectation, and an unreasonable and unfair one, at that. And I don't understand why women even try and meet these expectations? Why do we create these definitions of a 'perfect' woman, a perfect man, a perfect wife, a perfect mother? Why is making mistakes and being a supposed non-perfect entity such a big deal?! And why put forth these 'yardsticks' in the form of such advertisements as measurement to how good a woman you are?!
My 2 cents on this:
You know what, let me first poke fun at this idiotic video, and then share my opinions :P
1) There are so many 'technical' bugs in this video.
You wake up looking all fresh with nicely done hair? seriously? When I wake up, I have a new hairstyle (which resembles the rockstar spikey hairstyle) and I have trouble opening my eyes completely till hubby pokes me in my tummy.
2) Then, you cook and send off your kids, spend time with the elders while the husband sleeps. Seriously, what time do you even wake up to squeeze in all of this?! And till what time does the husband sleep?!!
3) Then, you chase away people. Yes, run around wearing a "saree" (why am i not surprised!), become a substitute police inspector (are you kidding me?!), play with the kids, dance, and then go to work. Seriously, it would take me a day to do all of the above things before I went to work. Either the woman has more than 24 hours in her day (or maybe sleeps for an hour) or maybe I am not a Super-woman like her and dont understand all this. I prefer the second option!
4) And to top it, the song 'tu hi tu' is irritating.
When I saw this video on IHM's blog, I got confused. Clearly, I had new material to write about (or should i say, rant about). But the ridiculousness level was so high, that I got confused on what to write about. The channel's mindless portrayal of a woman and the media's carelessness and TRP greed, or its unfairness towards the women, or the unfairness towards the men (seriously, the man in the video looks like a wimp..who just wakes up, drinks tea and goes off to work, while the wife slogs away! You wouldn't want to be portrayed like that now, would you ? ;)). I will reserve the media bashing for some other day, and concentrate on how the advertisement is unfair. And no, even if it is Star Plus which publishes crap, it is high time we start paying attention to these portrayals and condemning them instead of 'not paying them any attention'.
To start with, what I don't understand is, why do we need to 'celebrate' woman-hood. What is there to celebrate? The fact that women (as they have shown in this advertisement) wake up before everyone, tends to the elders and husband and kids, cook, chase away people, dance, work, come back late and yet, on top of this, manage to keep a smile on their face?
Why put unnecessary pressure on women that they 'need' to do all these things in order to gain approval from the people around you? Why the need to be the super woman who "juggles career and home". Because seriously, life becomes simple if both (and all family members, in case of joint family) partners contribute to house work, and in that case the woman does not 'need' to juggle everything. It is too high a expectation, and an unreasonable and unfair one, at that. And I don't understand why women even try and meet these expectations? Why do we create these definitions of a 'perfect' woman, a perfect man, a perfect wife, a perfect mother? Why is making mistakes and being a supposed non-perfect entity such a big deal?! And why put forth these 'yardsticks' in the form of such advertisements as measurement to how good a woman you are?!
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