Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Silence speaks a lot.

Many a times I find myself in a situation where I want to say a lot of things, but then feel its better not to say all those. And I keep thinking whats the best thing to say and finally end up saying nothing. Many a times I do get shouted at for being silent and non-reactive. :-|

Especially when someone loses their close ones , I find it tough to say anything. Most of the things goes on in mind. "What do i say?" , "What do i do?" Whatever I say or do will not necessarily undo anything that has happened. And sometimes , the best way to show you care is to be "Silent".. "Silent" in quotes because, on the external appearance I am quiet, but there is that internal voice which keeps going on and on.

At that moment I feel that I should say something to prove/show that I care. But on the contrary , being silent and jus being with the other person says a lot about the love and care one shows.

Cheers
K

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Manic Monday or a Amazing Monday

Hola!!


Was reminded about the song "Just another Manic Monday" by the Bangles group.


Weekend gone and here comes another week. Back to work (or school/college). Ever noticed how quickly the weekend goes? Even before you notice, its gone!! And then we are eagerly waiting for the next weekend to come :-).


If you observe, you would notice that as Friday evening comes closer, most of us are charged up , excited and raring to go :-).Why? Coz the weekend's coming and its party time... And also as Sunday evening approaches, the mood slowly changes (as if getting ready for a war or battle) and all you want to do is sink into the couch and   get rest as much as possible, or start preparing for Monday morning. One classic example is my son. If I ask him to finish off his homework on friday evening, he would say "Dad, tomorrow is saturday. I will do the homework on sunday" :-) .. And on sunday evening, just as he is about to hit the bed, he remembers and it takes a whole lot of effort from all of us to get his homework done :-).


Though I took the example of my son, most of us have similar experiences :-)..


And there are some of them who eagerly look forward for Mondays. For example, couple of years back , I used to look forward to Mondays. I had lots of friends at work and it was fun to be with them. And over the weekends, they had their own stuff to do and since I was staying away from family, I did not have much to do over the weekend. So, ultimately it all boils down to what is the context for the near future.


Imagine, you are supposed to go on a date 2 days from now. From this moment till you actually go out, it would seem that the days are going too slow and you cant wait for 2 more days. On the contrary, consider you are going out of town and would not be meeting the person you love for a month or so, then you would feel that the days are shorter (though in both cases the day is of 24hrs only :-) ) .


So, in short, our actions/emotions/feelings are totally totally based on the context that we have for the near future. It could be an empowering context , which makes u charged up ,excited!! or on the other hand, it could be an dis-empowering context, which could make you sulk ..


Well, another fresh week is here and the world looks bright and beautiful. 


Have a GREAT week ahead :-) and specially to my friend for whom this is a much awaited week.


Cheers
K



Friday, March 25, 2011

Degree Kaapi


It was lunch hour and after a decently long meeting, I was looking forward to have a sumptuous lunch. As i was driving through the roads of chennai, I realised that I was near Mylapore, and the obvious choice of eatery was the famous Karpagambal mess.

So, off I went navigating the always-oh-so-crowded mada street until I reached the destination. As I sat there, waiting for my food to arrive, I happened to notice the price list that was put up on the wall. I started going through each item in that list. I stopped at the third one which read "Degree Kaapi" . 

I have heard the term quite a number of times (thanks to my Grandma) , but never really ventured to find more about it. Sitting here , waiting for food and nothing better to do, I did a search for "Degree coffee" on my mobile. What I found was really interesting which i will share in a moment.

In this age of "Coffee Days", "Barista", "Java City", I think its a good idea to know a bit about Coffee or Kaapi.

So, I had this question "Why is it called Degree Kaapi". Came across a few explanations . 
1) Coffee prepared with "degree" milk (milk of good quality as measured by a lactometer) was called degree coffee
2)  when coffee is decocted for the first time, it is called as the first degree or simply as the "Degree Coffee".

My thoughts and reading was interrupted by the arrival of my food :-)

There is a whole lot of detail that is available @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee.

Kaapi enjoy maadi

Cheers
K

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Awaiting Eagerly......

I am sure most of us have had this experience at one point or other. The presence of a loved one is most felt in his/her absence. I am going through that experience right now. Its vacation time , Schools shut , that time of the year when kids have a gala time and parents (well most of them), otherwise :-) ..

Its hardly been 3-4 days since my son has gone on vacation to his G'pa's place, and it seems that he has gone for a longer time. Much of the time he was here, we were mostly wrestling over something , sometimes playing, some good times, some otherwise.. And now when he is gone on vacation (even if its for a few days), the void created cannot be explained but only experience . This is true with every relationship, especially if the other person is someone whom we dearly love :-) .. Interestingly , that person is more often in our thoughts when they are away. More because we are thinking if they are thinking about us, or maybe not, missing us or not..Whatever it is, i know he is having a good time at his G'Pa's..

I remember a similar incident that happened a few years ago when my son was 3 yrs old and I had returned home after spending a month away from home. I guess these little ones have instincts. He was there at the doorsteps even before I could ring the doorbell :-) .. I still remember that moment. On seeing me , he jus came running and hugged me tight . He held on for a good minute or two .. Amazing!!! mabbe as kids we would have done the same.. Somewhere in the process of growing up , we have suppressed that display of affection ..

Waiting for the day when he would be back from his vacation.. ( and we can resume what we were doing.. having fun) ..

Cheers
K

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Celebrating Women's day

International Womens day is being observed on Mar 8th for a long time now. Since 1911 to be precise. What started as a political move has now lost most of the political flavor and has given way for people to express their love and gratitude for all the women in their life.


It surely has caught up in India as well. I know of a few friends of mine who argue that they dont need a "women's day" to show affection. Some feel its more of commercial value. Anyways, will leave that aside for now.


I was driving back home from work and spent a good amount of time inching my way through the city traffic, and during this time i notice atleast 20 women having either a gift box or a bouquet of flowers in their hand. And corporate houses doing their bit to encourage and promote this.


Multiple thoughts ran across my mind and I realised that though we (read men mostly) have deep respect/gratitude towards women, we dont express it , or sometimes the expression of love is just being silent ;-) , and here is an opportunity to express that gratitude/love towards the women (spouse/mother/sisters/friends) in our lives.


To all the women in my life, I love u and grateful for the contribution you make to my life.


Be right Back :-)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Collections with a difference


When I was growing up, I was fond of collecting stamps. So much so that I lost count of the albums I had. God only knows where they are now. And I remember 6 out of 10 people had the same interest at that point in time.

However , Its interesting to know and see people who have passion for collecting things with a difference. For instance, an ex-colleague of mine used to collect spoons and had a display of all the spoons he collected from all over the world. I reckon he would have a huge collection by now. Another intersting collection which one of my relatives has is collection of  "Ganesha" . As of now the count stands at 168, Ganesha in various forms and shapes :-), which makes me conclude that Ganesha is the most customised god :-) ..Interestingly , save for a  few. most of the collectibles of this collection (of Ganesha) have been gifted by someone or the other :-)

Here are few pictures from the collection. The best one that i liked is "Ganesha in a crystal"