Guess the odd man out.

On a vacation to a small hill station near Mumbai, this was displayed in the restaurant (!!!). Needless to say i dint order any of the items listed on the board above!

The Psalm of life

Here is one of my favorite poems - The psalm of life, by H.W. Longfellow. (1807-1882) The fact that each paragraph is so applicable to each one of us, and the amount of rational and practical advice one can take with him from it, is something i love.

A PSALM OF LIFE
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream ! —

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real ! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal ;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way ;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle !

Be a hero in the strife !

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !

Let the dead Past bury its dead !

Act,— act in the living Present !

Heart within, and God o'erhead !

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate ;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait

I could write a summary of which lines i love most and why, (which i probably will later), but for now, tell me what u think!

Cloudy dreamy Aksa

Cloudy overcast skies, and the raging tide. In the next half an hour, where i was standing as i clicked this photograph was not visibe any more.

Of Cotton Candy Clouds

Ok ill admit, this is a low resolution picture. Was taken from a bus ride home, while the bus was in motion, simply because the clouds were spread across the sky like little cotton pods waiting to be picked! None of the giant mass-like clouds were visible that day, just these little cloud-lets. :)

Calvin Quote

" Calvin: I'm a misunderstood genius.
Hobbes: Whats misunderstood about you?
Calvin: No one thinks I'm a genius"

This one was asking to be shared!

When God made man, she was only kidding.

Being a woman sure is tough. For the (few) men that do actually read this blog, here's a fair warning. Serendipity is currently suffering from Monday morning blues (although its only sunday evening), and is under the mellowing effect of having watched the season 2 finale of Grey's Anatomy, with lingering thoughts of Dr. Mc. dreamy. In case you're still reading, don't blame me later.

How can one show have so many Mc. Yummies in one go! For anyone whose not watched it, Patrick Dempsey is Dr. Mc dreamy. and Mc. dreamy he is. it is shows and movies like this that make us poor women fall in love with the idea of love and prince charming and what not. and then life shows us the clear difference between reel life and real life. i won't launch into that one now :)

I heard some quotable person mention that most womens problems can be solved by a nice pair of shoes, or a nice bag. I would like to shake the hand of this genius, and i also attest to the statement. Shopping has many therapeutic properties so if you feel your girlfriend, or wife, or mom is acting (more) neurotic or (more) hormonal than normal, then take her shopping! That money spent will reap you great rewards my friend.

Here are a few things that need to be understood about women.

• There are times that we're feeling moody just because. (Its the estrogen i tell ya)
• The next few bullet points are dedicated to shoes. Because they are a very important part of our lives.
• Different shoes go with different clothes. that's why we NEED so many. for e.g. to help the (poor?) men who never seem to get the (simple) logic, stilettos (shoes with pointy pencil heels that y'all love) go beautifully with most things. hence every woman needs to own at least one pair. ( i mean two, one black and one any colour of her choice)
• Flats look terrible with formal black pants, but needed for everyday wear. Sneakers for running, Pumps/Strappy shoes for skirts and block heels for when you want to wear heels, but don;t want to wear stilettos.
• Of course you need different shoes with Indian wear.
• (Phew i hope that helped at least a little). coming back to other important aspects of our lives.
• No matter how many clothes we have, we'll always need more. (errr.. or want)
• YOU get manicures, pedicures, haircuts, waxes, threading, facials, bleaches, exfoliation dehydration, moisturization, detoxification and many other such (unnecessary evils) done to your body and tell us how you'd feel. Before some wise-ass leaves me a comment saying this is completely voluntary and not enforced it is due to some jerks that most women have complexes that make them feel not-so-beautiful which is why we resort to such external tactics (beautiful is more than skin deep and all) in the first place. If your girlfriend has a forehead that marks the confluence of her hairline and eyebrows and did nothing about it, please tell me you'd still dote on her. (yes. i believe u)
• We secretly love Mc. dreamy's so you ought to know what your up against. every woman wants a Prince Charming. and while your not expected to be your nicest best at all times. we would like some thoughful moments out of you, when you're not acting like a jerk, picking a fight with us or just acting completely clueless in life.
• If you want to buy us something, buy it. Dont ask. we'll say no but we mean yes. This does not apply to questions like "why don't u do the dishes tonight" etc.
• Understand that estrogen is an excrutiatingly difficult hormone to have so much of. Unlike testosterone, its makes you think of things other than sports, sex or food. It makes us cranky and horrid when its that time of the month, or not that time, it releases compulsive shopping disorders, random outbursts of joy or equally uncalled reasons for grief.
• Its well known that through all this neurotic, wiry behaviour we still manage to go to work, help out at home, be nice to people and put up with all their ridiculous behaviour, deal with all that (damn) estrogen and still manage to make it through our lives.

Disclaimer - Any characters and pronouns used in this post are purely fictional. No offence is mean to (most) people. So in case i do know you in real life, don't come pelt me. Its the Estrogen.

(Dis)connectivity

India has over 200 million subscribers to mobile telephony... and this number is fast growing. In a country where just a decade ago, STD/ISD calls had to be booked well in advance, words had to be shouted into the mouthpiece, and minutes counted by rupees, now making a call even to the U.S costs a meagre 3-5 rupees a minute.

Surprising then, that in the age of connectivity, we are in fact, Dis connected. Dis connected from each others feelings and emotions, disconnected from the joy of receiving a long distance call after ages... these things are just an everyday affair now. Oh there are so many things I'm trying to say here. I'm just a tad bit melancholy about how sms's have replaced phone calls, how emails have replaced hand written letters and hugs and kisses are replaced by brackets and symbols. I had pen pals, some old friends from school with whom i kept in touch via letters and cards regularly. What even i now regard as tedious was actually a time of the week i used to await - when i would open my (Often Archie stationary) letter pad and start with a "Hope this letter finds you in the best of health". Surprisingly, we are all on each others orkut/facebook etc but more out of touch than then. True that there are other attributes that factor in to drifting away, but coming back to what i said in the first place.. we are connected (Orkut is a social networking tool that blah blah..) and all that, but at the same time we aren't!

Sms, email, fast food, one min photos, super fast trains, Mum-London direct flights, are all efforts to condense time required for these mundane activities. But what do we do with this extra time? Living in Mumbai, we spend most of our time travelling or working, How many of us take the time to spend on ourselves? and family? I for one, catch up with most of my friends only over the weekend and i suspect that its the case with mostly everyone. Everyone thinks they're overworked and underpaid which might be the case, but the time that we have on our hands is ours to spend. so many people waste to much time doing nothing productive at work most of the day and then work late. and then complain about it! I say, get in, finish your shit and get out!

A look at the sheer number of bloggers since the advent of blogs shows the amount of people who log on just to vent, confess, ramble, rant, complain and just let their hearts out. I am obviously not referring to the arty/creative/real author/Picture blogs. There are so many anonymous users who log on just to talk about their feelings and have someone who'll leave them an understanding comment. They talk about family trouble, marital problems and Failures in love and Business. So much frustration pent up, so much angst to release....Why? Where's the shoulder to cry on, friend to reply on? People turn to anonymous identities on orkut/Facebook/HI5 and what not upcoming social networking tools which serves as a vent to the creepy crazy depressed maniac inside. Of course, im leaving out the regular people who are anonymous purely for the sake of the above kinds of people not lurking around in their profiles. Are there really so many creeps living amongst us?

Time and growing insensitivity is not my only complain. Gifting has lost so much of its meaning... Diwali gifts have begun pouring in at home... Vases, Candles, Bowls, Dinner sets. the same routine every year... get and pass on. Whats more important is not the gift per se, its the visiting card that accompanies it.

I love gifts. I love giving people things and I love getting gifts too. For me whats more important is seeing the person's expressions on opening the gift, its that sense of satisfaction which creates enthusiasm for gifting. Gifts needn't be big on money or value or size, they should just be big on love. For the last 3 years, I've been getting greeting cards from Prafful, a small pen or pocket diary or chocolate from my old buildings watchman who never forgets. They mean as much to me as the Azzaro perfume gifted to me by my best friend.

All in all, I hate that we all take so many things for granted around us, so many chances to make a phone call/hug someone/meet a friend we miss, so many things we think in our head we leave there due to circumstances/time/ or simply being lazy.

I would've thought that considering the number of mediums of communication that have opened up, we'd be more in touch.