Mahabaleshwar May 2007

I just spent a weekend with my best friends in Mahabaleshwar and Satara.
Although every bit of it was like living a real life Sitcom, I would like to introduce all “my readers” ;) to my BEST FRIENDS and the highlights of the trip. The select few people who make me laugh and take me for whoever I am! (Yes, even though I refuse to stay up till 3 AM to play Teen Patti without real money)
Here’s a description of the characters and the roles of my funny show.

1.Amit ( The [handsome!?] guy in the black T-shirt with a sinister 10 sign on it)
He was in charge of booking the car (which showed up an hour and a half late and then got a flat tube on the very first toll point in our journey). Obsessed with making people pose for photographs using innovative ideas, he made Nikhil sprint 100 meters with him to get an “athletic picture” of himself. Oh and we were supposed to anticipate and click in between the sprint which obviously we couldn’t. He made us climb a tree or look in different directions for a group photo! He finds it weird that the three girls spent so much time in shoe shops and bag shops in Mahabaleshwar but we are supposed to react very calmly to the fact that he made the driver pull a Raikonen on our way back because he had a football match! He is also the one who said, “I am hungry” just fifteen minutes after every gigantic meal. And he is the guy who made sure that all the girls got compliments on their hair, their kurtas, their sense of humor and their attitudes. :)

2.Neha ( Tall, skinny and infinitely long legs ;))
The dainty princess of the group. In charge of all the fussing. She fussed about everything from her position in the car to the lights in her room. She had Ameya to oppose some of her “requests” creating something close to a meowing catfight at 3 AM. The two cats were completely silenced by a tigress and no points for guessing who she was! She suffers from a perpetual motion sickness and used to pop a pill the moment she got into the car. She would be out as a light bulb in five minutes and then would collapse on the people sitting next to her with every turn!
We dutifully woke up our Olive Oyl look-alike or just made her sleep-shift from the window to the center when someone needed to grab the window seat. She opened up a bit when she won all the teen patti games at night although she was running on a battery back up! And she also managed to take some great pictures because of her artistic frame of reference! :)

3.Mangoose (Tanned ;), athletic with an egg shaped face and OMNIPRESENT)
His real name is Mangesh, but we prefer calling him Mangoose.He was in charge of breaking into a Himesh Reshammiya song every thirty seconds, one of his latest minus even the teeny tiny amount of melody in Himesh Reshammiya’s voice. When we didn’t have it coming out of his mouth, he used to insist on playing it on the CD player. He also won the award for the “ Worst-Car-DJ” ever! We had to beg him to change the song. All during the trip he was in LOVE with all the cameras on board. He took a picture of himself on each and every rock in Mahabaleshwar and every time anyone of us posed for a picture, he used to pop up from behind and come into the frame. If you asked him to click your picture; you had to return the “favor” by clicking one of his on the same spot! He was also the one who overfed himself and had to have a cup of antacid before his scrumptious breakfast. What makes this guy truly a winner however is that in spite of getting almost sick from overeating, he scored winning goals in the match he was supposed to play in the evening and got his name published in newspapers the next day!


4.Ameya ( Cute Cute Cute :D)
Madame Ameya was in charge of the accounts and used to land herself in a big confusion with an extra hundred or a missing hundred every two hours and then we all had to remember everything we bought during that time! She nearly broke my ribs taking sharp turns at 80 KMPH on a go-carting track because only the drivers got a seat belt. Our car witnessed a mind-boggling victory over the others because all through the five laps not once did Ameya try to find out how the brakes work. She has a weak point of taking pictures of people when they are sleeping or when they have rose syrup on their face that they are not aware of. She insisted on going to sunset point at 3.30 in the afternoon! She made me go in a Giant Wheel and we got hoarse voices from so much screaming! The most endearing thing however was the way her eyes well up from laughing every time she has a good laugh. People made her laugh just to see her cry!


5.Nikhil (Somewhat cute, found in black and blue)
He played the gracious host, who provided us with free five star accommodations at his super-cool place in Satara! I guess we enjoyed being with him and his parents more than we did in Mahabaleshwar. He comes next in the category of breaking into a song. And he was the runner up for the “Worst-Car-DJ-Ever” award. Refreshingly hilarious, he was in charge of asking funny questions after every other statement you made. He is the only one who can beat me in cracking jokes that no one laughs at. Dr.Ameya and Nikhil used to break into these technical fitness talks and get all of us yawning away to glory. He took us around with an uncertain authority on the roads leading to waterfalls until we found a quite, pristine lake. But all of us freaked out when we saw a live snake in the water and about two meters of abandoned snakeskin just behind the rock we were sitting on!

6.Me (Look under the big white hat or the gypsy scarf! )
Well if you ask me, I was the epitome of perfection all through the trip. I was also the “Good Manners” representative of the group when we were around Nikhil’s parents. I am sure if any of these people were as creative as I am; they would have said that I was in charge of passing sarcastic comments and getting everybody’s optimism down. I was the one who slept at 11 PM and “disciplined” people when they tried to wake me up. I was the one who took three bags for a two day long journey; complete with shower gel, three extra pairs of all kinds of clothes, ear cleaning swabs and yeah a BOOK! (Which I DID read for about fifteen minutes when people were getting ready). Oh and if I am allowed to really praise myself, I got the “Best-car-DJ-ever” award for spinning out the most amazing songs from a bundle of hopelessly mixed up CDs.

The Road beyond the Yellow Tree

The Road beyond the Yellow Tree
Is full of an Unknown Joy
Even as the one before
Lets out a tired sigh
It makes me forget what has been
And what still around the corner lurks
Suddenly my mind turns blind
And my timid eyes begin to work

The Road beyond the Yellow Tree
Grows out of the Yellow Tree
With a Mind laden with yellow flowers
Deeply rooted, cheerful and free!
It doesn’t teach us Dreams
Or overwhelm with serenity
It urges us to walk along
And enjoy the walk in its Reality

The Road beyond the Yellow Tree
Bends like a ballerina here and there
As the wind wipes away my tears
And blossoms tangle in my hair
I can smell it sweating under its bark
Its maddening perfume in the air
The Road Beyond the Yellow Tree
Makes me want to go Nowhere!

Photograph by Dr. Ameya Kulkarni. =)
Thank you!

Fitness Gyan.

Ms. Keskar’s Top Ten Fitness Tips

1.There is no substitute for cardiovascular exercise. =) And cardio is not just about the treadmill. It also includes taking the stairs whenever possible, not using your car for places that are two minutes walk away and long contemplative evening walks

2.The ideal and safe heart rate you should reach during cardio is (200-your age in years). It is counted as Beats Per Minute so when I am on the treadmill I try and reach around 177 BPM.

3.Good skin, great stamina and weight loss can all be achieved at the same time by drinking lots of water through out the day

4.A good workout should be supplemented by healthy food. The total intake of food that you take during a day works best if you take it in descending order of quantity starting with breakfast through dinner.

5.The reason why nature produces certain fruits in certain seasons is because we need them at that time! =) And it is mildly disappointing to know that most of the people I know do not include fruits in their diets at all!

6.Tomatoes contain lycopene, a long chained carotenoid that has outstanding anti-cancer properties. Also, tomatoes have a lot of potassium, which is good for people who work out everyday. Ironically the “Americans” choose to extract lycopene from tomatoes all over the world and turn in into capsules so that people can just have one capsule instead of a glass of fresh tomato juice or salad!

7.A great way to reduce your sugar intake is by buying tiny spoons. =P

8.Salads are one of the most creative ways of cooking and losing weight. You can assemble your salad using olive oil, mustard, mayonnaise or yogurt. You can slice the ingredients into dainty strips or thin circles. You can add citrus fruits instead of lemon. Pepper, Oregano or just red hot chilly. Or, if you are low on seratonin, you could make an egg or pasta salad! =)

9.Nuts are essential too, but not the ones that come with a bar of chocolate around them. =P
10.It is a good idea for all the women to include a glass of milk in their every day diet to avoid emotional discussions on osteoporosis when they turn 45.

Oh! And I almost forgot the cliché, A Positive Attitude along with all the above. Of course if you end up doing all of that you don’t have to work on the positive attitude at all!

Getting over Mathophobia. :)

http://www.stonehill.edu/compsci/History_Math/math-read.htm



Alrite people..for a change this is NOT about ME. =)
One of my mathematician friends wanted me to go through this..
Funny and informative, I guess all of you should read it too!

We need to talk!!

I like that line very much when it comes out of characters in my favorite sitcom.
“We need to talk!” is such a beautiful line. It comes with the premonition of change. Not just any change, but the kinds that come with an inherent seed of groundbreaking revolution. I love the tension and the drama that goes with it.
Not so much when I am at the receiving end though. This happens pretty frequently in my household. It comes out of my MOM and more often than not it has a lot to do with me getting married.

I have been shying away from this topic for a long time because I constantly live under the invisible gaze of the Bin Laden in our house. My mom knows like one million and one ways to ruin her daughter’s Saturday morning and I must say this is one of the most effective one of them. She doesn’t even need the other million!
Well, it all started when I was in the pre-final semester of my engineering course. She was suddenly struck by the fact that on her own 21st birthday, she already knew my dad and things were going pretty well between them. While on my 21st birthday, I was sitting around in my favorite track pants reading a comic with my feet thrown up on my easy chair. Since then it has never stopped. It is her favorite way to torment me by painting thick black clouds all over my future.

So it begins somewhat like this. On the solitary Saturday morning, when I don’t actually wake up in the gym but the bed she is impalpably making tea in the kitchen. As I wake up and come out rubbing my eyes, she is sitting at the table looking all regal and grand. She motions her tiny palm to indicate that I should sit down in front of her, which I have to do. Then she goes “ We need to talk” and I know all the sentences that follow this one by heart. “ All your friends are engaged!!” , “Look at you! Who do you think you are! Aishwarya Rai??!!” and when I say “ Oh common aai, don’t compare me to Aishwarya Rai after what she’s done to Salman and Vivek!” she bangs her fist on the table till the crockery rattles and narrows her eyes in that specific manner that only angry moms can do. She stalls like an inch away from my nose and says in a really unwomanly hoarse voice, “I want a clear answer. Right Now! Do you or do you not want to get married??”
How can you have a clear answer to a totally simulated situation?
I mean, if getting married were like organizing your socks I would have done it when I was 12! I try to cooperate too! Like when she writes my resume (which has sections like “skin tone” and the answer to that is “wheatish” which is not even like a REAL word!!) I carefully correct the spelling mistakes and even the attitude mistakes in there. I mean what kind of mom tells people her daughter looks like wheat!!

Then she suddenly goes into that mawkish mode! Which is harder to take than the Bin Laden mode. She asks me totally stupefying questions like, “ Are you not worried about your own future?!!”, “ What if you never get married!!” , “ Who will take over the company after you!!?” , “ I will never get a break from work if you never get married!”
(Yeah some of these sentences are completely illogical and out of context but then 50-year-old moms have a lot of other issues too)

Then I tell her all that I plan to do if I don’t get married at all.
I will write a book! I will work for UNICEF. Write stories for kids!
I will streamline the entire business and make an obscene amount of money and I will also donate chunks of it to cancer research. I will take up a French language course and also teach creative writing to schoolchildren! Since I wont be having kids of my own, I would be the cool “Aunt Saee” to my friends’ kids. Who will teach them a hundred different ways to use Soap. Who will have dogs they could play with and who will also teach them the value of workouts! There are so many things to do!! Wake up mom! People are dying in Sudan. To which she curtly replies, “ No one is dying there, I just came back and I had a land cruiser all to myself all the while I was in Sudan!”
I guess one of the principal drawbacks of having a globetrotting mom is that you get to know that the BBC chooses to highlight Africa in a very sad way.
She is not a philistine but when organizations like the UNICEF and the WHO start getting in the way to her daughter’s wedding she tends to get a little edgy. I can understand.
But then I quickly put her at ease by saying, “ Oh! And I will do all of that even if I do get married you know. I mean I will have a little less time, but I will definitely do all of that” and she sighs in relief.
Sometimes her paranoia makes her imagine that I might be secretly going around with a mystery guy and keeping it all under cover. So she inquires with my super-best friend and both of them cross their hearts to keep it a secret. Well needless to say that the next call my friend makes is to me and even mom blurts it out in one of her sentimental fits of worry. I find that incredibly cute. More importantly because at least my mom thinks that I could go around with someone and that I am capable of all the womanly feelings of love and companionship! =)

I guess one day her worry will end. Or at least I hope that she will overcome worry! =)
Till then I will devise more creative ways to return her “ We need to talk” ace service.
She is even better than Federer!!
Oh and it would be a good idea not to tell my mom that I wrote this. If you know what I mean! ;)

Worry

Worry can be a dot
Sometimes it turns into a Line
And then the crinkle between my eyebrows
Painful although really fine
Sometimes it turns into a whole page
With supplements written for Tomorrow
And then later into a Movie
Unedited and full of Sorrow
If I am to praise her at all; she is faithful
I always find her to my Right
Reminding me of what’s due and what’s not
Waking me up in the middle of the Night
She is unreasonable at times
At times she is a just consequence
Comically irrational at times
Sometimes just a consequence
When people don’t come home
We sit together on a bench outside
Imagining the terrorists who might have taken them
A torpedo, perhaps an unfortunate Landslide
But all of them always come Home
And then Worry leaves me
But I don’t hate her so vehemently
For sometimes, She is good company!

When Radio Meets Cell Phone. :)

The Radio and the Cell Phone service providers are now married to each other.
One of the most exasperating things about the Radio is the preposterous SMS contests they come up with.
Like one day the peppy Radio Jockey started a contest that made people choose which planet Pune resembled to out of the three options
1.Moon
2.Saturn
3.Mars
(Yes, and he said “planets” and included Moon in it!)
And supposedly the popular (and predictable) choice was Moon because of the potholes on Pune’s roads.
Then there is this “Home-maker special” at around 11 AM that is called “khoobsurat”
Where the chirpy RJ asks listeners to take part in contests related to beauty IQ
Like “ What from these three options makes your hair shinier”
1.Potato
2.Kerosene
3.Egg White
And then they keep repeating the question throughout the program in their fake chirpy voice. Imagine pouring a can of kerosene on your scalp!
I always wonder who responds to such questions and when I realize that someone always does I choose to believe that they prefer being pathetic than not being the fiftieth desperate person competing for two couple tickets to an equally low budget movie.
I mean what is so honorable about answering such questions and winning a ticket?
Besides even if you do win it, the radio people make you travel to their faraway office to collect it and then you drive to the cinema which is like the other end of the city from the radio office. I guess it would be easier to just go to the cinema and book two tickets with all your self-respect intact than showing the world that you are aware about the conditioning characteristics of egg whites.

They even host polls!
By what year do you think Salman Khan will go completely bald?
A.2012
B.2020
C.2200
D.Cannot Decide
I mean, give me a break! People should be more concerned about the hair on their own respective heads. They pay thrice the amount required for a normal SMS to answer such pointless polls. What is with the “cannot decide” option? What do they do with the database of people who are in two minds about the exact prediction of Salman Khan’s baldness?

When they are not making up contests that always seem to defy logic, they play Himesh Reshammiya every thirty minutes. If you try to switch the channel you get Himesh bhai at every alternate station.
You have the option of making every new song your dialer tone (This is a novel concept where instead of the usual ring-ring people get to listen to a song when they call you. With due respect to Sai baba bhajans sung by Anoop Jalota, Sanskrit Couplets in Lata Mangeshkar’s voice, Mind Numbing Rock songs and all the omnipresent nasal Nusrat Fateh Ali khan sound-alikes, ring-ring sounds much more melodious sometimes.:P)

It is like the Radio no longer plays for the common man.
It plays for the film producers who get us close to nausea playing their mediocre albums over and over two weeks before the movie starts showing.
It plays for Supermarkets with surreptitious discount schemes
It plays for the cell phone companies that make idiots out of innocent customers
It plays for wannabe RJs who dream of sitting inside the cool studio wearing donut shaped headphones
Sometimes when you think of a song and like telepathy, the radio plays it out the next moment! I used to savor such moments but with this new generation of avaricious and exceedingly daft radio stations I don’t find an intuitive connection with the Radio anymore. =(

Perennial Light

Darkness is just the absence of Light
It cannot come on its own
It has to wait for the Sun to climb down the Horizon
And then it gets to Rule
At the mercy of the Sun
A little longer in the cold Winters
And a little less in the warmer Summers
It can overwhelm, mislead and paralyze
But only until Light returns.


PS: This is the result of a very long association with Osho books written on the principles of an ancient Indian erudite, mystic and philosopher Patanjali.
Oh yeah, and for all those who think I cannot keep it short, “=P” this is for you.
And with that, I have managed to completely ruin my “spiritual aura” :)

How I read A Painting.

This is a painting by one of my very good friends Neha. I believe that paintings are like books. This is an Abstract so I have made an effort to read it using my pitiful knowledge of Art and my profound perception :P
I congratulate her for getting out masterpieces one after the other.=)

This Painting is aptly called Rhythm.
It uses vibrant colors together to create a symphony.
It is warm, happy and upbeat and when she painted it she must have been in a very happy state of mind ( I know this from before =P She had just fallen in love)
It reflects natural balance,music and happiness.
We find similar association of distinct yet different elements coming together and making something better and beautiful around us.

This made me think of a really strong woman. With many different states of mind coming together to make her irresistible.
There is this arch in the center that made me think of Hobbes. As it looks like a tiger's tail. =) So I found it a little eccentric as well.
Like a brown paper bag full of candies and chocolates. When you reach for one inside you never know what might come out. Dark chocolate,tangy candy or a snicker bar!
Unpredictable and irresistible just like a continuous quartet!

Hats off to you Nuts! =)

Boredom! :)

Why do we get bored?
I guess every second someone across this lopsided world must be saying “Jeez! I am bored!”
It is such a common feeling happening to every race and every age group with the same frustrating intensity. Like Love, Boredom triggers off the same chemicals inside every human brain and even when they say it in a hundred different languages, they mean the same thing. I am bored.

Like when you call those call centers because your broadband doesn’t work and they ask you to press everything from one to nine. Then they put you on an automated “Your call is important to us. Please wait, you will be attended shortly” and promote their other (inefficient) services while you draw doodles on a scrapbook. It is so boring. It sets my heart rate to the lowest ever. Even meditation fails to have that kind of effect on me.
What is the point in telling someone that their call is important to you while you make them hold the line for half an hour?
It is like an unfaithful husband telling his wife that he loves her while he is getting sun tanned in Hawaii with his secretary.

Or sometimes when you watch Jennifer Aniston or Kareena Kapoor with long, streaked tresses and you suddenly make up your mind about having that kind of hair on your shoulders. You imagine how you would accessorize it, wear invisible plastic clips or just mess it up sometimes for that out-of-bed-look. The moment it reaches my shoulders I get bored. I don’t know the reason but it never goes beyond that! All my fantasies are always chopped off as my talkative hairdresser talks about Indian Classical Music.

Then we have those 24X7 news channels. All their frenzy has the exact opposite effect on me. I get bored. They are so desperate for news; sometimes I think they create news by paying people who want to make a few easy bucks. They would have a correspondent covering a dying dog on a crossroad and the whole country would know about it. They would zoom in on it’s emaciated body and ribcage and the channel will observe a minute of silence for the dog’s well being but no one will pick it up and take it to a veterinarian or even leave it alone to die on its own. I guess they should not commit 24 hours of news. How can you expect something interesting to happen all the time? Then no one would ever get bored. =)

Going to the bank is boring. Waiting outside public toilets in cinemas is boring. Waiting for people who show up late and are not guilty about it is boring. Women in their fifties talking about osteoporosis is boring. Men’s talking about the share market over a glass of whiskey is boring. Adamant French restaurants serving people who cannot understand a word of French is boring.
I am just glad I wrote all this down. =)
It puts my life in a better perspective!

Silence

Silence is so beautiful
White, Blue and cold
So maidenly so quite
Mysterious, untold!
Beyond Time
Beyond Age
Like a perpetual child
About to burst into a ringing laugh
But tamed for a while
Can you guard her from Anguish?
Or a stillborn Fear
Can you offend her icy dignity?
By shedding a transient tear?
She is so charming when she settles down
And takes possession of your mind
Cleans all the dirty cabinets
And leaves the clutter behind
She fills every empty space with nothing
And takes away all your toys
Lets you cry, makes you sigh
And you close your eyes.
Then nothing really matters
It is just you and her together
Without a sentence, without a word
You begin talking to each other
I hate throwing stones in the Lake
And I think so does She
For I keep straightening the House
And She straightens Me.

The Story of Pi,Belle and Dusky. =)

For a long time, I wished to write something that would amuse kids. I think keeping kids interested in a story is one of the most difficult tasks and only someone like J.K Rowling can do that so consistently. Anyway this is my mediocre attempt at a kid story. I promise I will improve.
..And I request you to read it just as a kid would, for there is nothing to be read between the lines. =)
Saee


In the midst of lush green valleys there was a quite village called Khatapeeta. It was full of families that earned money from farming. Everyone lived on a farm that was looked after by all the members of the family. Sometimes they planted sugarcane and sometimes potatoes and onions.
A farmer called Ata owned one such pretty farm. He planted tomatoes in his farm one season and took care of them the way he took care of his daughters. He watered the plants and watched out for any bugs that might feast on the leaves. He walked through the farm and bent down now and then to check if his crop was healthy. The young saplings relished the bright sunlight and water and tiny tomatoes appeared on every plant. Ata was delighted. As days passed, the tomatoes ripened and turned glossy red in color. Belle, Pi and Dusky were three little tomatoes growing on a tree. Pi was full and round, and growing fat with every can of water going into the soil. Belle was dainty, somewhat pale and green. She took her own time and grew up slowly like a little wiggly caterpillar. Dusky was dark red. He was quick to get angry so he ended up being redder than the other two.
The three tomatoes swayed with the moist wind and the tree drooped, as they got chubbier.

The whole farm was full of ripe red dots when Ata decided to sell his produce. He plucked the tomatoes gingerly and arranged them in open baskets made of bamboo. Pi, Belle and Dusky were put in the same basket. Pi was happy that he got to roll over a lot of other tomatoes and make them scream for help, while Belle was busy avoiding other ripe tomatoes asking her to accompany them when the truck came to a halt. Dusky was furious about the treatment they all were being given. He did not like the basket, the truck or the way they were plucked and sent off. The truck set out to the big market in the neighboring town. They all bumped into each other as the truck began turning and everyone became merry except Dusky. He just turned redder.

They were all unloaded in front of a grumpy vendor. He told Ata that there were a lot of fresh tomatoes in the market already and no one cared for his lot much. After a lot of talking, they both agreed on the money and Ata left his produce with the vendor. He looked around to say good-bye and let out a sigh before getting into the truck.
As soon as the truck left, the grumpy vendor hurriedly arranged all of them in a triangular heap. Pi, Belle and Dusky were taken apart. They occupied three different corners of the heap. As the Sun came up, the market became crowded with three wheelers and people walking about. The Pizza guy picked up Belle along with some other crunchy tomatoes. She said adieu with a heavy heart and was carelessly thrown in a basket full of tomatoes inside a tiny truck. The pizza guy came back after a while with yellow bell peppers and crisp baby corns. There was a small commotion as each one demanded his own space but Belle became good friends with everyone immediately.
Dusky flushed all the more when he realized that his sister was taken away. The Ketchup guy noticed him. He picked Dusky and asked the vendor to give him similar looking tomatoes. They all were hurriedly taken to the ketchup factory.
Pi rolled about for a while, making fun of the thinner tomatoes. A small woman with a hyperactive kid came by and picked up Pi. He went into a wire basket that already contained pale cucumbers, pink carrots and fresh strawberries. Pi was delighted to meet them.

The next day, Belle was sliced up into tiny ringlets along with all her best friends for a Veggie Supreme. They liked all of it till they were laid out on circular bread smeared with sauce. Then two fat hands held a shredder on top and all the vegetables including Belle were covered with a blanket of sticky Cheese. They all were then sent to a hot oven where the Cheese oozed into the pores of their skin and made them blend into the thick bread. The crunchy bell peppers, baby corns and black olives were all covered with the oppressive cheese. Then they were put on a pan and served with cola. Belle was sad at being turned into small ring on a cheesy pizza. She went down the food pipe of an eleven year old and was followed by a wave of cola.
Dusky was thrown into a hot water kettle in the ketchup factory along with his mates and boiled for an awfully long time. They all felt hot and Dusky could not get any redder. Then they were poured into a big blender along with spices and preservatives that made the tomatoes wrinkle their noses. Dusky was angry as usual. After a while he was poured into a plastic bottle and a machine arm sealed the bottle with a cap. Dusky was out in the market dressed as tomato ketchup.
Pi spent two days in the refrigerator. He made friends with the watermelon, who was almost ten times as big as he was and perfectly round. He also made friends with a carrot. However he found the cucumber very boring. Pi was happy to be inside. It was cool and clean. Two days later, he was put into a blender along with mint, sugar, salt and ice. He went round and round till he could not see the mint or the ice anymore. All he could see was his own red self. He felt very proud and a little dizzy. He was poured into a tall glass and two leaves of mint were placed on top for decoration. He realized that he was no longer as round as he used to be but he liked the glass very well. He overheard the small lady calling out for the hyperactive kid. He heard her dainty voice; “ Here is something to get you going. Lots of potassium for your running race” and the kid gulped the glass down and went out running!
The three tomatoes from Ata’s farm, turned into three different foods!! So think of Pi, Belle and Dusky next time you have a slice of pizza with ketchup or tomato juice! =D

Anna Karenina

10 reasons why everyone should read Anna Karenina

1.It talks about the invisible lines we cross, the invisible lines we create and the lines we draw just ahead of us with our Egos when we want to escape unpleasant situations

2.It talks about the perpetual icy frost that covers our minds. That holds us back from saying what we want to, doing what we must and accepting people irrespective of the situations they create.

3.It talks about dysfunctional institutions that create dysfunctional minds. It covers everything from Communism to Marriage.

4.It talks about the Lifecycle of Grief. Right from its conception to the point where it is conquered by an intelligent mind

5.It talks about the healing power of creative solitude. When the mind analyzes sadness with a calm and impartial authority and devises ways to come over it by taking up something beyond the trivialities.

6.It talks about the offenses that cannot have a punishment but cause torments that go beyond comprehension

7.It talks about different minds in similar situations, each one giving a different reaction

8.Though written in the 1800s, it proves to us that the basic malice and kindness that drives the human minds is still the same. We still cross the same invisible lines, but we have conveniently extended the boundaries of our vileness.

9.It shows us that even mistakes can be handled with dignity

10.It has names like Kostya, Mishka, Laska and Frou-Frou, which I found really amusing and incredibly cute.

Traveler

His head bent down, in pensive thought
And a dirty backpack full of Memories
The Traveler going from one Moment to Other
On the dusty road of Dreams and Reveries

He has seen the snow clad silent mountains
And all the pomp of the Gods and Goddesses
Dipped his feet in ice cold waters
And written in his book of all those places
He has met psychics who talked about Death
And fallen in love with pretty women
Cried in vain and winced in Pain
Every time he got his heart broken
He sat by the campfire and sang songs
He relished rabbits, camels and goats
He taught little boys how to fly kites
And helped old women out of boats.
He saw the same Sun
Sometimes behind the Mountains
Sometimes inside the River
And the same Horizon across different Oceans
That always leads him to the Loyal Forever
He saw the same Moon
Sometimes Maddening and Sometimes Saddening
He saw the same River flow
That was called by different names
Until it went where it was to go.

He tried stopping for Wealth and Love
Or to leave something behind
But he knew that the open Skies
Would make it too hard to find
He moves on, He moves along
Rebuilt or Broken Apart
But he never takes the Hurt with him
And meets a New Place with an Empty Heart.

Going NowHere

There are places in our own minds where we have never gone before.
A little higher up, beyond the elevations that lead to our Egos.
Places that let us stay only for a while, but take us closer to God.

Maybe we were there as children, unknowingly
Or after those moments of extreme despair
When the heart starts beating again.
Or in those moments of helpless laughter
That brings tears to our eyes
Mercurial places, Filled with Joy and Nowhereness.

Like the gap between two thoughts
Like the headache that comes with the first bite of ice-cream
Like waking up in the middle of night
And finding the Moon staring at us.
Like a long long train journey
On an unreserved seat by the open window
Like using all the theatre in our blood
To get a few kids wide eyed during a ghost story

We always stumble upon them,
And then we want to stay
But then Anger and Ambition take over
And the I takes us away.

The Rain and The Sunshine

Earlier when it came,
Sometimes in Drizzles
Sometimes in Torrents..
The Blinding, Languishing Rain!
It poured outside the window
Choking every Grass blade
Filling the space between Heaven and Earth,
By an Ethereal Sorrow

Ceaseless Rain, Limitless Rain
Followed by an Awkward Sunshine
Like a Child laughing aloud
In the Abysmal Silence of a Mourning House

It still comes down just the same
But the torrents refuse to haunt
It flattens the humble Grass blades
But it fails to choke and daunt
Even the Self-Conscious Sunlight
Has gathered a Newfound Valor
For it gushes in with a Lucid Rainbow
Defying the Cloudy Pallor

They have grown accustomed these days
The Rain and the Sunshine to each other
Like the long married Day and Night
Sharing Dusks and Dawns together

From now on, the Rain and the Sun
As they please, may come and go
For the Joy has transcended Light
And beyond Rain rests the Woe.

--Saee
15th March 2007

Thank Heavens For Reality!

I have not used imagination while writing this. I am just reporting! =D
I don’t know what they call people who can remember Dreams vividly, but I happen to be one of them. I don’t just remember my dreams, but I also waste an awful amount of time analyzing them in the morning. This is a Dream, and by dream I mean the one that comes when you are fast asleep in the Rapid Eye Movement or whatever phase you call it!
Last night I dreamt, that I was on a train with two other people.
We were joking around and sitting in the doorway looking at the train as turned behind us. I was wearing a scarf that was tied behind my ears like those gypsy women (I know this is vanity but I am just reporting). I don’t remember if the other two were guys or girls but then there were three people.
Suddenly after a while, the three of us killed someone. :)
For a long time we were wondering if Murder is a punishable offence and if yes, what is it going to cost us!!
I remember coming home, and telling my mom about it. I asked her what she thinks will happen and even in my dream she was as business-like and matter-of-fact as she is in real life. She calmly told me in my dream, that my career was ruined now that I had managed to murder a living person. She also told me that she did not think that the Law had any concession for three people killing one person as against one person killing one person and you don’t get to share your punishment. Though this can be looked at with a sense of humor at 1 PM in the afternoon, it managed to freak me out at 1 AM. :)
She told me that my PhD was ruined now as if I try to go abroad I would be a fugitive and no one will grant me a Visa in the first place! And I saw her utter the word “fugitive” which I doubt she will ever use in reality because she is good at being harsh in Marathi than English. That was the only ray of hope I had to convince myself that I was dreaming.
She also asked me to look for a good lawyer so that I manage to make up a story before the cops get me. =|
I was seriously worried when I woke up and this is not a writer’s overstatement. I actually thought my life was ruined when I woke up because the Dream was being telecast the whole night. It had left me pensive and helpless. Even as I woke up, I was figuring out what to do about it till the time my feet touched the ground and I smelled tea!
I truly realized the worth of having a humble REALITY to wake up to today!

I am amazed at how articulately the whole story was constructed when I wasn’t even thinking of trains or murders yesterday!
It is also interesting to know that even in a Dream the brain takes into consideration the consequences of an action and also the candid portrayal of the people in your life. The presence of my mother and her comments made it so real that had I slept for an hour more, I would have died in my sleep from a cardiac arrest.
I am still confused why I could not get the identities of the other two people and also about the presence of the train in my dream. It gave an Agatha Cristiesh feel to the Dream!
Any Freuds around? :)

Poojashi bolta bolta type keleli Kavita!!:)

Purple Thoughts on Orange Pages
Thought before by unknown Sages
Golden Sunlight on a dimlit Bed
A little Blue With a little Red

How can I see beyond Tears?
How can I look behind Fears?
How do I know that at the end of this Night,
There waits a blanket of clear warm light!!

I see the Moon under the eclipsed Sky
Or the ambushed truth in a blatant Lie

I know the place where it all ends
where this lonely road gently bends
Where teardrops and Smiles come of age
On this, innocent, compassionate notebook page!

My Mathophobia

I was diagnosed with mathophobia when I was in the eighth grade.
Math has been like a nagging stepmother to me. I never got good grades in math.
In school, I used to write plays and recite poetry but people who wanted to show me where I belonged always asked me my math results.
Before every math exam, I used to show symptoms of complete insanity with my best friends calling me up to console me even before I took the test. On the day of examination, the eerie exam hall would witness a subdued sniffling during the last few minutes when the invigilator asked us to check our papers that later turned into a hysterical sobbing driving all my friends wild. I never failed in math, but I never scored well either. It was I against me where I refused to accept that I was an alarmingly mediocre student but my grades always proved it to me. :)
Somehow I managed to put up a fight with math during the last two years of high school getting respectable grades in my final year but I slipped back to being a daft math student during my higher secondary exams.
My Higher Secondary Certificate results were so appalling that my parents asked me to shift to taking arts after they saw the mark sheet. I was always good at languages. While math contributed to bringing my average grades down languages always helped me out to stay even with my other friends.
Everyone who came to know of my results came and asked me to shift to arts. They gave examples of people who have hit it big in the advertisement industry. They told me about copywriters who made truckloads of money. Somehow even though the thought of having that wicked subject off my back for ever seemed really enticing, I did not quite appreciate the idea of being a loser who shifted to arts and then hit it big. :)
So I very innocently took up Chemical Engineering since that was the only available discipline for the kind of grades I had.
I was completely disillusioned in about three months of beginning my first semester. I spent all of it sleepless and nervous to the point of exhaustion. I realized that the University had been cunning enough to fool naive people into taking up Engineering by naming the subjects deceptively. Whatever you wished to study, it was all mathematics. Even Drawing, which I thought of in a rather poetic manner earlier, was wickedly laced with mathematics. A deadly bug called math thus infested my whole life.
I was so possessed by the fear of math that I passed out flat while I was studying with my best friend a day before the math paper. On the day of exam I resembled the melancholy goat that knows that in a matter of hours it is going to be presented on a bright white china plate along with red wine.
I am being unnecessarily explicit by writing that I flunked the test. Of course, I was “allowed to keep terms” so could take five devastatingly fresh subjects to go along with my earlier math failure. I managed to clear everything by the end of the third semester.
By the end of fourth semester, I realized that Chemical Engineering was essentially Mathematics disguised in various forms. We used to have one Math subject each semester even as we reached the pre-final semester. Anything else was essentially math along with some chemical mumbo-jumbo. Every paper that we appeared for was a math paper with problems that would take up all of our supplements and yet have no definite answer.
When we came out of the hall, there would be around three groups of people with three different (but same within the group) answers and the typical class toppers would want to go to the professor to find out what the right answer was. I used to hate all of them with all my heart. When they set out like victorious warriors to go and see the professor I felt like pushing them off the stairs. I used to quietly leave the place while they thumped their fists on table for every right answer and calculated their results even before the papers were out of the campus. At first it was very distressing, but later I developed this saintly attitude. I never bothered about the result (until I got it in black and white on a shiny sheet of paper at the end of each semester) I just studied and appeared for exams.
Sometimes the professors who set the paper made mistakes in forming the questions in which case the students got full marks for the attempt. So every time I left for a math paper, I used to pray to God that it be filled with wrong, unchecked lousy problems with many misprints and typographical errors. I can state without any doubt that all the math papers where in I have managed to get decent grades are a result of the paper-setters’ negligence.
While my computer science friends moved on to the more mysterious world of virtual languages, I was still offered gross mathematics needed to solve earthly problems like blowing up of reactors or process reactions going out of control. As they converged into a world that never needed any raw material except a lot of gray matter, I learned statistics, process control and economics. There was never a dull moment. I was almost always frightened and perpetually worried about getting my GPA dangerously low. When I realized that the math offered to us in a particular semester was beyond my control, I used to slog painfully hard to try and make up with whatever ray of light I had in the management and economics section where I always scored the highest in class.
I had predicted my fate. I had concluded that by the end of four years, I would be a vegetable with no confidence left. In my mind, I often yelled at myself for being such an outrageously ambitious Idiot and taking up something I would have to deal with for four long years. Those four long years, incidentally seemed very short.
I graduated with an above average GPA, and the only fear of another miserable failure was quelled.
As a part of my job I need to use everything that I learned as a Chemical Engineering student. I need statistics, I need my skills of good observation, of looking at a heap of numbers and trying to get them to make sense, of predicting the behavior of toxic compounds, of finding out why a particular method of extraction fails for a particular matrix, of trying to eliminate the unwanted billionth part of a healthy fruit. :)
All of this needs math. In fact all of everything needs math.
I am still lousy when it comes to mathematics. I don’t go to the point of asking Math out, but I never go to the lengths of standing it out either. Those four years have not made me a better Math student or even a Problem-savvy-alpha-woman. If I am given a random process problem, I may not get it right in the first attempt (or even the tenth for that matter) but I know that I will not give up till I get it right. :)
My petrified pursuit of math has taught me to fight. Somehow that spirit is now my personality. I fight equally hard in all areas of my life. Including making meticulous work schedules and following them to the hilt and getting up at Godly hours to hit the gym.
I think I did a wise thing and stayed with math after the catastrophic HSC result. The God of Numbers doesn’t hate me as much anymore. We have reached a truce. :)

Mandai :)

 

Welcome to the Mandai. This is a Marathi word for a market place.
Sunday mornings should be spent here,

Because you get to know the exact number of the kind of people that live in your city
You see the Rich, coming in expensive cars but buying the same Onions nonetheless
And you see the Not-so-Rich, who usually merge with the background except when they are upset about the inflation!
You see the middlemen, chewing tobacco as they stand in a heap of rotten tomatoes
And you see the sellers, lighting nauseating incense sticks before opening their cash boxes.
You see kids being dragged by persecuted parents, and babies bawling over all the adult commotion.
The chai walahs, roaming around with aluminum kettles containing almost refluxed tea!
The seller’s wives rivaling each other, dressed in greens to match what they have in their baskets.
And the buyer’s wives getting mad at their husbands for not haggling with the prettier “seller’s wives”.

You see Colors

Orange Moons of Pumpkin Crescents
Fresh ripe tomatoes with droplets of water, making rainbows with sunlight!
The Old Green of Fenugreek
The Middle-aged Green of Spinach
And The Adolescent Mint!
Pink, with a tinge of orange in Carrots.
Greenhouse Bell Peppers all Yellow and Red
Morning White Radish
Violet Cabbages
Pink-White crunchy apples
Black grapes, with residual leaves making a picturesque fruit basket
A dozen rising Suns of refreshing Lemons

You see Personalities
Smug Cabbages
Orphaned heaps of Potatoes and Onions
Serene, Yogi Oranges
Pimpled Custard Apple and Dimpled Peach
Engaging Water Melon (I so wish they made it seedless!)
Petite French Beans
Inspiring Lettuce, Celery and Watercress :)
The Middle-Class Cauliflower
Wise Ginger and Evasive Lemon grass
High Maintenance Strawberries and Pompous Mangoes.
And as if anthropomorphizing the veggies isn’t enough, it gets you worried about their Fate as well!!

What will happen of the spinach bought from the same basket by different people?
The Maharashtrian kaku will probably boil it into a “nutritious” (read bland) gravy
The Gujju Ben will roll it up in Theplas and serve it with oily pickles
The Punjaban will deep-fry it with Paneer
And the New Age Woman (who refuses to be labeled by Culture, State, Nation and even her own Husband) will toss it up along with about five other martyrs into a low-calorie-high-in-folic-acid-and-calcium Salad :)