An impromptu luncheon

I acted like a glutton, and had many slices of pizza at our quick lunch at work.

It was fun, but not much of it came through, as everybody was in their own world.

I am feeling tired of eating too much junk food.

But then, I enjoyed the ambience, it is energising in a climate overclouded with rumours of layoffs.

Nobody seem to think about an impending eventuality anyway.

It was just enjoyment and proclamation of comraderie.

Kudos to Tilaya

I want to belong to her tribe too. She is focused, happy and emits a very positive feel. It was a beautiful journey to work in the morning.

We talked about a lot of things, ranging from the origin of saree, to weekends, to the film Secret that we decided to watch together, to the kind of images that we should keep.

We decided to retain only beautiful images of people and places. Does it mean that I'll be able to forget the wallowing squalor of Mumbai train stations, roads, roadside faces depicting an unfathomable helplessness behind a shadow of a possible better tomorrow?

I'll try to retain the tinge of hope in the eyes that I managed to see here.

And it's love to Tilaya's pervasive goodness.

There are other things too, I am starting all over again, from a new house next week.
Another house for another year. I am excited about the change.

I can't wait for the good changes that it will create in me, my surroundings, environment, my sense of love. I am learning the spirit of Mumbai, maybe I've already learned it.

Slumdog pricked me, burst an ol' wound open again

Weekend was full with Slumdog Millionaire, I watched the film on Friday evening, and still the images therein, the jubilance the children, their states of extreme gullibility refuses to leave my guilty mind.

Everyday I pass these children (they are not the same, but then are they not the ones I just left behind, without even a backward glance) along my ways in Mumbai streets and trains, they exist at the local rail stations, at traffic signals and sometimes by the road. And I always refused to pay the children money, thinking that they would be further exploited, sometime I gave them something to eat. But it was always just that.

I saw the children again in the backdrop of the ugly underbelly that the city has, full with all the squalor, dirt and shit. Perhaps not as magnified as the reality is. But still, the picture is bad, and that is why the beauty of the children came out so startlingly alive.

The film celebrates life, and the resolution of everybody who is catapulted to a life on the fringes, anyone who is never given a choice. And I understand why is film is celebrated, and has to be celebrated.

I hope it changes me too, so I can act proactively to help at least some of these children, from exploitation and dirt. I want to impart some beauty and dignity to tiny people who deserve it.

I am set on the way. I was active some years back, and have worked with children, but it was to a small extent.

But now, I want to have more power (read money) so that I can positively change their lives. And I am set to work.

Be with me, reader, and please watch Slumdog Millionaire.

PMO wants market to steer retail fuel prices

That's what the newspapers today said.

Will it be good for us, the public, the tax-payer who doesn't have any say in the facilities that we want, the bare-minimum comforts like well-regualted prices, tolerable infrastructure, clean roads etc?

When I read the news item, the first reaction was panic.

I remembered the photograph in newspapers that showed the Ambanis along with the Deoras at Tirupati Balaji temple.

Was it just a coincidence?

How can the market retain benevolence to the public, the times are when only the strong survives?
The public is not together in good, peaceful times and it cannot generate or sustain an opinion.

We, the faceless, can be at a loss.

Talk over two slices of bread

I was reminded of my resolution to remain calm and composed again. And I was reminded of the fact that I've forgotten the fact. It seems that I can be happy only when I receive an odd jolt. And then I am brought to my senses.

This time it was my collegue, Ashok, reminded me that all of us need to be living in moments and at the end of the day, assess whether we have done enough at work, whether we are safisfied.

And he said, nothing else mattered to him. I am grateful to him for telling me something that I managed to forget within a span of hours of making a firm resolution about the same.

We had a nice chat after that, in few minutes spend between me grobbling up bread and he devouring a plate of fruit.

In between he dropped some lines thus:

"Sometimes we encounter deliberate discrimination, treachery, hatred, worse treatment. But we don't care about anything at all. We shouldn't, we need not."

"So we move on, I don't care."

What about the burden that a sense of understanding drills into all of us? Is us the problem.

I think I am the problem, I have to maintain a happy mind where beauty will reign.

Focault's pendulum

Embarking on Day 1 on the new plan, I am happy and feeling good. On the local to office, I started reading a book that I was supposed to read long ago. I bought the book just after I finished reading another book by Umberto Eco, 'The Name of the Rose'. I simply loved the narrative.
Despite the good start, I had postponed reading the book, it was left on the shelf, waiting to the laid hands-on.

And I enjoyed reading today, taking in every word, almost living how the Focualt's Pendulum was observed at with awe.

That's how it was today morn. I have made a vow to be content and happy every moment of the day.

Be with me

Dear reader,

I want you to be with me as I embark on possibly the one last chance that I have got, with a self-made promise of making another come back into life.

I don't want to talk about anything about yesterdays anymore because it is not about past. I am writing to you because I want to share with you all that I go through at this moment, and I want to share only the ones I'll remember as happy ones.

As my friend and companion whom I've summoned into my life, which is intensely personal, I owe you something, don't I?

Therefore it is only this, I have a plea to you that you spare maybe a free moment with me, so that you can witness the lone smiling moments, which I want to multiply.

Actually it is already on an upward path, I enjoy writing to you and I don't want this small thread, which is in my mind, a magic mantra with which I summon you and your abundance to me to break ever.

With love
your friend who exist only now