Let It Go

Somethings u can't do alone my dear
There's no easy remedy for loneliness
Even though daylight is fading here
There's still time to let it go and breathe again
Just let it go, oh, let it go....
Just let it go, oh, let it go....

- Beautiful beautiful song by Canadian band 'Lauren Mann and The Fairly Odd Folk'. Their music's anything but odd. This song 'Weight Of The World' is particularly my favorite. Listen to it here - http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/Lauren-Mann-and-the-Fairly-Odd-Folk (on the right hand panel select this song to listen).  

"You really wanna go out with a guy you don't know?"

"Well you can't be worse than the guys I do know."

(Gossip Girl: Pilot)

Jo baat bhi hai uske sau maane chhupe hain
Chehron ke peeche kitne hi chehre chhupe hain
Dhoke ka hai dhuaan
Dhundhla dhundhla sa hai aankhon mein har samaan

(Akhtar's lyrics for movie Talaash, song Hona Hai Kya. LOVE this song)

Words of Hope

Words from Nick Vujicic on Tedtalks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P2nPI6CTlc) -

There's a greater purpose for my life. I am here for a reason. Sure, I didn't get a miracle. I'd believed in a God who could do miracles. But if God doesn't change my circumstance, he's gonna use my life to be a miracle for someone else. If you don't get a miracle, you can still be a miracle for someone else.

I’ve packed my things

Stuffed the important moments into the trunk

Remembered to pack all the lessons learnt

I put the memories in the special compartment

I’m ready.

I’ll be soon on my way

To a place far off from here

They say hope lives there and happiness visits often

The place where love knocks your door

I’m ready.

I won’t be looking back

There’s nothing here that holds me now

I tried but couldn’t call this my home

So I’m off to where dreams do come true

I’m ready.

 

Everyone knows. The only good composers are the dead ones. The longer, the better.


(Overheard yesterday morning on CBC Radio 2)

"If you think you're pretty, you're pretty. "
          

You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams.

(You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra)

I Travel Alone - Noel Coward

I travel alone
Sometimes I'm east
Sometimes I'm west

No chance can ever bind me
No remembered love
Can ever find me

I travel alone
Fair though the places
And faces I've known

When the dream has ended
And passion has flown
I travel alone

Free from love's illusion
My heart is my own
I travel alone

Hel-lo Canadian Music

Totally hooked on to this song lately. They play it frequently on CBC Radio 2 (my favorite radio channel since I moved to Canada). I really enjoy listening to this one when I'm driving in my car listening to the radio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3uUUggPNc

The Truth

Despite its infinite potential, is our mind strong enough to create truth?

Take the matter of pain, for example. If you are experiencing pain, and for some reason (either a pain reducing medication, hypnosis or natural therapy) your pain eases out – is the pain gone, or is it still there but you don’t know? And if you believe the pain is gone, isn’t that the truth then?

What about love? Isn’t love a state of mind too? Love can only exist if you believe it does. But even if you do believe, does it really? Is the mind creating the truth, or following it?

And what is the measure of success? Who can weigh it except you yourself? You may reach the pinnacle of everything you aim for, but if you still feel insecure, are you really successful?

Time, life, death, happiness, God, change…do these truths exist, or are they created by us? Do we believe in them so strongly that they become?

Each of us is in search of the truth. But even if we find it, will it be real, or just something we want to believe in?

Is it ever possible to know what the truth really is? And if it’s us who are creating it, why are we even searching? Doesn’t a truth with more than one version become a lie? So do we all want to believe in lies, while we remain insatiable for the truth?    

Life Of Pi - Story Review

‘Life Of Pi’ is a book written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. The story later went on to be directed as a motion picture in 2012 by director Ang Lee. Yann Martel won the Man Booker Prize for the book, while Ang Lee picked up the Academy Award for the best director for the movie.

In Martel’s own words, it’s a story that will ‘make you believe in God’.

The story explores the travails of a Pondicherry boy named Pi whose father owns a zoo. Pi is curious about understanding God and tries to find him through different religions. He is also curious about animal psychology, and has the opportunity to interact with the zoo animals at different levels. Circumstantial developments necessitate for the family to sell the zoo and most of its animals, and move to Canada. The Japanese freight that is carrying them across the Pacific sinks midway, taking with it Pi’s family and most of the animals making the journey. Pi survives the shipwreck and finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and…a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. At the end the only ones left on the lifeboat alive are Pi and Richard Parker. Pi must survive the Pacific while keeping the tiger from killing him. And survive he does. After 277 days at sea in a small lifeboat and a raft he builds to protect himself from Richard Parker, both he and Richard Parker reach safe land alive.

At the end, Pi attributes his survival to the tiger. If it wasn’t for Richard Parker, he wouldn’t have survived. In order to protect himself, he had to develop a special relationship with the tiger. Pi uses different techniques to communicate with the tiger, to send across a definite message that he will provide for the tiger and feed him, but he must not be attacked in return. They both must coexist, if they had to survive. The presence of Richard Parker helps Pi find purpose each day at sea, while he discovers and deals with the wonderful and dangerous aspects of it. Stranded in the middle of the uncertainty of the ocean, he finds familiarity in Richard Parker. The story’s crux is about Pi’s complex emotions while stranded at sea, and his relationship with the tiger.

This is a story you will never be able to forget. It’s so fantastic that it will be difficult to believe it, unless you do it from your heart. There are multitudes of interesting aspects to the story, but what captured me most was the final interpretation of what really happened on the lifeboat. Martel leaves that interpretation to you, the reader, with the strong belief that his audience would be intelligent enough to figure it all out. And based on your interpretation of what happened on the lifeboat, you will have to understand Richard Parker - which is what you will take away from this story.

Who is Richard Parker? In Pi’s version he was a Bengal Tiger. Who, or what is he in your version? We all have a survival story. Richard Parker always plays the same part. Someone or something that is so strong that it can destroy us, but if used to good, can help us survive. Without Richard Parker we would not make it. He could be an external or internal force, but we each have one of our own. We all need a Richard Parker, even if he comes in the form of a 450 pound Bengal Tiger.

I'm on a mission

I started cooking (which means more than being able to make an omlette) sometime in 2008 (anything before that was too amateur to consider). Although there was purpose, there was no passion. And though I have never made anything too salty or too spicy (it has always been just right), there was a lack of character to my dishes. There was no exploration. It started and ended with something quickly made to ease the appetite.

Things have changed since my son started eating solid food. What they say is true, being a mom does transform you. A mother cooks with love, and love brings passion. My cooking has matured since the newbie attempts of 2008. Now I explore, and the intention is to provide home-made, healthy, balanced and nutritous meals to my son and myself. A mission always brings out the best in me.

I have two cooking teachers right now - my mom, and the internet. And my newest mission is this - I really like one cooking channel available on the internet (she shows authentic south indian and other recipes and I'm a big fan of south indian food). There are 140 recipes available on it right now. My mission is to cook each recipe available on the channel. That's it, cook all of them. I'm not following any particluar order. And I don't cook something from here all the time. It just depends on the availability of the ingredients, time or what I feel like cooking or eating that day. And though I may already know how to cook a lot of these dishes already, trying it a different way is always fun. Each recipe is wholesome, challenging enough, and seriously flavorful. Everything I have made yet from this channel has been a very satisfying meal. Then again, it may just be because I am partial to the South Indian style of cooking :) The beauty of cooking is, you can make the same thing a thousand different ways. There are no rights or wrongs, and whatever way you choose, becomes your distinctive style.

When I am writing this, the following recipes are done from the channel (successfully!) -

Sooji Toast
Semiya Upma
Shahi Paneer
Beans (South India style)
Dal Tadka
Daddojanam (South India style curd rice - my son LOVES this!)
Masala Corn
Vegetable Pulav
Mushroom Rice
Green Chutney
Chana Masala
Rava Dosa

Not much, but a good start. A goal keeps me interested, and keeps cooking from becoming just a chore. I obviously don't follow any recipe a 100%, there's always a little me in everything I cook. Luckily, my son loves what I cook for him (most times, atleast). Which is really what it's all about, actually.

And this evening I'm baking him a chocolate cake - a popular favorite of both mother and son :) This from a woman who as a child never once got into the kitchen to watch her mom cook!

A Toast

We may be flawed, but we can forgive. We may be vulnerable, but we are a force. We may be hopeless, but we have faith. We may be reckless, but we know how to land on our feet.

And while we await a better tomorrow, we hold the reigns to today. Today is a better version of yesterday. Tomorrow may be better or worse. And even though we don’t know, we still have our today.

Here’s to right now.

How true is the avatar?

Notice that little fairy avatar on my blog? I was evaluating this morning how true it is in representing me. I don't have such long legs (wish I did). The wings are real...even though invisible. And no, I don't drink redbull.

March is here!

3/13 Update - Certainly doesn't feel like March though...snowing in Toronto today. No sign of daffodils yet ... I'm waiting for April.

You Gotta Choose One

Parenthood is all about sacrifice and selflessness. You cannot be simultaneously selfish and a good parent. It just isn't possible.

(From - The Huffington Post Canada)

Glad I'm not the only one feeling as strongly about this!

I'm almost embarassed to say this. You fooled me.'

(Mad Men S2 Ep2)

“You may be a writer, honey.”

“Really?”

“You’re arrogant…want another drink?”

“I don’t know”

“Not a writer”

 

(From 'Mad Men' - S1 Ep8)

 

When the emptiness is upon you
It fills you up like a balloon
And you float
High up over the real world,
And think of when
You were a little girl again

Where would you go, baby?
What could you do?
Didn’t you hear, baby?
Nothing is sure but uncertainty

You can feel the hunger inside you
But the longing will no longer guide you onwards,
Sinking into the floorboards
Where the rats eat at your will
And do it until,
Your belly aches
And your soul will not be still

Wrench yourself from your demons
For far too long you’ve believed them
When they told you you were weak
Take a step in the tunnel
With the light ’round the bend
In the end
You can start to make amends

Who knows where you’ll go, baby
So much you could do!
Haven’t you heard, baby?
All will be well
If you want it to

(Baby - Gotye)

Then And Now

Reminiscing today on the younger years. How we were so full of hope, so eager with anticipation, starry-eyed and breezy-headed. People were full of virtues. And the few faults we saw in them could be easily overcome in the name of love. Valentine's day was a bigger event than our birthdays. Careers were priority number one - always, everyday. And the absurd certainty that a knight in shining armor would come along, that he was there waiting for us, the 'one'.

I wonder why noone ever warned us about how completely disillusioned we were. Or maybe someone did and we were just not paying attention. So here we are...several years and sour grapes later, free at last of our constricting rosy imagination, eyes opened wide enough to see things as they really are...welcome to the thirties. We have gathered plenty insecurities, failures, heartbreaks and scandals along the way to know better by now. There was some occasional sprinkling of the good stuff too - love, friendship, success, adventure...to keep us going. But all in all, we know better now. We know that its better to 'work to live' rather than to 'live to work', and that more important than how many things you know is how professional you are while doing them. Family is the new priority number one - and that's how it will stay now till we die. And oh...we've met plenty devils out there to know that there's no knight in shining armor coming for us. Haven't met him yet anyway! (I tried to google him, apparently they've stopped manufacturing the shiny armors now, they only make them in matt. So there goes...)

Valentine's day now is just another day to feel heart-sore. Now that we know what-is.

Me, Myself and Facebook

Facebook. The only ones I know who are not ‘on FB’ are my pet Lisa, and my dirty old sock, who has tragically lost his partner, and hence any desire to get into the washer or log onto FB. Pretty much everyone else is there.

The genius of FB, and most other social sites, lies in the simplicity of the concept. Here’s a forum to meet, connect, network and share. Anyone around the globe with access to the internet, can reach out to anyone else around the globe with access to the internet. The possibilities are endless.

And yet, most of what goes on is plain disappointing.

As if we don’t fake enough in real life, now we have resorted to virtual faking. If your life is really as amazing as what you depict on FB, then you really wouldn’t feel the need to show it off to all these random ‘friends’ (when was the last time you actually called any of them?).

What bothers me is the extent to which people put their personal lives out there. This is not a forum where you have just a few select friends with who you don’t mind sharing personal stuff with. The whole damn world is out there (read - long-forgotten acquaintances, school teachers, uncles and aunts you don’t even remember how you are related to, your grandparents and their cousins, your colleagues, your exes and their spouses,…the list goes on).

With so many eyes on you, you are obviously going to put the ‘nice’ stuff out there and leave out the bad stuff. So I see these glorious pictures of your trip to the Grand Canyon with your family, but who’s gonna tell us about that nasty quarrel with your spouse at the onset of the trip, and that all the smiling and cuddling was only for the camera? If we don’t know the bad stuff along with the good, we can’t know you. You were and will remain a stranger to me, even though you have put pictures of your intimate moments with your family out there for me.

Honestly, I don’t even care. Most of FB ‘friends’ are people I have happened to have ‘found’. These are people that I have not bothered to keep in touch with over the years. Many of them I only remember by face. I may not even remember how I know them! Why would I care if she takes a trip to the Grand Canyon with her husband and two kids? I don’t want an extra email in my inbox reminding me to log in to FB, every time she takes a trip. Believe me, I have tried to take an interest. After all, these are people who at some time or another have been a part of my life. But seeing how ‘well’ they are doing in their lives just makes me feel miserable about mine. Am I a case gone seriously wrong, or are there dirty hidden secrets beneath all that glamor on FB? I’d like to believe the latter, even if it’s just for the sake of my own sanity.

So why am I even on FB?

I seriously don’t know :) I don’t do anything on FB except accepting friend requests. And that’s the only time I even log in. And yet, there is this desire to stay on. Mediocrity is addictive. Perhaps it’s the need to belong. Or the worry that if some day there is a genuine need to network, I may not know where to start.       

With no intent of sounding condescending (after all, I'm one of you FBers too), I would say - perhaps instead of making FB all about us, we could use it to channel information, talent (your own or something that you are inspired by), humor, intelligent debates on relevant issues, or worthy causes (I know a lot of shelter animals get adopted because volunteers and friends of volunteers post information and pictures of these animals on their FB pages). A few family pics once in a while is good too. It would be interesting to see how much your son has grown since the last time you posted a pic. And please, cut out the shenanigans. You can't possibly be taking vacations to exotic places all the time!

The power to reach out to millions of people can be limitless. We just have to rise above ourselves and our mediocrity.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops
High above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
And the dreams that you dare to..
Why can't I?

(Somewhere over the Rainbow - Norah Jones)

Always A Tape Girl

I am recently hooked on to Gotye’s music. Can’t stop listening to him since the weekend. It’s what has kept me going through the drilling week. The man is seriously talented. He’s different, which makes his music so very interesting. And he’s a great musician, a great songwriter, and an average singer all at once. I have also seen some of his interviews and he comes across as a very intelligent person, who really understands music and is genuinely passionate about it. And…ahem…not too bad looking either ;)

I sound like I have a mini-crush on this guy but I swear that’s not true…I do confess though that I have a crush on his music. People may be faking their image but music is real, and it’s out there for you to interpret it your own way. I do admire his talent. Only a thinking musician can come up with stuff like this.  

Which takes me to what I came here to write about. I knew the ‘Somebody’ song since it’s been such a big hit. But the rest of his music I discovered on Youtube. And it occurred to me how the music was worth buying the album for. You know, I don’t have any albums now. Whenever I need to listen to some music, I just go to the internet. Youtube has all you need. But good music deserves a better way to be heard. Or atleast that’s the way I felt after listening to this music.

I remember my teen years …those were the days of the tape or ‘cassette’ players. The CD was in its infancy in India. I had a huge tape collection back then. Even though the tapes were so inconvenient (can’t believe we had the time back then to actually rewind/forward the tape till we got to the actual song we needed to listen to), we still used them and were quite content with them. My parents had a huge collection too. We always had music playing in our house on the weekends during the day.

Back then, if a guy had a crush on you, he would give you a tape-mix…it usually had the aerosmiths and the bon jovis on it. He would put in all this effort to record each song meticulously on the tape. Yeah, I had added a few mix-tapes to my collection too.

This one time in the very early days of the start of my engineering course…there was this guy who was carrying a portable cd player with him, and was showing it off to all the girls (including me). I had hated how he was so proud of it, and I remember thinking to myself, how I would always remain a tape-girl. J