Hi all!

Haven't posted in quite a long while. I remember some posts about people commenting about how parts of their lives are segregated across various blogs... well mine is too. And I'm still not clear where the lines are, hence the hesitation in opening up, which partly defeats the purpose... Still, its so paradoxical that you can open up more in front of people you don't know at all, rather than those around you? Or is that just wierd me?! :)

May be visiting Petersburg again soon... look forward to seeing a new season that I hadn't experienced earlier. But also apprehensive... I remember the negative vibes of the earlier trip. But maybe that was because it was so long. Anyway, a year has passed and my russki is hardly any better. A new language opens up an entire dimension...

Saw a movie recently where the guy has "short-term memory loss" and every 15 minutes (minutes!!) his memory is wiped clean.

I won't go on about the twists and turns of the movie plot, but it got me thinking how precious memory is. Though the past is history, it is what binds us to our present and holds out the promise of the future. Without the important dimension of the past experiences, feelings, thoughts, would the present be worthwhile?

Hence, I suppose, the urge to put down thoughts on paper, in words, in pictures, in souvenirs... as if binding this fleeting moment and raising a memorial to it....

The joys of past good times, the memorable experiences, the moments shared and thrills faced.... all these light up today's mundane existence, and hold out the promise of memorable moments yet to come...

The moments are happiness are precious snapshots... ready to fade away like the morning dew, clouded over by the overwhelming, relentless march of time...

I somehow try to capture those moments, those memories, as pictures... somethimes with the camera, but more often, without. As if just by focusing on that moment as if I'm squeezing the shutter, I can remember it forever....

I had qute a few such 'snapshot' moments today... my one-and-half year old daughter snuggling up on my shoulder, enjoying making a riot of colours on white paper (and the floor and her hands), giving me audibly wet kisses, talking gobbledegook to me in all earnest.... how do i capture them all ?

I'm going to miss this so much someday...

Hi dear world!

Long time since i wrote anything... The new workplace is almost killing me. The only good thing about it is that i have to drive just about 10 minutes (or 5 in the morning) to reach from home. But otherwise its pretty much like being crushed in a juicer. By the end of the day I feel absolutely drained. Sometimes I take a nap even before dinner, and then again turn in early to bed.

My little baby is such a source of joy. She's One-and-a-half years now. She rushes up to me when i get home, usually with a huge grin (soemtimes a shy smile). Never stops repeating pa-pa-pa-pa for quite some time thereafter. Its such a joy to be with her. She gives me sweet kisses, sometimes even without asking... that feels soooo good. She keeps climbing over everything.. chairs, table, dishes, keyboard...! Today I read quite a few books to her... and she gave me a sweet kiss after finishing each one... as close to heaven as i can get!

Otherwise life has been frustrating, with not much 'useful' stuff getting done. So many ideas, plans... just parked as thoughts. I've always been more a dreamer than the active type. Sometimes I guess I'm just too, too, lazy. Time seems to be just slipping through like sand. I really need to unwind, take it easy, enjoy the moment. Yet that panic is hard to get rid of.... the sand slithering through my fingers....

DIstances increase as time grows... conversation reduces, tempers get shorter...
Age spoils appearances, minds, thoughts, relationships...
Time brings on decay, atrophy, weariness....
Yet when the pure beauty of a child's love strikes you it brings on a glow, a warmth, a promise of hope...
What a tremendous cauldron is the human mind... ever churning, ever on the boil.... there are some ingredients you want to remove, but they are still in there, stewing... and with time, with age, the stench becomes stronger... until you can smell nothing else....
The more you walk, the farther you go from what you were as well as what you wanted to be....

My dear, dear friends,

Wish each one of you a very joyous new year ahead!
I wish the new year brings you happiness, satisfaction, peace and everything you really wish for. May it open up new frontiers, new horizons for you. May you reach new destinations of achievement and new heights of excellence.
And I sure hope its even more fun than 2008 was!
Hope you really enjoyed your holidays.... the busy days ahead will seem less burdensome at the thought of the fun we had...

Take care :))

Two weeks away from work... traveling thousands of miles by train.... releived to be back in the comforts of home, though colder.

Stretched my boundaries of patience, saw people living their lives and learnt.... By such experiences you realise how lucky your own life is and how precious your own loved ones are. Good break away from daily things (though they chased me quite a distance) and got time to bond with my dearest ones.

New destinations ahead... change of work... looking at it with mix of trepidation and excitement...
I'm really lazy... need to be more energetic, prompt, active. Life has too many demands that cannot be postponed to the day after tomorrow. 

   I'm enjoying the ride!

 
Are you so slow because you're wearing heels ?!


Hey! I'm not Marilyn Monroe!

 
How long do I have to hold my breath ?!!( More smiles... )

Good morning and have a great day!!



Yesterday evening was particularly tiring... lost my temper so many times. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep calm. Getting grumpy, pessimistic, negative. Getting vicious satisfaction out of hurting loved ones. Can't blame everything on the work pressure. But it is certainly a factor.

Even driving to work this morning caused me to blow my top more than once. Of course, when one joker after another tries to cut you off from left and right at 70 kmph, you do tend to get pissed off!

How many things do I curse anyway... running out of curses, but not reasons to curse!

The race of life is crazy. Day after day after day. Struggle after struggle.

Only hope lies in finding happiness in small things. In moments of silence, of beauty, of ecstasy, even of sleep. Amidst this cacophony of crowds, competition, cynicism, insecurity...



Every day that passes without an accident, an unpleasantness, without lightning striking my precarious existence.... is actually something to be thankful for. So if I see it that way, the cup of happiness is overflowing... There are some jolts once in a while, but it is always replenshed...

The last few days, rather, weeks, have been busy. Hectic. Tiring. Quite productive too. Finally getting somewhere with research. Every day brings its ups and downs... sometimes the results match, sometimes they don't. Had some good news... some papers accepted for publishing... But some more that were planned never got written...

Anyway, the festive season is going to start soon here, but my mind remians occupied with work... thinking, thinking, thinking... Its unfair to the family, but I really need to make up for all the lost months of work. Need to understand many equations better, many concepts deeper... so many ideas, so much to do, so little time...

And LJ is a window on to another world... people and places and things i would never see, meet, imagine... Just reading and responding to posts takes up an hour or so, and even that i cannot afford to spare.... but i do enjoy and cherish and have my bit of fun :))

Life could be better, but is lovely anyway... :))

Some creative reasons to seek your change...


( Begging for more... )

"Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery
But TODAY is a gift
...That's why its called 'present' !"



Made some great new friends yesterday... and smiling today, and looking forward to tomorrow.

Wish you all a lovely day and an enjoyable weekend ahead! :))

It is so much safer to stick to non-living things... be it in hobbies, possessions, or relationships.

Isn't it so less complicated to take pictures of the bare sky, the bare sea, the bare trees... rather than bare people? And no one minds pictures of skies and water (and most ignore them anyway).



It is so safe and "nice" to collect books, or coins, or stamps, or almost any 'thing'... but no one would encourage you to 'collect' persons, relationships, souls...

Some take shelter behind pet animals, showering all affection on dogs and cats and hamsters and birds... they are any day less complicated to handle than people, of course. Others play it even more safe and reserve their feelings for hoarding up paintings, souvenirs, music, clothes... perhaps even money.

It is the most problematic thing to deal with real people... it is like a process of baring yourself before a mirror, until you realise you do not want to see any more... because the reflection no longer resembles you.

But strange is human nature... however much you may have suffered from interacting with people, you still want to... and each time hope that it will  be the reflection you want to see...

Meeting people in the virtual world has been like adding new dimensions to my life. Ordinary life is precious, but it is still ordinary. At least in thoughts, one can reach out, try to touch things that were so far unthinkable. It is thrilling, it is special, it gives a new reason to look forward to each day.

Yes, it is addictive, but then there are other worse forms of addiction.

So, here's to new friends, and the space that they share with the world and me... and the glimpses that i get into their lives, their souls and their bodies... dimensions that would otherwise belong to a world totally alien from mine.
And some day, in the distant future, maybe i'll also try to come half-way across the gap in language that they have already bridged. 

Your presence and your warmth makes up somewhat for the cold response I got from real people in the same alien land... but this is not the mood to remember depressing evenings.

So cheers to warmth and recklessness!

 

 
"We always think of death as black, but it's only the preliminaries that are black. Death itself is white" 

This line is from Cancer Ward, a book I read more than 10 years back, maybe 13. Somehow even then, I thought of Solzhenitsyn as a person who was no more. So it was surprising for me to know that he passed away only the day before yesterday.

I remember having liked the book a lot. The sense of impending doom, and how different characters react to their helplessness. Their snatched moments of joy in the gloomy surroundings. Some living it up today since there will be no tomorrow, some overwhelmed by the threat of tomorrow.

The only other book I read of his, around the same time,  was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Somehow, because of the circumstances of my life in those days, I could totally relate to his description of life in the gulag. And it left me pitying myself more than him! :))

From what I read today of his life in Russia after returning from exile, he seems to have held opinions which now appear conservative. He was from a different era. And his passing marks yet another milestone in the passing of that era from living memory.