Sometimes somedays

Sometimes I wish the stars fall by,
I pick them up and quietly pass by.

Sometimes I wish the summer dust settle in mild shower,
And disseminate the earth's fragrance in marigold flower

Sometimes I wish I climb up the everest peak,
Spread my arms and feel the zephyr creak

Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand,
Banish all misery with sleight of hand

Sometimes I wish I clear the evil around
All the vices and malevolence bury in ground

Sometimes I wish I close my eye,
When I open again in my arms you lie.

The God is back!

Yeah!
Score - 141
Balls - 148
fours - 13
sixes - 5

Leaves everyone spellbound!
All those who had written obituaries of his cricketing career eat their own words yet again!
He is undoubtedly the god of all things in cricket!

Hmm...

You know you are growing old when -

* You have officially, legally, formally crossed the wronger than wrong side of twenties.
* You are one of the seniormost members of your team, the other senior member is your 40 yr old manager.
* The no of guys proposing you in the last 2 years was ...amm..hmm..ahem..umm..
* The last time a guy whistled at you was...amm..ummm..ehhh..ohh...
* Well you care a damn that the integration of the above 2 equations approaches zero.
* Most of the people around you are atleast 2 yrs younger than you.
* People call you aunty. (This does not include Nishit as he is the only person entitled to do so, so far....)
* When you have a same sex get together you tend not to discuss men but just one man.
* You wear the same t-shirt and jeans every second day and to the office despite having your wardrobe seemingly full.
* It makes you look jhalli or atleast your bf tells so but you are unruffled.
* Increasing weight does not quite affect you.
* You take more interviews than what you have given in your lifetime.
* Exam, what exam ?
* Books, what books ? yawwwn
* You have exactly 4 and a half white hair on your head. It has been long since you've stopped noticing them or their new siblings.
* Most of your school friends are now mother of 2 kids.
* You move towards philosophy - learn to accept things and do not crib. It's a part of growing up!
* When you ruminate about your demeanor in some indicents in the past you get embarrassed and conclude that you were puerile then.
* You are more sympathetic towards old people than what you were before.
* You no longer like romantic mushy movies and would rather settle for some art or comedy movie.
* Whenever you bump upon an aquaintance it takes you some time before you map whether you know him from your school/ be/ mtech/ job days.
* When you think people celebrating valentine's day is silly.
* When Shahrukh's movies make you puke.
* When you need to consult your kid brother to buy a new tshirt and the one he tells you to buy you think is too bold.
* The last time you applied make up while going out was ..gulp
* Your concept of makeup kit consists of one box of nivea cream and one talcum powder.
* You have 6 pairs of sandals (out of which 2 are brand new) but you always wear your flat floaters.
* When people fighting over newsgroups only evokes one reaction from you - grow up!
* When you go to a mall to buy some clothes, you feel like you are like alice in wonderland with all weird clothes around - you will feel ashamed to wear even in your swimming pool.
* A lot of your male college friends are balding.
* When all the new heroines look the same to you.
* When tennis stars, miss indias, new cricketers, heroines, models, are younger than you.
* People whom you grew up admiring are in the twilight of their careers.
* You write blogs like this.

Some things I love

* Reading blogs of friends
* A shower after the gym
* Sabudana khichdi
* MLTR - 25 Minutes
* White butter
* Scripting languages
* Impulsive shopping in a sale
* GNR - November Rain
* Stone cold guys in movies a la Client Eastwood (El Bruno..) and Johnny Depp (Pirates..-I)
* Giving demonstrations of my culinary skills at home
* Listening to songs in infinite loop
* Applying mehendi to my hair on Sundays
* Caring friends
* Strong-at-heart people
* GNR - Sweet child o mine
* Preparing a full meal
* Applying Lipstick
* Reading a long email
* Bheege hoth tere (Murder)
* VRCE gang get togethers (yeah I hate being the target though :( )
* Flat floaters
* A good manager
* The all girlie mehfils at home discussing the man in your life
* The stretches and abs taught by my gym instructor
* Long bike rides on traffic free roads as a pillon rider
* Honest people. (may their tribe increase!)
* Preparing a things to do list
* People working despite the rotten system (a la Chandrashekar the ex-Commisioner of Ngp who changed the face of Ngp)
* Dance like noone's watching
* Vising VNIT and talking to Moghe sir when in Nagpur
* Amitabh movies from the 70s era
* An unexpected call from a long lost friend
* The irrepressible happiness on the face of friends after marrying their loved ones (a la Meghana)
* Watching videos of songs
* Steffi Graf
* Sleeping on my mom's lap
* Watching old photos
* Skirts
* Cloudy sky with lots of wind
* Pani puri
* Anshu applying mehendi on my hand
* Listening to love stories of friends
* Outings with the IITK gang (esp the Antakshiri and Dumb Cs)
* My family
* Watching the first rain after summer
* Reading a paper
* A freebie won
* Shady's monkey business
* Women of substance (kinda Indira Nooyi, Kajol, etc)
* Chatting with mom at home
* India winning a rare medal in Olympics
* Creating a neat UI
* Wearing a saree on rare ocassions ofcourse!
* Listening to people sing (as I cant :( )
* Nagpur roads
* Mango shake
* Shopping for home
* Rahul Dravid
* Long hair
* Festivals esp the food
* Shahrukh Khan in DDLJ
* Weekend sleeps without the alarm
* Atlas Shrugged (couldnt help but mention again)
* A free T-shirt
* A Smile
* A warm hug
* Shady

Omkara

I finally relented and succumbed to the pressure and went for a 10 pm Omkara show yesterday. I was wrongly presuming Omkara to be a tear-jerking loser's story which would leave me fuming in the end. Yeah it has a tragic end but perhaps since I knew it beforehand I was quite prepared for it! And yes Omkara lives upto all the rave reviews it has fetched. The clear winner is definitely Saif Ali Khan who looks very convincing in his role of the wily Langda Tyaagi. He mumbles all those expletives with ease and dons a look that resembles a UP thug the most. Kareena Kapoor manages to look ethereal and somehow I feel whenever she tones down her make up she has the capability to weave magic. Ajay Devgun is his normal self with the silent intense look. Konkana Sen is one lady who can perform any role with aplomb. She looks as rustic as her husband-in-the-movie Saif. After seeing her 15th Park Avenue and many other movies I have no doubt about her histrionics. The director has done a wonderful job too with the sets and the extras all looking like straight out of UP. And yes all those gaalis in chaste hindi were difficult to fathom. But ont thing I failed to empathize in the movie was the jealousy factor of Omkara in the movie. He did not seem to have definite reason to commit the heinous crime. I feel there should have been more reasons for Omkara to cast aspersions on his beloved's character and to label her as infidel. Nevertheless a must watch movie.

Chronicles of Elizia

1. Some things never change : Like the smile on your face upon nearing your hometown and the heaviness of heart when you have to leave it.
2. Home alone : After having a year of rocking time with roomies Sampada, Meghana, Deepa and Vaishali it's time for everyone else to move to their respective lives. Nevertheless I'd cherish the moments of non-stop boisterous laughter on the silliest possible jokes, the marathi speaking training, the movies on laptops, the marriage preparations and discussions, the Ayn Rand fan club, the elaborate mehendi sessions and the typical women talk that all men are alike they squander money they are least bothered and they are uber cool and care a damn when they should.
3. I love gyming : Weighloss or no weightloss I am in love with the office gym. It enlivens me after a hectic day.
4. Sabke baaratein aayi : Close friends around me are beginning to move to the second phase of one's life.
5. I have a dream : Someday I want to construct an old-age home for the aged people. When a person falls sick at a young age he generally has his family to fall back upon and to take care of him but the old people are abandoned to deal with their decrepitude on their own. It baffles me sometimes how people dump their very own parents. I dream to provide a shelter to such senile people.
6. Who is John Galt ? Yes, I am deep into Ayn Rand's another magnum opus 'The Atlas Shrugged'. I share a love hate relationship with her protagonists. I loathe them as I fail to fathom their whims and fancies - I cant apprehend why a lady should annihilate the professional path of the very man she loves and sleep with his rivals, a la The Fountainhead. But I secretly love her characters for what they are. Dagny Taggart is my latest obsession.

K(c)rrrri(a)ssshhhh

So after reading all those rave reviews of Krish being phenomenal and unprecedental, I decided to check it out myself. And how did I find it ? Umm..ahh err the mask was indeed sexy and Hrithik did manage to look Adonis the greek hunk God in some of the scenes and the swashbuckling jumps did bring out the kid inside me and made me clap! But I dint want my superman to be wussy. I would have relished some more earth-saving histrionics from the macho man rather than see him wasted delivering mushy dialogues and leaving his hometown for the heck of a girl who dint even love him .. arghh .. bollywood will be bollywood afterall!

We the living

I have finally completed it. It ended on a sombre note but there are several insuperable moments in it. It is the story of a young girl Kira and the people around her on the backdrop of the communist wave that swept Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. One thing that evinces clearly from this novel is Ayn Rand's strong disapproval of Communism. Through Kira she tells us ' dont you know there are things in the best of us which no outside hand should dare to touch. ' The conversation between Andrei Taganov and Kira when they meet at the university is classic and so is the one when she finally confronts him about the 'truth'. The description of Kira attempting to cross the border is another acme of the narrative. The scene when she calls out for her lover Leo that would have been had he been there is quite poignant. Irina's talk to Kira when the last time she meets her is also beautifully knitted. Irina says '..There's your life you begin it feeling that its something so precious and rare so beautiful that its like a sacred treasure and now it's over it doesnt make a difference to anyone, and its not they they are indifferent its just that they dont know, they dont know what it means the treasure of mine ...' In the end Ayn Rand makes one point clear - we the living, the life, the individual, the self-esteem, the values are much above anything else.
While reading the novel I couldnt help but underline one thing about the strife ridden Russia. In Russia, the czar's atrocities led to the communist thinking and his subsequent dethroning. This was not wrong. But what was wrong was the fiendishness in dealing with wealth owners of yesterday - the factory owners, the aristocrats and the counter revolutionaries. Two wrongs dont make a right. Something similar has been brewing up back home too.

Wo / man of substance

Two things. Both very different but moved me in the past few days. First I am reading Ayn Rand's We the living these days. Although I dint quite like her more famous novel Fountainhead, there is something that I cannot deny - her very strong potrayal of characters. I just love the way her characters are so strong and determined in their lives. Be it Howard Roark or Kira Argounova they have an indepedent spirit and an unwavering determination and they both refuse to be cast into moulds and follow their own unbeaten path.
Second. I watched Fanaa yday. The script was pathetic and the movie ludicrous. But Kajol was looking fresh. Her smile still remains as 100 watts as it was a few years ago. I have always surreptitiously admired the way Kajol has carried herself vis-a-vis her relationship with Ajay Devgun. She was the queen of tinsel town when she decided to call it quits give it all for a marriage and a family. Ajay Devgun then was a mere struggling actor. (I believe he has proved himself after his marriage throgh his superlative performaces in movies like Shaheed Bhagat Singh and the like.) It really takes gumption to shy away fame and fortune at the peak of your career and take hard-headed decisions. She took one and it in a way bode well for her. Hats off to the lady!

Pallavi's quote

In Kanpur Pallavi had a poster of Swami Vivekananda on her desk in the lab with a message -
'Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
Somehow I just remembered it today and felt like reiterating it.