Quo Vadis?

3 letters, 2 words, 1 life sentence. 3 parties, 2 persons, 1 life. Marriage simplified. Some of you may scratch your head at the second segment trying to figure out the 3 rd party. Marriage is essentially 3 parties – God, man & wife. And like a three legged stool all the legs are required for stability. Even if you do not believe in God the equation remains the same because a marriage is founded, built and sustained in love.  And “ Anbe Sivam. ” Love is “I do”… ... in good times & in bad, in sickness & in health, love you and honour you all the days of my life Images courtesy Google Images

I really wish that Noah had forgotten the pair of mosquitoes when he stepped into the ark. On a day when we celebrate the elevation of namma Chennai as the best in some ranking of cities I would think that if they were to compare simply on the mosquito menace we would have been knocked off the list. I just wonder if these pesky mosquitoes were privy to this survey and that’s why they are here. We are fighting a battle without any sign of victory against these mosquitoes which make life in Chennai miserable. Despite the rising sales of repellents and other gadgets there seems to be no way of defeating these devils which seem to multiply in the blink of an eye. Even spelling the name is painful and they will be called mossies from now on. The side effects of these repellents are worrisome with health being a casualty, not many of these are human friendly also and I suspect they affect us more than the mossies. The only folks laughing are the makers and sellers of these pr...

I have written an earlier post on the art of kissing . This is on just KISS, the keep it simple stupid one. Life tends to wear you out with its complexities and often in the muddle we miss out the bigger picture. The solution is to simply KISS. Yes keep it simple and focus on the basics. I do training modules for a hobby and one module that tends to get repeated is on Time Management. Time is perishable and always seems to be in short supply when it is most needed. I will like to share my KISS model of time management which is the gist of the actual module. The first and the biggest tool(s) for effective time management is a pen with a paper. Some words of wisdom before we begin. Watch this. “Failing to plan, is planning to fail” Here we go -                      LIST out ALL the activities that need to be completed on a sheet of paper -     ...

Don’t we look forward to a holiday? I do and I would like to believe many others do too. But have we ever notice the folks around who never get holidays. There are many and they go unnoticed. The milk is delivered on time every day and it comes along with the newspaper. Public transport, the police, the fire service, utilities and so many more work on holidays. Have we spared a thought, just a thought for the bartender who serves the drinks for the New Year party, he works when others take off and there are many more who slog to make that New Year memorable. One Sunday when I was out for dinner I happened to see some officers of a PSU bank working at 9 PM, I know of some bank officials facing marital stresses because they hardly get time to spend with their families.There was a time when a bank manager was an aspiration but today it can be a curse. For a daily wage labourer or a small time entrepreneur a holiday is a loss of income and because there is no foo...

                                 (image courtesy Google Images )  During a pre-employment medical I learned that of the 256K colours in my mobile I can see but very few. 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 irrespective of whether it is called blood orange, safety cone or tomato. To me it’s red. PERIOD. Do you know what a banker’s lamp is? I didn’t till I happened to see it in the shade card . Horror of horrors, it is a green. Even...

                                                               (Image courtesy Frontline ) Of late it appears that every other satellite channel has a talent show featuring children. I am not sure how popular these are but I am certain that few people are depriving many children their childhood. Children have been equated with God because they tend to forgive and forget, but by stealing away their childhood they are being made into unfinished imperfect adults too early. What do you say when a small girl sings a song of seduction to an adoring and spell bound audience and judges? I cringe at the choice of song and the parents who have taught it to their children. The parents who may shy away from sex education are watching spell bound their angel singing rubbish at her tender age. It is not very different for ...

                                                                                   (image courtesy Google Images ) On Ash Wednesday evening the morning sermon remains with me as I begin this post, actually one line of the sermon struck me hard and kept me thinking. The highlight of the sermon was “slow down; in life we go so fast that we miss the most important things”. I wonder when I have last paused to admire or appreciate all the graces that I have been blessed with. Every day is a miracle and waking up from sleep is probably the biggest of them all is it not? We go to sleep with the belief that we will wake up to a new day and once we sleep we completely cede control, few people never wake up. But since we wake up every day we take it for granted. We rush e...

Image courtesy Google images What is true love? A day before Valentine’s Day this is a valid question. Love is an ocean of emotions. Unfortunately the idiosyncrasies of English as a language has ensured several emotions labeled as love. This post is dedicated to the Feb14 classification of love, between a boy / girl & boy/ girl or man/woman & man/woman (today multiple scenarios are available).   However this question was posed yesterday to some college kids on radio and their relative inexperience showed in the shallow answers that followed.I smiled with a “been there done that” feeling.  Today I know true love begins after the honeymoon ends. It is not the big things that show true love but the little things that are lost in the whirlwind of life to all the others except the two in love. To others it may be even silly when they see these expressions of love as they are not the usual public displays of affection. True love needs no spect...

Today there was an automobile collision near office. I will avoid the word accident in deference to Oogway . In this instance it was sheer hara kiri. A two wheeler rider jumped the stop light and ran into a hapless Honda City driver. To my untrained eye the damage appeared like three thousand odd for the Hero Impulse motorbike and at least thirty thousand for the Honda City. The rider is in hospital with minor injuries. This incident brought back a very unpleasant memory which I had forgotten. The picture above is a sad reminder of that memory. This incident, my incident and several others like these always raise the following questions: -          Why is the public sympathy for the one at fault? He may have hurt himself but it was his own doing -          Why are those in cars perceived to be the villains? I do not set out every day with an intention to destroy my car -    ...

                                                                                                               It is ironical that I started my last post with the ass and the next one with the crown, but as they say what goes up must come down so I will continue. My three year old daughter recently pointed out the conditioner bottle among the many others when I was bathing her, so this will tell you how clueless I am to anything that is cosmetic. My bath soap was suggested by my doctor and the shampoo by my wife. I some how manage with some other basic essentials. My allergy to dust ruled out aerosol sprays so perfumes are ruled out and making life very simple for me. Where I have faced the biggest cha...

“A little flattery never hurt anyone” I do not know if many people are immune to a little flattery. A normal person likes to be appreciated and should like getting positive statements from others. So what is this flattery? “Flattery (also called adulation or blandishment) is the act of giving excessive compliments, generally for the purpose of ingratiating oneself with the subject” – according to wiki. Every flattering statement has an end for its origin, someone wants to achieve something off the other and flattery is the inducement. Flattery is all pervasive at home, work, social life and we would have all used it consciously or subconsciously. A little flattery never hurt right? These days flattery has grown to obscene levels and has become a fine art that is practiced by the politicians to please their bosses. From falling at the feet to deifying them higher than Gods, flattery has no limits. It will not be unusual to see large flex boards o...

I have been nominated for a Liebster Award!! I have not got these nominations before and so I was surprised that folks like my blog. Thank You Himani Agarwal for stopping by and giving me a vote of confidence. [Do not like the PINK colour though : ( ] Himani blogs at http://itjusthappenandthen.blogspot.in/ Some Googling threw up this “ The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. “ Liebster ” is German for “ favorite ”. This award is the favorite blog award then . ” These awards mandate that you cannot keep it and are meant to be shared. The award is but a chain mail, but it never hurts to share some appreciation and affirmation which is wanted dearly by everyone. So this is my affirmation and appreciation and in the spirit of this mail here are the rules: - a. Post 11 Things about yourself b. Answer 11 questions from nominator c. Choose 11 deserving bloggers and link them in your post d. Set 11 questions...

“Saavu giraki, veetla solittu vantheya?” (Customer of death, have you informed home?) This is a famous statement usually from auto drivers of namma Chennai and is now part of the local language to show our feelings to an exasperating jay walker or an errant motorist. It is also a joke that brings a few smiles to the lay observer be it on the TV or on t he road. But just analyze the statement for a moment, it can be pretty unnerving. When we leave home if we say “Poren!” (Going), we will get admonished by the elders who will correct it to “Poitu Varen” (I will go & return). The former is inauspicious and our folks dearly want us to return home. Sadly the fact is everyday there are folks who step out & never return due to their carelessness outside, either on the railway tracks or on the road. Incidentally "Poitu Varen" is considered most inappropriate only in one situation... A careless jaywalker or an errant motorist takes his life and plays arou...

I was forewarned before I stepped into the theatre by my favourite movie critic that kadal is not what I wanted to see. But the tickets were booked and I was going with friends and my little princess wanted to see Elay Keechan and so we went for the movie though we ended up a few minutes late and so missed the opening scenes. Having read about it I managed to settle down but was rudely shaken up by the scenes that unfolded. The movie is about the usual good Vs bad and the eventual triumph of good over the bad. The good is Aravind Swamy who is a priest, the bad is Arjun a seminarian who gets thrown out and chooses crime and holds a grudge against Aravind Swamy who caused him to be thrown away. Arvind Swamy dons the habit after Minsaara Kanavu and he looks good in it even now. Fr. Thomas was it then? In the tussle between the good and the bad is a young boy a love child of a fisherman who denies him after the death of the mother. The boy is unable to overcome the loss ...