For no special reason

Numbers

2006-10-16T20:27:00.000-05:00

I just realized that it's been a year since I started blogging- Oct 13th 2005.
I know many people frown at numerology, palmistry, things that have no basis in the scientific world per se.
But this is my personal observation about recurring number 4s, 2s and 8s in my life. My bdate is 31, I lived on the 13th floor in my old apt and now my apt # is 301. In India we live on the 4th floor and our apt no is 8. Many of my friends and people I get along with are 2s, 4s, 8s and 1s. I do not follow numerology for my life decisions. But I cannot deny the presence of these nos. so frequently on a day to day basis. I frikkin even started my blog on the 13th.
I am not superstitious but I do believe in things that not necessarily can be explained by logic or math or science. After all even in life, arent there so many little things that one cant make sense of?

A century of experience

2006-09-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

I feel compelled to write about this pt of mine. Shez a 100 and still going strong. She lives alone and does most of her things on her own. She loves playing poker and pinochle. She has an attitude that could put a younger person to shame.The biggest thing is that she never complains about anything and seems a very happy contented person. I dont think I wanna live that long but I would be grateful to have her attitude when I am in my 60s.

Its all about me ......

2006-08-15T23:09:00.000-05:00

The moon managed to croon me into doing this tag:

i am thinking about...
fall in Boston

i said...
things that I cant take back

i want to...
live life to the fullest and have no regrets

i wish...
for things to be simple and uncomplicated

i hear...
the air conditioner @ full blast behind me, the subway underneath me and the food burning on my stove......gotta go

i wonder...
occassionally about someone

i regret...
wasting time regretting

i am...
always learning

i dance...
currently to latin beats

i sing...
all the time in my head

i cry...
but make sure its unheard

i am not always...
sky-diving

i make with my hands...
edible food (fosix....shut it :P )

i write...
for no special reason

i confuse...
song lyrics :)

i need…
a cuppa coffee to start my day and a book to end it.

A thing of beauty..joy forever

2006-08-05T14:10:00.000-05:00

Cannot live .......or die without??

2006-06-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

I got a chance to get nostalgic all over again about my long time over Egypt trip.I had been to see the King Tut exhibit with my friends. And after going thro all the multitude of things that the King took to his grave, we got to talking about what we would like buried with us if we had a choice.
My friend wanted her cell phone so that she could communicate with the friends on this side of the grave.
My other friend wanted her 1/2 decaf 1/2 coffee in case she was resurrected, her Nowitzki and Aragorn pics, LOTR books, some CDs, her Levi's 517 .....the butt has to always look good..no matter where :)
I wanted my ipod, lots of books, my DVD player with my netflix subscription and my true companion for the last one year, my laptop...to keep blogging of course.
I wonder what you guys would find the hardest to part with....... and please inanimate objects only :) (....believe it or not......some Kings had their horses and cats buried with them)

Change.........the only constant

2006-05-27T20:36:00.000-05:00

I have just found something that I hate with renewed passion. Packing and moving. But it has been such a constant in my life. Started off when I 1st set sail from India to here in '98 . It must have been Rahu Kalam. There was a time bout 2 yrs back when I was sure that was the end of my moving. I had my entire life planned around that piece of land. But life had its own plans for me. Here I am moving for the 13th time in 8 years. Earlier my little Civic who has been my constant companion was my Mover. But of course human nature……the collection has increased over the years and so has my anxiety about moving. Each move has kinda marked a milestone, and the 128K miles on my car. But am hoping my new place is as good to me as my current one has been, not to mention that it is going to be my own. And as I am getting ready to let go of the fabulous Lake Michigan views from my apt and preparing to look onto tall buildings instead, I question the waves : Que sera sera…….

Aamchi Mumbai

2006-04-23T22:08:00.000-05:00

I am currently reading Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City". For a person from Mumbai, it is a floodgate of memories opening up. He hasn't missed out on anything...every single detail that is quintessentially Mumbai is in the book. He takes me back through all those years of growing up as a part of that vibrant city which becomes integral to you.Through the ugliness in the city and the beauty of its people, Mumbai is a city that pulsates in you.At least for me....wherever I might be....I could never change my innate identity as a Mumbaiite.

The Land of the Mummies

2006-03-28T00:51:00.000-06:00

The travelbug had been biting me for a loooong time. So I decided to satisfy my itching feet with a trip to Egypt on my way back from India, since I have always been intrigued by Egypt. Its been well over a month now but am still re-living the one week that I spent there.

I felt as comfortable in my skin there like I do in Mumbai. Very friendly people, very hospitable.The locals there seem very non- ambitious and satisfied, going about their lives on donkeys and camels.Most people work all day and then hang out with friends till almost 1-2 in the morn and are up and ready to work at 6.00 the next day but life seems to go at a slow pace, no one seems to be in a hurry to get anywhere

Started off my trip at Cairo and Giza..with the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, the step pyramids of Saqqara and the Memphis open-air museum.

When I stood in front of the 450 ft tall Great Pyramid of Khufu….I had to pinch myself to make sure I was actually here and the image that I only saw in pictures, on TV and in my myriad dreams of going to Egypt, was actually towering in front of me paying obeisance to the sun-God RA. If the Pyramids wont awe you, I don’t know what else would….just imagining the basic technicalities that must have gone into making this larger than life structure, imagining people actually arranging about 2 million stones weighing at least 2 tonnes each in mathematical precision to create a home for their dead king because of their beliefs in the afterlife can be logic shattering.

After the ode to manual labor in Giza, I went to Aswan to see the High Dam, a modern day engineering miracle built in the 1960s. The Lake Nasser that this dam created was a threat to many of the ancient temples. So this lead to the other modern day feat of actually relocating entire temples to higher altitudes …the most famous of them being the Temple of RamesesII and Nefertari at Abu Simbel.

Then it was a 3-day cruise down the Nile from Aswan to Edfu to Kom Ombo to Luxor. After a couple of them, the temples start seeming similar though each one has a different history and is dedicated to different Gods and Goddesses. But I found the Temples of Karnak the most impressive of all. It is a complex which has multiple complexes within it built by different kings over a 13 hundred years period. It houses obelisks, hypostyles, rows of sphinxes and cryosphinxes etc.Many of these temples alongside with age-old hieroglyphics, also had 18^th century graffiti on their walls…most of them left by Napoleon’s troops, which was fascinating in its own right. And of course the famous Valley of the Kings where the Tutankhamun treasures were found was very interesting with archeaologists all around still digging to unearth other hidden treasures.

However the piece de resistance of the trip for me was the Cairo Museum, with almost an entire floor dedicated to Tutankhamun’s treasures and a room with the royal mummies. It was quite ironical to see the mummy of Rameses II, where you could still see his silver hair and his frail body and then compare it to the colossal statues of his at Abu Simbel.

And I should not forget to mention the wonderful food I had everywhere…have never had falafels that good or baba ghanoushes with aysh that still can make my mouth water.

Shukran - for your patience for letting me be your personal Egyptian tour guide :)

But the travel bug is not yet still…….I hear the Incan ruins of Macchu Picchu whispering to me.....

A match made in heaven

2006-03-04T14:00:00.000-06:00

My sis just got married and have to tell, my b-i-l’s a great catch :) . Two Capricornians that they are, they seem to function at the same frequency. 2 intelligent, practical, kind, thoughtful people….or it could just be that I am biased :D .
All the best wishes to both you lovely people for a life filled with contentment........ forever.

Funny or............... not??

2006-01-05T15:14:00.000-06:00

Art on one of the Tantra brand t-shirt .

Is this supposed to be funny? *raised eyebrow*
I wonder what hardcore Harry Potter fans have to say about this?

Happy Holidays !!!

2005-12-23T22:22:00.000-06:00

I feel like I have stuffed myself enough to go hibernate for a month. Food, food and more of it. A potluck day before yesterday for our department, yesterday for the entire hospital and today the leftovers from yesterday. Not to mention the multitude of Hershey’s kisses, ferrero rochers, caramelized popcorn, milano cookies…you name it, that occupies any available space around my department. The temptations’ too great to resist. The delectable Belgian chocolates on the table that entice me, the homemade chocolate chip cookies……..ooohh……..I will have to pay for it later but for now I am going to forget what I learnt about carbs and fats and gorge myself…all in the name of the holiday spirit.

An Ode to my "F.R.I.E.N.D.S."

2005-12-11T21:19:00.000-06:00

I have a lot to be thankful for… this year. The topmost... are my friends here. The ones who stood by me no matter what…the ones who cried with me and made me laugh. The ones who traveled far to be with me and some who didn’t need to do so to be there for me. The ones who called me and the ones I could call day or night. The ones when I asked for a shoulder to cry on, gave me their entire arm. The ones who in spite of leading busy lives, so easily fit me in theirs. This is a shout out to all you guys…you know who you all are. The ones who I know without, I couldn’t have made it this far. Just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I love you all.

Subterfuge

2005-11-24T19:18:00.000-06:00

I've been tagged by Truthfairy ! Here's how the tag works: 1)Flip open a dictionary and point to a word / get word of the day from dictionary.com 2)Type the word into google images. 3)Pick an image that strikes you. 4)Write a 10 line riff off the image. 5)Use the word or the meaning at least once within the first 5 lines. 6)Tag 3 other bloggers on your list.
subterfuge \SUB-tur-fyooj\, noun:
A deceptive device or stratagem.

Subterfuge
Distract people
From the problems at hand
Fight enemies imagined
Dont care for Kofi Annan ...who???
Go and do your thing
Words construed carefully
To deceive the common man
Let the dying die
But cant back off now
Have to see this subterfuge to the end

Hidden Memories

2005-11-10T22:14:00.000-06:00

Met a 90 yr old patient today who was still holding grudges against his wife who had died 20 yrs ago. Set me thinking…how much of our memory is occupied with those of people significant or otherwise to us, who have intentionally/unintentionally hurt us @ some point of our lives.
I still remember how mad I was @ the lady who almost pushed me off the seat in a local train in Mumbai when I was in college. I remember Rao madam who made my life miserable when I was doing my 2nd yr of undergrad studies. I remember the hurt I felt 20 yrs ago when I wasn’t invited to a bday party.
They all seem totally irrelevant and insignificant now, but somehow the synapses that were fired in my neuronal pathway seem to be filed somewhere, without being deleted.
Not that I go thro these memories frequently, but during random reminiscing, I am sometimes surprised @ the unpleasantness that still lingers with some. And it bothers me ……. if I cannot let go of these insignificant memories or at least the feelings associated with them, how am I ever going to get over other significant baggage in life? Memories are supposed to fade away……....and most of them do. I don’t want to ever be that old man I met today.

Festival of Lights

2005-11-02T11:11:00.000-06:00

Its Diwali…………but all I can see is the city lights in front of me. The Ferris wheel at Navy Pier is already at a standstill and the lights have just been turned off. Some high rises in downtown have “GO SOX” spelt out on them with lights. It’s a great city, this Chicago……..the skyline always takes my breath away but today for some reason all I want to see are earthen lamps on open balconies and the cheap paper lanterns blowing in the breeze, to see children run in front of me to light their anars and their Krishna chakras. I just want to breathe in the highly polluted air full of the smell of crackers and gunpowder and to shop in Mumbai with the multitude of other shoppers and get jostled around. I crave to gorge myself on the sweets made by my mom that I would so high and mightily decline when I was younger after having a bite or two. I come home with all these great plans of doing Pooja, making pooris, meeting up with some friends, the way we always do. But today am still sitting on the couch with frozen parathas and readymade subji, and staring out at the city lights.

Face to Face

2005-10-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

I tried to wake up a dead woman in my hospital on Fri. A nurse’s mistake not to put up a sign on the pt’s room and an image of death imprinted on my mind…...I’ll probably be like Lady Macbeth for days to come .

Earthquakes and Hurricanes

2005-10-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

As a colleague of mine put it, “If I were someone who believed in Apocalypse and Armageddon, Doomsday, Last Days prophecies………….I would think that this was it.”
A huge part of the earth has been hit in the last one year by some form of Mother Earth’s angst - the tsunami in Asia, hurricanes a dime a dozen in the Americas – the new one being Aunt Wilma, the recent earthquake measuring a 7.6 again in Asia.
It is easy to go and wage a war against a country and so also to put a person on trial. But what does one do when the perceived threat is from the Forces of Nature. No amount of artillery or bloodshed would be of any use here.
Is it a way of the Intelligent Designer (up for debate but that’s not the point here…) to warn human beings? Is she (again up for debate.) trying to bring humankind together thro these disasters? Does it need an earthquake for India and Kashmir to see people are the same on both sides of the Siachen? Does it take a tsunami for the West to notice the East? Would it take hurricanes for people to see that when people suffer it is the same whether in Africa or America.
Tragedy brings deep despair, intense loss to multiple people. Will the world at least unite in despair if not in happiness??

Drive-Thru woes

2005-10-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

So the other day, like all healthy diet aficionados, I decide to pick food up from Taco Bell's drive-thru. I order for Beans Chalupa. The conversation goes like this:

“I would like a Beans Chalupa”

“ A Beef Chalupa?? “

“ No..no…a Chalupa with Beans…no Beef”

“OK..no Beans…what about sour cream?”

“No…I want Beans…..no Beef…or Meat “

“ How about Chicken”

“ No Meat of any kind….only Beans and yes, sour cream. And would you repeat it please….”

“You want a Beans Chalupa”

YooooHooooooo

“ Yessss”

After about a couple of miles of driving, I hungrily open up my Chalupa to find a completely alien type of chalupa:

Introducing you to “The Lettuce and Sour Cream Chalupa .............with beans invisible to the human eye" :)

Cafe Consciousness

2005-10-13T17:54:00.000-05:00

Caffeine.....my day doesn’t begin till the 1st whiff reaches my nose and then its only a matter of seconds till my cup runneth over with ....hmmm.....the most important decision of the day all depends on this one pivotal moment.... is it going to be cappuccino, hazelnut flavored coffee, mocha, espresso, 1/2 coffee.1/2 decaf ( ug) or decaf (uggg)

As a friend wisely (or maybe?? sarcastically) put it to my amiga...why do you even bother with 1/2 coffee, 1/2 decaf...why don’t you just drink 1/2 a cup of coffee instead.

There has been an onslaught of flavored coffees from Starbucks (Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccino Light Blended Coffee...realllly?). I sometimes crave for just “coffee”…no frills…no fancy names……just plain coffee. I am not saying that I do not like flavored coffees but sometimes I genuinely do forget just how real coffee tastes.

Having coffee is supposed to be one of life's simple pleasures......why complicate it with sooooo many choices.

So here’s an ode to coffee:

Coffee without frills

Just with sugar and milk

That’s what I want today

Coz my life I want to simplify

And not complicate

ha ha ha :)