Smile - One world!


I have been waking up to this beautiful dream every
morning in the last couple of days! I wake up to a world
that is really "flat". Imagine a world, where patience
is predominant in all human beings..(Indian roads would
be the most silent!). Imagine a world, where there is
only love and compassion among all living beings, there
is no anger,no ego, no hatered, no war, no riots...A
world where no one knows of a religion and ofcourse the
divisions that are possible within them. Imagine a
world, where people are contended with what they have
and openly help in uplifting the life of fellow human
beings..I have been dreaming of one such world, where
there are no boundaries set and geographies defined...If
only all dreams could come true..?
Where can we start towards this new beginning...may be
in a smile?! What if we all could just begin to pass on
a genuine smile to people we see from dawn to dusk!
Indian culture has certainly discarded this culture to
smile/greet strangers somewhere in the past but there
has to be a humble beginning to this again...How is it
that one(including self) instantly starts smiling at
strangers while in Europe or in US? The reason being it
is so much infectiously a part of their culture to make
people feel at ease...! So...start smiling as often as
you can and soon you will realise how many smiles you
have spread accross the globe!

How was your weekend?

With Monday morning blues, brightly written on everyones face, the office was buzzing with the same question in the bus, lift, cafe and workstation. Needless to say, i had my share of the same question and did end up asking it to a few of my colleagues. Well, the degree of response lingered around ..."nothing much, just at home, WORKING, movie, restaurant, relatives at home, very hectic, too hot to step out....kinds". "Too Hot!!" not already...please...its just mid-March...Chennai still has April, May, June and July to sail by.....Yes, Thanks to second largest coastal line....we have been sailing by year after year of hot, hotter and hottest season!

Come to think of it...there is not really much Indians by large, have, to do with their weekends! No excitement, no adventurous plans...Chennai has beautiful temples to admire the architecture, a lovely coastal line, a smooth ECR for a ride to the Mahabs or Pondicherry, great resorts by the beach, a neat highway to Bangalore, nice parks for a small picnic...yet all that we do is to confine ourselves to the known boundaries of a cinema hall or saravana bhavan. Only a very minute percentage burns their pockets on Friday nights at pubs/discos....but what with pubs closing down by 11.30PM...hardly any night out again! A stark contrast with life in US, where I have seen people plan something out of nothing. I admired their ability to make even everyday mundane chores into exciting outings. I do agree, they have a people friendly city/town every where....and a tourisim department that advertises so much from a 100 miles about things as simple as a stream of water gushing through a cave...!

What with my weekend..? a realxing one at home again after almost a month and thought of winding up watching "Delhi 6". A movie with a message but i can only classify it more as a documentary. The American born Hero comes over to Delhi to fulfill his grandma's wishes and decides to stay on and the reason he gives(although this is not the message the movie conevys).... "Everything is here in India and this is where I belong...while we are trying to create this atmosphere back in our homes in USA. But when we look out of the window...the reality is we do not have any of this for real out there..." . Yes...very true...we have so many contrasts and confusion all existing together in a beautiful nest and that is why we have the largest and most successful Democracy in the world!

We in India are living a life filled with everyday adventure and excitement that may be we really don't think it necessary for an adventurous/exciting weekend!

Dear Dairy,

This is how AnneFrank begins the daily updates in her Dairy. I had been so impressed by the mix of innocence and maturity in this informal addressing of a Dairy...I wish she had lived on to see how her simple notes are still being part of History...or may be if she had been alive...no one would have cared enough to consider those notes so important...

Wondering why am writing about Anne Frank...I was actually wondering how to title my Blog for the day and Anne Frank suddenly falshed in my memory..so there she comes. Work at office was quite satisfactory today with some reports learnt and calls attended and having been formally accepted into the team! I have been exposed to the Radar now....time to watch my steps..The day seems to be satisfactory otherwise too with the scam hit Satyam finally having some real suitors expressing interest in the buy out.

Feeling quite light and elighted at the moment and i was wondering why...now it occurs to me ...tommorrow in office we are having a best colorfully dressed competition in the celebration spirit of Holi! Now, I know what you are thinking...Holi is over and gone by yesterday...but its the "Fun team" at work and they obviously have to live up their name..and its weekend tomorrow...so hurray...time to start unwinding...time to shut down now...so catch up later...

It is a Vicious Circle.



Does Holi have any significance attached to it? The conversation during the coffee break started on this at office yesterday and as I should have guessed, ended up with the poor electoral system in India...! goosh...i anyways don't want to discuss politics right now...but interestingly i got a different version behind Holi's significance from a colleague! other than the usual story about Lord Krishna playing pranks with his girl friends at Brindavan..the new age reason is to ward off the mosquitoes and insects which breed in groups during the winter...that was something to laugh about!

and as though that was not enough to tickle my laughter muscles, i received a response from the Corporation of Chennai(CoC) for a complaint i had raised on bad roads in Guindy...

Guindy Area which inevitably and quite visibly is one of the entry points to Chennai City "does not fall under the Chennai City limits" & the Flyover at Guindy was built by National Highways Dept...so.... ineffect CoC is not responsible for the condition of the roads and therefore deos not care.... Where is change needed?....as always from scratch? or if we have a strong and able Administrator will things change for good? but again..we have a poor electoral system....it is a vicious circle at the end (-

What to write?
The inability to pen down a few lines quickly to friends over an e-mail...made me think of taking to blogging seriously..

I suddenly realised i was losing the ability to puts thoughts into words and then into a letter...

With the advent of mobiles, chat networks, orkut, there is hardly a need to write letters on envelopes or even send emails and in the process I never realised all the incapacitation that am going through...and the bell rang loud and clear in my mind...

so here I am beginning this new saga of blogging just letting my thoughts flow. Keep watching this space for simple and interesting spices of life