Photo by - Endevourme
Photo Courtesy - Google
I will be off to Greenland on holidays with friends from office. Greenland is not at all green but its ice everywhere. Someone told me they fool people by giving that name, so as to make people go there HeeHee :). Leaving hubby at the mercy of maids is what makes me worry.
Reminds me of this song from Armageddon...
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin', this early morn
The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could cry
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe I hate to go
There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring
Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, let me kiss you
Close your eyes, I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the time when I don't have to say
I am leaving on a jet plane... :)
Photo Courtesy - Google
I get the best feeling in the world when you say hi or even smile at me because I know, even if its just for a second, that I've crossed your mind.
Have you ever wondered which hurts the most: saying something and wishing you had not, or saying nothing, and wishing you had?
It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone -- but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
If I could be any part of you, I’d be your tears. To be conceived in your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die on your lips.
Never tell your problems to anyone...20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them.
Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.
There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.
When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it does not come back, it was never meant to be.
Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.
Cheers!!!
-Asmita :)
Photo by - Endevourme
"A proper man loves a woman on three levels: as a dear child who is to be chided, perhaps even punished on account of her unreasonableness, and who is protected and taken care of because one loves her. Then as wife and as a loyal, understanding comrade who fights through life with one, who stands faithfully at one’s side without hemming in or chaining the man and his spirit. And as a goddess whose feet one must kiss, who gives one strength through her feminine wisdom and childlike, pure sanctity that does not weaken in the hardest struggles and in the ideal hours gives one heavenly peace."
Ironically, these lines were written by Heinrich Himmler, who, during Nazi regime of Hitler, arranged for systematic murder of over 9-million people in concentration camps.
Photo courtesy - Google
Photo Courtesy - Google
Place:Hotel Sheraton
Occasion:Usual-phoney-boring-formal-lunch
Photo courtesy - Google
Photo by - Endevourme
Memoirs of unknown reality boil up to surface
when why how....they dont care
they live through my mind
easily and effortlessly
like ghosts living in a haunted house
they belong here, but not me
they own my mind more than i do
and my imagination helps them more than it does to me
to avoid them, i lie restless and fully awake
cause ghosts dont come during daytime,
but i know they are there somewhere
and they appear when i least expect them
fear is reigned by the unknown and the unseen
and faith seems to run away only when i need
dreams of an unseen reality start to come true
while line between dreams and reality
grows thinner and thinner...
Photo Courtesy - Google
Hubby will be back next week, after 3 months :)
Why do people have to go away ?
Photo by - Endevourme
Some selected quotes by Richard Dawkins -
(I personally recommend to read "Devils Chaplain" by Dawkins. Must read for all!)
It's been suggested that if the supernaturalists really had the powers they claim, they'd win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science. Either way, why are they wasting their talents doing party turns on television?
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement . I think that the appetite for mystery, the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered. It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science, and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.
You don't have to be a scientist - you don't have to play the bunsen burner - in order to understand enough science to overtake your imagined need and fill that fancied gap. Science needs to be released from the lab into the culture.
One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?
By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realize that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.
....& the last one is so much true in my own case! and when you realize this naa, you feel all the pain was worth it...life rocks really :D!!
Photo Courtesy - Google
Today was my final day of lunch-at-office - I did not bring lunch from home the whole of this week because the mom-cook-alike maid is not well. And since I love experimenting, I think that you have to eat at least small amount of food outside once in a while to realize the worth of home-cooked food! I am not good at cooking thanks to first my mom and then to mom-cook-alike maid who cooks for us here in canada. These people have pampered me with their delicious-consistent home-made-food and now i am afraid how i will survive if left alone. After waking up from one-hour-seemingly-never-ending meeting at office, I headed to Mirchi, an indian-canadian restaurant that happens to be just around the corner. Handling hunger-pangs at midday was ordinary, but ruminating as to what to eat for lunch was special. So, today was no exception with respect to this strangeness as I seriously gave a thought to the menu for lunch. As I am identity-less daughter of mom-north-indian-dad-south-indian parents, I am not typically against anything in indian food. After running through thick-leather-multipaged-menu, finally, I settled for the good old exotic bengali fish curry meal. Sadly, I managed to finish it off in 10 minutes and went again for a second round with aaloo paratha with pickle!. Even this was not enough so i went back to thick-leather-multipaged-menu, ignoring irritating glance from waiter thinking she-looks-so-lean-how-can-she-eat-so-much. As it was supposed to be quick lunch, I ordered thick tall glass of fruit salad with two scoops icecream for a round of dessert. I tend to take pleasure in whatever I eat and I have no care about it. But if you imagine me licking fingers and all stuff, let me clarify - no, i dont do all that. Being brought up in a high family, I can eat like a high-class girl outside and enjoy it too. So, here I was, savoring every spoon of my sweet mouth watering dessert and lost in my own world when I happened to see the table opposite mine. A German guy there was taking in the scene before him, with a most amused expression. At these moments my mind snaps to handle-a guy-staring-at-you mode. Since he was not indian, I stared rudely at him meaning mind-your-business for sometime and continued eating; nothing can come between me and food and that includes a german fellow. I don’t waste energy in staring at indian guys staring at me, I just ignore them. Having (sorrowfully) done with the last eatable on my table, I was on my way out when I heard a pleasant voice above my head, "Do you know that you happen to look quite amusing while eating?” I looked up to find the same german guy smiling at me. I nodded quick up and down in response and made a quick exit.
Photo Courtesy - Google
It was a week before the markets crashed. I was talking to daddy on phone about what should be the theme for his bought-for-cheap-now-being-renovated hotel at jaipur. He always asks me about aesthetics and stuff like that and values my opinions more than my dear bro's. Suddenly he became serious and asked in grave voice,'Asmi you did quite well in the past one year and i am very happy, you know, i always felt you too had that sense of what is good'. The fact was I did lot of humpty dumpty investments initially without asking him and finally ended up wasting some of my hard earned salaried money. I bootstrapped and was doing good for almost a year now and this was the first time dad was appreciating me. 'But beta it is bit tricky now and this time you have to do as i say', he said. I became cautious, when he is serious he means it. He fired some rapid instructions as to what to keep what to sell and all that. I took the day off and started doing just exactly as he had said. Its bit difficult you know to do transactions with different currencies for indian markets sitting in canada. Hubby happened to check our account in the afternoon and he become worried. He called me up and asked,'what are you upto?'. I just said,'dad told dear'. He said,'ok, go ahead'. The thing is though my hubby is quite young-and-lucky-notsoproud-but-succesful businessman, he is afraid of my dad. Quite so. Might be because dad has capacity to feed us and our next 7 generations happily, if he decides to. After a week or so the markets collapsed but we were already on the safer side. When i talked to hubby after that he just said,'hmmm... i knew that would happen'. Simply men, cant help them with their ego.
But my dad rarely becomes serious like this with me. Before marriage when i was pathetically-working-all-day-to-get-middleclass-salary and then throwing all money down the drain on silly-immature-market-speculation, he kept cool. As I am very proud girl (my name also implies that :)) , i wouldnt tell dad that i lost money so stupidly but ultimately he used to find out everything from my mother. He never discussed it though, he would just see that i am sad and then he would pull me out to play golf. He looks you know like a high cultured raymond-complete-man who was born-to-play-golf! But he was not born like that, i know, and mom knows better :)
Photo Courtesy - Google
E'me has told to write 6 random things about myself. He told me this is called tag in blogsworld. So here we go! enjoy maadi :-)
1. I own two horses. Alex and Nikki. Yes, these names come from 'Fullhouse', my all time favourite! They are with my dad now along with 6 of his own.
2. I met my hubby 2 months back and now it seems like a long time. TeeHee!.
3. I hate all men who try to give emotional support just because i am away from my hubby. I dont need them, perhaps they do. Sometimes i wish i werent as good looking as i am now.
4. I have 19 pairs of footwear. I never wear most of them!
5. My dad is the most important man in my life. Hubby comes next HeeHee :)
6. When i was young, i used to dream of being a housewife like my mom. Guess it will never come true!
I have been told that after this i have to tag someone. I would love to do this but i dont know anyone here, so whoever wants can take it happily :)
Photo by - Endevourme
Please read earlier two posts if you have not read, to understand this one better.
Photo by - Endevourme
Face-I Outer Me
OuterMe is the person people see when they meet me. The practical side of me, the person who deals with uncertainties and not so perfect side of life. His basic aim is nothing but to survive and to be sane and many times more than this is luxary. Our world is where things can and often do, go wrong. Not that he expects negative things to happen but just that he wants to be mentally prepared. He was perhaps born at the wrong place at the wrong time(nature)and surrounded by people which were themselves not so perfect(nurture). He had a rough childhood, often bullied, outnubered by others where people force impression on your mind,'you dont deserve to exist'. But since he has grown up, he doesnt mind, he accepts the world and people in it as it is. World is imperfect and thats a fact. What people do is just what they do,and we cant reason with them on their terms about what they did to you. And now sometimes when he sees their miserable condition he wonders whether to blame them or to pity them. Impressions of childhood still bother him but he accepts them and even manages to live with them. So as far as life situations are concerned he has only one rule.'Face it!'. He does just that,and he is quite good at that. Its not that he has come out victorious always cause he is a real person. He failed, not always but many times, its not that he is of the unbreakable kind. He broke, often, but sooner or later he recovered. He rarely dreams, for himself, he thinks they make him unstable and he will even ask, 'why to dream when you know that they will never come true?' be practical . So people see him as a low maintenance fellow with a simple lifestyle, not much talkative and bit of reserved. But once you become aquainted then he is a good company. He has friends, not so close cause since childhood he has drawn a circle of caution around himself. And at any cost he will not let you know what lies inside that line. But whatever people think about him, i like him. Most importantly because he has his priorities right, he thinks straight and he is sane. And he has not done bad, he did quite a good career inspite of some of the failures that he had. He faced failures and came up well. There are times when he does more than his expectations but as always he keeps doing a reality check. He is bit hard on himself, with a strict routine and minimal lifestyle. He doesnt have much preferences. He will accept things uncomplainingly. Very few things are perfect, thats what he thinks. He evaluates many things based on their utility and that makes him look emotionaly insensitive. Emotions have given him more pain and misery and they often caused more harm than good. Like others, he never had a guide,people to support and help. And that made him grow independent. If you dont get help outside, you have to help yourself. Read, think, imagine, work and get things done, by facing them.
On a typical saturday morning , you can see him drinking tea at a roadside stall, sitting just next to a daily wage worker and he is at peace sitting there just like that. Thats what keeps him connected to a practical day to day life. Plain down to earth life where main aim is just to exist. He knows that there are people, many people who face life harder and uncertain than himself and no work is good or bad when you do it for survival.
OuterMe is what protects me and thats what makes him sometimes look harsh and insensitive. By being so he protects a hidden, more sensitive side of me. For most of my life i lived primarily as OuterMe. Slowly, over time, he kept learning and kept growing up, understanding better how the world works. And then came a time when he started outperforming himself, sometimes doing things he never thought possible. Then came more dreams for himself, more expectations and more pain. He is efficient, he is good and i adore him but this new life started making him unstable. Many facets of myself started coming into light, but i coudnt accomodate them into this OuterMe. OuterMe is an efficient survival machine, but now nature wanted more out of me. It wanted me to heal, and healing needs you to be sensitive. This person coudnt do that. I was growing, and i needed dreams, mostly to clarify what i really want. They help you to unlearn and help you think more freely. Old habits dont die easily. OuterMe started applying reality checks on my imagination and utility checks on my creativity. I was in a conflict. But i needed OuterMe, for his ability to survive, to go on and on for years, a life which was empty.
Dreams rest on imagination. Sanity rests on reality. And I needed both. Hence it became necessory, to split.
Photo by - Endevourme
Its was much long time back. I was too young then. May be in 5th standard. There was a building in front of our old house. Once we wanted to fly a kite, my brother, my uncle and I. So up we went. 6 floors up. It was so high. When we reached the terrace, they told me to be careful, not to go near the edge. I didnt understand why they are telling so. I just obeyed them.
If only then...had i just walked...maybe a few paces...and that would be the end of me.
But i didnt.
...for the first time because they told me so
...some years later because i was afraid that it will be so much pain
...sometimes because i was afraid i might live and i will be crippled
...sometimes because i thought i will give myself one more day
...sometimes because i thought nobody would care, they will forget and then it will be in vain
...sometimes because i thought it is cowardness not to face life
...sometimes because i had promised myself in one desperate sad moment, 'i wont..'
...sometimes because i thought i must live for others, cause they have done so much for me
...sometimes because i thought there is still some hope
So many different reasons, but they kept me from crossing that border.
If i could fully believe in traditional concept of god then i would say that, we dont come in this world of our own will. He created us. Thats exactly why he gave us this option, option to end our own life with our own will. This is a test, for him, and he has to convince us that life is worth living so that we dont choose this option. If we lose, he loses. There is this border where sanity ends. Once we cross that, we give our soul to all that filth in the world that we have been hating all along. Crossing that border is when we yield, we give up. Thats when we lose.
Closest to god in my mind is nature and when i really started understanding nature is when i understood that not only life is worth living but rather life is the most important creation as well. It convinced me why the filth i have been hating for so long is necessory and how without that filth this beauty wouldnt exist. We see this insane headless monster outside because of the headless monster of ignorance that lies in our own mind.
And this god, our beautiful nature, gives me only one option...to live.
Photo by - Endevourme
They told me that complete ignorance is better than knowing half the truth. I believed them and it kept me away from the truth. They told me that reality is bad, i too thought so and that made me biased. I kept looking for bad and i found worse. But life is too strong. Too strong to be washed away with these biases. It pulled me out, made me awake and brought me closer. Closer to reality. And when reality stared at me full face is when i understood, that i was right from the beginning and they were wrong. That the most important question is "why?". When you find answer for this is when you understand that there is no one to blame, not man not even fate. Everything happens for reason, a reason so beautiful that its worth more than even our own life. For the one who keeps his eyes open, time resolves this puzzle, it solves everything, slowly, deliberately so that we realize and we understand. And thats why even if everything is not clear at all the times, it doesnt matter. All that matters is to keep searching. With open eyes and without bias. Being deliberately blind is the biggest sin. Perhaps, the only sin.
Photo by - Endevourme
Somewhere...in this same moment...
someone is laughing out loud on a silly joke
someone is shedding warm, humble tears
someone is holding high a glass and saying 'cheers'
someone is smashing a glass and saying,'oh what the hell'
someone is waiting for someone to come
someone is waiting for someone to leave
someone is praying for well being of someone
someone is cursing the past gone by
someone is sleeping a good nights sleep
someone is lying restless in bed
someone is holding hands of someone else
someone is clasping his own in dispair
someone is giving birth to a child
someone is telling someone,'Its too late'
a bird sits on a branch somewhere,
he knows everything and he is fully aware,
and thats exactly the reason why,
he doesnt care
Photo by - Endevourme
Experiences...too pure...so much pure that my senses hurt and i ask myself,"how could this be real? no this cant be true, reality cant be so beautiful". Instinctively, i get afraid, afraid that everything will be destroyed, everything will collapse. But i am sure it wont happen, not this time, cause this time the foundations are real and they are glaringly strong. Their immensity surprises me and i am struck with awe. Time has taught me another lesson, that the strongest pillars of my existance come from ashes, ashes of the dead, their sweat, their blood and their will to survive. We are just a medium, and ghosts of the dead live through us. Nothing can stop them, nothing. I had little idea that if I decide to deconstruct, if i decide to break apart, this unknown power will run to me and hold me. Hold me close, and tell me, "Not You dearest, You are important".
Photo by - Endevourme
Last year i happened to go to tanjawur. And i got this flute outside tanjavur temple. As soon as we reached home,i took the flute out and there it was in my hands! my first ever musical instrument! i tried to blow air through it, trying to get some flute-like sound. But..I kept blowing and blowing and what kept coming was just phoo phoo. After sometime i thought, after all it takes some practice and soon i will be able to get something out of it. Suddenly the lights went out and there i was, sitting and waiting on the floor in my room. After waiting for sometime in vain, i got up and started searching for candle in the darkness. As a rule candles always vanish after the lights go out, maybe because they are afraid of fire but it must be somewhere, it must be, and so i kept searching. And suddenly in that darkness, there came a sound, it came from the flute...sound, not the melodious sound of flute, not even 'phoo' but a 'kadak!'. It took me a whole second to grasp that in that darkness, i had actually stomped over my first ever musical instrument!
I simply gave up and never ever thought doing anything with it till i found it yesterday. I tried to 'phoo' but now it sounds better that my erlier 'phoo', and i wonder why. It has a big crack now and maybe i will keep it with me till i get a new one. I think maybe , just maybe... phooing is better than being silent.
Picture Courtesy - Taare Zameen Par
Though i dont believe in whole numbers, 100 is quite a milestone :D!!
Now its almost 2 years i have been blogging. When i read old posts i can see so much i have changed. And its really amazing how the same person can see the same world so much differently. Its correct, we dont have to be somebody in particular to succeed and thats the beauty of it.
Life has changed, it has become steadily better. And the better it becomes the less i write. Maybe this is how goodness protects itself, maybe...
Where my life will proceed i dont know. And i think this uncertainty is what makes our life interesting cause we dont know what will happen in the future.
I am not boasting but I really think that the picture represents me, endevourme, the most beautiful person i have ever found. He is nothing in particular, he may never be somebody great, he also will be lost in time one day and nobody will know...but...then...nothing lasts forever...nothing. And everything gets forgotten. And thats why its worth trying, trying to be human, trying to be good, because even if we dont succeed, it doesnt matter cause someday everyone will be forgiven and everything will be set right. And i am proud of being what i am cause...i tried...
There are very few who can smile so innocently as the boy in the picture. A smile, not of survival but of celebration. A smile that makes all the struggle worth it and sets everything right.
Photo by - Endevourme
Clean joy and clear sorrows. No cloud of unnecessory emotions, no fog of confusions. Just a steady, consistant, powerful existance.
Its so much fun to be alive, isnt it? :)
Photo by - Endevourme
If you dont know what you are missing, then you wont miss it.
- Doris Lessing
...and the more you dream, the more you know what you are missing.
Photo by - Endevourme
I wish all my blogger friends a very very very very happy new year 2008 !!!
May all your beautiful wishes come true :D!!
Photo by - Endevourme
Small n tender life, dancing in the blue.
Destined to succeed with iron will to rise.
Looks up at the blue sky and wonders which blue is original.
Making a statement, bold and clear,
"If i dont have right to exist, nothing else has."
It calls me towards itself, smiling, a complete, open, confident smile,
for an embrace, so pure and warm that i fear i might suffocate.
Reality so much like untrue, that my dreams look faded.
and I find myself smiling, a smile of knowing.
Its an echo, an answer ... of one blue to another.
Photo by - Endevourme
What is the meaning of life?I have been searching searching and searching answer of this and consequently getting more and more confused. Is it happiness, love, self realization, self actualization(whats the difference? why cant they make it simple?)spiritual self-identification, etc etc
anyway...here is a good one from Ludwig Wittgenstein -
What is the meaning of life?
Expressed in language, the question is meaningless. This is because "meaning of x" is a term in life usually conveying something regarding the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or that which should be noted regarding x, etc. So when "life" is used as "x" in the term "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive and therefore nonsensical.
Photo by - Endevourme
I dont know what wishes will come true or whether they will come true at all. i am feeling hopeless. sad. feels like its final. dont know whether i will survive till the end. hopes, they carried me till here but now i am losing patience, desire, and will to go on like this. maybe its not worth, living like this. it always seemed wrong somehow from the beginning. now i dont want hopes, i dont want omens, i want results. give me answer of wrongness, why?is it really good to be so much self sufficient? i feel like a blind man, walking... searching....afraid. there is so much uncertainty. i am tired of being blind. want to see. tired of imagining. it just doesnt satisfy me. what had i done to get this? do i deserve this?
'Some random exerpt from my diary, i dont know the exact date. These are the times when i hide and think and recover. Now-a-days i rarely feel like this, erlier it was quite often. Life too strong to get drowned in this small pond of sadness :D!!'
Photo by - Endevourme
I want to give this flower to PurpleGlow, one of my friends who was there when no one was with me. Dont know where you are now, but i will always remember your friendship and your words, 'when in a crisis, deal with one thing at a time, it will be OK, things will be fine, you will survive'
Photo by - Endevourme
Happy Diwali to all my blogger friends :D!!
May this year fill your life with beauty and happiness...and may all your wishes come true!!!
Photo by - Endevourme
Fly high...cause 'flying low' doesnt sound as good.
Fly high...cause there is very less traffic up there.
Fly high...so that everyone can see you when you are alone.
Fly high...cause everything looks good when you are at a distance.
Fly high...cause you can always come down and relax.
Fly high...cause nothing can come between you and a sunset.
Fly high...cause thats why you 've got wings.
Fly high...cause thats when you realize there is someone still higher.
Photo by - Endevourme
Yes i know and i havent forgotten, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have promises to keep and, miles to go before I sleep".
But the woods are too lovely, too dark and too deep and they make me stop and wander and feel so rich. Yes, i wont forget the promises i have to keep but still, i will keep my eyes open to see the woods because they are so lovely, dark and deep.
Photo by - Endevourme
Friendships dont obey rules of mathematics. One plus one is more than two and one minus one is less than zero.
Photo by - Endevourme
Life is vast. Life is complex.
But...still...sometimes....even complex things can be beautiful.
