The Wrong side of 24 years and 365 days..

I thought and then thought all over again, What was I thinking? Is it cool to be 25 ? Being 25 certainly has one benefit in the US, your car insurance is a lot cheaper (the only logic behind this and I could think of is that they think you are responsible if you are older and perhaps even more responsible if you are married... ahem), someone asked me the other day about how it actually felt to be 25 (somehow this seems to be a landmark year for very many reasons) and for a minute I actually felt old.. somehow being 23 was so much more fun, and being 18 was lot more fun. Is it human nature to always think that life in the past was always better than what it is now or always hope that the best is yet to come. As a kid, I always wanted to be older and working, earn my own money and feel responsible and independent and now I feel being a child and those innocent years could probably be the best years of your life. May be that is why Costanza's theory of life is so relevant, he believes that you should be born old with all the knowledge and experience and as you live your life, you unlearn and grow young and probably live the best part of your life towards the end. Firstly the miseries of old age, golden age of retirement, then the midlife crisis and then the twenties where you live the time of your life and before you get bored, you are almost reaching the end of your life, happy and with pleasure and no burden of unwanted knowledge. The typical 25 going on 30 scene - You are going thru a phase, you are not sure about your work (if that’s exactly what you want to do in life), marriage becomes an integral subject of discussion, you either know who you want to get married too but there are a million hurdles before you could even think of walking the aisle or you don’t know who are going to get married, the fear of whether you will meet anyone you would ever think of spending the rest of your life with, you are scared if you will be able to pull off the responsibilities that marriage tags along, you are having fun with the way life is at the moment, but scared about what the future has in store for you. Well the best part is that you are not alone, every other person of your age is going thru the same emotions and same feelings as you, if that’s some consolation :) and before you realize, you turn 30 and you will look back and say somehow being 25 was so much more fun.. And that’s life..

These lines from the "Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhraman

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday "

So there!

Life is a roller coaster..

Monday morning,woke up with my neck hurting beyond my tolerance levels and before you draw any conclusion ,I did not get involved in a physical brawl or neither was someone trying to strangle me, it was just that I did not manage to keep my head( "If" only I managed to keep my head :) and remembered Rudyard Kipling) on one of those crazy roller coaster rides.. yay finally managed to go to six flags over the weekend. Temperatures soaring and crossing the already uncomfortable 100F and feeling uncomfortable after eating a lot of cashews(I just got greedy, I love cashews) and just minimal sleep the previous night (after watching a late night show of bourne ultimatum- Matt Damon looked like he was born to play Jason Bourne), it wasnt a perfect setting for a theme park outing but neverthless we set out on a mission: to have fun and the destination was six flags St.Louis. It was an all girls outing, all the guys decided that heat was just too much for them to handle.

Temperature - 110F

Wait time for all the rides : 400 minutes

Actual Ride time: 1000 seconds

Thrills : Priceless.

This isn't the first time am going to six flags, but with every trip it only reaffirms my belief that I love roller coasters. I probably still havent been on the worlds most scariest roller coasters and may be I won't and all this considering that while I was in school/college , I was scared to ride on the only roller coaster in town in MGM at that point of time, I sure have come a long way. My personal favorite was the super man tower of terror. Its takes you to a height of probably a 38 (some random number there) storey building, and you are left hanging in there for a few seconds, as you get a glimpse of the whole park and surrounding and you hear the cars next to you drop, you await your turn, and there you go.. those 20 seconds of absolute thrill, there is no time to react or feel when you actually come down and before you realize you are back.. all excited :) and for the speed thrill, Mr.Freeze, the catchline is that its the coolest coaster in town, and for me it sure is, 0-70 mph in like less than 4 seconds, it is a ride that takes you through some great turns and twists and then vertically up, and before you realise you get to relive the entire ride, only this time its backwards and you are back to the start, 100 seconds of pure thrill.
Well there is nothing in the world that is 100% safe, there was a freak accident a month ago on the same superman tower of terror, a teen age girl lost her leg as one of the cables snapped and she came down the ride without her legs, hopefully the doctors will be able to help her walk. But then again the chances that we might get killed in a road accident are more, We still go the beach after the tsunami.

This line from the movie Troy as Achilles points out - " I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again "

Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it !!

Will Klusener ever forget this or Will we??

Will SA or Lance Klusener ever forget this?? What a series it was for Lance Klusener, he was single handedly responsible for getting SA to the semis and well so near yet so far.. What a player, Klusener.. under pressure. If only Gibbs did not drop the catch, if only better sense prevailed for the last run.. things would have been so different.. I was never so upset as I was after this match.. well some moments go down in history.. this one surely will in cricketing history.. Klusener may have lost his flair but he was a treat to watch in that series :):)

Gandhigiri....

After spending many 10 dollars , many friday nights of watching movies from the world of bollywood and some self introspection, I believed - "Like a physicists search for the "Higgs Boson", the hindi film industry's attempt at making movies that can entertain or leave you thinking is only futile". But then again rules or resolutions are meant to be broken. I decided to go and watch Gandhi, my father. "Only one show" they advertised, but yet half the theatre was empty .Jhoom Babarar Jhoom, had people scrambling for seats for the first show. Doesnt it say too much about the audience of the biggest movie industry. I really think the tamil movie industry totally rocks. So many movies in recent times, some masala movies, some youthful, some with a message, but they have been different (Maybe am just biased, but hell do I care, I pay 10$ to watch a movie, I do expect to see something.. yes I paid 20$ to watch Sivaji but I was entertained to its worth and maybe more, ok am a rajni fan ) ok.. back on track. Gandhi, the father of our nation. Reading "My experiments with truth" will make you feel that, he is yet another mortal with his own flaws and limitations and maybe you will get cynical about Gandhi and his principles. This movie takes you thru the life of Gandhi as he is with his elder son Harilal.. There are many things you still dont understand after watching the movie, why is Gandhi upset about his son getting married to a girl he had chosen for him, was he being selfish, did he need his son to be a part of his struggle,sacrificing his life ? but well then he was married too.. at the age of 13 (talk about marriages in those days) and the reason as to why he did not want his son to pursue his dream of studying in London. Barring a few glitches, this movie is a perfect example of a well translated tagline "“One family’s tragedy was the price of a nation’s freedom” onto the big screen. I think Akshaye Khanna as Harilal and Shefali Shah as Kasturba played their role to perfection. Akshaye Khanna has played his role with great conviction and for many people who might criticise this movie saying, a lot of the freedom struggle was thrown in unnecessarily, but isnt Gandhi all about that and that is the exact reason why he did not give the needed attention to his son, when he needed it the most. The film has its moments, you feel the patriotism rise in you.. Whether it is a footage of Panditji delivering his famous "Freedom at Midnight" speech or the scenes in South Africa, the Indian in you will certainly take over. You will be misty eyed everytime you listen to "mile sur" or the soulful rendition of vande mataram or rahman's passionate rendition of the same, so will you be, after watching some scenes in this movie. I did not regret it one bit. A little heavy for a friday evening as it may not be a perfect setting to start the weekend party.. oh yes, sometimes bollywood can make movies which are heart rendering.. A Black and now this one... maybe we should wait for eons before the next one is churned out.. till then.. enjoy some tamil movies and some great movies that hollywood has to offer.. :)

P.S : I love Physics, I tend to read and discover some fascinating things, and today I learnt abt the "Higgs Boson" and it had to find a place in my write up, well what it means is "The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed, but plays a key role in explaining the origins of the mass of other elementary particles"..

Wow.. !!

Its time to exclaim, if you are an Indian cricket fan, its time to rejoice for we don't know how often we will get to see this.. especially when its an overseas tour..

"Stumps - Day 4 - India require another 63 runs with 10 wickets remaining "

Hopefully tomorrow this time, we should be celebrating an Indian victory.. except ofcourse for the 'if' factor and the weather gods decide to break even, by bringing in the rains this time to help England, like they did to help India in the last test match from a sure shot defeat, or even better its not over until its really over, when the task at hand is to be completed by our famed batting line up..
And Enjoy this as well while it lasts, I don't even remember the last time I saw every single batman in our famed batting top order reach a double digit score.. surely a treat to the sore eye:


India 1st innings R M B 4s 6s SR

KD Karthik c Cook b Panesar 77 188 136 11 0 56.61
W Jaffer c Prior b Tremlett 62 175 123 7 0 50.40
R Dravid c Bell b Panesar 37 136 94 5 0 39.36
Tendulkar lbw b Collingwood 91 259 197 12 0 46.19
Ganguly c Prior b Anderson 79 233 156 10 1 50.64
VVS Laxman c Prior b Tremlett 54 183 152 7 0 35.52

Fingers crossed!

Update: India actually won the match.. :)

Watz On uR mInD ?

What’s on prime time news these days? What is the nation debating about? World over, people are debating over the right age to impart "sex education", In India (a country of rich heritage, culture and all that, oh yaa its also the land of Kamasutra), talking about "birds and the bees" is still controversial, Its quite startling to see how this debate is taking moral and culture turns instead of actually debating how and when this knowledge has to be imparted. After all it wasn’t the storks who brought us to our moms. Well, this is just the start of double standards which Indians maintain. And if you are a woman, you are subjected to the societal double standards too, you cant really blame an Indian woman when she states that she has never held hands with a man, she is conditionally stating that she doesn’t have loose morals and values. Well I am not a feminist by any chance, but I do think there is a lot in this society in favor of men, maybe it is just the reflection of an age old tradition where the man was the only bread winner for the family and everything revolved around him, I know things are changing and that India as a nation itself is in a transition, so is its culture, and everything. We only hope, that as we move forward we take in the best of both worlds and not just ape the west. One of the major ways in which traditional societies control behavior of the young is by taboos. This is just a continuation of that mind set. Isn’t it a universal truth that when are asked to not do something, your curiosity levels are on the rise. It is high time that we realize, understanding human body and talking about human body parts is not a sin at all. The more you know, the more mature you will be and its definitely essential in a country like ours where diseases like HIV are on a rise in exponential variations, at least people will know how to be safe. If not in school, with the exposure that kids get these days, they are going to find the information from elsewhere which could be so misleading. Simply put, everybody has a right of information, and why should one be ashamed of learning about your own body and natural instincts. Without getting 'emotional' and 'subjective', do we get 'upset' when we read about how the world wars happened or when we read about the twin bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's part of the subject (history) but why not this. Well I agree, its a little touchy or a sensitive thing to handle or teach about, but teachers are professionals too, they are qualified to teach. If only a medical professor was embarrassed to talk about human body to his students or if you gynecologist starts blushing every time you go for a check up. Well not many parents may be forthcoming, it can at least be made an optional subject with only those students having parental consent. Well if you are wondering what is the connection between the subject and the whole write up, absolutely nothing :). These are just some random muses and that’s just my two cents.

Life after Harry Potter...

"All good things do come to an end",so has the harry potter series, with the final part - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows releasing the past weekend across 200 countries and 60 languages. The past 10 years has been quite a magical journey for JK Rowling, so has it been for all of us readers. Her personal life is what we can call the typical rags to riches story, but the difference being, in her case, she has taken a few million readers world wide on a journey, quite magical, simply fascinating and most of all an out of the world experience. I did manage to read book 5 and 6 in like straight 10 hours, but with the last part,I was taking my time, read it over two days, but nothing changed, as always I was living in a different world as I set out to read this book, the world of Hogwarts, the dashing Wizard, known to the world as Harry Potter, spells and curses, plots so amazingly intertwined and set, this is one hell of a magical story. I could never make up my mind whether Snape was good or bad, whether Dumbledore was actually helping Harry.. but being confused is normal, and it did lay a perfect setting and curiousity levels for me to read this book and well boy o boy, was I thrilled for I think this book is simply brilliant, everything falls into place, and yes its the last of the Harry Potter series. I knew the magical journey was going to end as I read thru every single page.To all the people who will dismiss this as another children's fantasy story, I would beg to differ, it's one of those books that has all the ingredients to capture the minds of all ages alike. To all the LOTR fans, there is definetly no argueing with JRR tolkeins master creation, he is the father of fantasy literature,Period. I will definetly not compare Harry Potter, cos for me Harry Potter is really of a different genre, its just pure magic and we are not trying to get into an argument here. But I simply love Potter, I have enjoyed reading each of the books, the boxed edition of the entire series will find place in my home library (whenever I manage to set up one) alongside the calvin and hobbes complete edition that I already own :). The magical journey that Rowling takes all her readers thru is simply enchanting will leave the readers asking for more. Its not a simple story with some fantasy thrown in at random intervals, nor is it an intellectual story with great knowledge being thrust upon you. Its a great story, a fantabulous one at that. The one that will leave you "spell" bound (literally). Whether its buying the book on the day of the release,trying to read it at one stretch, ignoring everything else till you are done with the book, trying to watch a potter movie on the first day, being a part of a harry potter club at work, celebrating a release of the book by printing tshirts (yes it happened in Infosys Chennai when book 6 released), I would cherish every moment of it. I don't know how many times I will re-read this series but I surely will. When JK Rowling went around creating this character -Harry Potter atttending the Hogwarts school, little would see have realized the character she created was going to be a phenomenon. For all those people out there who still havent gotten around reading this one,you should read. Period. You don't know what you are missing in life :). With a heavy heart I will have to say that, as much as I was looking forward to reading the final part, I will really miss the "looking forward to" part of it now.It's hard to believe and come to terms that there will be no more of Harry Potter, but then.. Amen!

Unconditional Love...

Can be quite an oxymoron.. check this out, Nikil Chinnapa's take on it... :)

http://content.msn.co.in/Lifestyle/Moreonlifestyle/LifestyleIS_1116.htm#top

yeh hi hai right C.H.O.I.C.E baby !! aha!!

A sudden crave to watch tamil movies, its been so long since I watched one... talking about tamil movies also reminded me of superstar rajnikanth... so I ended up listening to some of his songs... well and this one song of his ... from the movie Padaiyappa...

"Thaiiya therndhu edakum, thandhaiyai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Nirathai therndhu edakum, mugathai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Pirapai therndhu edakum, irrapai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Yenni parkum velayil undan vazhkai mattum undhan kaiyil undu, adhai vendru edu'

which roughly translates to -

We dont have the right to choose who our mother and father are going to be..
We dont have the right to choose our face and our race
We dont have the right to choose the time of our birth or the time of our death
But we do have the choice to live this life of ours the way we want, and to make a success story out of it....

How true......

But the choices that we all make in our life are -

Sometimes cos we are restricted by societal norms
Sometimes thats is the best thing to do cos everyone else thinks its the best thing to do
Sometimes cos we want to make another person happy
Sometimes cos you want to make your dear ones happy
Sometimes cos thats the only thing you know to do
Sometimes cos we dont have any other choice...
But how many times do we do things cos that will make us happy... ??

Whatever we choose to do....
Que Sera Sera ("Whatever Will be, Will be") ......

This is an Experience -

I have lost count of the number of times I've repeated this story, I can still tell it once more.... :)

I dont even know if I can relate to or even come close to expressing what this experience actually meant to me or how it actually felt at that point of time, but I shall still make an attempt.

Background : Discussing sports or taking to any kind of sport does not fit into the "typical girl" thing, ofcourse you can't blame us can you -we have many other interests ( you got to read those girly teen books, spend time in front of the mirror to get ready , discuss chocolates and guys) Well then as things had to happen, I started to watch cricket, courtesy the 1996 world cup.. and since then I have been a regular..(the other incentive is you get to watch some good looking guys) .. I started to like the game, I like the passion the people in India have for this game, I like the atmosphere in the stadium during a live match (what a better place than Chennai's Chidambaram stadium to enjoy a live match), I like the fact that it is family time , when India plays Pakistan the whole family is around cheering and rooting for India, everything else takes a back seat... when there is a cricket match on and if India is playing.. It cant get bigger than this game..
The game has a following more than any religion, so it wont be hard to believe the players are larger than life and treated on par to a royal, ofcourse ridiculed if they dont perform to their expectations, utmost pressure and burden of the entire nation to perform and ofcourse paid for it.You play for India for a while, you can save to live the rest of your life in luxury. When it comes to personal favourites, to each their own, never debate with the good old timers about their personal favourites, dont tell them gavaskar was a selish player, they might hate you for the rest of their life.I had many favourites , Tendulkar for one, he is the darling of the nation, everybody loves Tendulkar in India( atleast once upon a time, if Tendulkar plays well India wins, else India loses).I loved the agression of Ganguly, I still think he is the best Captain for India. But my personal favourite is Rahul Dravid, the consistent, cool, stylish player, he is not flamboyant in his game or in life and he was ofcourse every teenage girls hearthrob, good looking, conservative, stylish ... and the countries most eligible bachelor at one point of time and he was definetely one at the time this article is set in.. girls swooned over him everywhere he went, comfortably won all the polls about who was the most eligible bachelor in India... and me was no exception, a hard core crazy dravid loyal and a fan. While in college, before life's foremost ambitions came into the picture, to meet Rahul Dravid was a dream, was a dream any girl of my age (fourth year in college and remember he still was single and eligible) would want to live...
Fourth year of college, Seventh semester examination, first exam- Mathematics - Date October 17th 2002(Thursday), the same day the test match between India and the touring West Indies was set to begin in Chennai's Chidambaram stadium. I was all set for my examinations, trying to remember some complex formulae, ready to leave home to take my first exam, just glanced thru The Hindu, my day just wudnt go thru, if I did not get a chance to atleast glance thru the news paper in the morning. I spotted something.. a PEPSI advertisement which said, Wanna meet Rahul and Zaheer?? Just call a number and complete a slogan about why you would want to share a Pepsi with Rahul and Zaheer. Well it just registered in my brain and I forgot all about it. Mathematics and checking out the last minute details about how to work different sums, was now my priority as I set out to take my first exam. The exam was over, I did quite ok (it doesnt matter how I did not exam now, does it??).. My next exam was Digital Electronics, had a four day break in between. It was scheduled for the following tuesday. And now what next, went with my friends to a coffee shop to take a break, relive some funny moments in the exam, play a game of ludo... and then as we set back home, I remembered this ad that I saw in the morning, the whole way back home( we travelled a little more than an hour to college), I had all the time in the world to think of how I needed to complete the slogan, so much so that even as I was talking to my friends, this was the only thing that was at the back of my mind and that I get home, did not answer my mom's routine question of how I did my exam, went straight picked up the newspaper and dialled that number and told my slogan. The deal about the meeting was that, about 10 people would be selected among all of the callers and they would get to meet Rahul and Zaheer over dinner. And you would get a call that Sunday morning if you were selected and the event was scheduled sunday night. Remember it was still thursday. I then set out studying for my next exam. Saturday night, a few friends from my neighbourhood came home, I was still with my digital electronics text book. They all dropped by to find out how I was doing, and I just turned to them and said, I was thinking about which dress I should wear if I were to meet Dravid the next day, my mom over heard this and said, stop dreaming and get back to studying. That night before I went to sleep I told myself, tomorrow night this time, I would have either met Rahul or I would not. The D day arrived, it was sunday.. I did not let anybody talk over the phone for more than 2 minutes. The phone did ring, I answered and it was a wrong number ( I did not write this to build any suspense, it actually happened) and then it rang again, this time I picked up the phone and the voice at the other end just ended up saying what I wanted to hear... "We are calling from Pepsi, Could we speak to Lakshmi Prabha"... I just knew at that moment... the moment I was waiting for had arrived :).. I was so elated that I could not believe if it was true. I was actually going to meet Rahul Dravid that evening alongside Zaheer Khan.