paradox called life !

today i had called up a printer for some urgent work and she told me she was busy in the hospital, the word hospital always makes me go a bit cold, bringing back not so old memories of iccu.. and i shuddered and asked if i could help .. well she informed me that its the brother of a laborer who is in last stage of tb..she thinks poverty leaves very little choices... and i was sad listening to her for a bit .. but as i got busy wit work i forgot all about it

in the evening a friend called up to tell me his father aint feeling too good and he does not much trust the docs coz they are after money..

well life is full of paradox ...

money is strength and money is weakness too..

so how do we survive ??

my dear friend anita always says, its all in the hands of destiny .. so why worry .. whatever has to happen will happen ..

well leaving things to destiny makes me feel real weak.. not in control.. and that makes me uncomfortable..
but then worrying about future too wont help and neither will i be able to know what destiny holds for me unless i go out and find out what it does not hold for me . .

so here i am .. doing what i want to.. loving all i have .. longing for more.. looking out .. and going all out at life !! :)

orange and apple !

well like i said i was off on a shoot, on the last day of shoot, which was a studio shoot, i requested the make up artist to also do the smoky eye he had done to the female model. he very kindly obliged. the female model was looking ravishing in all the make up and dresses she was wearing but she looked especially ravishing with the smoky eye make up.. i too became vain and wanted to look good.. so i got the same done.. i thought i would look like a show stopper with that smoky eye.....

well you must have guessed my story.............

i did look like a show stopper.........
....................but  from some freak show
 :)

not only that next day morning i suffered from under eye infection because i have a very sensitive skin...

i just could not stop laughing at myself...

after knowing the futility of vanity i still ventured on that road and expected some miracle to happen !!

thanks god for once again reminding me oranges and apples cant be the same ...

both are great but cant be compared !! .. lol ya i know i am still being vain ... ;)

Copycat !!

its a honor when people copy what others do, as they say coping is the best form of flattery. but some times it gets pretty annoying when people improvise on what someone has originally worked on and never give due regards or acknowledge the originator of the idea!

of course it is cool to improvise and come up with some thing different from the original but when due credits are not given.. it shouts of character or lack of it !

well hope those who are not gifted enough to come up with original thoughts, work hard and learn to improvise and those good at improvising learn to come up with originals..

ya hope is all we have .. and until then happy copying to you, well i do not support you but can only feel a bit for you. And miracles do happen !

branded forever !

my brother and me share a real special bond i guess like most brothers and sisters do but yet we love to believe we have that extra bit unlike the rest.

well very vain i know but hey we cant be perfect always :)

this bhai dujh, in bengali we call it bhai phota .. which is the most important festival for us bro sis in bengalis, we do celebrate rakhi but thats an adapted thing .. by tradition bhai phota is the mother..

anyways this bhai phota nothing really special happened .. we celebrated it with adapted grandeur .. earlier ma would make a 2 course grande bengali meal ie main course and awesome deserts, this year since both of us (bro and me) need to loose weight we told ma not to bother !

later in the evening when i realized we did not do all the traditional things we usually do, i felt a bit sad, and started thinking about our relation.

has it changed over the years ? yes it has

is it good that it has changed ? yes

why is it good that it has changed ? we give each other more space and i guess we trust each other more

but did we not promise that we would never change ? yes we did and to keep that promise we never changed our fighting pattern, i still complain to ma and baba when we fight and he still whacks me when i do that !

how does change matter ? well it does matter if this change makes us happy its good else time for a change again !!

am i happy ? the heck i am ... cant imagine a more crazy, pain in the ass bro am so impossibly in love with .. and the family too .. however nutty, they rock my little world !

smiling to myself and on seeing my brother frowning at me, i gave him a friendly whack which he reciprocated with vengeance .. i realized yes we did have our own traditional bhai phota after all :)

the phota.. that is the tikka





the arti.. wading off the evil



thats me bhai n ma ... kodak moment

smell my soul .....

i just got back from a photo shoot. we had non indian models, a male and female.

their attitude just made me realize that how we physically appear is just a clothing to our soul and the attitude we carry is the perfume of our soul. so even if we wear fantastic clothes, but the odor we give out is stale, no one will be attracted to us. of course if the dress and the perfume are awesome .. we get to do the double tango !!

clothes will change.. but the perfume remains imprinted in the mind for ever !

i am sometimes amazed that most of the western countries beam in the glory of being progressive with modern man made gadgets, with superior standards of hygiene, with lots more oomph but i fail to understand how come then their modern thoughts do not include equality to all, how come the hygiene is restricted to washrooms and not to their soul, how come oomph is so brittle that it does not charm all ?

of course it is not the mass but a few who are like that, and it is sad as the foul smell of negative attitude leaves more of an impression on us than the faint but beautiful smell of positive attitude !

so all is in our hand.. to remain remain surrounded by stale odor or go find our jasmine flowers :)

not to mention it is easier said than done but it is done because we wanted to do.. and not because it is difficult...

so faint smell of jasmine i will find you and make you mine :)

diwali da festival of happiness

i was coming back home on friday on diwali eve .. was surprised when the security guard at the hyderabad airport wished me happy diwali.. that one smile and wish made me feel special and happy.. we landed on time at bombay.. again added to my smile... the road had less traffic .. smile broadened.. and i saw an ac bus going my home.. well those who are not familiar.. earlier there were no ac bus services available between bombay and new bombay but now the state transport has made this new initiative.. seeing that bus i left the cab and took the bus.. the seats flush and the ac keeping me cool away from the dust and humidity further broadened my smile..i met an old uncle in there who again was a complete stranger and we got talking a bit.. my smile broadened .. while getting off the bus he too wished me...

ya diwali does bring in a feel good factor.. a spirit of festivity .. while walking down to my home from the bus stop i saw a little girl and her mother walking down the street, the little girl seemed so happy i patted her head and she turned around to show me her new bata chappal her mom got her this diwali and i smiled and gave her a chocolate i had bought.. and wished her happy diwali...

with joy in my heart and smile on my lips i moved forward to my home sweet home.. there i see dexter and broi on their evening walk.. and i could not be more happy ...

thank god this year the noise crackers were less so dexter too did not freak out as much

diwali truly brings in the good spirit out and warmth in our heart...

city through my eyes

i have been away from home lately a lot due to work.

every time when the plane lands at bombay airport my heart is filled with the same joy of being home like the first time when i was back after a trip !

its the same city .. same family .. same bed .. same food .. same pollution .. same chaos .. same gloom.. same everything but yet it all seems so novel since i dint see it for a few days !

does this mean.. we take those things for granted which we should ideally be valuing ? Or do we miss our familiar surrounding as it makes us feel more secure.. more in control ? .. Or is it that when we are away we want all the old things just because we are use to being without it.. its got into our system so hard that it is part of our anatomy.. changing it is like cutting a part of us ??

but its funny when on my way back home from airport, the traffic jams seem like reckless children standing in a haphazard queue.. pollution seems like dragon flames .. color changed.. but never the less has fairy like quality.. the humidity like spirit of anticipation .. and family like the best thing that happened to me and home is like heaven on earth !!

life is like dat only part 2

i am in iim kolkata for a short course, in the evenings i and my colleague go every evening for a snack cum dinner at a campus canteen, its about 5 mins walk, the campus is beautiful with huge trees and landscaped gardens and ponds, so admire the scene everyday during our walks

the 1st day we noticed that many students are carrying umbrellas, we dint pay much attention to this fact, only casually wondered why, since there were no drizzles and in kolkatta by 5:30 pm it becomes quite dark, we just walked a few steps under the trees and my friend got lucky, bird shit fell on his hands and after that we were dodging the bird shit like bullets fired by enemy line and we are hapless, weapon less soldiers ducking them !!

this has become our ritual and fun game every evening and gives us scope for our little jog and now we know why the smart students of iim do not jog but carry umbrella as bullet proofs :)

another use of our good old umbrella, protection from bird shit !!

beautiful banyan tree in the campus

frog house