One of the most inspiring poems read in my childhood

లక్ష్మణ కవి కలములొ నుండి జాలువారిన ఆణిముత్యం :

ఆరంభింపరు నీచ మానవులు విఘ్నాయాస సంత్రస్తులై 
యారంభించి పరిత్యజించుదురు విఘ్నాయత్తులై మధ్యముల్ 
ధీరుల్ విఘనిహన్య మానులగుచు ధ్రుత్యున్నతొత్సాహులై 
ప్రారబ్ధార్ధము లుజ్జగింపరు సుమీ ప్రజ్ఞానిధలల్ గావునన్ - ఏనుగు లక్ష్మణ కవి. 

ఏదైనా పని మొదలు పెట్టినపుడు ఎన్ని అడ్డంకులు ఎదురయినా వెరువక తుదికంటా లక్ష్యం కోసం శ్రమించడమే కార్య సాధకుడి నైజం. అలాంటివారు ఉత్తములు. ఎప్పుడో ఎదురయ్యే అడ్డంకులను తలచుకుని ఏ పనీ చేపట్టనివారు అధములు. ఏదో చెయ్యాలన్న తపనతో మొదలు పెట్టినప్పటికీ మధ్యలో ఆటంకాలు ఎదురవగానే వదిలేసేవారు మధ్యములు.

Which translates to - People in the world are classified as three different kinds.
The first kind is those who do not start a work for fear of facing obstacles/ difficulties who are those of the lowly kind, the second kind, who start a work and leave it in the middle the moment they face an obstacle - they are medium kind and finally those who despite all difficulties stand up to the task and finish it - who are the noble ones.

To Autumn

I looked out of my window...Saw the beautiful autumn transcending the surroundings...An enthralling happiness filled my senses and who else can describe my feelings better than Keats...Quoting my favorite poet's line - Autumn beats from Keats!!!

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Ohh Keats - You can change the perception with your words…Always a big fan – Take a bow!!!

Zeal to Perfection!!!

A rush, a complexity, an idiosyncrasy...What else I can say.  What Felix did may not be a world changing one. What he did may not change the plight of billions of people around the world. He may not put a presumptuous step to take the human race, a leap ahead. But this dude’s made of balls of steel. Some excerpts from his upshot speech which echoed every bit of his exasperating emotion when he’s inside an ominous-looking flat spin that Baumgartner went into around 90 seconds into the descent.

"Because I have a manual push button where I can release a drogue [stabilization] chute which pulls me out of the flat spin, but at the same I time I knew if I push that button, this thing is all over, we're not going to fly supersonic."

Losing out the comfort zone, tackling the adrenaline rush to sooth out the right decision…What not. Felix had not only shown his incredible panache but also his flamboyance in reaching out his goal no matter what the condition is. Even though his prime motivation is to come back alive (as said in his interview after the dive), he never wanted to compromise in his calculated risk to go for an extra mile. Such is his knack, such is his compassion and above all, he still want to challenge himself.

Vince Lombardi said -  “I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious. “ Incomplete. Incomplete. The man’s finest hour, his greatest fulfilment lies in his ability to challenge himself to the extreme and give his heart out to raise the bar of human spirit. History might have been written by the victors, but to be one of them…Look beyond the written lines. 

Ramblings of a whimsical fatso…!!!

A moment on your lips, forever on your hips…As Joey does, I too once used to hate this line. Without second thought I was offended as well. I am not giving an embodiment or an activist based view here. I am just speaking as a Tanuj who lived in my very own body till 2011 February. The one who’s living at present or lived after Feb 2011 had lost more than 13 units of adipose tissue (as bios like Shravya used to call it) or Kilos as British metrics call them. Frankly speaking, nothing changed. Not even an additional testosterone level increase or an added percentage of freaking activeness.

For this transformation to a mirror fitting material, the process included woeful humiliation from every quarter. I do not remember the whole story as it is exactly happened, but jus some jottings from broken words from my admirers (yeah who made my life miserable by looking at my rice plate as if I am responsible for global food shortage). The evolution of this pain started before I came to this world I guess. I remember my grandma telling me that I was born a kilo overweight. They called me healthy and damn everyone was worried when I am not having my food properly and losing my weight at that time. And there was the bomb. They saw an appetizer increasing tonic or some prescribed medicine ad on TV and experimented on me. The results were successful and I have started eating as if the world’s gonna end after my meal. I guess my admirers were very happy coz they found a 2 year old chubby kid, cute. Scene cut, dozen years later they were having all problems with my eating/fattening habits. Has the world turned upside down in a dozen years? We just not eat to satisfy our souls. We are major driving factors of retail foods. I bet none of my skinny admirers would dare touch the sugar coated calories in the shelves even though their heart pound for that. After all we encourage new restaurateurs by visiting them. We are the source of information, critical reviews and GDP growth (retail food combustion rate is directly proportional to our fattening…lame calculation…:P). Considering the fact that Warren Buffet and Mukesh Ambani are over weight, be careful while you comment on the next one you see on the road. 

Welcome back!!!

One classic which never grows old and can sustain over the ages...A lyrical masterpiece fitting in my party log of welcoming 2012...From the pen of Phil the Master...Its just another day in Paradise!!!

She calls out to the man on the street, "Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep. Is there somewhere you can tell me?"
He walks on, doesn't look back, he pretends he can't hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street, seems embarassed to be there

Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it

She calls out to the man on the street, he can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet, she can't walk, but she's trying

Oh, just think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, uh - huh, just think about it

Oh Lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh oh Lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell by the lines on her face, you can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from everyplace, cause she didn't fit in there

Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise
Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, uh - huh, just think about it

It's just another day for you and me in paradise
It's just another day for you and me in paradise
It's just another day for you and me in paradise
It's just another day for you and me in paradise
It's just another day for you and me, it's another day for you and me
It's another day for you and me in paradise
In paradise, oh, oh, oh, oh yeah

A tale of cat and mouse

Before starting the actual engravings on my blog wall, I want to clear the air. I am neither a feminist nor a women’s rights activist. I am neither a social reformer nor a modern Raja Ram Mohan Roy. I am just jolting down my thoughts on an article which caught my attention a month ago. This is probably the most serious post of my blog so far and I don’t want to tone down the intensity of the issue to follow my usual suite. My mom used to tell me a famous saying which goes like – “A pet kitten can attack like a tiger, if tortured in a closed room”. I guess the saying has different levels of meaning, but after going through the domestic violence/abuse statistics last month I found it completely wrong. A Colorado court had given a domestic violence convict much debated freedom by basing the act on temporary insanity. One might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. Sad part is morality can never take a chair when insanity prevails. What’s law is planning to prove. Violence against an intimate partner, in most of the cases - women is just an act of insanity???

Let’s start with numbers – Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. Men aren’t spared either. About two in five of all victims of domestic violence are men, contradicting the widespread impression that it is almost always women who are left battered and bruised, a new report claims.

More than 30% victims of domestic violence around the world never comes out of their - in this case, the Lion’s den raising their voice because of their fear of shame rosen from the contraceptive decision making in terms of choosing their partners. If the partner is brutally injured and the convict hence proven guilty, the convict is punishable to the maximum of a jail term of 5 years. If there is a kid in the scenario(as a product of their unfruitful relationship), the convict can escape with much lesser possibility of punishment. According to UNICEF’s statistics, more than 75% of children who are grown in these kinds of abusive environment will grow up with psychological disorders which can mutate to trauma and depression that can carry for their life time. The convict of the Texas Chain Saw massacre is a product of one such incident in his childhood. Domestic violence is a widely known dark secret. It’s more brutal than a Sexual Homicide. As a matter of fact, in a homicide the victim is killed on the spot with a one time suffering. Domestic violence perpetuates, influence and disturbs the intensity and defoliates the life. This is not a social message. A society in which every human being is ought to be survived, one should never let down oneself to undergo this pain. It’s very difficult to undergo a cross pollination phase when two human beings coming from completely different backgrounds merged under one roof. Differences do exist. Violence is not an answer and is a severely punishable crime. Law should be stringent to leave any reservations for the convicts. Do not close the door. Ring a bell!!!

COKE 'n me

Black – A colour that represent extreme vacuum in the universe, A colour which showcases deep down emptiness, a colour that defined the darkness and the very own colour of highest point of attraction. I don’t have a squad about how the name COLA came up with this colour, but as a kid I never really tend to pose myself with a bottle of coke in my hands (It was coca cola at that time and people used to call it, with its very own name). The childhood fascination was all about colours and even grayish Limca couldn’t fit into my bottle of wine. It started with Gold Spot. The addiction to orange had grown with age and transformed from long T’d 330ml bottles to mini skirted 300ml cans. Though the cylindrical cans which belonged to cooler gen next, just got themselves confined to my math calculations and couldn’t fit in my hands.

So all the intro above is jus to prove my first love wasn’t with Coke and as the saying goes that Love stories started at a tender age can never last longer than they seem to be. By the time I have started using the phrase I am a grown up now, orange coloured Fanta/Mirinda (Did I mention that Gold Spot evolved into much cooler versions like above) were successfully replaced with world’s best soft drink - Coca Cola. And its an age where my teenage dreams jus subdued and I need to show my prowess of so called male ego of a grown up man. I never liked the smell of beer and alcohol was still considered as a sin thing (I totally disagree with that logic, but cmon consider the Indian so called ethical environment which suppressed the logic behind any belief). First shot at coke did gave me an awesome feeling of sliding through the throat which was parched due to a hot Indian summer. It was heaven. Since then, coke had been my strength and weakness and successfully kept me away from beer.

Coke is just a symbol of realtime addiction, atleast for me. What do I have for breakfast – bread, cheese and coke(a modern French combo); Lunch – Pasta and coke; Dinner – rice and coke; Dessert – vanilla coke; Reduce weight – Diet coke; Need to sleep – Zero Coke; Coke delivered every product to suit my life style. It did complete me. This love story did lasted for a while before I found my date and entered a polygamy with beer. A date with beer has a sense of kick but coke always gave the much needed satisfaction for which I am still an addict. Everything in life has a beautiful ending. And if it is not beautiful, then be sure, it is not the ending. Beer showed the side effects (belly especially) and I had to get back to the love of my life. As U2 sang with or without you in my ears coke defined the perfect sync of my life with a They lived happily ever after climax. This time it’s a happy ending and Maniratnam’s dialogues in Geetanjali did came true – Nobody knows how long they gonna last, but they will be happy as long as they are together. Coke will last forever by giving justification to the core for every addict and I am no Chuck Norris. I did opened my happiness…(Damn coca cola isn’t gonna pay me for this heart felt marketing…L)