Can you hear the music?

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”– Angela Monet

One of my friends posted this on her FB status and the thought that crossed my mind immediately was - "How true!" very quickly followed by - "Why!? This happens to the best of us in all walks of life."

Those of us who 'hear the music', dare to be dreamers and think out-of-the-box, know that it takes a lot of courage firstly to dare to be different, secondly to dare to dream and thirdly to put your dream out there for everybody to see it!

You never know how people are going to react to it. They never seem to get it that the dream is precious to you. Most likely, they would try to knock it down and tell you how they think it's impossible and how you should really just forget all about it and do the safe, regular thing.

It's probably a way of consoling themselves that they have not settled for less when they really have. I call it the 'crab-mentality'. Have you ever seen a basket full of crabs? The moment one starts climbing upwards, the other crabs pull it down.

All I'm saying is don't base whether you follow your dream or not on what other people think or say about it. Just pray and ask God to give you the grace and strength and step out and do it! Your dreams might come true or may not.. But at least you would have tried. And trust me, you will find people along the way who will believe you and support you.. Because that is God's provision!

Life goes on, no matter what. But at the end, you will might end up being a little more satisfied than before. So, all you fellow 'dancers' - follow your own music, travel your own road, chase your dream, think out-of-the-box, dare to be different!

I acknowledge your courage and wait eagerly for you to recount how your dream came true, even as I pursue mine!

Summers of yore

The mercury is rising with every single day. And as I listen to people complain about the heat, the humidity, the global warming, etc... I stop right in the middle of it all and my mind is transported to the summers of the past..

In school times, when I was a kid whose age was still a single digit number, summers meant long, long vacations. Some times it meant month long trips to our native place including several visits to numerous relatives. Some long boring days (if we didn't go out of town for the holidays) were filled with staying indoors during the day and learning Bible verses and waiting expectantly for evening to arrive so we could go out and play. We could stay out later than usual. It also meant eating ripe, juicy mangoes that we had collected after throwing stones at the fruit on the trees in our compound, visits from relatives, staying overnight at friends houses, etc.

As I grew up and became a teenager, summer meant vacations that were filled with feverishly running around for classes and coaching.. and learning and trying to cram as much as syllabus as we could even before the academic year had begun.

The summer of 96 is one of the few that stands out for me because I'd just completed my board exams and our whole family along with my aunt's family did a month-long road trip through the south of India. We traveled in a jeep and had many exciting and some not so exciting adventures as we drove through cities, villages, highways, byways, little lanes, mountains, etc.

The summer of 2001 also stands out for me as I was in my last year of degree college and I went through some life turning up side down kind of experiences.. I grew up in that one month like I'd never grown up in my entire life..

Ever since I've started working, it hasn't really made much of a difference whether it is summer or not.. but I love thinking back to those days and reminiscing about lazy laid back afternoons, long cold showers, getting together with cousins and having loads of fun, gorging on ripe mangoes, playing with the building kids like there was no tomorrow, drinking tons of butter milk, traveling to my parent's birth places, inhaling the exotic scents of some beautiful flowers, going for long walks with friends, one day outings with family..

Yea! Summer has some of the best memories.. :) They help me cope with the heat!

April Fool!

It's only been an hour since I woke up this morning and I've already faced 2 attempts at being made an "April Fool" of. So I thought I'd post something about this day.

April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is a holiday celebrated in various countries on April 1. The day is marked by hoaxes and jokes of varying degrees on friends or family members or certain people with the aim of embarrassing them.

Truth is, no one really knows where or how the celebration of April Fool's day all began. But people all around the world celebrate it and indulge in it.

I've always thought that the best pranks were when people come up them spontaneously and not when every one tries to do it on this one day when the whole world is expecting you to do it.

I've faced my fair share of being the brunt of some pranks ranging from being asked to call someone who was "trying to get in touch with me but couldn't" or asked to "meet a friend" at a certain place at a certain time to being bid good bye forever because the person had just "realized what a bad friend I was" to even the very lame "won a lottery" one.

I've played my share of pranks on people as well and it's always good fun to see the person flounder for a bit. But don't make it too serious, people! Just keep it light so that the person who is the target can also laugh at it later.

Happy April Fool's day & happy playing pranks on everyone around to one and all!

Some cheesy quotes from Hollywood movies

1. You complete me.
-Renee Zellweger in "Jerry Maguire"

2. I'm King of the world.
-Leonardo Dicaprio in "Titanic"

3. Love means never having to say you're sorry.
- Ryan O'Neal in "Love Story"

4. I'm just a girl in front of a boy asking him to love her.
- Julia Roberts in "Notting Hill"

5. Nobody puts Baby in the corner.
- Patrick Swayze in"Dirty Dancing"

6. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's gonna cave in.
- Wes Bentley in "American Beauty"

7. You make me want to be a better man.
- Jack Nicholson in "As good as it gets"

8. I'll be back.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator"

9. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you.
-Meg Ryan in "When Harry meets Sally"

10. You had me at hello.
-Renee Zellweger in "Jerry Maguire"

Laugh away people!

Rickshaw rides - Part 2

More on the interesting rides I have had in the famous pollution causing three wheelers.

One evening, Aks and I met up and took a rickshaw to Malad to meet Sam, her then fiance and my best friend, for dinner. We had just finished shopping and visiting a dress designer so we were quite engrossed in discussing everything we had seen, heard, bought and experienced.

As we were busy talking, we were rudely shocked when some person jumped onto our rickshaw and hung from the roof while trying to get his feet on the passenger's foot board. It took us a few seconds to get over the shock and realize that it was a traffic cop.

Apparently, while we were busy talking, our rickshaw driver saw some traffic at a signal and decided that he didn't want to wait till the traffic cleared. So he decided to drive on the wrong side of the road! What he didn't think of was that he would be pulled over by the police. So when that happened, our man decided that he was Michael Schumacher and tried to give the cop the dodge.

The cop who pulled him over was a younger guy than you usually get to see. He was also angrier than you would usually get to see. The next thing that happened was not a pretty sight.

He managed to get the driver to stop driving. Got into the front seat next to the driver. And rammed his helmet clad head into the poor driver's head a few times. He then got him to stop and delivered a karate kick.. went over to the other side and delivered another karate kick.. and he was wearing very chunky shoes.

All of this happened in a matter of few seconds. And before Aks and I could even protest or get a word out of our mouths, the rickshaw driver got himself a few slaps, after which the cop turned around and asked us with the most polite smile to find another rickshaw. He even flagged one down for us and made sure we got in alright.

For many minutes after that, Aks and I rode in perfect silence. We didn't take our eyes off the road. After we got over the shock of the whole incident, we started talking about it.

We decided to be more alert after that while riding a rickshaw.

The last 3 months

So much has happened over the last three months that I really do not know where to start. Let's see..

-Started the year without a job
-Within the first 10 days I had various job offers and options
-Was invited along with the rest of my worship team to lead worship at a high profile wedding anniversary celebration
- Enjoyed the break from the routine of working
- Spent some quality time with friends
-Lost some
-Gained a lot
-Forged new friendships.
-Gave the house a make over as my parents were out of town for a week
-Started working again and took up 1 main job and a few free lance ones
-Loved working from home and the flexibility that brings along
-Celebrated a friend's birthday
- Changed hair style again (after a rough, taxing day only to realize that the day was not over and that there was more to come - My poor hair always bears the brunt of my moodiness or my creativity or my craziness!)
- Had some extremely frustrating and heart-breakingly depressing times
- Had some amazingly exhilarating and uplifting times
- Watched huge amount of TV for the first time (I'm not a very TV person)

And much much more which cannot be put down here.. But I am looking forward to the next few months to see what else I can get up to, and what other changes are coming my way :)

Rickshaw rides - Part 1

Somehow, I've had the most interesting rickshaw rides. Figures.. since a major part of our lives in this city is spent traveling in these 3 wheeled wonders that have the most interesting variety of drivers ranging from ingenious to obnoxious. So I'm going to try and describe some of the experiences here.

I used to have long rickshaw rides from work back home with a friend I'm going to call Hal. Hal and I would have the most amazing conversations and these rickshaw rides were sometimes like an oasis in the desert, especially after a tough day at work. We would share the most personal secrets, talk about what we thought of various people, topics, ideas, etc.. talk about dreams, share laughs, caution each other, put our heads together for solutions to problems and on the rare occasion even enjoy a comfortable silent ride.

Hal also had this habit of engaging the driver in conversation and of course would get off before I did. It would then be left to me to keep up the conversation as the driver would expect me to as chatty as Hal. Ugh!

Most often, I would pull out my phone and call or text a friend in an effort to extricate myself from the situation..

Once Hal was slightly drunk and we started talking about the kind of dreams we have. I learnt a lot about him that night that I'm not going to forget in a hurry.

Hal and I don't work together anymore and have kind of lost touch and I miss all those fun times and the intense ones too.. And I'm glad for whatever we were able to share and enjoy.

Why do we hurt the ones we love the most?

Have you thought about it? I know this post seems like a bit of a ramble but go along with it.. Why is it that we hurt the ones that are closest to us? And cause so much pain? Or why is it that the ones we love are the ones who leave the worst wounds?

Think about it.. Is it because they are the ones we love? Is it because we love them? Or is it because of expectations? High expectations? Different expectations? Lack of communication? Taking each other for granted?

So what next? Do we stop having expectations from those who are nearest and dearest to us? If we stop having expectations from them, who else can expect from? Can we improve communication? How much is ideal? I mean... you don't want to over do it, do you? What about taking people for granted? We could learn to notice and appreciate people more..

Hmm... I guess the bottom line is that most human beings (close or otherwise) are not reliable when it comes to fulfilling expectations. Everyone has a different idea on what the ideal communication level should be. And each person has a different tolerance level and understanding of the term 'being taken for granted.'

This still doesn't leave us with an answer... but just food for thought.. Why? Why do we hurt the ones we love the most? Why do the ones we love cause us most pain?