The fork!!

Hey guys, I have decided to split my blog in two. I just figured that I wanted to keep the artsy stuff separately. So I moved all posts related to my DIY experiments and all my art work to my new blog titled "Get Crafty" at this address: http://my-diy-diaries.blogspot.com/.

Hope to see you there as well :)

Lohri used to mean...

...Love, Family, Fun and Laughter.

But now I can't even remember the last time I celebrated Lohri with my family back in India.

However I do recall that it was not a public holiday and how I always complained about that fact. I don't quite understand that to this day. It's more of a night festival. So you don't really need a holiday. Lohri isn't much of a religious festival as most other Indian festivals are. Probably that was the reason, we didn't get a holiday.

People have a sizzling bonfire during one of those freezing winter nights (I am talking about North India here). It marks the beginning of "end of winter". So people get together one winter evening and wave goodbye to the dreaded winter. Although due to global warming and what not, 13th Jan is not even close to the end of winter these days.

For me though, I didn't care what it marked. Although I do like one of the stories associated with Lohri and the song we used to sing along -

Dulla Bhatti, like Robin Hood, robbed the rich and gave to the poor. The people of the area loved and respected him. He once rescued a girl from kidnappers and adopted her as his daughter. His people would remember their hero every year on Lohri. Groups of children moved from door to door, singing the Dulla Bhatti folk-song: "Dulla Bhatti ho! Dulle ne dhi viyahi ho! Ser shakar pai ho!" (Dulla gave his daughter a kilo of sugar as a marriage gift).

But more than anything, I just liked the fun part of it. Loved how everyone came together and celebrated Lohri with bonfire, music, dancing, chit-chat and good food. And when I say everyone, I don't mean just family. I mean the entire neighborhood.

And today, all I can do is cherish those beautiful times.

All these festivals and every passing moment of my life remind me again and again, not to take anything for granted.

The game we all call LIFE

This is one chance we all are given to offer this world what we have got. It may seem there is plenty of time to think about all this seriousness. But it's all relative and mostly depends on different scenarios. Somethings that we do in life, might not matter in the long run and some of the time that we end up wasting, would just become part of past in the next moment.

But it's not all that simple to draw that fine line when it comes to real life.

To put it in perspective, lets consider this real life scenario - All our life we are trying to figure something out - what is it that we really want to do. This is one big question we find ourselves asking all the time. It could be related to anything - personal or professional. I would say the time we spend figuring out what we really want to do next is investment. It won't seem like a big deal in the long run.

But then sometimes we just let things be the way are. Even if we are not entirely happy with them. We just keep believing that lightning would strike and things would suddenly change for better. Now what do say about that? Unless we are asking ourselves until we find the answers, I think we are wasting the precious time we are given.

Something would just not happen unless we make an effort.

But then what is it that we really got to do to get things going towards that change we are looking for? Everyone wants to change their lives for better. At the end of the day we want to feel useful in this world. However small or big, we all want to make a difference. So that our stint in this world doesn't go waste.

How do we really lead a happy, meaningful and fulfilling life...

This is the question I keep pondering about these days...was re-reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" the other day - Do we really need to wait for that heart attack until we wake up from this deep slumber? Or is it really necessary to make such a dynamic change (like Julian left his practice and became a Monk) in our life to make it better?

Friends, lets just believe it - Life is short. It's a surreal bubble that could blow up anytime. We got to start now if there is something that we really want to do.

One of the most influential Americans died just 5 days ago - Steve Jobs, the Apple founder. He led a life he wanted to lead. He succeeded in the things that were under his control. One thing that he said in his famous Stanford graduation speech that struck me most was "Live each day as if it was your last". Ask yourself at the end of every single day if you spent your day as if it was yours last, If the answer is NO for a few days in a row - something has got to change.

Now if I try to think how many YESs I would get, the answer would be very very few....

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I don't have any answers or advice, neither am I trying to preach. it's just me thinking out loud, about the rules and strategies of this game; we all call LIFE

--
Attitude, not aptitude determines your altitude!

Men in Blue create History on April 2nd, 2011

I am sure there must be some hundred thousand ppl writing about the glorious Indian win in the Cricket World Cup Final!

I am no expert at this game, but still here it goes - For Team India - The Men in Blue :)

2003 Cricket World Final was the last game I watched before World Cup, 2011.
Reason - Major disappointment, broken heart; due to a shameful loss!

It seemed there was no conviction in Indian Cricket team, no courage to handle the burden, the entire team used to fall like a deck of cards after our major wicket loss..I am talking about Sachin Tendulkar!

2011 - Total change of equation. Conviction, Hunger to bring the Cup home, Team spirit, Courage to handle pressure, Fearless fielding and a great Attitude!!

Everything you need in a true sports team!

This is what led them to victory having tremendous pressure to win - to make up for the previous shameful losses - and - to make India, make Sachin proud. Such a great player, how could he retire without bringing the World Cup Home.

Bravo Team India. You were brilliant in this tournament.
And this is the best World Cup I have ever witnessed (well I wasn't born when Kapil Dev and co brought the cup home :) ).

The best part of the tournament being fair, neck-to-neck competition. No single sided games starting from Quarter Finals. Every game full of energy, full of excitement, full of surprises. For first time in years, I witnessed GOOD CRICKET. A real treat, well worth the short nights and nightouts.

The celebrations in the stadium after this glorious victory were mesmerizing. Teammates dedicated their victory to Sachin Tendulkar. He was lifted onto his teammates' shoulders and carried around Wankhede Stadium.

“He carried the hopes of the nation for 21 years so it's time we carried him on our shoulders,” batsman Virat Kohli said. Golden words, he stole the show!

Team India, you have rekindled my passion to watch cricket after 8 years.

I am so happy, so excited...I love you guys...
For first time in my life, I feel like getting drunk and loosing control :P

I wish I was in India to celebrate in true Desi spirit :-)

Joy is in the air...

...but I miss the land thousands of miles away...the land I grew up on, the land where I played and fought with my siblings, the land that would bring different seasons with diverse colors, the land where we celebrated every festival with such a great zeal, the land that taught me what love is, the land I call HOME!!

Every festival season, I try to re-create a part of that home in a foreign land. with such a deliberate effort while it all came for free once upon a time and I took it all for granted..Never imagined I would miss such little joys of life. Being away from home has taught me a great deal. Foremost is the importance of little things in our lives that we never cared for. But now I do. And I wish over-n-over again if I could go back in time and re-live some of those times. Wish I could go back and bundle all the lil pleasures and save them to cherish for rest of my life..

This Diwali, I miss home...

At Work :P

I know, I know - this is not ethical to blog while I am still at work! But why so? When it's absolutely ethical to work when at home :P

Been a long since I wrote a single line. Have been missing my blog! LOL. Well there have been so many things keeping me busy lately. Work, work and lots of work - followed by a somewhat relaxed Friday afternoon :-) Have been going through a fire drill at work which is sort of over now. And this tiny lil stream will lead me to the ocean finally. Yup that's right - gigantic amount of work will follow very soon. But who cares right now when I have got time to blog on a Friday afternoon! So I am just gonna live upto this moment and enjoy. I know everything is temporary!

Have been venturing into some strange activities lately. Well I am not going to disclose at this moment, because I am yet to see how long my enthu lasts in that area. Plus you will find it funny. I mentioned it to my sis last nite and she sure did find it very funny :)) Well to be truthful she laughed at me :P. So another deciding factor is to see if I really wanna give public the opportunity to make fun of me.

A blog about blog..

I have been wondering how long has it been since I posted something on my blog. And the answer is - pretty long if I look back at the frequency when I just started blogging! I had this doubt in my head at that point as well. I was all excited when I just started writing and felt like writing every other day like maintaining a dairy :P. I used to ponder how long would that enthu live. And I can pretty much see that it has been aging quite drastically. Even faster than I expected. Guess it's suffering from Progeria.

This pattern is not just limited to activities like blogging. I see it in every small thing in my life. It's the newness of a thing that excites me. But I tend to get 'used to'; actually 'bored' would be more appropriate; very soon! It's both good and bad. Good in a way that I keep looking for new things and thus exploring and learning new stuff however petty it may seem. But at the same time, it's wasteful. I buy something new with great excitement and within a few days (you won't believe, but sometimes within a few hours) the excitement starts wearing out. It's wasteful specially in case of materialistic things. And it's not very positive on the other front too; when I get excited about a new activity and start off with a great passion. But soon I start loosing interest and quest for something different starts. This again is both good and bad. I get to try my hands at many things, but then at the end of the day, I don't feel that I am good at any of them!!

It's more like a cycle..I come to start liking the same things again when I come across them after a long time..not sure if this is the right way to go about things..but it's not entirely in my hands right? You like something and you don't like something. What can you really do about it?

Guess it's pretty late at night to find answers to such complex questions of life :P
I better go to sleep now. May be I will find a solution in my dreams :D

To be continued..