Quo Vadis?

“A friend in need is a friend indeed” Haven’t we all used this statement to eulogize the merits of friendship? How many times we would have mindlessly said this to promote friendship? I was introspecting about my life recently and the profound effect my friends have played in it to make me what I am today. Many have come and gone but all of them have made an impact. As I was introspecting this phrase came to my mind and then I realized that it needed a second thought! A friend in need is a friend indeed, now what does that mean? If you need something, does that make you a friend to someone? So if you don’t need anything are you not a friend? Or is a friend the “someone” who helps the person in need? Is friendship just helping the needy? Do we not call this act charity or even more grandiosely philanthropy? Is this the definition of friendship that we have grown up with? Do we believe that friends are there to only help us when we need something? I searched the web for an explanation to...

This morning I got yet another "key to a miracle that will happen to me within 24 hours subject to me doing something" SMS. Its quite simple actually, a seemingly innocuous and sometimes very spiritually soaked SMS lands on your phone. Roses from our lady of Fatima, or blessings of Infant Jesus or some wishes from Hindu Gods start the message. You will be promised a miracle if you send the message to N number of persons within the next few minutes. A stern warning may follow for non believers who just delete the message. What do you do when you get a message like that? You can choose to simply delete it as I do on most occasions. The non believers, rationalists and atheists would be thrilled to the core by this act of mine, I’m sure. Alternatively you can religiously send the message to the N number of people, make a wish if so specified and wait for the miracle to happen. I have sent many messages like this, but before you make any opinions about me, let me hasten to add tha...

Have you suffered from Monday morning blues? (Actually I would prefer not calling it blues, maybe Monday morning sickness; I love blue so the nomenclature.) Anyway coming back to my initial question, if your answer happens to be a YES, welcome to the club. Nothing gives me greater discomfort than to get out of bed to get ready for another week of work, well maybe the onerous task of getting up early to go to the gym. (But that is worth another post altogether!). In school I swore to myself that things will get better in college, I said the same thing in college and now after 5 years of work I find that I’m no better than my school days. Inexplicably I tend to feel the tiredest (if that word exists) on a Monday morning. Its not that I hate work, far from it, it’s just that the weekend has so many good things to offer that the end is so painful to accept. In school or college with a five day week Fridays will be the most anticipated day as it was the prelude to a great weekend. Work week...

 To all the choir singers and musicians of the world, a delayed St. Cecilia feast day greetings! Ok, to all those who couldn’t make sense of my greeting, St. Cecilia is honoured in the Catholic church as the patron saint of choir music and singing. The feast day falls on the 22nd of November. I was fortunate to be invited to sing in the feast day mass at St. Theresa’s Church in Nungambakkam. I was told today that this is a big event in the St. Theresa’s calendar for several years now and many musicians and choir members from various places attend. It was a privilege for me to sing in the choir accompanied by a 40 member orchestra. The orchestra was replete with a host of wind and string instruments. It was indeed fortunate to listen to them play.   A worthy point of note is that the orchestra was dominated by non Christians. A special song by a group of Koreans who live in Chennai in their native tongue made the statement music knows no languages or barriers come alive. It is said th...

Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm. When the storms of life come upon us - and all of us will experience them - we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God's power to lift us above them. God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm. Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them. The Bible says, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will...

“What goes up must come down.” – Old Red Indian saying. Ok from the euphoric highs of Saturday which spilled over to Sunday and was still there yesterday too, I have come down to terra firma with a big thud. And hangovers can give you a big headache. I have not got a hangover from drinking simply because I don’t drink at all. But this post is not about alcoholism or its effects so I will get back to the topic on hand. THUD!!! Well you can take this to be the noise that I would have made when I landed back on the ground this morning after the highs mentioned above. I woke up this day after a late night sleep. As is usual D and I had our usual night conversations that are keeping Airtel coffers full. Thankfully both of us are on a scheme that charges 10 p/ min but that is still money. The fact that my dad exploded recently when he saw my bill of last month which was twice the normal is another topic worth mentioning in a separate post altogether so I shall not venture further. We normal...

It’s finally over!!!!!!!!! Pardon the euphoria, but the big shopping is finally over. We have shopped for the wedding and the engagement saris and they now proudly occupy the top shelves of my mum’s cupboard. Let me recount the incidents of the day chronologically. My day started before sun rise as I had to go to the Central station to pick up mum’s sisters who were coming to shop for the saris. My mum’s elder and younger sisters came on time at 6.35 AM, so you can imagine how early I had to rise. : ( Anyway the entourage was still incomplete with mum, dad, 2 aunts as yet another aunt was to join us as mentioned earlier. This is the wife of my mum’s younger brother. So another pick up was done by me and finally at 10.30 we were ready to go. Thankfully and mercifully we had hired a cab, a Qualis that seated 7 excluding the driver comfortably. So with a lot of mixed emotions I sat in the front seat and navigated to D’s house. D and her household had worked out several permutations and co...

Hi, I am in Bombay, Mumbai if you insist. The city that has something for everyone, so goes the refrain of anyone who has stayed in Mumbai for a period of time. Maybe the city grows on you but to me it is one intensely depressing city. I flew in this morning by kingfisher and the inflight magazine is full of the page 3 crowd of Mumbai. So it is page after page of almost the same faces in cleavage revealing dresses for women and badly unkept look for the men who have graced different events in the last month. One look at the mag and you will believe that life in Mumbai is one big party, i guess it is for some. The city is a city of huge contrasts. The skyline of mumbai is dominated by the highrises but after craning your neck to see the top floor just look down and the shcoking poverty of the slums comes as a rude slap on the face. It is not that Chennai has no slums but here in Mumbai the slums are everywhere. They really are the two extremes of the city, you see the page 3 crowd wea...

I Blog!  I came, I saw, I blog. I think therefore I blog. I’m jobless so I blog. I’m tired of work so I blog. I have an opinion I blog. What ever the reason may be, I blog. You are curious about me so you read my blog. You have nothing to do so you read my blog. You are taking a break from work so you red my blog. You are my friend so you read my blog. You love gossip so you read my blog. You want to waste time so you read my blog. You are looking to score brownie points with me, you read my blog. You were just surfing by, you read my blog. Whatever the reason may be, you read my blog. I blog, you read. The more I blog the more you read. But I will blog even more if you don’t just read but also leave a comment. Comments, criticism, opinions are all welcome as they motivate me to write. I can improve my posts and make the exercise enjoyable for you and me. So I blog, you read, you comment, I blog more (I blog better), you read more……

Honeymoon anyone???? The wedding bells are ringing loud and clear in my bank. One of my colleagues has just returned married and he is going on a cruise to celebrate it courtesy his father in law. There are atleast 3 eligible young men (including yours truly) who are awaiting their turns. The most common question that we face is "where are you going for your honeymoon"? My instant retort would be "somewhere unreachable", but since decorum prevents it, I manage with "some hill station". I do not have the slightest plan of revealing my whereabouts to my colleagues. Anyway I have observed with some enthusiasm my colleague who sits in the adjacent workspace feverishly browsing various travel packages for his honeymoon. I believe he has settled on the road much travelled and is heading to Goa. Me, I’m keeping my plans a secret. I do not want to go to any run of the mill places and as leave is scarce I cannot afford extended an extended break. Also I will be fun...

This post is related to my earlier post so bear with repetitions if any. I joined my current employer a couple of months ago. As a part of my joining formalities I had to undergo a pre-employment medical check up. From the test I learned 1 obvious thing that I’m loosing the battle of the bulge and that unless I do something about it, I will have problems. The next information that I learned transformed my world from 256 K colours or whatever the TV / mobile guys claim, to the basic colours. It is official; I’m a little colour blind. No I don’t see the world in black, white and shades of grey but if you were to bring me a RmKV multi-colour sari and ask me what are the colours I will call out red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, white, black, grey, pink and brown. Maybe I may get a few more but that’s all, with all due respect to the master weavers of RmKV. The fact of the matter is I cannot discern between shades of the same colour and that makes life simple! I see a red as red irr...

Suit your self! Hi! It’s been sometime since my last post, 4 days almost I think. So let me start. I had spent some time last week checking out various suits for myself for the big day. I have been looking at the Indian suits for some time and I thought that it would be different from the conventional suits which I think many buy as an after thought or for dual purpose like office or in extreme circumstances a black tie dinner or horror of horrors a funeral! None of that for me, I want a suit that will be different and trendy at the same time. This is a special day and I don’t want to look like the caterers!!! Anyway I checked out Shoppers Stop, the collection there was terrible to say the least. I was disappointed as the last time (a year or so ago) my dad had got me and my brother suits from there that rivaled the groom of the wedding we wore it to. They were fabulous; sadly their current offering looked like something left behind after a jumble sale. The shop assistant told me rathe...

How do you blog so much? I have heard this question from those who happen to read my posts. Their curiosity rises from the fact that I have posted a few topics of late mostly during office hours. They have assumed that either I have absolutely no work at office or I am not doing any work. Actually I have work and I blog in between work. I’m quite thankful to have discovered the world of blogging. It is really a mode of relaxation when work can really be tiring. To those who have known me and have seen me over the years, it will be obvious that I can be very opinionated (who is not?) and I can be a little more opinionated that others. So I tend to speak out my opinions to all and sundry. This may not be a good thing to do at work especially at my bank where loose talk is sacrilege in their code of conduct. The bank is a highly secretive organization that prides itself on data security and client confidentiality. So generally loose talk or idle gossip is avoided. To people like me, blogg...

Ok, now that you have seen the title and have decided to follow your curiosity this post is about kissing. I have joined a community called The Art of Kissing in Orkut in addition to French kiss community. The French Kiss is probably the most valuable contribution from France and it is probably their biggest ever export of all times! Ok let me assure you before hand that this post is not related to the fact that I’m engaged. Those who practice the art of kissing, those who kiss, have been kissed or have gaped when others kiss or just yearn for that kiss will all testify that a kiss is one of the most intimate expression of love. I do testify. : ) You may be aware that where you kiss a person shows different emotions. The hands, cheek, forehead, neck, lips… they all tell different stories. Anyway we have now established an already accepted fact that a kiss is special and it is a sure way of expressing your love. So do we kiss often? More specifically do we kiss the people we love? Do we...

Hi, at the outset let me warn you that this is a controversial post. The objective is not to provoke anger or fury at any reader but it is just an attempt to think about the issue being posted. Recently I happened to hear two friends talking (no, I was not eaves dropping!) and the topic veered to the recent trip to Thirupathi that on of my friends had made. To those in the know, the seven hills of Thirupathi are sacred to Hindus and is one of the biggest pilgrimage sites in India. It is also the second richest religious institution (it is a massive institution) globally. I have been planning to visit this temple for awhile now but somehow it never worked out. I am a big fan of visiting the South Indian temples of architectural importance to revel in their sheer beauty and I take immense pride in my culture and my ancestry. I must add I have visited many temples and I delight in these visits. So coming back to the topic, I was not paying much attention to the discussion of my fri...