gutfeel.com

Today is my engagement anniversary! It is a special day for me. I came across this beautiful poem on the net and wish to dedicate it to my better half.

What I want to ask of you is this,
If I can find the nerve to make the leap:
Life scatters dreams across the hills of sleep,
Lest we be too easy in our bliss.
Yet I am aware what I might miss.
Only what we treasure can we keep,
Ultimately sowing what we reap,
Modeling a world upon a kiss.
And so I must reveal to you my heart,
Recalling all my courage from its rest,
Ready for whatever word might be.
You are all the object of my quest,
My cynosure, my life, my other part.
Each line of this begins my urgent plea.

It is my cribbing time again. As my mom-in-law and her sister are around so we decided to roam around Bombay on a weekend which is incredibly difficult otherwise due to my hectic schedule not to forget Bombay’s despicable traffic. So the three of us headed to Gateway of India first. Though my mom-in-law and aunt had been there years ago, it was my first visit even after being in the city for almost two years as my hubby is averse to visiting crowded places be it a tourist spot or a movie theatre.

Mumbai traffic is driving me crazy these days. When I came to Bombay, and decided to take up a job in an elearning company in Andheri, people usually mumbaites used to tell me that you will get used to it…but till now that has not happened. Destiny is playing cruel games with me. So if I get used to waiting patiently at a traffic signal for 150 seconds, then soon after I have to learn to positively spend my time in a traffic jam for an hour. Or there is some flyover coming up which leads to bumper to bumper traffic. I take the western express highway so going from Lower Parel to Andheri should take me 35-40 mins though that rarely happens. It takes me typically an hour.

A petty thief, a teacher and a lawyer die and go to heaven.

When they get there they are stopped by St. Peter, who then says, “Sorry, heaven’s crowding up, so you need to answer a question correctly, or else you can’t get in.”

He looks at the teacher, and asks her: “What was the name of the famous ocean-liner that sank after hitting an iceberg?” “Oh, that’s easy,” the teacher replied, “the Titanic.” So St. Peter let her into heaven.

Next he turned to the petty thief. “How many people died on that ship?” St. Peter asked. “Oooh, that’s tough, but I saw the movie, and it was 1, 500.” St. Peter stepped away and the thief walked into heaven.

Finally, St. Peter turned to the lawyer. He simply said to him: “Name them.”

It is world cup season yet again and I am so angry that I have to let my emotions out. Firstly, I am really disappointed by Indian team’s performance. It was shameful to see them losing to an unassuming Bangladesh. Secondly, even their world record of 413 runs in the world cup does not brighten their chances to remain in the league. It is sheer luck now that they stay in the game. Their poor run rate in the first game is might serve as an impediment even though every player tried his level best to score as much runs as possible against Bermuda yesterday.

I do not want Sehwag to stay in the team. He is out of form, though he tried to retain his place in the team by scoring a century, I still feel that his poor performance in the previous games have spoiled his image to an extent that it would take time and effort from his side to regain people’s confidence and respect. It was Dravid who had immense faith in him to back him up to such an extent in such crucial times.

I somehow like this quote by Ali ibn-Abi-Talib very much, which goes like - “Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.” How true this is…I have come across many a situation when I tried incessantly to put across my point of view but to no avail. I have realized that if you know someone well enough then you need not go on clarifying things. And someone who does not think well of you or one who is your enemy in crude terms will not understand how hard you try. Friends are always on your side be it sunshine or rain…so they understand.

I do post on my blog off and on about different things I experience and notice around me. However, my enthu to post on my own blog dwindles at some time. So I have thought of an idea to bring me back to gutfeel more often. Every week I would be posting an interesting joke or a thoughtful quote. Though these are two extremes, but I believe that all life consists of extremes. It is better to accept it right away so that one could at least try to put some method in the madness or give it a blind eye and drain out the positive energies which are anyways so conspicious by their absence in today’s world. 

I would also try changing the look and feel of the blog weekly. This frequent activity might help me to bring more liveliness and cheer to the blog. (It might also increase the site traffic though :-P). So let’s begin with an interesting though crazy joke today. 

I like the new season of KBC. I think it is better than last two seasons, but for one thing that the quality of contestants has dwindled drastically. I suppose people have lost the enthusiasm or the selection process which draws them to the big seat is not suitable. Not even one person has been able to reach the magic figure of 2 crore since the beginning of the new season. That is quite disappointing keeping in mind that the questions are not really that tough. The only saving grace is Shahrukh, who makes the atmosphere light as against Mr. Bacchhan who was always sophisticated. Shahrukh even has the guts to crack jokes on him self during the show. The new terms like ‘freeze kiya jaaye’ and ‘mujhe gale laga lo’ are like a breath of fresh air. 

T. S. Eliot had once remarked “Humankind cannot stand very much reality.” How true in today’s time when we are bombarded with reality shows. Big Brother Controversy has rocked not only India but the whole of the Britain so much so that Channel 4 is thinking of taking the most popular reality TV show in Britain off air. The remarks of Jade Goody to Shilpa Shetty have been termed as racist by the latter. Though I have not seen the Big Brother episode but whatever bits and pieces are available on Indian television do not portray a good picture at all. Jade has been finally evicted and the most shameful thing for her must have been that nobody came up to receive her after the show. The mass hatred for her is visible everywhere. After being evicted from the show even she has confessed that some of her remarks to Shilpa were indeed racist. A bid to patch up things I suppose… Hellen Keller had said that “The best result that education can provide to anyone is tolerance.” Going by this notion, the participants are not that well educated. But the fact remains that it is a reality show and things are supposed to go off the mark!

A nice thought-provoking poem to start the new year with…I received this as a forward.

I have in my hands two boxes,

Which God gave me to hold.

He said, “Put all your sorrows in the black box,

And all your joys in the gold.”

I heeded His words, and in the two boxes,

Both my joys and sorrows I stored,

But though the gold became heavier each day,

The black was as light as before.

With curiosity, I opened the black,

I wanted to find out why,

And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole,

Which my sorrows had fallen out by.

I showed the hole to God, and mused,

“I wonder where my sorrows could be!”