Cherry's World

THE 100th POST AND MY WRITING FIRST TIME IN PRINT

2012-02-15T00:27:00.000-08:00

It is but a mere coincidence, that the 100th post in this blog and my communicating to you, on my writing coming out in print for the first time, is happening at the same time. In a world where we have an ocean of books and authors, this is but nothing. But the day I saw my writing published in a hard magazine, it was a great feeling. Reading on the internet and reading from a book or magazine gives a different feel.

Three of my writings had already come on web magazines but still that did not satisfy me the way this publishing did. My friends and family also had the same feel.

My father called me up as soon as he received the free magazine copy. I remember printing out the pages of the earlier publications from the web magazines for his reading. But there was a joy in him that I could feel this time, when he read my work in a real magazine. My daughter was thrilled to see my name in the magazine and she also liked the pictures the magazine publishing house had put in there based on my writing. When I reached home my Dad congratulated me at the gate and my daughter gave me a warm hug. My sister and wife were really happy for me. My sister had prepared a special snack for the evening too. I saw my wife reading the article while she was into her cooking. I believe these are the signs that my family has started looking at my writing a lot more seriously.

SHREDDED MUSHROOM CURRY

2012-01-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

This Sunday I got the opportunity to get back to cooking after a long time and I tried out mushroom curry. It was lip smacking and believe me you are going to like it too. This was the first time I was trying out making a mushroom curry with this approach and I think it came out well by sheer accident. I believe you also should try it out especially when you have the time to relax and enjoy a cooking experiment.

One funny thing that happened in the middle of the cooking was that the mixer's opening gave way and a part of the puree found its way to the bottom of the kitchen's shelf and some on to my head. Otherwise it was real fun. I normally get into a wild singing mode while am cooking and that good mood reflects in the results too.

Here is the recipe. Give it a shot.

Slice 2 big onions and 3 tomatoes into medium pieces.
Slice a small piece of ginger and 3 pods of garlic
Seperate peas from about 10 green peas pods
Keep 1/4 kg of oyster mushroom shredded. It is this shredding of the button mushrooms that brings a big difference to the curry. Putting the mushrooms inside as buttons gives a totally different taste.

Pour 4 teaspoons of oil into a shallow open pan and keep it on a medium flame.
Add a small quantity of mustard and once the bursting starts, add the onions and saute, till the onions get a shade brown.
Add ginger and saute and then garlic and continue the sauteing.
Add the tomato pieces and saute. Add some water so that the tomato gets a little cooked.
Take the pan off the flame and transfer the contents into the mixer's jar. Whip the contents for about 2 to 3 minutes and keep the puree ready.
Pour 4 teaspoons of oil into a shallow open pan and keep it on a medium flame.
Add a small quantity of mustard and once the bursting starts, add the puree carefully using a large spoon.
Add the mushroom and peas into this mix and pour sufficient quantity of water so as to spread around the mushroom.
Add one teaspoon of chilli powder, one and half teaspoons of coriander powder, a pinch of turmeric and 3/4 teaspoon of gharam masala.
Add salt in small pinches and keep checking the taste slowly to spot the minute differences in taste till you get the final right one.
Leave the contents to boil for about 15 minutes so that the curry gets a little thick and then switch of the flame.
The mushroom curry is now ready for you.
A few chappatis and rice can form a hit combo with this curry. Go for it!!!

SUNSET AT PALLIKARANAI

2012-01-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

OUR GROUP WAS ON SONG THIS YULETIDE

2012-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

This yuletide took us to more competitions. We emerged winners and learnt good lessons too.

We had two free singing opportunities and four competitions.

We were dethroned at the very first encounter, but got back to the winning rhythm from the second competiton. One of these was the "Battle of Carols" organized by Chennai 104.8 FM where we even competed with professional bands and emerged second.

I believe that even if another group took up the same songs that we sang, we would still have won them by a mile, as we had a great conductor who trained us and brought the best out of us.

We also had great co-ordinators who organized the several gatherings, rehearsals and trips extremely well.

We also could clearly see, how our opponents have improved over the years. And that meant that we will have to slog more, and challenge ourselves more, to retain the crown while we move into the coming years.

I liked the camaraderie of this group. Everytime I went back home, I took with me a lot of energy from it. This energy flowed in all the more, when we gave out our victory cry each time. I could sense enthusiasm, a fighting spirit and a killer instinct in that cry. And that still keeps filling in me and in everything I do. Its a great feeling.

LITTLE SURE STEPS AND A BIG DREAM

2011-11-10T09:01:00.000-08:00

Its my pleasure to share this story that got published in a magazine in the United States for an Indian Association. They have also published few paintings of mine.

Please visit

http://www.naska.org/news.php

and click on Dowload Souvenir 2011 at the bottom right to download the magazine in pdf format. The story and paintings are in there from Page 36 to Page 39.These paintings are already there in the blog archives.

Have a good time.

THE CHURCH AT MANARCAD, KOTTAYAM

2011-10-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

What I like best about this shot are the few pigeons that have come as part of this picture, on either side of the cross. I never noticed this while I was taking this picture.

KERALA'S NATURAL ELEGANCE

2011-10-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

MADURAI AND FROM THE TAJ GATEWAY

2011-09-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

FROM TUTICORIN THROUGH KOVILPATTI TO THIRUNELVELI

2011-09-24T01:53:00.001-07:00

AMAZING SHAPES OF WATER AT ATHIRAPALLY AND VAZHACHAL

2011-09-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

THE MAN WHO CURED MY BLINDNESS

2011-08-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

Happy to share with you, that this story has been selected for publication by the Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pte Ltd. for their magazines. Their intimation and the story is below.

My first days in Kolkata were pathetic. I was here to join a new company and this was the first time I was staying away from home. Loneliness crept into me many times everyday. Till I found an independent house, I was staying out of a paying guest facility close to Karunamoyee in Salt Lake. My very good friend Vimal Andrews had put me there for an interim stay. The ambivert in me took time to make friends in Kolkata. Learning the language also took time.

I had a room with two beds and with enough space for two persons to live in. We had two cupboards with locks and a table and chair with one attached toilet. The building had several such rooms and there were lots of people there who stayed for an interim period. In the span of the few months that I was there, I had three room mates and for some time I was alone too. One of these room mates was a young person from Andhra who was there for most of the time. The other was an elder person who was there for just about a few days. But after a house was planned for me and I had taken a decision to shift, there came in another room mate Shankar Das with whom I spent just about a few weeks’ time. But that stay is something that will remain etched in my memory for ever.

Shankar was a blind young man. I saw him first when I returned from work on a weekend. He was sitting on one of the beds with his back towards me. On first appearance Shankar would give anyone the impression that he was from a rich pedigree. He had a very fair appearance, an aquiline nose, a good height and was arguably an adonis. He looked great in his two piece suit, with a golden wrist band on the right hand and a gold plated watch on the left. His two pieces of leather baggage lay in a corner which meant that he was yet to settle down into the room and probably was waiting for me. I was already expecting a room mate anytime and I took the initiative to go ahead with the introductions. And so I put my hand forward saying “Nice meeting you. I am Roy”. Shankar paused and groped with his hand towards the direction from where my voice came and held out his hand. It was a real shock for me as I never at any time expected that I would share the same room with a blind person. I gave him a dead fish handshake and proceeded to freshen up and settle down. It took time for me to get over the shock. We had lots of moments of silence between us for the first few days. There were times when I pretended that I did not hear his repeated questions. I did not like being his room mate. I was forced to spend more time observing what he was doing.

In a few days I noticed that Shankar developed a very good idea of where the different objects were in the room. He made use of the edges of the bed or the door to get a relative sense of where the other objects were. I noticed that the things he placed on the table formed a systematic arrangement. It was like every time I saw the same things, I felt that they had never been moved any time. I came to understand from the house owner that he was from a very rich family and that he was employed somewhere in West Bengal and was in Kolkata for sometime for some personal work. When twilight hit the sky, Shankar would sit near the window and look out. I was not sure how he was keeping track of time, but twilight always brought him to the window. The direction of his gaze would be towards the trees and the sky, while we could hear the chirp of birds heading for their nests. Shankar would smile once in a while and I used to wonder what made him do so. I never could think of a moment when I sat near the window smiling while looking at the sky and the trees. Sometimes he would sing melodious Hindi film songs while sitting there and that slowly drew me to him like never before.

Days passed by and so did weeks. I had failed to notice that our room’s restroom was all very clean and the objects in it were all well arranged. We did not have anyone from outside doing it and it was up to us to maintain it. Even though I tried several times to keep it clean, my previous room mates would mess it up. Shankar I noticed was strikingly different. He took the pain to keep things clean and tidy. I could not believe that a blind person could be so organized. My impression about him changed so much and I started loving his company. I showed that overtly one day, when I sang immediately after he completed one of his songs at twilight. I saw his face turn towards me and when I kept singing, he listened in rapt attention. After the song, he could not control his joy and he came towards me and gave me both his hands. We held our hands together for a long time and he appreciated me for my singing. I gave him my compliments too.

He was a much superior human than what I thought about him and although I was not literally blind, the blindness of the character in me could not accept a person like him initially. But with the blindness that nature had burdened him with, he was still able to smile and that was a great lesson for me. Shankar was blind indeed, but he opened the blind eyes of my mind that day. I believe that I learnt to smile more at life after meeting him. I spent a few more days there with Shankar after which I moved out to the new house. It was indeed a sad day for me. He did ask me once whether I found it difficult staying with him. I replied that I really felt happy staying with him. I do not know how much he felt convinced inside his heart about what I said as he could never see my real genuine expression. But Shankar lives in my heart even today and I have a great respect for him. Every time I sit with my daughter, near our house’s window and enjoy the evening sun while chirping birds head for their nests, great reminiscences of Shankar singing at twilight flash through me. And that will remain in me forever.

FLAGS OF HOPE, FLAGS OF DETERMINATION

2011-08-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

While I wait for my daughter,

At the gates of her school,

A big bunch of little ones,

Holding on to tiny flags,

Run all around me.

I can see the spirit on their faces,

And deep down in heir hearts,

I can sense their determination too,

To do anything for India.

Painted on their faces,
Is the true enthusiasm,
That India's freedom,

Is truly to be celebrated.

They will grow up,

Like all of us grew up,

With the principles of Gandhi,

And other great leaders,

Served to us almost everyday,

For us to imbibe and apply,

In our daily lives.

But those of us,

Who held on to those principles,

Find ourselves alone in a crowd,

As many have understood,

What the real India around them is,

And have paddled their canoe,

In the direction that benefits them.

But little do these children know,

That when time flies by,

And they grow,

With these principles engrained,

Deep in their hearts,

That they will turn out to be,

Odd men in the huge crowd,

Sadly to be outnumbered,

By a huge majority,

Who live not for the progress,

Of the nation or its people,

But just with the selfish intent,

Of amassing wealth and recognition,

For their own self and their families.

Still I wish that a few,

Of these spirited little ones,

Stand up some time for India and its people,

In atleast a few things they do,

India

still is fighting for freedom,

From the clutches of evil,

Of which corruption and nepotism,

Are just a few.

It is important that we elders,

Support these little ones,

To take that step,

Towards standing up for what is right.

Only then can we mould heroes,

Who can save India,

From the clutches of evil,

So that every inch of our country,

Will bathe in progress.

Let us salute India on Her Independance,

Jai Hind. Jai Hind.

PLAYING SECOND FIDDLE?

2011-07-31T08:04:00.000-07:00

I asked the moon on what it felt,

On my great impression,

That it was always playing,

Second fiddle to the sun,

Who is the brighter of the two.

It told me that its role is different,

And tailored for the night,

Which the sun could never ever do.

It boasted to me as to how,

Every mother would make her child,

Look up to the night sky,

To see the beautiful moon,
And the little stars,
Bathe and twinkle in the moonlight.

But the sun was never ever,

Such a treat for anyone’s eyes.

And so, the moon makes me believe,

That every human is unique too,

And has been created by Providence,

For a very distinct purpose too.

SURFEIT! LORD THAT'S WHAT I SEE

2011-07-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

Surfeit! Lord, that’s what I see
More than my needs, Thou hast given me
All that I asked for, You did not heed
For you did know what were my needs.

So let me serve with my heart,
Serve with my mind,
Serve with my whole self,
Serving my Lord in all way.

So let me thank with my heart,
Thank with my mind,
Thank with my whole self,
Thanking my Lord in all way.

Wonderful creations, all that I see,
Precise and complete are thy works on these,
Am I more precious than all these to thee?
That you still keep perfecting me.

Tormenting times, in what I’ve been,
Nestled in your arms, you guarded me,
Why did you care for this sinner, that’s me?
It’s just that you loved me.

P.S: This is the first song I wrote and it was for the Bible School children. I managed to give it a tune and my daughter sang it once on stage too. I shall upload the recording of this song soon.

NATURE WEAVING MAGIC - SHOTS AROUND OOTY AND COONOOR

2011-07-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE INDRA GANESAN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, TRICHY

2011-07-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

Respected Chairman Shri T Ganesan,Director Shri. T.Gopalakrishnan,Secretary Shri.M.Rajashekaran,Principal Shri V.Rajamani, HOD-IT Shri Rajesh , teachers and my dear students...good morning to you all.

Standing amongst you today takes me down memory lane, into times twenty years back when I was also a student. Inspiration and hope always blossom in me whenever I see students who are the young and happening minds and also the teachers who are the makers of these great young minds of the future and the true pillars of this institution.

The future of the Indian IT revolution and the future of Global IT is in your hands. How will you take it and march forward is the big question that you will all encounter soon.

I will be happy to spend the next few minutes in sharing with you two important aspects:

1. On what you can do to shine in the IT industry and how the IT industry can shine through you and

2. How to get inspired and also be an inspiring person.

So let me share a few thoughts about how you can shine in IT and make IT shine through you:

1. A. Looking back at the inventions and discoveries that have happened, many have been the result of interest and passion. Many did not have formal education. Even if they had it was coupled with huge loads of inspiration to reach that level of working with a passion and with the focus of a gimlet, working to a single point. So develop a passion, a thirst for a few subjects beyond what is being taught in the classrooms or beyond the motivation to score marks. Take one or two technology areas and learn it in an out, practice it practically, learn from the mistakes, be an authority, present and debate on these areas and keep these subjects close to your heart. Wherever you go, the world will look up to you and respect you for this in depth knowledge. And this knowledge will take you places.

1. B. Find ways to innovate in some to start with and then in most of the things you do as time progresses. Question and understand basic assumptions and bring about radical changes. We have two types of people. For e.g. when we give a bunch of sticks to people and instruct them to break it, one category will blindly obey and execute the instructions while the other category thinks and comes out with questions like “Why should we break??”, “Is it the right way to break??” , “What is the ultimate purpose??”, “Should we break it at all??”, “Is there another way or a better way to do it to meet the same purpose?”. With these questions come progress, innovation and leadership through ideas. We should also we willing to listen and answer when others shoot similar questions at us. We need the obedient category too in some stages of work where we cannot entertain too many questions.

1. C. IT operates out of different domains. What are domains? IT works out of domains like manufacturing units, hospitals, financial institutions, insurance companies, telecom sectors, etc. It is important that you also understand at a high level how these entities work. For e.g. in a hospital from the time a patient gets admitted to the time he gets discharged, what are the processes and what data go into the IT systems? For what period is the history maintained? What are the different types of information taken out from the IT system at different stages and at different hierarchy levels? So how can you make this happen? Take time to visit these areas, observe, read about them, and understand. If you know someone who works in any of these areas, take their help to get a good understanding of these areas. This will place you at a higher level of knowledge wherever you go.

1. D. To be a part of a team that plays any game, we have selection criteria. And so in the game of your career too we have selection criteria. One of them is your score i.e. your marks. Although they do not fully reflect your knowledge depth, still it is good to maintain a good average at a steady pace. And that should start from day one, and not in your 3rd or 4th year. So work on it and let your scores be the result of a quest to understand the subject better and to be able to discuss and debate about it in the days to come. Score well and score each time anyone quizzes you on the subject. It will be great to have that approach when you study your subjects.

1. E. The English language has different flavors in different countries. Customers or clients from these countries will talk to you when you are into a software job and you need to understand and talk to them in these flavors. Language is power. We need people who can correspond with customers of different English speaking countries. We also have a huge demand for language skills beyond English like Japanese, French, German, Spanish, etc. So if you can spend time acquiring skills in one of these languages, it will come in handy when opportunity strikes.

1. F. Develop your soft skills like presentation skills, communication skills, language skills and practice them hard. Symposiums like this and other meets or festivals in college offer so many opportunities to come and speak on the stage, to take ownership of activities, to execute plans and to anticipate and plan for risks. When you get a chance to speak on stage or present information to a crowd, be it any language, grab it. You may falter initially, but tomorrow I am sure you will dominate. Practice communication by always giving the right information, not less and not more and by fully understanding the situation. I am sure you will be aware that many great leaders were initially not great speakers. There were barriers they had to overcome to get on to the stage and face people. Abraham Lincoln, the former US President used to spend time in the night practicing his speech by talking to the trees.

1. G. 80 % of our success in any job depends on our ability to deal with people, those who are our bosses, our team mates and those below you when you are leaders. We don't have to be stubborn in tough times, but we have to learn to be aggressive and assertive with a calm exterior. But how can u do it? It needs a lot of practice. You participation in team activities of different kinds and in different roles, as a leader, as a mentor, as a critic or as a workhorse will help you shape yourselves in the tough mould. We should also involve in healthy arguments or debates and practice decision making, convince or get convinced and observe the different people with deal with and their qualities and strengths and learn to respond tactically suspending emotions. We all take time to master this art and so we need to put in a lot of practice. But I am sure that the result of this hard work will take you a long way.

These are the areas that you will have to focus when u enter the IT industry and work through the first 3 to 4 years.

And now let me share a few points on how to keep u inspired and how to inspire others:

One question that many people have asked me and I often found it difficult to answer when I was at school was about what I wanted to be in my career. Every time that question came up and I took time to answer, the people who asked me would give me multiple hints i.e. whether my choice was to be a doctor or an engineer or a chartered accountant. I don’t remember of having heard any other options other than these three from them. I have seen so many scientists excel in their fields and grab Nobel prizes. But I am not sure why the same individuals did not ask me whether I wanted to be a scientist. After many years I came to understand that a tailor named Syed Bawker in Chennai won a Padma Shri for his contribution to tailoring and for taking it to the next level. And similarly I did find so many individuals in several other fields who did shine. I believe as my life progressed the pieces in the puzzle fell into place and I got the answer to what I wanted to be. And I believe the answer is that I should be someone who will inspire others irrespective of the profession I am into. That energy which this inspiration generates can take us to the higher levels at lightening speed. It is not the money or the prominence in the society that can carry you there. Money and the pseudo prominence we earn by virtue of being part of a profession are like mud packs that we carry on us.

As we all know we have a lot of great and prominent men from whom we can draw inspiration. Although I will be taking a few of them as examples too, let me first take a few examples from the common people whom I encountered.

2. A. Every Saturday and Sunday evening when I go for a walk near my house, I notice an old cobbler at work. The way he keeps his shop organized is something that always remains in my mind. Frankly I take inspiration from him to set all the things in my house in a systematic order. A lot of customers line up everyday at his shop. And how he makes each customer feel special is a point I take on customer management from him. Even today I am not sure how he is able to keep smiling even when there is a huge beeline of customers waiting. I am still trying to reach that level.

2. B. In the previous company that I worked with there was a low skilled painter who was never trained in any technical skills and who through sheer interest and determination made a miniature working model with exact scaled down dimensions of the company’s huge product which was one of the tyre curing presses. No one believed when he commenced his work but when he finally got it done, the people around were dumbstruck. And this gave him recognition and faster growth in the company. Many times I think about while at work.

2. C. Many friends of mine have told me about stages in their career when they would get hooked on to work with so much interest that nothing else would get into their mind. Even while they travel back home, their minds would be on how to write the challenging logic of a program or how to come out with a design that would solve some challenging problems in the product. Even I have gone through those superb moments. Many times we have got back to office on those very nights to try out the logics that would strike our minds suddenly. Again it does not happen always and in all areas of work but only in the areas and in times that we are passionate about. So always strive at every stage of your career to spot passionate patches that will keep your energy up and your minds active.

Drawing examples from the very prominent individuals in the different fields, we all know the list will be endless. But there are a few that often keeps coming back to my mind.

2. D. I remember reading the extracts of an interview with the great cricketer Imran Khan. One of his statements always remains in me. He said ' When we reach a stage when we start feeling that hard work is not hard work, that is when we start enjoying what we do, and only that takes you to the next level' . I have experimented with this concept and it is a real fact. So, spot your passions in your profession early and you will never feel that you are working hard.

2. E. Every time I see a plane fly, I always ask myself how the inventors, the Wright brothers, would have been looked at when they first spoke of this idea to the people around. How people would have jeered their idea. But they moved on with their conviction and gave us the aero plane which many of us enjoy traveling. Many year s back all men saw birds fly but only a few asked and thought how they are able to, and their strong analysis gave us the basic aero plane that changed our lives. So many got inspired from this and made the improvements in the basic aircraft. We go thru through this life in this world only once. What are we going to give to our people through our strong thinking and analysis which can relieve their burdens and ease their lives? So think about it and your actions will inspire so many around you.

2. F. As I told you earlier how a human’s mind get involved when passionate can be seen through the lives of many inventors. James Watt who invented the first stream engine observed what did not strike the minds of many. He observed how the steam in a tea kettle could shake its lid. and applied his mind and the steam engine was born. This inspired many who improved on this concept.

So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it was great feeling to share my thoughts with all of you. Mull on these and I wish that great things will happen out of each one of you. Let me conclude by wishing you all the best for a great career into the future. Thank you once again.

ON THE LONELY ROAD TO RECOVERY

2011-07-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

I am happy to share with you that this writing has been published by Femina. This writing is based on a personal experience that I went through.You may view this at the link pasted below.

http://readerspost.femina.in/featured/on-the-lonely-road-to-recovery

This was also selected by the Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pte. Ltd. Their intimation is below.

Thanks much to all for spending time to read and to go through all my work. It's your backing that keeps me going everyday.
Hope you will enjoy.....

THE GIFT THAT COMES WITH EVERY DAWN

2011-07-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

After the daily battles of life,

When I get back home,

All weary and with my spirits down,

And with no hopes,

Of ever realizing my dreams,

Sleep hits me soon,

And my mortal body goes weightless.

But at the crack of dawn,

While darkness slowly surrenders,

At daylight’s altar,

The first beams of sunlight,

Creep through the trees,

And bathes my body with hope.

My heart soars with optimism again,

And my dead dreams revive.

Dawn gives me the firm belief,

That resurgence is there for sure.

Dawn prepares me

For life’s next encounter.

I thank the Almighty everyday,

For giving me a new dawn.

THE DETERIORATING WETLAND @ PALLIKARANAI, CHENNAI

2011-07-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

Please visit the link below to understand more facts on this wetland.

http://cherryspace.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-can-we-do-for-this-lake-and.html

A SHOT THROUGH THE TREES@NIGHT

2011-07-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

I am really happy it came out well. Had to take several shots in the "Moving" mode, so that the swaying of the branches in the wind had minimal impact.

Please click on the snap to see the enlarged view.

THE MELTING DOORS OF MY HEART

2011-06-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

After we separated,

Several times I told myself,

That I would never be thinking about you.
I thought I had surmounted,
The feelings that often crept into me.
For all the ruthlessness you had displayed,
To drive me out of your life,
I always wanted to keep you out of my heart.
So I shut the doors of my heart,
And practised everyday, ways to hate you,
And to keep you out of my mind.
It was all fine when my spirits were high,
But when it went down each time,
And I did not have a single soul to turn to either,
You banged the doors of my heart.
I tried my best not to let you in,
But the doors seemed to melt,
And there you walked in again.
Am not sure if you felt the same anytime,
And I am not sure what that feeling is either.
Some call this love,
But all I know is that I am still your slave,
Who is so helpless and obsessed,
And who can’t be without you.

LIGHTENING UP HAPLESS LIVES (ORIGINAL VERSION)

2011-06-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

It was a starry night and the moon looked bright and beautiful. Sandeep was on the street taking a stroll and a gentle breeze engulfed him. He could see the sky painted with beams of colourful light, while the sound of fireworks reverberated faraway. He presumed that it was some kind of celebration happening out there somewhere.

In the small interludes between the sounds of the fireworks, he could hear the feeble cry of an infant!! He made his way through the dark street, and looked around frantically. Soon, he found the source from where the feeble cry was coming. He spotted a tender little girl child on a garbage heap. He knew that it was one of the abandoned ones.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he took her up, hugging her with the entire dirt, as her tender fingers clasped firmly on to him.

“Oh God!!” he cried. He looked at her poignantly and muttered while weeping, “O' sweet one, who gave birth to you? How could they leave you like this”? He looked up at the sky and wept saying “O’ bright moon and you twinkling stars!! Does your beauty mean anything to me now? All the beams of light out there; it’s not the time for you to decorate the sky. It is a time of sorrow. Disappear…please disappear.”

And then the scene seemed to have changed suddenly. It was a bright day and faraway he could see a celebration. Yes, it was a festival of some kind, and melodious music reached his ears. As he approached closer, he could see beautiful women and men in their best attire, and some with sufficient amount of their skin, exposed to grab attention, almost banging on the thresholds of decency. As the basic human in him was lost in a world of fantasy, looking around with his dreamy eyes, he spotted a frail woman just outside the celebration venue, in tattered clothes, that was hardly enough to cover her body. She was carrying a little child in her arms, and begging for food, while gourmets at the function were showering compliments on the best dishes. Her hold on life seemed tenuous, contrary to the little one's tenacious hold for its feed, on her breasts, for what would have been the only lavish intake, it could ever dream of. It struck him hard deep down his heart. “Alas!! Here is an irony, here is a nudity that kills my fantasy and bleeds my heart”, he moaned. “O' you beautiful women out there….my eyes are blind to the fantasy that your skin offers?” he wailed.

Yonder he heard the scream of children, and the barking of dogs. Yes, he could see them and he walked towards them. He reached a street and the surroundings had a festive appearance. He could see decorations inside and outside several houses. “Is it a Christmas celebration?” he asked himself. He was not sure. He could hear the Catholic Church choir’s rendition. “Aha!! Such a melody!!” he thought while enjoying it.

He reached the spot. It was a garbage dump. A big spread of the remains of a huge feast, thrown out from several houses lay scattered all over the place. The little scavengers were pushing each other, in their scramble for the food remains. There were a few dogs, which also joined the fray. He saw not just dust and dirt, but also the sweet smiles that dressed these unfortunate little faces. It appeared to him that their fate was to share, crumbs of food waste, with stray animals; and like them, they were blessed with neither good food nor a state to say “Enough” to food. “O'God!! This Christmas seems to be just wide enough to bring me transient happiness, but is it deep enough to wipe out, these pictures of sorrow?” he lamented.

“Bang,Bang…oh!!! Fireworks ? Where am I?” he wondered for a moment. He could hear the children scream again, and his body shook as he was taken unawares with the cacophony of the crackers bursting all around. The sound of the fireworks, seemed to continue incessantly, as his eyes strained through the darkness, and out through the window. He could see colourful fireworks pierce the sky, in the yielding darkness of early dawn. “Alas!! It was a dream, a total dream!! A dream drenched with sorrow, a dream soaked in irony!!” he mused, as he got up and sat on his bed.

It took time for him to realize all that he went through was a dream, and that Diwali was here for sure that day!! It seemed to him that the human mind was desperately trying to lighten up and colour, the obvious gloom of the world that the dark sky portrayed. Yes, it was as though the entire colour and the light, which the human mind tried to

fill the dark sky with, was but too little to wipe off the gloom. Alas!! Every time the fireworks dressed the sky, darkness followed again!!! The world to him, seemed to be festive on the outside, but deep inside it had great loads of sorrow of all kinds.

In a few moments Sandeep was up, and an hour later, ready to join his family, for the celebration of Diwali. The sky was beautiful in the darkness of dawn, dressed with the colour of fireworks that formed beautiful patterns in the sky. An atmosphere of festive mirth filled the hearts of the people around. On the streets, amidst the cracker fire, and the fumes of smoke, he saw men, women and little ones, dressed in their best attire. And so was he, dressed in a new set of clothes and busy working on his bag full of fireworks, while his mouth did its incessant work, of munching the sweets that his mother had made with all love, and the best of her effort.

And then there came a knock, on the door of his conscience. Right there, approaching him were a mother and her little son, adorned by fate with tattered clothes. She begged for food with her frail hands, while the little boy was busy, searching the garbage of littered paper that lay all over the road, for unburned fireworks that Diwali had left for him. Sandeep felt as though that this situation was just a continuation of the similar ones he had seen in his dream. It moved him.

He gave them sweets, a set of old clothes and a packet full of fireworks specially for the little one. Later a few yards away on the street, Sandeep found the boy with the fireworks, making a celebration of his own, while the mother was busy, feeding the boy his share of sweets.

That night after all his fireworks were done, and as he lay down to sleep, Sandeep was happy that he was able to bring, not just the light out from those fireworks, but also some light of compassion, into the darkness of a few suffering human lives. He also did realize how blessed he was with shelter, clothing and especially food everyday, so much so that he could say “Enough” after every meal.

You may also view the version published in the Femina Magazine through the link below:

http://cherryspace.blogspot.com/2010/04/lightening-hapless-lives.html

SOME SHOTS FROM THE VANDALUR ZOO @ CHENNAI

2011-05-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Just trying clicking on the picture below and count the number of birds in this.

WHEN BOTH THE KITE AND MY HEART SOARED

2011-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have stood watching kites fly when I was pretty young. I was so very interested in flying kites that time, but my father used to look at it as something associated with urchins. So I used to fly them from the balcony of my house when he was not there. And those kites never reached even the little tree tops. The best I could do was to get one of them a little above the electric wires running through the street's electric posts, but soon they would get entangled between them too.

My father used to tell me about incidents where street children would run after kites that went loose once the strings were cut, and how they got knocked down by vehicles on the roads. Some fell from house tops while flying the kites. The more he told these, the more did kite flying become to me, like something that should never be attempted.

I used to spend time watching young boys having competitions with kites, with one snapping off the other through swift and adroit moves. It was a pleasure to watch the kites swoop down or sideways to attack the other. I also used to watch the kite enthusiasts make their special paste that they would apply on top of the strings. This paste had powdered glass mixed into it so that it could easily cut the opponent’s string.

Years slipped by and I think I spent many years just watching kites fly. But last week on the Marina, it happened by chance. I just bought one kite and a huge bunch of thread and launched one into the air for my daughter. It was really a great feeling. At that point it was not only the kite that soared up, but also my heart. My daughter and my relatives who were with me also enjoyed the moment. I tried all those deft moves but nothing really happened. But still it was really a great feeling.

There are many such things in life that I have missed because I got locked into a mindset caused due to some negatives in these. But many times the positives in these are so much. I am going to spend the rest of my life trying each of these once again with my daughter.

MURALIKUMAR'S MASTERPIECE

2011-04-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

We were fresh young recruits in 1990 ambling around the corners of the factory observing all that was around. This was our first job and everything was new to us and so we spent watching everything with awe. The huge machines, the hum of the huge industrial fans and blowers, the shrill sound of tools cutting through the tough metals, the tough workers who braved the day’s heat in open shop floors with no air conditioners, with their bodies adorned with pearls of sweat, the feel of metal chips under our industrial boots as we walked over them. All these were new for us.

There were four others in my batch of trainees. Workers were not as amenable to us as the executives or the senior management. Interactions with them had to be done in wary steps. There were a few tense situations that we had to go through with some of them. In a few months I had developed some kind of affability with a few workers. Some of them started talking to me at length, some waved from a distance, some smiled and things started getting better.

The initial days of training was fun as I spent more time exploring the different corners of the factory to see what was happening. Many times when I reached the end of the third bay of the factory, I noticed a worker with his head fully covered with a hood and with an industrial coat on, getting into and out of the shot blasting centre. The shot blasting centre was the place where huge assembled components were subjected to impact by small high pressure metal pellets in a closed compartment. This helped to remove stains, grease and rust and gets the component ready for painting. I came to understand that he was a painter by profession and it was not until 6 months after my joining the factory that I saw his real face, without the hood. And it took another two months for us to get acquainted. He was Muralikumar.

On some Saturday afternoons or late evenings, when most of the administrative and executive staff would have left office, Muralikumar would spend time with me discussing his professional interests. During our initial conversations, my impression about him was that he was just another cribbing personality, who spent most of the conversation time, talking about his present role and about all the opportunities that he was not able to get in the company.

A few months slipped by and one day he took me to his cupboard at the far end of the bay. And there he brought out a few miniature components all so beautiful. I could immediately identify these components. One was the main shaft of one of the products of the company. The other was a gear and there was side link that connected the gear too and all these belonged to the same product. In the distance I could see the actual product and these components getting lined up at the assembly shop.

I was very keen to know how he was going to assemble all these together perfectly as a lot of dimension control had to be maintained when the components were being made. To my utter disbelief he brought out some drawings of some components all scaled down to the miniature size. It was like sizing down a product so as to be placed on a small table. In reality that machine would actually touch the company’s crane rail, close to the roof, when assembled.

I knew that when the product was in the operation mode there would be lot of movements of the different components. So I shot out a lot of questions regarding the same. Muralikumar told me that he was going to try and make all these movements happen in the product. He told me that there were a few managers who were very much interested in what he was doing and were helping him out. But still a lot more had to be done. He told me that he was trying his best to approach several managers for getting more support in terms of funds and capacity to get this done. May be he was expecting the whole thing to happen soon, but it was really taking time as it still was not one of the priority assignments of the company. Priority for a work as we all know, sets in when a customer wants something or top management asks for something. Muralikumar had to wait.

There were many components that he continued to make out of scrap materials and with help from friendly workers who supported him through the making.Years slipped by and I did not really get to know what was happening to his enthusiastic work. I thought he had shelved it for the time being.

Companies as we all know have two communication channels, one being the regular reporting route and the other, the real hot spy network where all the real espionage goes through. And soon Muralikumar got a call from the Chief Executive’s office. He was not sure what it was all about and he spent the three days before the actual date of the call, wondering what it was all about. He tried talking to his best friends and other contacts in the Company but could not a clue through his information network either. And so he waited for the day to come.

It is a different feeling where you are called by the power centres of a company and even more chilling when you don’t know what it is all about. It is even more intense and trying when you have to wait for a few days to get to know the same. The day came and he met the Chief Executive at his office. And when he came out Muralikumar could not hold back his happiness. He shared the discussions he had witht he Chief Executive with us. He was happy that the Chief Executive had put him to good comfort while discussing. He had also enquired about all his interests and Muralikumar felt so happy that he was able to share all his interests to him.

It so happened that the Chief Executive felt that the Sales Team would do a better job if they were able to have real working models of our products in the Sales Offices across the globe. And he told Muralikumar that he had got to know that he was already into something that was not complete but in a bits and pieces stage. So he had asked him about how much more support he required from the Company to get a working model done and also the time frame by which he could get that done. Muralikumar had briefed him on these and the stage was set for the models to be done.

I got the news the very next day even before I entered the company’s gate early that morning. And it appeared to me that this was that day’s hot topic amongst most of the employees in their tea time discussions. I went down and met him at the shot blast booth and congratulated him. I was really happy for him. A few months went by and Muralikumar completed a few beautiful working miniature models of a few products. How an ordinary painter was able to transcend so many barriers and come out with these models was something incredible. How did his passion drive him to learn and do so much while he also had to do his regular painting work was amazing.There was everything technical involved in it, be it design, purchasing, material and tool selection, machining, assembly, electrical and electronics. Sometimes he had to take help and many times he had to step into each of these roles too.

A few months later there was a felicitation ceremony where the Chief Executive rewarded him for his enthusiastic and passionate work, in front of a huge gathering. I also happened to see one of these models at one of the sales offices. It was really a feast for an engineer's eye, so consummate and so compact. I worked on the controls and enjoyed seeing the product in motion.

Years flew by and Muralikumar had earned his recognition for his technical capabilities and so he was moved into the Assembly shop into the role of a skilled assembly worker.

Personally the whole happening had a huge positive effect on me. A few other employees in the Company about whom I will also be writing soon, had the same positive effect on me too. That feeling cannot be described in words. It is something that engulfs you and makes you go after what you dream with such force and such intensity. It is a phase when you slog on something you love and you never feel hard work to be hard work. I remember taking up my passionate software programming initiatives after I saw Muralikumar’s success. I remember waiting for the break of dawn on several nights, so as to rush to office to try out my latest ideas in my software programs, which struck me the previous night.

The first hero I met in my life was at school and that was Austen of whom I had written in one of my earlier posts. Muralikumar also features in that list with a pretty high rating and even today I salute his achievement.

STRUGGLES BEYOND THAT WITH THE PIANO KEYS

2011-04-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

Vikram had just reached home from work and was received by his daughter Shwetha at the gate with a big smile. They hugged for a long time, but did not speak during the hug. So many things got conveyed between both of them in that long hug. He had left for home from office on time and that meant pretty early for his people at home, as he would have been pretty late normally. The day had been hectic and there were many reasons that made his mind feel de-motivated, due to all the issues at the work that he was doing and from all the interactions that happened every day surrounding these petty issues. But still when he saw his daughter at the gate when he reached home, all these vanished. She was all bubbling and upbeat.

She had called up at noon and told him the results of her Trinity Piano exam. Vikram and his wife Seetha were actually expecting her to scrape through, but what she got finally was a distinction in Grade II. Well, this was nothing so great in today’s world, as there were many other children of her age who accomplished much more than this and some, at even a much younger age. That was one way of looking at it. But Vikram always had a different and positive way of looking at what his daughter Shwetha did each time.

He saw how happy Shwetha was. After giving a big ear to all what she had to say about her results and about all the adulations that her music teacher had showered on her today, he settled in a corner with a cup of tea. His mind rolled back to a day two months back when he and Shwetha were getting back home after her weekly piano class. Her teacher Mrs.Patricia had been very stern over the previous few weeks and that day it had hit its zenith. They had just bid goodbye to Mrs. Patricia after she continuously dished out critical feedbacks for five minutes on Shwetha’s pathetic performance that day during the practice session. They had to just listen and Mrs.Patricia did not spare Vikram either, telling him that he was being too soft with her. The door of the teacher’s house closed and they were just walking out of the gate, when Shwetha broke down and cried loudly the first time. Vikram was surprised and he put his arm around her and asked her about it. It hurt him that she was so hurt. She did not reply and continued to cry.

They got into the car and the crying continued and he put his arm around her and tried consoling her. But Swetha took off his hand from her, every time he tried putting it around her to console her. And then when he started his very first word of advice, she started off abruptly while in tears and told him “I cannot do it Pappa, its too much for me. I am trying my best and I am not going to pass this exam at all. I told you many times. Patty Miss is putting me under lot of pressure. Every time I tell Mummy about it, she tells me about all the money spent on the piano and all the classes in the last few years and I am going mad.” She broke down again and her crying was now going out of control.

It made Vikram think deeply. Why was his wife Seetha driving Shwetha so much to pass the Trinity exam? Why was she closely monitoring her practice sessions at home? She recalled Seetha discussing with him that Swetha should have a passion to pursue beyond her work, when she becomes a mature adult. She also felt that if required Swetha should be able to earn something from her passion too. And for that it was important that she not only became really skilled at playing the keyboard but also get certified by an external body like the Trinity College of London. The idea sounded good, but he wondered as to how a child of ten years could understand this purpose.

Another observation he made was Seetha’s approach of prodding her to practise the keyboard more. Seetha neither knew anything about music nor about the keyboard and so she could not really appreciate the good music that Swetha played during her practice sessions at home. But she would draw comparisons with her friend’s children and give Swetha a picture that she was lagging so very behind. This irritated Swetha and got her all the more demotivated. Prodding and pushing was good, and as a mother her intentions were right, but the approach Seetha took was not turning out for the good of Shwetha.

He also strongly felt that the whole family including his wife, did not take Shwetha’s attempt at music seriously. Spending money for the child and expecting results was one part, but then giving her a silent space to practise her music was the respect one should have been giving for all the attempts she was making to go to the next level. That only a very few gave her at home, and that too sometimes and most of them kept talking and doing their chores not mindful of the fact that these were creating a cacophony around Swetha.

Vikram was also going through in parallel a struggle of a little different variety. All the passion he had for singing and playing the violin was never looked at with the same intensity when he was young. He noticed that his friends and individuals outside spotted his good voice but never did his people at home take him that seriously in music. When he went out of the country for a long term job assignment, the people at home would move the violin into the house store room where it would lie like a coffin. Neither did they know that a violin should never be kept that way nor were they willing to listen whenever he told them about this. It was like nothing great was ever going to happen out of that violin through him anyways.

There were times when both Vikram and Swetha would exhibit their musical performances to the people at home, but that would have a lukewarm response. May be the fact was that they knew very little about music to appreciate it. But that was also precisely why so many children with such big talents often go unnoticed in many families, he felt. Vikram believed that this struggle for acceptance internally within the family was important, for the future generations of the family to take up any form of art. That acceptance he believed may not come in today, but when a few from the family come out as good musicians or singers even at a small level, he was sure that it would breed more people with the same passion.

Many times there are struggles that happen within a family, struggles never expressed overtly but still something that we have to go through in slow steps to make our credentials seen, to get our personal space accepted, by our own people.

And what happened to Shwetha in the middle of all this was sad. He had seen her experimenting with new tunes on her own without anybody prodding her and she used to surmount these in a small span of time. That was her natural talent. But all these experimentations stopped when her Trinity exam preparations started. The pressure on her pulled her enthusiasm down.

He turned towards Shwetha again while she was crying. His response to her was slow but assuring. He told her that all what he looked for from was to hear her play some good songs on the piano some day. He told her that when he would become senile and sit in one corner of the house looking at the sky and sipping coffee, watching the evening birds head for the nests and the sun return after it daily stint, it will be great to hear pieces of music being played or being sung by her from some corner of the house. And it would be so great to see her pass on that enthusiasm to her kids as well, when they arrive and are big enough, and thus music will creep in slowly into the generation. And for that, she need not have to prove to anyone around that she has passed a Trinity exam. This was just for herself to surmount the upcoming challenges in music, something to tell herself in re-assurance that she has come thus far and mountains beyond can for surely be climbed. Vikram told her that she was not competing with anyone and that she was only searching herself to find out all that she could do. She was only paving her own road in music. Shwetha understood.

It was with this re-assurance that she went ahead and practiced more and wrote the exam. And now Vikram was so happy so see that she surmounted the challenge and came out with a distinction. But what was more satisfying was the realization in Shwetha that she was only paving her own road inch by inch.

VERTICAL SHOTS

2011-01-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

THE RIGHT ATTITUDE?

2011-01-29T06:15:00.000-08:00

AUSTEN'S 5000 METRES

2011-01-15T03:32:00.000-08:00

Many humans enter and leave our life at different stages, but it is only a very few who leave a lasting impact on our memory that we would always recall and cherish. These individuals are the ones whom I refer to as heroes in my life. Women are also a part of these individuals whom I have classified as heroes who should otherwise have been classified as heroines. I dedicate the first of my writings on these heroes to the first leader I met in my life.

I met this gentleman first on a sunny morning in Nov 1980. It was the Sports time at school and I and my friend were asked to meet this gentleman who would be our captain, at the Railway School ground that lay behind the school at 7.00 a.m. All of the students in the school had been divided into four groups and these were called the Houses and each were given the different names of the famous trains that the Indian Railways had at that time. And they were the Ajantha, the Brindavan, the Corommandel and the Dadar houses. I and my friend Suresh were part of the Ajantha house. Each house had a separate colour for its flag and the uniform the athletes had to wear.

We could see a lot of preparations in progress on the ground that day. A number of workers were busy adorning the whole ground with coloured flags and paper embellishments. The ground was lush and the tracks all around the ground were very clear with the lines all fresh with the limestone powder that was just laid down. In the centre of the ground lay the cricket pitch where cricket heroes battled through the several league matches. We could see the ground’s overseer busy working on the pitch, preparing it for the next battle. Groups of urchins who had crept into the ground from a distant corner were enjoying games of marble and gilli thandil. From the Southern Railway Carriage Workshop far behind we could hear the hoot of old locomotive engine while on its daily run. Near the huge cricket scoreboard on one end of the ground, where the ground overseer had his home, we could see crows and sparrows busy with the food thrown out of his house. And in the huge green expanse of the ground, I could see a tall person stand there with his back towards me. He was there along with another senior examining the long jump pit. I walked up to him and stood behind him patiently. Captains were all Std XII students and so I felt I should wait for him to turn around and take notice of me. I was not the type of person at that age that would directly accost and introduce myself. I was more diffident then. And when he turned, he saw me and came up to me with a broad smile that put me into a lot of comfort in talking to him right away.

“You are Roy? I am Austen Chandy. Sylvester Master told me about you”. He turned to the other senior student and told him, with a big smile “This guy will do very well, I am sure.” I had never run a race in school till that time and this was the first time sports events were being organized at Railway School. And I am not sure even now as to how Austen could so confidently state that. That statement put me into a state where I had lot of confidence and at the same time a lot of responsibility too. Somehow, it is in the nature of man to rise to different levels and deliver results when results of such levels are expected of him. And that was the first sign of a great leadership quality I saw in Austen, a quality to pick people and expect great things from them.

Austen was a tall guy and he had a great voice that was almost close to a baritone. He was not handsome but there was something very charismatic about his personality that attracted a lot of people to him. He was very genial and I don’t remember having seen him without a smile while interacting with others. It was so natural in him to keep smiling most of the time. On some mornings when I reached the school ground, he would ask me to run once around the whole ground, a distance of 400 metres and wait for me at the finishing line. And when I hit the finishing line panting for breath, he would pat me and run his hand back and forth on my back and speak to me. It was a like a champion derby jockey patting and stroking his race horse while putting it through rigorous training sessions and preparing it for the next battle. We would walk slowly on the green expanse of the ground covered with drops of early morning dew. And amidst the buzz of bees and dragon flies, he would tell me why I was so special and about all my strengths that no other opponent in any of the other houses could match with. He also would tell me how good it was to fail and how a true soldier would rise like a phoenix from failures. And these sessions every day made me mentally stronger and took me closer to victory.

During the three weeks that went by as part of the preparations for the Sports Day, he spent time with me on several occasions. He spoke to me, give feedbacks on my running and long jumps and also built inside me the killer instinct. For almost all the races in which I participated my captain Austen would speak to me before the race. “Kill the opponent’s mental strength. Defeat him in a big way in the heats and he will fear you in the finals. Ok….you will do well…. I will see you at the finishing line”. He would then head for the finishing line and wait. Inside Austen’s soft and genial exterior, I found this tough interior, this quality with a killer’s instinct.

And as every race came and went by, I would hear the shotgun fire and feel my feet race down the sun warmed tracks, hear the students in the pavilion chant and holler and soon almost lose my breath as the finishing line came closer. And then I would push my head first through the finishing line and Austen would be there to lift me up first and together we would celebrate the victory along with all the other students of our house. He gave the same support to every athlete in our house.

And in those three weeks I also got to see him interacting with other athletes in our house in the Sports Camp. Austen was truly at a great disadvantage as he did not really know who were good at the different events, because the school had never seen anyone participate, as this was the first Sports event being organized. But that never affected Austen in anyway. He was the one who was going around and selecting the athletes for the different events and he did that so well with a great smile. And during the rigorous practice sessions he would keep motivating us and make us laugh with all the natural sense of humour and loud laughter that he was blessed with. So he was actually spotting us, watching us getting trained by our sports master and motivating us to achieve better results.

There were many such students whom Austen picked and tried out for the first time. Sujatha, Gari and Johnson were some individuals that I remember. Sujatha, was one of the most obese students around at school and Austen was building in her the belief that she could get the gold medal in shot put and hammer throw. I and my friends used to have a laugh watching her try the shot put. But Austen spent time observing her practise, tried a few throws with his own hand and made her feel that she could still raise the performance bar. “Great …you are going to get the gold…try once more.” And then he would walk around our house camp, patting the athletes and laughing aloud over a few pranks and jokes that he would create.Gari was as swift as a gazelle and Austen was sure that he would set the tracks and field ablaze for almost all the track and field events for the Juniors. Johnson was so good with the javelin that he almost portrayed the fighting spirit of a Greek warrior. There are many more whose names I am not able to recollect. At the end of two weeks we could really see several performers emerge in our house.Austen was banking on me too, to rake up almost all the entire sub- junior gold medals. We were almost sure that we would make a clean sweep of most of the events. That was the confidence that hung around amongst us in our camp. And Austen had a large contribution into our reaching that state.

Austen then walked around to the other house camps on the day before the final events and talked to the athletes and captains there. “Hey, did you see Gari run man? You should see…let me tell you…..he is going to set fire on the tracks tomorrow….And don’t miss seeing Johnson’s javelin….that is going to be the best tomorrow” And that would take the wind out of most of the athletes and captains in the other houses. It was a psychological weapon that Austen used very deftly.

The final day came and almost all of us who were hot favourites garnered most of the gold medals. Austen had already got his gold medal for the hammer throw for the super senior boys. All the other events got over and the only one that remained was the 5000 metres for the super senior boys. And Austen himself was the hot favourite for this event. We heard the shot gun fire and the 5000 metres was off to a good start. The athletes had to complete 12 and a half rounds and each round was 400 metres. We were very confident that our captain would sweep this clean and so we were all up on the pavilion calling out his name. And Austen ran steadily and built up a good lead progressively. All the other competitors too gave their hearts out while running, but still Austen hung on with a good lead. Each time the athletes crossed the old cricket scoreboard end, a large flock of sparrows that were having a feast from the discarded food from the ground overseer’s home, took off in a desperate flight. On the ramparts, crowds from outside the school sat to have a view of the last few events. We could even see urchins hang behind the scoreboard and peep through the high empty slots where score digits would normally be displayed. The icecream and corn vendors were busy making the best of the huge gathering to get a high volume sales of their goods. Most of us had bought the 'Sholay' and 'Bobby' movie stickers that these vendors also sold.

On the pavilion, students were chanting out the names of their favourite athletes for this race. A lot of them waved several multi-coloured ribbons. All of us at the Ajantha house were sure Austen will win, but we also could see that he was getting tired. Some of the opponents were behind him by several rounds but some were not so very far away. Austen still kept running with all the strength he could. When the last 400 metres came in, almost all the athletes were equally tired. Austen hung on and ran but we all could see him sway from one track to the other. It was almost as though he would fall anytime. He was into the last 75 metres and the nearest competitor was another 75 metres away but equally tired. This way we were not sure if Austen would ever hit the finishing line. He could fall down much before that. Students in the pavilion stood up and soon most of us including the teachers were on either side of the track. I could hear our house athletes cry out “Austen, come on…..you are there…you are there…” Austen slowly ran and danced and swayed and moved forward. The finishing line was now just 25 metres away.

I have seen very few moments in my life where people got emotionally attached to their leader and I really saw it that day. Atleast twenty of the athletes from our house ran on both sides of the track, some of them carrying the house flags, with Austen in the middle on the tracks, encouraging him and telling him that victory was near. I think I was too young to show such an attitude overtly, but I could really feel that intensity inside me. And when he hit the finishing line, all of us crowded around him and hugged him. I ran down and got there too. We never let our tired captain fall down. We held him and helped him to stand with his head held high. We were all proud of our leader and winner and we kept our red flag flying high in our captain's hand.

Thirty years have slipped by and I have lost touch with Austen. Today when I sit back and think about him and all his leadership qualities when he was just seventeen years, I find him to be really amazing. And in the fathomless depths of my heart, I still salute him as one of the greatest leaders who led me at some part of my life, giving me lessons that I could put to use in the later years of my life.

MIRACLE FUEL

2010-12-22T08:15:00.000-08:00

It was about 7.00 a.m on a cold Friday morning in December 1991. I kick started my Yezdi CL II motorbike and worked on its accelerator so as to jettison the first clouds of smoke. The vehicle gave out its royal thundering resonance that could be heard over a huge span of our neighbourhood. I was passionate about this vehicle and I took great pleasure in going around with it. So with my aviator sunglasses, flashy white sports helmet with a royal chin guard and heavy factory boots all upon me, I set out very well on a flamboyant high as I always did when I rode the bike. My grand uncle was in a sinking shape and my father had to leave for Kerala that night. My father had assigned me with the task of collecting the train tickets from a family friend at the Central Railway Station at Chennai and I was on my way and on time.

Making my way through the street where my house stood, I turned left, into a smaller and busier road and accelerated to a much higher speed that I believe was too much for that road to take. Speeding on a bike was a temptation that I had always yielded to and I did the same thing on that day. And I was cruising well when all of a sudden a dog came into my way from nowhere. In an attempt to get out of its way, I jammed the breaks and turned away the steering, but the bike still hit the dog. I was thrown up almost vertically in a position that was between a standing and sitting position, resembling a cosmonaut on a space walk, and then I came down almost in the same way. I hit the road with good force and my bike went scraping down across the road and hit the pavement. I saw the dog squeal and head for cover with a big limp.

I could have just landed on the road in a natural way and been there for a while after the fall, but in an attempt to make it more cinematic I rolled over a few times after I fell and got up instantly like a true hero. And though there was so much pain, I walked up with my head held high and without any wincing and lifted my bike, started it in one kick and rode out of the crowd that had formed around me, like a true hero. I went back home and let out all the grimaces in front of the mirror while studying the bruises. And that was like a real comedy show compared to the heroic charade only minutes earlier. The bike needed immediate attention and so I dropped it at the mechanic and then headed for the station on an autorickshaw.

I met my family friend and he gave me the tickets after giving me a lecture on punctuality. I tried my best to convince him with the accident as the reason for the delay but finally had to give up. I then I got back home after the assignment all complete and handed over the tickets to my father.

The afternoon had slowly crept into the evening. I had to get my bike from the mechanic before my father left for Kerala that night and so I left for the mechanic’s shop, got the bike which was now in solid condition and was cruising along the Railway Constable road in Ayanavaram. This road was mostly used by few Railway vehicles and regular traffic along this way was very less. I loved this road for its quietude and the huge canopy that the several trees offered. And along with it came the chirps of a variety of birds and all that nature had to offer. I noticed that most of the street lights had conked out that day. There were hardly any pedestrians on the road and vehicles were also very few. It was isolated and it was more so in the late evenings. When I got close to the Integral Coach Factory, I could hear the bike engine gasp and go “thud thud” and then it stopped. I got down and tried kicking. After an effort of about fifteen minutes, I parked the vehicle on the roadside in the darkness and squatted down, all tired.

It became even darker and I had to really strain my eyes to see the real shape of vehicles whizzing past. I suddenly realized that I had started the day on the reserve supply of fuel after having exhausted the main supply, the previous day. And with all the happenings through the day I had forgotten to fill up the fuel. And I validated my realization by opening the fuel tube to find it all nice and dry. And this meant that I would have to push my heavy bike for a distance of 3 kilometres to reach my home or a distance of 2 kilometres to reach my nearest friend’s house where I could park it for the night. I had to reach home in the next 30 minutes though. It was not the cell phone times nor was there a phone booth anywhere within a kilometer’s distance.

A few two wheelers and cars whizzed past. I tried waving to them without knowing what help I should be asking them. I was not sure if it was fine to transfer fuel from a 100cc bike into the Yezdi. My machine was already a rare piece in the 1990s and waiting for another Yezdi to come by was crazy. I was also pretty far from the mechanic’s shop.The only light that helped me with visibility was a very distant street light. When a few heavy vehicles went by in the opposite direction, I noticed a bike come to a halt near me. I noticed that it was my school junior Mathew. “Any problem?…what happened?…you need help?” he asked. I saw a very beautiful young girl sitting beside him and I was hesitant to define my problem leave alone asking for help. I could not imagine both of them standing out here in the darkness to help me out. I told him it was the usual flooding of the engine and that it would be fine in a few minutes. And so Mathew left and I was alone again. I thought I did a blunder as I felt that I should have requested him to drop the beauty at his house which was not so far a driving distance and came back to help me. But then as it so happens many times, wisdom strikes late when under pressure and so it did that day too.

I turned around and gaped into the sky for a while cursing myself while trying to decide what to do next. Mosquitoes were on a feast that day and so I had to dance too while I cursed myself so as to evade them. In the distance I could see glow worms dance around the bushy sides of the Railway canal that was running along the side of the road. It was good to watch them in the darkness. Up on the trees I could hear the sweet chirp of a variety of birds that were still making their way to their nests. Nature always offers you lighter moments to taste even when you sit on a pile of ruins, small or big.

Behind the huge wall of the Integral Coach Factory, I could hear the cacophony of metalwork in progress. Besides this there was the shrill honking of the engines on trial runs. Strange that I could not see one human around or even hear one when I needed one badly and all I could hear were many other things. And here stood my royal machine all handicapped. I wanted to curse it but the mistake was mine. For a moment I thought about all the good times we had been together, and about all the rough terrains we had dominated together. Crests and troughs are a part of every character's life and for me this machine was indeed a character too. So I thought that it was best to think positive about the whole situation.

Faraway the headlights of a vehicle appeared and as it drew closer, I realized that it was one of those big container vehicles. It splashed a lot of light for me as it came closer and closer. In the distance on the opposite side, I noticed the short figure of a man walking towards me with a bottle in hand. He came closer and asked me in Tamil to open my fuel tank. I was shocked beyond description as I had no clue as to how someone could appear from nowhere and then talk to me like that. He had a much disheveled appearance and he appeared to me to be someone who belonged to the lower stratum of society. His Tamil slang resembled that of a seasoned Chennai pavement shopkeeper. I noticed a certain arrogance in his body language that conveyed his considering me as a person who did not plan things well. I blindly obeyed what he told me and I stood there seeing him pour fuel from the bottle into the tank. He told me to start the vehicle and once he saw me do that, he disappeared into the night after just saying “Fine”. I thanked him without being sure as to whether he heard me mumble it, as that thanking was done in a state of utter disbelief.

And I am sure you will not believe that the fuel the man poured into my bike was just enough to take me within fifty metres from home. I pushed my bike for the rest of the distance and was able to meet my father before he left for Kerala that night. Even today when I sit back, think and write about this happening, I have no clue as to how he could have appeared there to help me. Some times some happenings are so strange.

THE BEAUTY OF TREES - WHEN WINTER WORKS OUT MAGIC

2010-12-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

These pictures were shot around Renton, Washington State, U.S.A. Winter weaved magic all over the place.

THE BEAUTY OF TREES - WONDERFUL FORMATIONS

2010-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

These snaps were shot around Renton, Washington State, U.S.A. Autumn had just set in.

THE BIGGEST FIND

2010-12-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Saddled with the burdens of life,
That sowed in me, seeds of strife,
I sulked at most of what life gave,
And wanted more of a perfect wave.

And while I was on an evening stroll,
I heard a kind of rock and roll.
And there I saw up in the sky,
The clouds dance with spirits so high.

I asked the clouds on what I saw,
As I watched the sky in stunning awe.
They told me that it was party time,
For all that life gave them each time.

Looking again, at the deep blue sky,
I just thought, and wondered why,
The sky looked great with a clouded drape,
But the clouds did lack a permanent shape.

I asked the clouds on what they felt,
On lying loose like wax that melt.
They told me it’s a role they play,
Where they loved being used like potter’s clay.

I told them that I could not see,
A bold and distinct identity,
They told me it’s a role they play,
Where God above had the final say.

I warned them that they would go on a loss,
When the winds would take them for a big toss,
But they told its best to lose oneself,
In serving others and thus find oneself.

I then realized how true it was,
To lose oneself while working for a cause,
For the best reward that we could have,
Is to find our self from all that we have.

THE VISIT OF A MOTHER AND HER SON

2010-11-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

I think I spent about two hours on Saturday evening and another two hours on Sunday afternoon to get the electrical circuit ready. Later I spent another 3 hours on the picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

These were some of the many projects my daughter studying in std VI had to complete. The challenge I faced with the circuit, was with the selection of the right adhesive, to hold the wires in place along with the battery and the bulb. It came out well once we used the electric insulation tape.

Then we went about doing the Pisa tower where my sister also joined us. We wanted to construct this out of waste material. And finally we ended up wasting a few good match sticks to construct the window frames of the tower.

When I got back home today, my father told me that Suresh my daughter's classmate and his mother had come home to get the circuit done for him. And since my people at home never expected me earlier than 10 p.m. from office on weekdays, considering the fact that I was into some serious space research projects there, they had told Suresh and his mother that it would be too late for them to wait and get this done. And so they had left after having a look at the circuit that I had already done.

I knew the background of that family through the boy's grandfather whom I used to meet while going to see off my daughter to school on Saturday's. The boy's father had abandoned him and his mother as soon as he was born, and there has been no trace of him since then.

I really felt bad that I could not help them. How much a family struggles when children are abandoned is what I witnessed today.

I am not sure if I will be able to do anything great on this earth, but atleast I am happy as a parent to be with my daughter and to accompany her in whatever she does as part of her growing up. It is a gift from Providence.

ALSO WITH ME WHILE I RUN THE RACE CALLED LIFE

2010-11-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

Many times we find ourselves alone while running the race of life. And sometimes a few men step in and help us out while we are in that lonely race. I met such a gentleman in 1980 and it is interesting to know how he started to be supportive and motivating to me as he has been till date. It is something I would always treasure for a life time although it was just something that happened over a few minutes.

I was in my sixth standard then and till that time I had enjoyed getting first ranks for 3 years in all the 3 exams of the year without a drop. And in the very first exam of the sixth standard I was thrown off that throne by Kannan who took over that place. I had known Kannan only for the last few months then, as he had just joined our school into Std VI. There was another lady Sumeetha who too had joined the school that time and she took the second rank and that got me the third rank for the first time in school. To me and my people at home it was like falling from a very high throne, that time. But I did regain my position in the very next exam though. But then, as we all know high ranks are good, but they don’t really mean everything in the long run. Nevertheless Kannan and I developed a great camaraderie between us in a short span of time. We were great competitors at academics but great mates too.

And that year for the first time, our school was to about to have our Sports Week. My selection into it was by chance as I offered to participate and I had a relatively good physique. I had never seen the school look so grand any time in the years I was at school. We hardly had classes that week. We had a beautiful playground of the Southern Railways just a few yards away from the school building. Most of the students were there on all the days of the week. We students would go to this playground most of the time we had free periods, for playing cricket, but being there for a sports event for a whole week was a different feeling altogether.

The whole ground had a flamboyant appearance. There were multicolored flags set so high and they looked so majestic. Faraway in the middle of the ground, there was a cricket pitch where many teams battled out for league crowns. But now I could see two mynahs slowly hopping in unison down the pitch, and they looked like two umpires inspecting the pitch before a game of cricket. The tracks were all beautifully laid out and so were the areas where field events were about to happen. The games took off well and the whole ground was filled with the din of students chanting the names of their heroes and loud speakers making the announcements. I think I did well and much more than what I expected from myself, but the person who was the tough guy for me to compete with was Sudarshan. It was all the more tough for me, because he did not follow a sportsman method of fair play and would not hesitate to jostle anyone who were getting close to overtaking him on the tracks. In all the events that went by our victories or losses were with such a small margin. He, like me won a few first places and got a few second places in the several events and so both of us never beat each other significantly. We had just one day remaining in the week and most of the finals were slated for that day.

I think I slept fine the previous night as we had a few grueling field and track events on that day, but I remember waking up unusually early and then lying down still, waiting for dawn to slowly takeover from the night. Yes the final day was here and everything that was bound to happen today would happen. But still I could not take my mind off the 200m final race that was about to happen that day.

My win in this race along with the wins of a few others in our Sports house, were vital for our group to lift the Best Group trophy and also for me to get my Individual Track and Field Championship cup. A lot of the teachers knew about it and so did a lot of student athletes who were into the several events. And so this race was going to have a lot of people standing on either side of the track to witness the same. Getting a second place in the race for me was for sure as all others in the race could easily be beaten. Sudarshan was the only one standing between me and victory. And so I was sure the first and the second spot was going to be another real tough one. A victory for him would get him the Championship cup and the Best Group trophy for his house.

I did not talk much that day to my friends. As I sat in a corner of the pavilion, I heard the first call for the 200 m finals event and I could feel a huge number of butterflies having a party inside my stomach. I was not a confident guy to go out there with my head held high and to fight it out like a true gladiator. But somehow I kept getting first and second places in all the other events and that had earned me points. At that point I felt I should have never participated as I found the tension too high to hold on with. Amidst the hubbub of the chants from the students and friends, I got up and slowly made my way to the other side of the ground where the 200 m dash was supposed to start. And then came the second call, as I was almost near the starting point and finally I got into position on my track. I could see Sudarshan on one of the tracks scraping the ground with his spike shoes. And every time I saw the spike scrape the ground, I could feel a chill running down my spine. The grass was all green all over the ground but my feet could not really feel the natural warmth of the grass as I walked about near my track before the race. I believed it was because of the tense moments that I was going through.

Sudarshan was a trained athlete and he never ran a race without the spikes. I was more of a natural athlete and I always ran with bare feet. Our eyes met several times and he never smiled. Psychologically that drained me out and made me suddenly light. We did have our differences outside the sports field too and I was sure he would do everything to thwart me from winning the race.

Faraway and close to the pavilion the multi coloured flags looked like royal guards standing tall and brave facing the test of the strong winds. The ramparts close to the tracks had a huge number of outsiders sitting right on top to have a glimpse of the sports in general. There was something that had to be set right on the tracks by the organizers and so we had some time.I did not notice all the while, that Kannan was behind me, walking down the ground all the way from the pavilion to where my race was about to start. I heard him call me and I turned back. He was there with a bright and encouraging smile as always.

I heard the whistle and I moved forward to take position. I was on track four and Sudarshan was on track one. While I was on my knees, he squatted beside me. I felt better with him around. Looking into my eyes he said “Roy, if there is one person who can win this race, it is you. The entire class is in support of you and we want you to win”. I could not have asked for more. It was like a man of very high maturity talking to me. Kannan was a great strategist at that age of 11 years. He told me in the last few seconds before the race “You are free to get into any track after the completion of the first 100 metres. Change to track one and stun him with that move and he will never get past you.” And then after tapping me on my back he ran back saying “I will meet you at the finishing line”.

The gunshot hit my ears and I took off well. I could not look around but put my heart and soul into my running. It was like running with a blindfold as I really could not see anything around. I could only hear both our names being called out by friends from either side of the track. At the close of the first 100 metres, I changed tracks and came to the first one and I ran with all my strength. I remember both our bodies brushing and jostling a few times. I did not know when I finished and my eyes could not spot everything when I hit the finish line but I could feel a whole lot of students lift me up. I won the race and the Championship Trophy and my group won the Best Group trophy too.

Looking back at that race today, I am not sure if that strategy was an acceptable part of a true sportsman’s fair play. Some would support it and some would, may be oppose it too. But what I felt great about my friend was the pain he took to run all the way down the ground to talk to me.

Thirty years later when I was sitting in my company building’s canteen mulling over my career in the software industry, as to what projects I should get into, what roles I should take and whether I should still go onsite, I saw Kannan walking to my table with the same bright smile. It was a sheer coincidence that I met him while in the middle of another puzzle. We sat together and after hearing all what I had to say about my work, he really helped me see things in the right perspective and got me very close to taking a decision. And then we had a long chat about family, our classmates and life. We had been in touch once in a while and I never knew that he was working out of this building.

On my way back home I recalled the several times he was there with me when I was into similar situations in few other stages in my life. When I needed a morale boost for dealing with some of my twelve standard subjects, or for advice on switching job from one industry to another, he was the best person. Somehow at a very young age I believe he had that ability to break down complex situations into simple ones and attack them thoroughly. Truly blessed with great public speaking talent and also a great student, I still hold him in very high respect.

Even today while I am in the middle of this run of the race of my life and career, it is a great feeling when my friend Kannan steps in and gives me his inputs. He is in a big position in the same company that I am with and he certainly deserves that place for the person that he is.

LITTLE ROCKETS IN THE SKY

2010-11-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

My daughter lit a little rocket,

And it took off in all speed, into the sky,

It filled the dark sky with all sparkles,

But then the sky was dark again.

And then went another rocket,

And then another and another,

But still the sky remained,

The same dark expanse as before.

For a moment I felt,

That we all should sometimes be,

Those little diwali rockets surging into the sky,

To keep our life bright and cheerful.

For the dark forces will continue,

To bring eternal gloom into our lives,

Wars, terrorism, sickness and poverty,

And a lot more will always remain.

But let us always strive to be,

Those little promising rockets of fire,

That will incessantly continue to bring,

Light into the darkness of human lives.

A TWILIGHT SILHOUETTE

2010-09-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is the Kapaleeshwar Temple at Chennai, India. This was a random shot from my camera. I love the golden hues of clouds in the backdrop, with the temple's silhouette standing tall as dusk is slowly taking over. And of course that coconut tree you see right through the door....

THE UNFORGETTABLE NOON RUN

2010-08-29T03:04:00.000-07:00

It was lunch time and my school at Chennai appeared like a huge entity submerged in a din of student’s high decibel chants. It was a huge space with a large auditorium, one of the best I have seen till today, so antique and so much like a theatre, a huge playground so well maintained where league players frequently played great cricket matches and athletes put their best efforts to raise their performance bar, and of course our dedicated teachers and all kinds of students.

I loved school because it had lot of open space, and buildings were just like few entities of the whole collection that made the school. Studies were always important, but there was lots of fun too. Most of the students planned out the lunch time to play or go to a new neighbouring place or just hang around as a group. Really very few spent their time alone with books, even if they were gripping story books.

I and a few close friends had decided in the morning to finish the lunch early and head for the church compound which was adjacent to the school. My friends wanted to get those tasty jamun fruits, what we called nagapazham in Tamil and these grew profusely in trees out there. My friends enjoyed its taste and it left their tongues dark violet for the rest of the time they were at school any day. Foods with bright colours like green, violet and pink were something that made me repulsive. So I never liked the jamun fruit. But nevertheless, the whole concept of getting it from the neighbouring compound, stealthily, was an adventurous concept and I loved it.

I stuffed in the food that I had as fast as I could, and took hurried gulps of water and all that got over in less than ten minutes. We had just about twenty minutes to spare and so the best thing we thought would be to run up to the church, hunt for the fruits and then run back. That was because we knew that walking would take us late to the language class where there was every probability of the teacher asking late students to stand outside. So we started off in all thrill and got outside the school gate.

Chennai did have a few showers in the few days that went by that day and there were patches of water in the open grounds of the school and also on the road’s pot holes.

Far away I could see a kabbadi game in progress. Four boys were putting all their effort to pull a boy back into their area; while he lurched forward with all the strength he could to touch the middle line. To me he looked like a lizard being pulled back by its tail, every time it tried its best to move forward. A little away from this group, was another group of girls playing throw ball. I stopped and looked as I heard them give a loud scream as they watched their ball slowly making its way into a patch of rain water. Girls have this fantastic ability to scream together holding on to each other. And when you turn back to see what happened, many times it could be things as simple as that of an insect getting somewhere very close to them, or like something belonging to them falling into an inaccessible place like say a patch of water. And they do it so beautifully holding on to one another, that from a distance you get a feeling that they are trying out a suprano piece of challenging church choir song, putting out the best that their voice boxes can take.

We walked for some distance and then increased our pace. And then we ran the rest and reached the church compound separation. It was a huge cordon, running right across the line separating the school from the church. It was made of old rail way tracks cut and arranged vertically with three barbed steel wire lines running horizontally. So sneaking in was ruled out, unless we spent some time to widen and cut through the wire. But we had already spent hours probing this situation and our continuous research had helped us spot the chink in the cordon. So this time we were sure where to get through. Two vertical rail pieces lay loose with the barbed wires all twisted and spaced out so that a person could sneak in easily. This was at the far corner, faraway from the Church building and also the school buildings, but closer to the road. So we had an advantage that we would not be seen by anyone from these two places. Only the people on the road might see us and we were sure they would not bother.

And so we crept in stealthily. Lucky for us, there was no one on the small pathway leading to the church. And so we slowly crossed it and quickly reached the tree. The jamun enthusiasts set off to the plucking business while two of us stood vigil. The job was done in a few minutes and we were ready to make our way back. We could hear someone call out from the church premises. We all felt that we would have been spotted. So we just ran back.

As seen most of the times, the strange part of this childhood day planning was that the plans ended with the plucking of the fruit. We just ran back to school not as a group but as individuals. So no one kept an eye on the other. I took time to take off and so was the last in the group to get to speed. The others were way ahead of me and I could hear the school bell ring. So now all of us had only one thing in mind and that was to run at top speed and reach the school. I was more apprehensive of someone following us and so I kept looking back while I ran at good speed.

An then I suddenly felt myself go down and I soon realized that I was hanging with my chin at the level of the road. I had fallen into an open man hole, but was there hanging as my elbows did not give way and they held on. My ribs had hit the sides of the man hole and I was writhing in pain. It was one of those moments when I almost blacked out. I had no friend near by to call out because all had run away back to school. In that shock I burst out crying as it was too much for me to take. Soon a passerby lifted me up and put me back on the road. He checked with me whether I was able to walk back and when he was convinced I was fine, he patted off the dust and dirt from my clothes. I still remember what he told me. “When you have to run for your life, you will be alone. Everyone will only think about themselves and their lives. In life when you are dashing forward, never look back.”
The pain lasted for a few days and I told my Dad only half of what originally happened. That is the best I could share, but the shock of having had such a fall was too much for me to take.

Today when I think about what the passerby told me, I find a much deeper meaning that could be applied to several aspects and contexts of my life. Those words still keep ringing in my ears and the thoughts of that fall still tickle my ribs.

MILKY WHITE SNOW SPOTTED WITH CONIFERS

2010-07-30T12:25:00.002-07:00

TWILIGHT FROM A CAR AT TOP SPEED.......

2010-07-30T12:25:00.001-07:00

I shot this when me and my family were heading back to Renton from the San Juan Islands in Washington State, USA. It was a great trip and I feel nice that I was able to take this shot while in the car, whilst the sun was still holding on out there heading for another sunset.

LIFE'S SEPARATED DRIVES

2010-07-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Faraway from you in a distant land,
Filled with chilly wind and snow,
Nature’s magic wand,
Seems to make everything, around glow.

The Almighty paints in majestic aura,
This winter painting in snow white grandeur,
Spotted with a myriad of flora,
Leaving every envious artist to revere.

But blind is my mind,
While nature unveils this beautiful face,
And a joy in this I cannot find,
For my eyes do a mere empty gaze.

You know I am here to make some penny,
Having daily trysts with loneliness,
And what’s money without you honey,
With me wallowing here in emptiness?

The pressing needs of life drove me here,
And so did dire situations keep you there.
You will agree on all these, I am sure
Else, to separate us who would dare?

At a station often looking yonder,
Dreaming that you would by some train arrive,
These parallel tracks make me ponder,
Whether our life would be one separated drive.

Darling will not that day come?
When destiny will bring us again together,
And also bless us with money handsome,
To meet our pressing needs forever.

P.S: I wrote this poem while I was at onsite, seperated from family. This snap came along with a lot of other snaps from my friend Anirban Chanda, during his visit to Japan. But it was this snap in which I found, that there was so much that I could relate to, from my perspective and also from the body language of my friend as seen there.

MIXED FEELINGS DURING MY PRECIOUS IT HOLIDAY @ INDIA

2010-06-25T21:15:00.001-07:00

Like many software professionals, I too had the opportunity to work at onsite at a few locations in the USA, but during the early thirties of my life. Out of these stints, there was only one time where I came down to India on a holiday, having just a few days to spend before returning back. And those few days turned out to be a very precious experience.

The other journeys back to India, were returning for good journeys from a completed assignment, after which there would be a few months stay in India, before I returned back for another assignment or remained here for a long time.

Journey homeward is always great, as you see the progressive lessening of the distance from home. Stepping out of the airport at Chennai in April 2006 to me was like going through a thermal shock….from a cold climate into a sunny and sultry Chennai. And the other feeling was that of being put into a high decibel chamber, as I had heard just two vehicle honks in the one year that went by in the USA. As expected, discipline, courtesy and cleanliness remained a rarity here. So that was no surprise. It’s difficult for one to get lost in the USA or Europe, as everything is so clean, organized, structured and streamlined. Everything is so people oriented and customer friendly. Within the 4 week holiday, I think I lost my patience on several occasions and I believe that I was the one to be blamed for the same. Yes, I was expecting the wrong things from our country after enjoying such things abroad. Or may be I started expecting such things too soon to happen in India. And when you know for sure that you will be going back, the frustration about all these things during the few days in India turns out to me more.

But once I was inside home, I never missed USA. My Dad used to tell me whenever I used the word “home” liberally, that one could have only one “home” and all the other places of stay were mere “houses”. I came to understand the real meaning and gravity of that sentence only when I started travelling and staying at different places after I was married. Within Chennai, wherever I moved about, I got back home at the end of the day. That was never possible when I was abroad or for that matter even if I were working outside Chennai as I was staying alone and away from family who were at home at Chennai. You always get back to a house and not a home when you are staying alone away from home from your family. And that house with all its things inside is never your home where life and family actually exists. Home is something that is so much different….that’s the best part. But then this feeling changes with age. If I was pretty young, then any house in a new place and that with friends and its set of adventures is always different and thrilling.

The heat was slowly getting to its peak in those few days and the climate was also so hot and humid. This along with the pollution ,dust and din that kept my eyes and ears busy, was like a torture potion being served everyday. But I still felt good, standing under the huge Gulmohar tree's shade at home, and enjoying that cool but warm breeze running through my sweat soaked shirt. My daughter who was 3 years then, was trying to divert a train of ants under a small paper bridge that she had created. I and my daughter got several chances to play with trains of ants that were there at several places in our garden. We also chased garden flies, caught them and let them loose with threads tied on to their tails. Again I like many here would have done all these unconsciously a number of times, but I missed doing these for almost a year, and suddenly all these things became precious. We never know what all things in our life attain much higher value that sheer wealth in our life.

A few good summer showers gave us patches of small water ponds. I and my daughter made boats and let them sail, and we kept watching them until each went down as drops of rain pushed them down into the water. I had to just run across my street to buy all the fried foods I wanted and I spent a good time sitting in my house verandah and munching them over a cup of tea, while the rain sang the slow pitter patter music. While staying at at a very small town in the U.S.A., I had to drive an hour one way to buy Indian fried snacks and that too with the risk of having expired dates on them. This feeling of missing India can never be explained. We have to experience it and go through it to feel it.

I never forgot to travel by bus a few times because that’s what always reminded me that how much ever you earn its good to be comfortable and easy with your basic beginning....that way it would be easy for you to adapt anytime. These days I also take my daughter along with me in share autos and buses and also on long walks, to give her a taste of everything.

Walking outside my house I realized how precious the few days I had here turned out to be, to be amidst a few coconut trees cleaning up all the dry branches and coconuts that keep falling, watching a few ants create a workline for some ardent assignment along with my daughter, playing all the games that she had in her toy collection, talking to my father on his struggling old days and how good he feels that I am on an onsite assignment. Many times it’s a fact that no one knows what we do out there at onsite…no one cares whether that work is adding to our calibre. As long as we are outside India and in a rich foreign country and making money, that’s fine. Sometimes my family also found it very nice if the client was a well known company in our social circle. That way it was easy to tell the friends and position the children in front of them in a high place. Many time I think that is what matters most in their eyes. Not that they are not concerned about our true calibre growth, but somehow money and related things always seem to take precedence. Life is a potpourri that way I think....you need to have a mixture....you can't have work alone.....you need money too....you can't have money alone...you need to enjoy small things that life gives too.

After spending a year in the apartments in the USA, seeing white walls, the compound walls of my house in Chennai dressed here and there with natural green moss to me seemed much more beautiful. I felt embarrassed every time a few individuals introduced me to their friends as Roy on a holiday from the USA...but I always reminded myself never to tell them that the roads here were so horrible and that the heat was too much to bear. I am sure they would have said". Was he born in the USA.. huh? ". A few people who had never talked to me till that time, did talk to me.Money and position makes a difference to them....but as long as it did not make a big difference to me I thought that it should be fine...

Most of the time in the heat, noise and dust that Chennai offered, I had the tender hands of my daughter holding me, my loving family's presence, some good Indian foods, sweets and tea every time I wanted, a few good friends, all my loving songs and cinema for 24 hours and few good and long standing memories...that way Chennai was still where I wanted to be. And I am still out here.

DREAM STREAMS THAT QUENCH

2010-06-25T21:11:00.002-07:00

Our heart is replete with dreams,
Dreams that we hold on with such passion.
It runs through our life like streams,
Leading to the sea of our mission.

We see oysters of coarse talent,
Lie within us as in a deep sea.
Let’s gather the hidden pearls without relent,
And exhibit them for the world to see.

For a thrust of love we yearn,
For a pat from a dear or near one,
Who could drive us in our zest to learn,
And explore all the oysters under the sun.

Let us work to realize that big dream,
When every pearl of our talent refined,
Would prove to be a quenching stream,
For mortals with lives confined.

A FUNNY ENCOUNTER WITH A GHOST

2010-06-25T21:11:00.001-07:00

It was on a pleasant evening about 12 years back in November, that this happened. Chennai seemed to be getting colder every year, and a layer of mist slowly started hovering as the evening crept into darkness. Larsen and Toubro's heavy engineering division was a beautiful area with three huge bays, office buildings, raw material yards and a beautiful garden that sprawled a large area of the campus. I being part of the Sales Co-ordination and Planning Department was responsible for the dispatch of machines from the Assembly and Testing Shop from one of the bays. Although we all wished that dispatches happened before sunset, so that we could get home early, most of them crept into the late evenings and or even into the night, due to various reasons that could be attributed to all kinds of pathetic planning.

And on that day we had a machine to be dispatched to GE Plastics somewhere in North India. The truck was already in there and the Punjabi driver, tall and lanky was already going around our machine and making a mental assessment of how he should get it inside the truck. A few hours crept by and I could see small streams of smoke come out of the truck. I went closer to the truck to see if a potential fire was about to break out. But to my surprise, a small boy, who I believe was assisting the Punjabi driver was busy preparing rhotis, using a small stove from inside the truck. I waved to him and he smiled.

The dispatch of the machine was about to happen soon, and it would be through the huge exit right at the end of the bay. And that is where the huge factory back wall existed with the warehouse department just inside. Beyond that wall was a small road within the factory that led straight to the security gate which opened to the outside world. We had security personnel posted at different corners and areas of the company, as there were a few thefts reported in the last two months. And so things were kind of beefed up.

Across that small road lay another small building, beyond which came the company’s wired fence, which divided its property from that of the neighboring company. It was in this small building that the company had its conference rooms and it was also from here that the Sales Co-ordination and Planning Departments operated. There was a main glass door that was used to enter into this building, which opened straight into the several departments with false separations. A small glass door on the left opened into a small aisle that led to one of the conference rooms. The walls of this aisle area had the switch board panels, that controlled all the power to the different sections of the entire building. It was spacious enough to hold a few chairs so that people could sit and wait, to meet someone who was busy while into some meetings in the conference room.

Being part of the Sales Co-ordination and Planning department threw up challenges like these where one did not know when one could get home after a dispatch. But this machine was heading for a 9.30 p.m dispatch. A few more hours went by and I saw the truck with the machine slowly making its way through the exit. The driver waved to me as the truck slowly made its way to the security gate. For one moment I felt that he was carrying the product of the efforts and involvement of atleast five hundred people who worked for it.

With my job done, I slowly ambled to my department building. It was almost 9.45 p.m. There was a small distance I had to cover on the road from the exit of the bay area to where this small department building lay. I walked slowly through the natural canopy that the trees built up over most of this road. Two of the road lamps on this road close to the department building had not been working for the last few days, and the situation was still status quo. The road was all dark and I could only use the reflection of the lights from the lamps near the security gate, to get to know my directions. The factory dinner time was from 9.30 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. and all the workers and supervisory staff were already into the canteen about 300 metres away. The manager’s and general staff’s closing duty time was 5.30 p.m. And so it was like nobody was there in the factory at that moment.

There was eerie feeling that crept into me, the kind I used to feel when I walked through my house searching for a torch or a candle, when I was alone in there and the power went off. And the sudden silence inside the factory multiplied this feeling. All the machines, blowers, fans, etc had been switched off just before dinner time. I could only hear the silent hum of a huge exhaust that was still running somewhere inside. May be someone had missed out swithching it off.

Up in the sky the moon was full and trying to get out of a pack of clouds. The sky wore a shiny black colour, as though the moon had scraped through it for a distance. A gentle breeze swept past my sweat soaked shirt. I reached the building and slowly approached the huge glass door. It was so dark that I could hardly see anything inside. People had left early and nobody was there to switch on the lights probably.I had informed the security that I would be there this time around, and so they had not locked the door as yet. I felt for the door knob and located it.Then I slowly opened the door. I told myself that my next immediate attempt should be to switch on the power, so that the lights would come on. And so I slowly approached the small glass door on the left.

A little of the moon light crept through the glass and painted the upper part of the sidewalls of the aisle. And I thought I could see some part of the switch panel, but not really enough to discern the right switch. So I ran my hand on the wall and spotted the panel and then started counting the main switches. I knew it was the fourth switch from the left, that would switch on my department's lights all in one go. While I was trying for the fourth switch, I could see another hand, all pale yellow in the moonlight slowly go up and feel the switch panel. At one moment, the hand touched mine and I almost froze. I could not speak although I wanted to yell in horror. And then the lights came on, although I was not sure whose hand did that great job finally.

And there standing right in front of me was a young company security guard in his formal attire. He got up and gave me a funny smile which I thought he was slowly trying to develop, to come out of the embarrassment. My immediate reaction was that I expressed my anger at him for all what happened, but in the next few minutes I realised that he was there as part of his duty, although he could have done that keeping atleast one light on. But then he told me that he was trying to catch some sleep, and that is the reason why he did not switch the light on. On that day, this happening really shook me, so much so that I took time to come out of that feeling.But today after so many years, when I recall the whole thing, I feel it to be something funny that went by in my life. But then, is it real fun when we encounter the real ghosts???

WHEN MY DAUGHTER EXPERIMENTS WITH MY CAMERA

2010-06-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

About 28 years back, on a Saturday morning, I sat down with a story book to read at leisure. I was a student that time and studying was the only major responsibility I had. We did not have a television and so books and music were the only indulgences I had to spend time. There was a knock at the main door. I opened it to see Lawrence uncle from the neighboring house. He was a dashing young man in his early thirties and I somehow always got caught in awkward and diffident situations in front of him.

He asked me if I could have my Dad’s camera. My Dad had told me before he left for work that morning, that there will be someone coming from the neighbor’s house requesting for our camera. I took the camera from the cupboard and gave it to Lawrence uncle. He asked me whether I could guide him through the operations of the camera. I blinked and told him that I had no clue. I was not confident while giving him an answer. I could have said that I had no clue more confidently, but somehow it did not happen. Lawrence uncle went to my Dad’s office that was located a few kilometers away from my home, along with the camera, and understood its operations from him.
That night when we sat down for dinner, Dad told me that Lawrence uncle had told him about my inability to operate a camera. It appeared to me that Dad was a little taken aback by what Lawrence uncle told him. It was only for that moment that I did see him being a little disturbed and when the next day came, it was gone. But that incident left a deep mark in my mind. It still remains there even today; no wonder I am writing it here now.
No doubts, that 28 years back, an Olympus film camera was a luxury for a lower middle class family like us. My Dad had a cupboard, and all such costly items remained locked in there. We rarely got to experiment with the camera. It was important that costly things were kept safe. But the fact that I could not experiment with that camera at that age, put me in a very awkward position in front of a known person outside my family.
It’s not that this is an attempt to see who was at fault. But what I like best about the whole thing is that I am able to see the results in my daughter, when I believed that she could do something even when she is so young. This incident that happened when I was pretty young made me open up my laptop and my digital camera to my daughter for her to do experiments, but certainly with my monitoring eye around. I would say she made a lot of mistakes, but I never criticized here. I made it a point to pick the best snap out of the worst lot and tell her that she was better than yesterday. And it is working with her.
We got out very often with the camera together into the little area surrounding our house. These snaps of the kittens were shot by me. It was then that a kingfisher came by and my daughter spotted it. I gave her the camera and the freedom and this is the best she could get. But I am happy she is getting better every day. If you drop into the Decemeber post ‘How Good Was My Christmas This Year’, you can see some of the snaps shot by her. I loved the one of the Santa Claus on the Christmas tree. It was completely her shot…her own…Of course digital camera has given us experimentations with photography at zero cost. May be that is why I have the guts to take this risk…may be ..I am not sure…
I always tell her that on any day, she should work to be better than what she was the previous day. And I believe it will help her in the long run.

RISE O'MEEK SOUL RISE

2010-06-09T08:03:00.001-07:00

The life of every human is a sequence of wars,
That he battles to realize his inner self, everyday.
The chivalrous are proud of their battle scars,
But the meek pant and struggle to find their way.

When some morose moments of failure in life,
Drag the meek into straits that are dire,
Deep down their hearts, they cry in strife,
As embers of glowing sorrow break into emotional fire.

O' fellowmen, don't you know you are at fault,
When you laugh at the failures of the meek, like preying hounds,
For your ridicule is like burning salt,
Applied on searing battle wounds.

Rise O' meek soul, rise in faith and fight,
Like the Phoenix from the pyre, may your rise be invincible,
For the golden crown of victory awaits acts of might,
By the brave and indomitable.

BEAUTIFUL STRETCHES OF WATER...

2010-05-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

When you take a drive from Coonoor towards Ooty, we have the Pine forest somewhere in between. Take a walk down through the trees and you will reach this beautiful piece of still water you see below..

The snap below is that of another spot closer to Ooty, the Pykra lake. We missed the boating stint out here, but enjoyed the view from this height. You will notice that the banks are plain, slopy and smooth and there is a kind of emptiness lingering all over here.

And the rest are that of the Ooty Lake. We had a boat ride here. The banks are full with green growth in total contrast to the Pykra Lake. We spotted more birds here and the emptiness was never there.

THE RESULT OF HARD WORK AND COMMITMENT

2010-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

In Coonoor, in the little space of a small guest house, we spotted this beautiful garden. It's gardener Munnuswamy is a very diffident and unassuming person, known may be to a few in and around that place. But his enthusiasm, hard work and commitment is very much out here for all of us to see. Munnuswamy's garden bagged the trophy for the first prize again this year, at the Ooty Flower Show, and he has been consistently winning the same for the last 4 years under more than one prize category.

Often I analyze, to understand, if a human can generate hard work and commitment on the fly. The truth is that he can't. The main fuel that generates these two, is the interest and enthusiasm. We all have to enjoy what we do, and only then will our outputs reach higher planes of quality.

Many times I read about our great national leaders, sportsmen, business leaders and draw inspiration from their lives , from the way they carry about themselves, and from all the things they are able to do as though it happens with a wave of a magic wand. But we have ordinary humans in the small corners of this earth, who are never in the limelight, who are unknown to most of us, but still generate work and outputs of such high quality.

And Munnuswamy is certainly one of the very few, who have grabbed my attention, giving me a high and an inspiration in what I do everyday.

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR THIS MARSH AND THE BEAUTIFUL BIRDS OUT THERE???

2010-05-22T06:44:00.000-07:00

Atleast thrice every week, I spend some time watching the Pallikaranai marsh from the top floors of my office building. This wetland is part of the Pallikarnai Forest Block in Thoraipakkam. This is a wonderful swamp with bio-shield reeds that saves Chennai from floods. It has been declared a Reserve Forest and approximately 114 bird species have been recorded.

This is the remaining part of the huge marsh that once existed and where a large number of birds flocked. A large part of this marsh got eaten up, by the dumping of waste and the still unquenched real estate thirst of real estate heroes that hit the city years back. Birds still flock this wetland and the surrounding trees in huge numbers during the seasons.…

An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem located within a body of water. Here we have communities of organisms that are dependent on each other and on their environment.

The Wikipedia states that the topography of the swamp is such that it always retains some storage, thus forming an aquatic ecosystem. It has been a home for naturally occurring plants (61 species), fish (50 species), birds (106 species), butterflies (7 species), reptiles (21 species) and some exotic floating vegetation such as water hyacinth and water lettuce, which are less extensive now and highly localized.
Recent reports of the appearance of the White-spotted garden skink which belong to the family of lizards, for the first time in Tamil Nadu, and Russell’s viper, the largest and the most widespread among Asian viper snakes, confirm its invaluable ecological status. Fish such as Dwarf gourami and Chromides that are widely bred and traded worldwide for aquaria, occur naturally in Pallikaranai.
Besides, the Windowpane oyster, Mud crab, Mullet, Halfbeak and Green chromide are some of the estuarine fauna present in the marsh. Birds like the Pied avocets and the Greater flamingo also frequent this wetland.

The pictures below are a proof, of the extremely bad situation of a part of this lake, lying on the opposite side, of the road that cuts across this lake. The city's garbage dump is growing in size out there and right now it's almost the size of a small mountain.What is seen as greyish stretches beside the water is the garbage slowly attaining mountainous proportions. We can see almost a small road running through this garbage mountain.

The waste and bacteria that seep out of these dumps, have started slowly polluting the water in this lake.

Extracts from an article published in the HINDU on the 6th February is below:
“Chennai is running short of dumping space: The Chennai corporation area has a population of 4.2 million people. The solid waste generated in daily is 3225 tonnes – ends up in dumping yards in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi. This is excluding 400 tonnes of construction debris generated daily. The city is running out of dumping space and fast. According to Chennai Corporation’ s estimates, the capacity of the dumping yards will be exhausted in eight years.
The non-composite waste like plastic has increased from 10 per cent to 30 per cent of the total garbage in recent years. The corporation should dialogue with ragpickers and recyclers, who play an informal and insignificant role in waste management.”
The Hindu, 6 February 2007, page 3.

The situation is so grave. I am still carrying on with my life......but am not sure what I can do to see some good things happening here for the birds, the flora and the fauna...not sure whether I can do anything at all..........

PITTER PATTER, SWEET CHIRPS, CANDLE LIGHT AND A CUP OF HOT TEA.....

2010-05-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Today Chennai had an unusual downpour of midsummer rain. I left for work early as usual, and there was a good amount of water on the roads, in the morning when I made to the spot where the company bus stops. I walked slowly on my heels and I am sure people would have noticed this oddity when all the others simply let their feet right into the sheet of water. Through this method of heel-walking, I got very little of my shoes wet. But in some spots, I behaved as though I was in a battle field, full of mines, jumping from one point to another to avoid the water pot holes. Once this mine-walking was over, the onward journey was so cosy inside the company bus.

I realized on reaching the company gate, that I had forgotten to take my identity card. Which meant that I had to come back all the way home, through my own means of transport. As soon I as stepped out on my return journey, the heavens opened up and blessed me with one bout of heavy rain, before I could step into the first autorickshaw. And although I had the umbrella on, my bag and most of my shirt took the brunt.

The auto rickshaw got me to a spot, much away from train station spot where I wanted him to stop. With my wet shirt on, he easily convinced me as to why he did that, and also managed to get a huge fare, by giving me a lecture which almost made me feel that his vehicle had suddenly became a kayak, which he had to negotiate through a very tough flow of water current.

And then came another set of pot holes over which I mine-walked to reach the train ticket counter. I could see a lot of people bravely standing, in a line in feet deep water to get the tickets. I managed to get through this too with my great heel-walking technique.

The train journey was good, except that I got a feeling that I was in an open boat which had just been washed with a wave of water. All the seats were wet. I had to sit, so as to relieve my self of the weight of my bag and also to feel better after the few encounters that went by. And thus my pant got the first feel of rain water.
The train took me to my station when it was raining. I never realized that the station did not have an extended roof, and so I stepped out with a folded umbrella and got a huge ablution for my head and upper body done. And then the umbrella unfolded and the blessings from heaven increased.

I had to walk a long way to get into the next type of transportation, and this umbrella was no match for the wet blessings that were coming down. And to make matters worse, a huge wind added masala to the whole situation. And my light green pant suddenly became deep army green.And then came a huge stretch of flood water, that I had to negotiate to reach the main road from the station. Heel-walking, my great skill was again put to use. But the water was too deep for this skill to be effective, and soon the only apparel that remained a shade dry, my socks, also succumbed to the continuous ablution from heaven.

And so I boarded the bus as one wet object, but I had company. There were a lot of drenched ones in there. It was touching to see a wife get up and wipe the wet hair of her husband. She was not bothered about the people around watching her. Once out of the bus, another kayak champion on his autorickshaw spotted me. I negotiated the fare standing on the pavement, and he was almost in the middle of the road. He almost hypnotised me, into accepting a fare that I had never paid from that spot. I waved to him to come closer, so that I don't have to step into the water that was lying between us. He came a little closer, but that was just not enough. I motioned my hands further. Anyone who was seeing me would have got a feeling of having seen Collingwood making those fine adjustments to the fielder's position before the next ball was about to be bowled.

Once inside his kayak, he spoke to me, as though we knew each other for years, and all kinds discussions, right from the building of flyovers to the pathetic state of the roads in Chennai were discussed. And then we reached home.

Getting home and after a round of freshening up and food, got me back to real comfort, after all these wet encounters. I carried some work home and I had some reading to be done too for an upcoming exam. The rains continued and the power went off. And so I had candles up and burning. Afternoon slowly gave way for the evening to rule. Inside home everything was still, as the only other person in there, was my father sleeping in another room. My daughter was at my wife's home and others were out for work.

I had a hot cup of tea with me, along with some snacks. Having these, I looked at the rain drops, slowly dressing the leaves and the tree trunks. The chirps of birds in the trees close by were really sweet. This rain has really made all of us including these birds happy.

I remember sitting down with a candle, to study for my school exams, years back when the power went off. Somehow books and exams, and their associated pressures, still remain around me as they were years back.

But still, sitting in my room with this candelight, with the rains going pitter patter outside, with birds chirping happily on the trees, me watching dry coconuts and leaves floating on sheets of water, and trains of ants very busy with their never ending chores while I am on a cup of hot tea, was really a sweet way to spend a precious evening . Evenings are really precious because software engineers like me, see very few evenings at home, in a whole year.

MUCH ABOVE A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

2010-05-16T08:29:00.001-07:00

TEA TIME@COONOOR

2010-05-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

A TRYST WITH MOUNT RAINIER

2010-04-30T03:17:00.001-07:00

The Rainier Mountains in Washington State when draped with layers of snow was a feast for the eyes when I saw it years back. But then so is any other mountain is what I feel on second thoughts. And for that matter, once snow hits the ground, anything you see dressed with snow is indeed a great feast for the eyes. Its only the snow that is on the roads that gets ugly in a few days time. It's amazing that nature's randomness is so beautiful. Anything it portrays is beautiful.

But this is the only snow draped mountain I got to see. I am not sure if I will be able to see one more again.

INTERIOR DESIGN @ THE SANTHOME BASILICA AT CHENNAI, INDIA

2010-04-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

Some great woodwork on the roof of this church really left me standing. The interiors are so beautiful and symmetrical and well maintained. This is the place where St. Thomas, the disciple of Christ Jesus was supposed to have been laid to rest. The church has been the focus, of progressive architectural renovation through the years, and the results are here to see.

THE NOSE, THE BEARD, THE MOUSTACHE AND THE SIDEBURN

2010-04-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

These are a few combinations of the nose, the beard,the sideburn and the moustache that I tried out with the Paint Brush package. These features are the ones that make a big impact on the first impression a man makes through this personality. Try it out if you want to have a tryst with Microsoft Paint Brush. All these together have just taken 20 minutes. You will enjoy.....

MORNING TWEETS

2010-04-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

Here comes dawn,
While the moon is gone,
And I peep through the window,
To see what’s on.

“Tweet, tweet, tweet”,
So nice and sweet.
It’s my little sparrow,
I’m happy to meet.

Hop, hop, hop,
And then a stop,
Looking for it’s food,
On every stop.

“Clang, Tang, Clang”,
My Mom drops the pan,
And away it flies,
As fast as it can.

But I will wait,
For another date,
To meet my sparrow,
My best mate.

P.S: I wrote this piece for my friend's daughter for her poetry recital at school.

LIGHTENING UP HAPLESS LIVES

2010-04-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to share with you that a story of mine "Lightening Hapless Lives" written under my pen name 'cherrycorp' has got published in the Femina magazine Website and it is also one of the Editor's pick out of the many selected this week. I had sent the same story to The Times Of India, Delhi Press and Femina months back and forgotten the same. Last Friday I was really surprised and happy to see the response from Femina.
Please visit the link below to read the piece and kindly post your comments if any right there in the Femina magazine website.
http://readerspost.femina.in/stories-poem/lightening-up-hapless-lives/
Thanks much to all for spending time to read and to go through all my work. It's your backing that keeps me going everyday.
Hope you will enjoy.....

THIS EASTER, I AM STILL GRAPPLING.....

2010-04-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

As I grapple with the bones,
of the great chicken curry made at home,
and my daughter franctically works,
on the easter egg to see,
the big surprise waiting inside,
my heart tells me, that the human inside me,
has not progressed beyond,
the participation in the day's church service,
and in the tasting of the great feast Easter brings with it.

I still grapple with my ego and hate,
trying to overcome them,
each time I want to refine myself.
I still find it difficult,
to forgive the ones I don’t like, although I fully know,
that God was able to quietly undergo death like a mortal,
and still forgive the ones who killed him.

I believe that the Lord,
who rose from the dead this day,
will help me to fully transcend my ego and hate,
and to be resilient,
so as to rise each time I fall back,
on the same old track.

FRIENDSHIP'S TRUE FRIEND

2010-03-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

In this busy world of ours,
Filled with mortals of different kind,
Those with a big and benevolent heart,
It is but difficult to find.

Even in trying and testing times,
When dire periods never seem to end,
They still give their time and their warmth,
To every near and dear friend.

As the endurance of these mortals,
Get tested to limits, when friendships strain,
They still take those subtle steps,
To ensure that relationships never drain.

Every friendship needs such a friend,
Who leaves his self and goes beyond,
To bind and sustain a relationship,
That consummates into an eternal bond.

DESTINY'S CREATION

2010-03-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

Several years back on that day,
When this earth heard your first cry,
You were a darling in every way,
Soaring our spirits sky high.

Dreams we did weave around you,
Day by day as you grew,
And today its time you knew,
Whether you did fulfill a few.

Deep into your heart you also did fill,
Choicest dreams that you did treasure,
And worked on these with all your will,
Seeing failure and success in varied measure.

Let your mind’s imagination soar,
Breeding it with selfless ideas, all fresh and pure,
To break open ego’s impregnable door,
And serve the mortals in need, both far and near.

The world will then, find happiness in your progress,
And life will give you its very very best.
The support and motivation for your success,
Will be showered by destiny with all zest.

May your deeds prove valuable to this earth,
Taking you to heights scaled by a select few,
And we would for sure take pride in your birth,
Seeing the world bow to a phenomenon like you.

THE BEAUTY OF TREES - A SPLASH OF COLOUR

2010-03-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

In 2007 while at Renton, Washington, USA, I was returning home pretty late and after sunset, for the whole week from work.

When I stepped out to play with my friends on the following Saturday, the colour of the trees close to our apartment really left me standing. Lavender is a colour I love, and a few trees were full of that colour.

With the lush green ground and few colourful flowers close by, you can see these trees in the distance.

RISING IN LOVE

2010-03-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

There was a time honey,
when love bound us together,
so much.
At the dawn of every day,
love birds chirped for us
and the morning winds,
danced for us.

I remember the day honey,
when you swore,
that you would be with me for life.
And another day came,
and you told me, that we better be friends.

After we parted, you saw my life drop dead,
like a log of wood, buried in a pile of snow.
You told me however, that it was important,
to learn to move on in life.
You seemed to be too good and ruthless,
in this art of moving on,
but I did struggle all alone to come to terms,
with this new art.

My friends told me,
that meeting and parting with such people,
was so common in life,
and that one should be lucky,
to experience true and honest love.
And so I moved on.

But I also dived deep within myself,
picking up a lot of the oysters,
that God had given me,
and put my mind,
on getting the pearls out of each of them.

Did you know honey,
that I never stepped into anything,
to just learn, but to excel?
And today I have built a new house of life,
with the dead wood in me that fell down,
and decorated its walls,
with the best pearls that my oysters gave.

You thought I am finished when I fell in love,
but honey, it’s in my genes to rise with every fall.
And I rose and discovered myself more.

My eyes spot people like you everyday,
preying on mortals to get their love,
to use them to the limits and then,
to throw them to the remote and sad corners of life.

Honey, it’s the mere mortals that fall in love,
and go into oblivion.
But it takes an immortal, to rise from this fall,
rediscover himself and stand tall.

Talk to me honey and you will find,
deep inside this genial demeanour,
a character that discerns true love,
from the flirtatious approaches of people like you.
Observe and you will find,
beneath the calm exterior of mine,
a phoenix rising in all glory,
from the ashes where it was once buried.

SHADES OF GOLD AFTER A DAY OF SNOW

2010-03-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

I took multiple shots of this scene with my Canon S1 1S in auto focus. All the snaps were hazy when I got them out, except this one, and I really love it for the shades of golden yellow in it. We had a good snow shower in Renton, Washington State, USA the previous night. And this shot was taken exactly after a day went by, when the snow hardens into ice on the road and tyre tracks of vehicles also leave their impressions on the road. The glaze shimmering in the street lamps looked so nice. I did walk a long way and spotted this by accident. Hope you will enjoy....

NATURE'S BIGGEST MIRAGE

2010-03-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

Nature gives us seasons and it could be sunny and sultry or cold and icy on the outside but then inside the two hearts that fall in love, love is so fresh and dense that one could feel it in the air. We have so many languages in this world of ours, but love is the only language that the two will understand. Their minds slowly getting detached from the busy momentum of the world around and nature slowly takes them into a world of love and serene beauty. Their hearts overflow with the tenderness and innocence.

They see dawn and yonder a thousand birds rising in flight in search of a new destination. As the first rays of sunlight fill the earth, they see lush green pastures and blooming flowers. The sweet chirps of love birds and sound of water ripples in the brooks surround them. It’s all serene and calm. And thus the Lord Almighty with his massive brush of destiny paints the life of every couple on the huge canvas of the earth

How different it is from a matured married life is something which can only be experienced and can never be described. It is a time when one is willing to go to all lengths to accommodate the other and also their ideas and views, so much so that this love is sometimes described as a mirage and a misrepresentation of the underlying true love that finally gets churned out in a married life. We see many couples still going the extra mile for their dear ones, but not without uttering a word or two of disagreement. Love is still strong, but the sweetness and the suspense disappears.

But still we see marriages happen every day. That is the uniqueness of God’s creation. Till man and woman get united, each feels that there is something out there that he or she misses so much in life. And this feeling remains in spite of their seeing and hearing the hardships of married lives in front of his eyes. We humans are willing to take that hardship for those small nice feelings that love gives in those initial times. It’s these small feelings of love stitched together that makes life.

And so it’s important that we always strive to revive and relish these feelings. As days go by and we get older and older, life will still remain younger with these feelings stitched around us. And that calls for hard work and patience. Love birds will then continue to sing in our garden of life. And Nature will shower blessings of Hope and Joy for a lifetime on them, to satisfy each one's fathomless expectations from the other and also to satisfy their expectations from Life too.

ATOP THE SPACE NEEDLE

2010-03-06T03:22:00.000-08:00

I shot these pictures while on a visit to Seattle Downtown. We went up the Space Needle and had a this beautiful view. What you see below is the stadium where the famous Seattle Sea Hawks play American football.

The Washington Mutual and Bank of America buildings are some of the few buildings that you see below.

I also managed to take this show right below us. This is the science museum with its wonderful joy rides. I did not want to take the risk of putting the camera through the bars that you see below.

HOW DO WE CHANNELIZE THEIR ENERGY?

2010-02-27T02:42:00.000-08:00

It was a Friday afternoon. I was in std IX and the Chemistry teacher had not come. So the period was declared free by our class teacher and all the students left for the playground nearby. The boys decided to play cricket while some of the girls sat down and watched the match. Our team was batting and I was three down. I soon got the opportunity to bat. The teams knew that I was one of the worst when it came down to batting or for that matter bowling. I faced a few balls and kept swinging my bat and missing all of them but one of them connected with the bat by chance. The power behind that shot was so much that it went so high and so far above the tree near the wall of the huge ground and out into the road. We lost the ball.

Both the teams were stunned seeing that shot. Some of them kept saying that it was a fluke, which it was indeed. And the others kept lauding that only I could play such a shot.
We had a spare ball and the game resumed. I faced a few more balls and hit one more beauty of a shot, as one classmate described it after the match. But that landed straight into his hands and I was out. For the next one week he had that impression that I was a batting great, but in the subsequent weeks he came to know the real picture, both with regards to my batting and bowling. I basked in the glory of that shot and the praises from some of my classmates for weeks, especially because of the fact that a few beautiful girls in my class watched those shots. I used to have this feeling that these shots are going to take me somewhere in my life as a sportsman. But it did not even in a small way.

Looking back I would say that I was indeed, one of the worst, in batting and bowling. But I was indeed one of the very good fielders and catchers and my classmates did see that happen in several matches. Of course, since I was the track and field champion for two consecutive years in the Sub-Juniors category, running was pretty natural and so running after the ball and throwing came naturally for me. And I would often put in all my effort and dive for catches. But again as we all know, one needs to also be either a good batsman or a bowler other than being a fielder too, to be recognized as a good player in a team.

Several small frames of cricket and for that matter, any kind of sport I involved in right through my school and college days run through my mind now. I was and am still blessed with a good and naturally strong physique thanks to the large amounts of walking that I used to do right through my first 6 years, walking to school and back home with my friends. Even today there is that urge in me to give hundred percent into whatever I am genuinely interested in. And cricket and athletics were such events where my heart was when I was in school. I remember my sports master telling me after the second athletics championship victory that I should join some club and practice athletics seriously. Back home my father and his circle of friends were very happy to see me with all those cups and certificates. I was the talk of the school for many years and even so amongst our friendly family circle. I basked in that glory too for a long time.

Three years later my father asked me a question that still comes back to me every time I take decisions regarding my daughter. He asked me “Roy, I know you are good at athletics, but can you shine in both studies and athletics? You decide. If you are interested in sports you have to really excel” Being an introvert that I was I did not have an answer. And every day the house was mostly focused on making me a best student. Athletics or anything other than studies was never considered as something significant. So it was but natural that I took the safe side of concentrating on studies. Both I and my father assumed that I would not make it so big in sports anyway. We were afraid to take that risk being a part of the large Indian middle class. I don’t blame him.

I was very good at cricket played on the streets with the rubber ball. My energy level and enthusiasm was so high during those matches. I see the same energy in many children playing cricket on the streets. I see that same kind of energy and drive in my daughter when she lunges for the shuttle when we play badminton in the evenings. It makes me think about her for hours, on what I should be doing as a parent with that energy in her. I think I have a huge responsibility in channelizing that energy. But again I am also in the same situation as my father was years back. Can I mould my daughter into a good pianist, into a good singer or a good badminton player? Will it affect her studies and will she land in a situation where she will shine in neither? Competition in these fields is certainly much more than what it was twenty years back. We have small children getting big awards in all fields of sports or music these days. Opportunities are more and parents are willing to fund for them to give them the required coaching. And we never know how many of them will really make it big.

But I still feel that if children show the signs of talent and the energy, it’s worth investing our time and money on them. May be they will not make it so big, but at least they will be able to stand out in a small crowd as achievers of a small kind. That is much better than living a life knowing that one had the talent but was not able to make it to even a small level. I strongly believe that we should never hesitate in taking steps to tap this talent and energy that they exhibit.

But how will we do it is the big question? How do we keep our energy and motivation levels high and also keep their motivation and energy levels high to bring out the best in them. How do we believe in our selves and make them believe in themselves even if these children are showing those sparks in some remote corner of the world? I would love to listen to ideas for experimenting.

THE MAGICAL HUES OF DUSK

2010-02-27T02:35:00.000-08:00

This is another painting that I did with the Microsoft Paint Brush package. Hope you will enjoy.

THE BEAUTY OF TREES - A DELIGHT FOR THE EYES

2010-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

A DREAM THAT I HAVE DECIDED TO WORK ON

2010-02-21T08:08:00.000-08:00

I wrote this story for my church magazine. It's revolves around a dream seen by a Bible School teacher. It is a dream that I too as a Sunday School teacher, treasure deep in my heart. Today I am alone in making this dream come true. Sunday School today is more like another school with it's syllabus and exams. There are very few activities that the kids enjoy doing. Hopefully, tomorrow there will be more hands who will help me in working towards giving a better time for our dear children while they are at the Sunday School.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning after Christmas. Sandeep saw the Sunday school in the distance, all adorned with Christmas decorations. A few Santa Clauses were hopping from one classroom to the other, playing pranks with the kids. The church service had just got over, and all the members were still having their morning coffee and the after church chat. He made his way through the crowd to the Sunday School.

Somehow he seemed to be finding Sunday School teaching to be a different experience over the last few weeks. He loved being there to groom the children. Every week there were some fresh surprises, and that was what that made it so interesting. Last week, immediately after the starting prayer, there was a game that children in different age groups got to play. And the week before, there was big picture puzzle they had to solve. And he was very thrilled about what was going to be there today.

The day had started with a young boy leading the group in prayer. Then the students were divided into three groups for playing activity games. One group played the treasure hunt where they got to search for objects like Goliath’s sword, Pharaoh’s crown and more, hidden in the corners of the classrooms. The students were given biblical clues to search each object.

Another group was played passing the buck. A parcel got passed while a music piece was being played and when it stopped, the children were asked to come forward and do a task…and there were number of challenging and interesting tasks related to situations in the Bible that were being done.

The other group which had all the tiny tots was busy learning an action song and simultaneously joining dots on a huge sheet of paper, and then sketching and painting parts of the huge resulting picture.

This suspense every week was thrilling. It was real fun and the whole thing would be totally different the next week and this kept the children totally motivated to attend Sunday School every week. Sandeep and a few other teachers were experimenting with new methods of teaching the children, and he was so happy that God was getting his experiments to work.

After the games, the children moved over to the Christian Experience and Challenges Centre. There were computers and projector screens here. He saw that the children were divided into batches based on their age. Each batch depending on their age and understanding capability had its own set of movie lessons, presentations, activity cards, crosswords, group discussions, workshops, music and more that gave the children interesting and practical sessions on people who lived a life which had a strong Christian content in them.

There were movies on lives of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and more for the bigger children. They were also briefed on the Christian content in these lives and the relationship of these lives to the fundamental faith in the Bible, and how stories and characters in it could be related to lives of these people too. The session also cut across different religions and exposed them to good aspects in these and drew a relationship with similar ones in Christianity.

The children were also planned to be put into mock life situations and then taught on how to react to these situations assertively in a Christian way. He saw that the group discussions, workshops and activity groups, were very good to progressively groom the children, into those who could speak assertively on Christian faith. The young ones had more of drawing and colouring too. There was great activity for all. He liked it.

The movie projector’s light went off in the middle of the movie, and the children of Class VIII became impatient. A short movie lesson on St.Peter was being screened. The movie got over soon and the children went into rapture. Sandeep was distributing crossword sheets for this lesson. The students got into focused activity, cracking the crossword based on what they saw in the movie. Last week a movie was followed by a rapid quiz. Next week there would something new and the students loved the suspense.

He saw that the Sunday school also had several streams like singing, musical instruments, games, puzzles, quiz, debate, speech, religious discussion, Activity Idea Centre support and Christian Experience and Challenges Centre support and many more. Soon the students from all the similar classes were regrouped into these streams. Sandeep was the mentor of the quiz stream. He saw his son Joel running for joining the Activity Idea Support stream. Joel was also a part of the debate stream.

The best part was that each student in the Sunday school was mapped to at least one stream and that made a huge difference. Sandeep observed that students who would otherwise involve in plain chatter, while song and quiz sessions were on in the old system, actively involved in Bible data gathering or other activities through which they could contribute to the Activity Idea Centre or participate in singing, games and other streams.

There were no competitions and no winners or losers. Every time a student participated or contributed in a stream, he or she earned points which could be redeemed by the student to buy whatever they wanted. They could also contribute the points to the church. And Sandeep was very happy that Joel was contributing to the Charity wing of the church, from his accumulated points, and that made him very happy. He observed that some students even bought valuable books they liked and some contributed to the poor too from these points.

Sandeep saw a lot of changes over the last one year in everything what Joel did. He saw him taking ownership and showing more interest and involvement. He recalled how distracted a kid Joel was, always playing pranks with someone and never paying attention. Joel now chose the stream that he was interested in, and he was putting his full heart into it. He loved Sunday school and he could talk and debate about personalities in the Bible and faith. As part of the Activity Idea Support Team, Joel was able to give valuable ideas.

Sandeep also could feel the happiness in him as a teacher, in seeing very similar changes amongst other students too. All the children were bubbling with excitement and a lot of interest. He could see a lot of changes in everything that the Sunday school students did. He could see them showing more interest and involvement, as they felt a sense of ownership towards the activities that they had helped to plan. Sandeep was glad that he took the perspective of the children into consideration while planning for their development, as they used to come up with several simple but interesting ideas. Sandeep also noticed that the Church choir got some good instrumentalists and singers from the singing stream. He felt it to be really great, as it was a good way of ensuring continuity in the Choir!

In another room within the church building, he could see a few elders and members of the Church’s youth wing get together with notepads, pens, paper, scissors and glue. It was the Activity Idea Centre, and all ideas for the children’s Fun and Facts games for the next few weeks emanated from here in advance. There was a similar group that planned out the movies, presentations, puzzles, games and activity cards for the different age groups, for the classes too, for the Christian Experience and Challenges Centre in consultation with the Church Vicar. Sandeep observed that it was totally different from a regular school, but still there were loads of fun along with strong lessons in Christian faith.

One important philosophy that these groups believed in and consistently implemented was that, the Sunday School should be totally different from a regular school. They ensured that the children had activities that had in them loads of fun along with strong lessons in Christian faith.

At another corner, on the church steps, a group of mothers, waiting for their kids who were at the Sunday school, along with some more youth members, were busy with sheets of paper, hardboard, scissors and glue. They were giving final touches to the outputs that came out of the Activity Idea Centre conceptualized last week. A number of puzzles, paper objects, paper designs and others lay all around. Sandeep was happy to see them put in their piece of effort too.

He suddenly felt someone prodding him. He got up and saw his son Joel trying to wake him up. He realized that he had been sleeping all the while. Whatever he saw was a big dream. It was a Saturday, and Joel reminded him that he had to submit his Sunday school project the next day. Sandeep had to collect the names of all the items kept on the altar for the same. The Sunday school books were lying all over the bed, as he was on this work of preparing for the next day’s classes and setting up the question papers for the exams, while he fell asleep. Joel had his regular school exams on Monday, and he had to spend time with him for that too. The pressure was mounting on both.

He realized how beautiful the dream was, and how great it would be, if the Sunday school reached that level, where children would be filled with boundless energy, and where there would be more activity oriented learning than classrooms, exams and competitions filled with truckloads of pressure. But then he also knew that there was a long way to go. May be it was possible over the years in slow but sure steps. He decided to talk to the Church members and the Vicar on this the next day, and started working on the Sunday school project for Joel. The dream was great..but now he had to get back to regular work….

MAY GOD PRESERVE THEIR NASCENT LOVE

2010-02-20T01:39:00.000-08:00

Another wedding went by last week. Another sweet couple we knew came together in life. Many years back I and my wife were also at this stage, when we came together. We had that love which was so fresh and so naïve. And that is when it is nascent and at it's best. With the passage of time love became stronger, but the freshness faded away. It may be God’s design of how a couple’s life should be.

Looking at them, I could see love in its purest and most intense form, a love that was unconditional, a love that was willing to yield, a love that was emotional and willing to sacrifice, a love that was untainted by the demands of the worldly life that they were about to step into, It is a time in their life when Nature carves out a million dreams in their hearts, dreams that have no bounds, dreams with no conditions. It’s a time when Nature itself rejoices, on seeing two more hearts come together, with hope and joy. And the busy Creator in heaven pauses from his work for a minute to witness a couple join together as two birds flying in the paradise of love.

Marriage as we all know is a union of two families. Life today especially when two professionals come together is bound to be so hectic that it becomes difficult for them to give love to their parents and relatives unless and until they really make all the efforts. It is important to pray to God to bond the two families of every couple together with love that will remain strong for a lifetime. Only then can the two love birds experience a paradise in their married life.

Infidelity and divorce are at its highest today. Couples have to really put in a lot of will power and hard work to keep a married life moving in spite of the challenges they face in many forms. They need strong prayer. Let us all pray for every married couple and wish them a very happy and prosperous married life. May the Almighty God give them a beautiful garden of life all green and fresh where his Angels will stand guard for them. May flowers of patience, hope, humility and empathy bloom there in abundance.

May birds of happiness and laughter flock there in great numbers and sing songs that bring eternal joy to them and their families. May they feel the need to look up to God and pray everyday and may God listen to them and bless them with rich clouds that will shower blessings as raindrops to keep their garden of life green and its flowers in full bloom. May God sow innumerable seeds of talent and skill in their garden and may they grow up as huge trees that will bear rich fruits for them and their dear ones. May God bless them with the character to share everything with each other including their happiness and challenges at all times in their life

May each of them prove to be an inspiration to the other and may their life be a glittering example for the world around to see and implement.

MY LOVELY LITTLE EYES

2010-01-31T02:19:00.000-08:00

What is it that makes me wink,
That helps me see to make me think?
It’s my little pair of beautiful eyes,
That God gave me asking no price.

What is it that makes me cry,
When nothing happens when I try and try?
It’s my little eyes that shed each tear,
So nice like pearls, all pure and clear.

What is it that helps me spot,
The yellow moon or the sun so hot?
It’s my little eyes that help me love,
All the great colours of a rainbow.

What is it that helps me see,
The sick, the poor and the real needy?
It’s my little eyes that helps me spot,
The tearful eye or a hungry lot.

And when I close my eyes at night,
I think about the poor ones without sight,
Ah!! How precious are my little eyes,
That God gave me without a price.

P.S: I wrote this piece for my friend's daughter for her poetry recital at school.

THE BEAUTY OF TREES - A RANGE OF COLOURS

2010-01-26T05:00:00.000-08:00

I took these shots while I was at Renton, Washington State, USA. I love the blend of colours.

This picture below was taken while I was travelling in a train from Renton, Washington State, USA to its neighbouring state Portland. I like the mix of green, the blue sky and the gray clouds.

EARLY DAWN AFTER A NIGHT'S SNOW SHOWER

2010-01-26T04:59:00.000-08:00

I remember getting home at Renton, Washington State, USA at about 6.30 p.m. that night. I had an umbrella opened and a huge load of snow on top of it. I called my friend immediately to go outside and take some photographs. But I could sense that he did not have the same inclination as me. But he still came and am so thankful to him for that. We took some snaps that night and there was a huge fall of snow that followed.

The next day I was supposed to leave home at about 6.35 a.m for work and my usual time to get up from bed was about 5.15 a.m. But I kept the alarm and got up pretty early, dressed up and got out with the camera before the sun really showed up. My friend left for work and I told him that I will be coming a few hours late. And these are the shots I got in my camera before the sun came out in full. I love the bluish tinge that you see in these snaps. After a few minutes went by, it was full daylight and the bluish tinge was gone. I am so happy that I was able to get up and go out so early and get these shots.

Hope you will enjoy them.

THE DAY MY UMBRELLA TALKED TO ME

2010-01-26T04:52:00.000-08:00

A few days back when I was walking out of my office at Chennai, I noticed a young boy using an umbrella, while walking the short distance from the bus stop to the office in the hot sun. I was really surprised because I have not seen many men do that in Indian cities, and that too, young or middle aged men. Even my father who is now in his 70s hesitates to take un umbrella while walking in the scorching sun. He is more comfortable taking one when it is raining.I have seen that with many other old gentlemen too. But women find no hesitation in using an umbrella in all seasons.

I remember one incident, when I had gone to attend a function at my friend's house many years back. We had a few light showers that day. So as a precaution I took an umbrella with me. At that age, I too was a person, who would want to avoid a situation of people around seeing me with an umbrella. So I took a very small foldable one that I could slid and hide in my pant pocket as far as possible. But to my surprise, one uncle spotted this umbrella in my pocket and spent the next few minutes having fun and teasing me. The crux of the teasing was of course, the punch line that only women carry an umbrella wherever they go. It was embarassing at that point in time.
Years back I too was that kind of a person. Although I have the good habit of keeping an umbrella as part of my daily office or college carrying kit, I never really took it out when I sensed the first drop of rain, or when the sun was beginning to feel scorchy. And when the limits of tolerance were getting breached, I used to slowly pull it out and use it. The funniest part was that many of my friends who spotted the umbrella in my bag, used to ask me teasingly, whether it was raining in my part of the world.

Although their intention was to tease, the strange part is that as soon the rain came down, they would look for me and my umbrella, to take a share of its protection. I have walked with many friends this way, with one of our hands on the other’s shoulder over the years, and I do that even today.

Many times I felt my umbrella ask me, why there was this hesitation within me to take it out and boldly use it, particularly when the sun was so hot. I felt that it was looking at me like a person, who was not bold and confident enough to be myself. My umbrella seemed to be telling me that it was time I did boldly, what I wanted to do and what I thought was right.
And over the last few years many of my friends and neighbours have spotted me using the umbrella in the hot sun. I am sure they would be thinking what an odd person I am, and why I am doing things that only women do normally without hesitation. And my umbrella taught me to have that character, to do what I wanted to do, irrespective of where I was and who was watching me. And that I believe, requires real character. In fact when I saw that young man walk in to the office, I told my friends who were with me, about how bold and confident that young man must be.

Over the years I also observed women in particular use the umbrella as a style statement too. You could also see how beautiful a well dressed model looks when he or she carries a beautifully designed umbrella. That is when I also ventured into buying costly and well designed umbrellas that would fit in as part of my personal style. And as we all know it is always good to be stylish, and style is best for us when we work out something that is really a personal one.

VISITORS TODAY AFTERNOON....VISITORS WHO MAKE LIFE BEAUTIFUL.....

2010-01-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

These pictures were taken without any planning or anticipation. There have been several times in the past when I have been woken up from deep sleep by these two regular visitors. This cat is one of them. When he meows it's nice and fine, but many times he maons, growls and groans and that is so loud that it reallys wakes me up and puts me off. Sometimes this happens when one cat fights with the other.

The crows visit our place for a different reasons. There is a beautiful cane chair that is left hanging near one of our bed rooms. It has iron wires and also strands of cane to hold the bamboo structure together. The crow has been through several abortive attempts, to get these cane strands out, possibly to build its nest. The fantastic part is that it has still not given up and continues to sit on top of the chair to try pecking and pulling out the strands. And in the process it caws the hell out of me.

So today, I was actually in a revenge mode and I went out of my house into the surrounding open area with the only intention to disturb the cat while it was trying to sleep. It was then that I saw, this single crow, who was later joined by another one too and I guess they too like the cat, were trying to take a small nap. So I was really keen on disturbing them and chasing them away.

But soon I fell in love with how the whole thing looked, the beauty of these beings in this beautiful green and natural surroundings. So I simply forgot to take revenge. I ran for my camera and then took all these shots.

Sometimes we forget to be harsh when we find the beauty and the goodness in those we want to be harsh to.

Life is beautiful.......

WHEN NATURE WEAVES SYMMETRIES AND REFLECTIONS

2010-01-10T03:26:00.001-08:00

These are some of beautiful snaps that I was lucky to get from my camera. You will see interesting patterns and reflections. Some of these were shot while I was in a car. The last four pictures are from the Brown County in Indiana State. The others are in the Washington and Portland States.