Sunday, February 28, 2010

sunday

Feeding kabootar at Central Park - any ideal Sunday should definitely include an hour of this. Bang in the center of the metropolis, its amazing how stepping into the park is like entering another world - one moment you are in the city that never sleeps - the next, you are steeped in serenity as if skyscrapers and traffic never existed!

Unfortunately, whenever I see a scene like this I am reminded of the scene introducing Amrish Puri in Hum Paanch - The one in which he is offering his morning prayers and feeding pigeons - then suddenly a cloth falls on one of them - and AP cool-ly collects it and passes it to the cook, saying one word - "Nashta".

Chilling, to say the least. That man single handedly terrorised millions of Indians, or at least that's what the 10 year-old me felt whenever we sat down to one of apna DD's Sunday evening movie fixtures. He had that effect on me that any Ramsay Brothers production could only hope to replicate..

Waiting for the chill to end - another walk around the park is long due !

Saturday, February 27, 2010

duck!, or - the ostrich way.

My attitude towards life:
If I bury my head, I will not see those problems of life.

Maybe they will go away.


:)

Friday, February 26, 2010

sunset. it's time to go !

I was in Washington DC, watching the sun go down for the last time in 2009.

The one-in-three-minutes flights served to remind me what a long time it has been. Indeed, since leaving college, I do not remember having been stuck to one place for so long without travelling at all !
I realise I need to stretch out my wings. And make a New Year resolution to shake off this new-found "stability".

The sweet fact is, change comes on its own. You dont need resolutions for it.

Here's Johnny Cash with U2:

I went out walking
Through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul

I went out walking
Under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

Thursday, February 25, 2010

little drops of joy

The best thing you can do in a snow storm is go catch the snowflakes.

With your tongue.

And savour the sharp, tangy taste as the snow turns to water and sizzles down your throat, making you acutely aware of the feeling of being alive, of being one with the untamed nature all around you ..

Recommended to be tried without a hat on. And with the assurance of a hot bowl of soup waiting the end of your adventure.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

the hand that holds the string

In the olden days, if you were the most feared guy in the organisation, you well and truly belonged to the finance department. After the advent of the amorphous entity called Quality and Compliance, the borders are not so well drawn out any more, but this has nothing to do with the bean-counters loosing their sting. Or the strings.

Consider why: being in finance means having to weed out projects which are not profitable. To be ruthless in terminating ideas that are fluffy outside and continue to be filled with just fluff on the inside. Its only by a similar and brutal process of rigorous selection that Sparta had become the mighty warrior state that it was. Which is why the guy with the heart had no place in the finance department. A project is either profitable for the company in the long run, or it is not - there is nothing sentimental about money. A finance man who plays the good cop is either plain incompetent or is wearing kid gloves, and being a sneaky silent killer is several degrees higher in scariness than being a plain-jane kind of killer.

My fear of finance managers went on to extend well beyond the office. From the guy who refuses to pass my expense statements to credit card sharks to bank managers who sell me insurance that I don't need. I have been bitten each time, but have learnt the lesson: QnC may be the new devils on the block; but the original fearful person remains Mr. Finance.

You know what caused the mortgage meltdown ? People were not fearful of finance enough.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

spot the car


Another blizzardy day that leaves us two feet deep in snow. And no office. Yay !
The world is back to beautiful.

And quite like the buds of spring, in the deepest of the snow, a little thought grows in the confines of the mind - are we there yet ?

The snow's enchanting, the cold's invigorating, and the kebabs and soups take on an even more delectable taste, but the fact's there that the heart craves for -
give me some sunshine
spare me the rain
its time to run outside again

Its in the deepest of the winter that we love the summer the most ! Its in the loss of the familiar that we learn to count our blessings. The banal sparrow - it is only when it flies away that we ever notice it existed.
Turns out that the white breasted sparrow, to beat the banality, mixes it up with a couple of yellow streaks between the eyes. Neat.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

cornfields in the snow

After a snow blizzard lasting two days, Sunday woke up to a bright, bright sun. The world switched from dull to dazzling in the literal sense of the world..

Immediately after I pulled over on the side of the road to click this picture, a policeman pulled over and asked me what happened.
He was concerned if I was ok.
I was concerned that he would give me a ticket.

:D