what i have been doing

I was writing textbooks and was unable to blog! So goes the story! I was also helping my family in celebrating my daughter's wedding. But the real reason I did not blog may never be printed. Since I have very few secrets, I don't know how to keep myself from talking about something that I should not open my mouth about. Let me summarize by saying that I had a good time doing something else too. 

Guess with all the big happenings I will have a lot to blog about now that I am done with the textbooks and the wedding went off well.hehehehe. full stop.

Prayer!

A perverse streak, which tells me to blog when I have other important things to attend to, has prompted me to write this not at all perverse post!
I set goals that overflow with good will; such as scrap a hello to atleast five of my old connections on facebook and orkut, say a prayer for all t hose who tell me, "pray for me", etc etc. Actually apart from this thought coming to me on its own, I have a role model in my dad, who prays for the welfare of every offshoot in his clan ;).Yes, he mouths a prayer in sanskrit for every one born in the family everyday and tells me that he did it on that day whenever I call him.
Inspite of my angelic origins, I conform to neither that or this side of the earth. But this is what I pray for when I do it.

1. First for my dad, that he should regain the glowing handsome serenity that he was born with and somehow partially lost, particularly after 45.
2.Next for my mom, that she should regain her health and effervescence for life and be truly happy
3. My uncle, should get back his zest for life and the dynamism with which he entered our lives
4. Padmanabhan, that he should get out of the circuit of irrelevant self pity and realize the value of his time wasted in it.
5. My brother, that he should be able to do all that he dreamed of and learn to play cheerfully, as he actually did, sometime long ago.
6. My gorgeous twin sisters should start looking gorgeous again through weight management
7.My sister in law should find the space that she seems to be searching for, in life.
8.One person in my family should recognize the bitter streak that is altering his creative intuitive personality
9.Another should learn to imbibe the nutrition that life offers in the form of food and fun and improve in health
10.My daughters, achievers, winners, should continue to dream on and fly forth!
11.The other children in my family, whom I really don't know that well, I pray for your happiness.
12.And of course, people who want me to pray for you from time to time; am not mentioning your names here, but I remember you in  my prayers. Arun prasadh, i know you may read this, I may not pray every day, but whenever I pray for my family, I pray for you too!
13. Sometimes I pray for my school teachers and often for those teachers who gave me lessons of life and moments of joyous illumination.

One day, I will start to pray everyday!!!

Things that can be written easily

The easiest things that can be written are romantic poems. As Wordsworth defined it, 'the sponatneous overflow' ensures that powerful emotions are distilled into poetry or prose.

Blogs, diaries,journals are also easy to write for two reasons. They are based on our experience and do not require high levels of writing skills.The other type of not so difficult writing is report writing. you write what you observe; a series of events, a performance, a product; you give all details and describe the sequence of action in it's normal progression.

Writing a speech is  a slightly more difficult task which becomes easier if we are passionate about the topic, are familiar with the audience and have something useful to tell them. Writing an essay or a thesis requires that the writer has some general knowledge and reference skills to highlight all aspects of a certain issue and put forth a conclusive argument.
Higher levels of creative writing like novels, plays and epics require inspiration, talent, commitment and creativity to bring to life a world of imaginary characters.

But the most difficult things to write, according to me, are didactic poems for text books. Not being a generation of preachers, we teachers are not inspired to spout lofty morals in rhyme.
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Plastic , the magic as well as the logic of it

I love plastic, the range of  colours it comes in and the shine of it! Plastic bangles and ear rings go very well with casual wear and synthetic sarees.The amazing beauty of matching plastic accessories is literally invisible to the Indian eye, which thinks of gold as a synonym for jewellery. We Indians never seem to realize that gold ornaments get to look so dirty and dull and don't really match the dizzying variety of fabrics and designs of the times.
Apart from accessories, the use of plastic as a watertight dust proof cover is indisputable. No other cover, made of paper or cloth, can protect as plastic does. It looks hip too and is inexpensive. There must surely be a way to recycle plastic and rather than make a hue and cry of plastic degrading the environment, we should find ways to dispose off waste plastic successfully.
Personally, I think few things can look as pretty as a red, shiny, plastic mug.

Some unfulfilled wishes/hopes

1.attend the republic day parade
2.study/work in a foreign university
3.ride/drive a car with the hood open
4.visit/bathe in a hot water spring
5.read a book or two everyday
6. be surrounded by thousands of books
7.read the whole day long
8.write for three or four hours everyday
9.work in the metros (not just projects, work for a period at least)
10.live near the beach as I did in my childhood

Well, it could go on if I set my mind to explore my heart and my heart to approve of what my mind says, but 10 is a good number. tata

I have always had a sneaking suspicion that men sing better than women; this sounds so outrageously disloyal to my kind, ie womankind, that I console myself that the faults of the male species far outweigh this one superior gift of theirs. Initially I used to justify my feeling that men sounded better by saying that being a woman I was attracted by the male voice. But after years of listening to music I feel more and more that men sing with greater finesse, experiment with a variety of nuances and let go of inhibitions and stereotypical singing to a far greater extent than women. The range and power of their voices are definitely superior.For those who don't listen to much music, I would recommend that they listen to the male and female versions of "Katrin mozhi" from the film mozhi and the mohammed rafi and asha's singing of "Abhi na jao chodkar" from the film hum dono. There have been exceptional women singers and exceptionally and universally popular ones but men do seem to sing better than women,

when to hope and when not to

It's a difficult decision to make; when to hope and when not to. Somewhere in the chaos of creation, growth, development leading to utter chaos, hope springs  and survives.When all our efforts are defeated and there is a great deal of mess to contemplate, very much like in the climax scenes in movies, some problems are resolved and some progress is made.
The problem is when some one close is abusive and thinks that no one will ever come to know.
What can we aspire for, in this scenario?
The situation is not one of utter hopelessness as hoping is a habit of the human mind and tomorrow it will dream and plan and work in hope and find several ways to lick its wounds.
The solution in such cases is to wait and watch and......hope that there are ways out of abuse too.