Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Ode to the Stoneheart

You who have darkenened my days
Made my nights a sleepless daze

They fall from me, angry tears
Mute curses I throw at your ears

Do you have an inkling to what I feel?
Do you see anger in my eyes of steel?

What sin was it that I did
in a previous birth, now I'm punished

Will pretty sunshine
Ever be mine?

Or will my dreams
Be endless screams?

Hope moves me along
Ever so strong

For you may bend me, all you might
Break will I never, in my might

I pity you savagely, heart of stone
For your errors, may you atone

What a sad life you must lead
Without Love in your stead

You may lie, saying you don't need
A heart of love, but do heed

Love can be received, only if given
and 'tis what makes this world, heaven.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Music that melts

This man exceeds superlatives.
What a gift it must be to be able to move others' souls? How will it feel to be like Ilayaraja, the man loved by millions ?


This is a wonderful piece of his, that I never can hear enough.


Saturday, July 14, 2007

A Ride in the Rain

It all started with Niv.
"I'm so bugged today", she said.
The work day came to an end and Mat asked her, "hey do u wanna go for an icecream?".
Niv was like, "No lets go to the beach. I just wanna take a good break".
Mat was incredulous. "Did you see the time? Its pretty late. we should've started long back if you wanted to go the beach".
"Oh come on, its not that late. We can still go and come back home early", Niv convinced her friend.
They hardly had travelled 10 minutes when big drops of rain splattered around them.
"Oooh rain!", they cried in unison.
"Thank god you're wearing that helmet. We can reach the beach even in the rain. It's gonna be fun man!", Mat was excited.
In a few minutes they were soaked to the skin and the rain was falling in big sheets.
"Why don't we turn back?", Niv was concerned. "Yeaaaaa, it IS kinda heavy", Mat ageed. A stupendously loud thunder blasted in agreement. The dark gray sky was streaked with the silver wires. The sky was a rock concert!
Mat had a weird idea, "Why dont we just go for a ride?".
Niv nodded in glee, "oh yea, lets take the GST road".
It was a heavenly love affair. The rain loved these two girls who loved it back fervently!
It's now Niv's turn for the weird idea, "Hey lets grab some samosas somewhere. They'll be good to eat in the rain".
"Oooh yes lets!".
So they turned around, entered a side road, at the end of which they reached a subway.
Mat was not keen to cross that. "Hey you sure about this? What if we get stuck in the middle?".
They stopped the vehicle and stared at the expanse of road ahead, hidden beneath the rain water that's atleast knee deep.
"Go on girls", a man next to them in a bike bid them. And that's all it took.
Niv accelerated.
"Wheeee", they both shrieked. It was like trying to drive a bike in a river.
But the scooty managed to get them safely scross to the other side.
"Man my bike is something, huh? Great going!", Niv was proud of her and bike's accomplishment.
Finally they found a shop outside of which they parked their vehicle. Standing in the rain, drenched to the skin, with their teeth chattering in the cold, munching hot puffs, these girls had the time of their lives!

The Parallel Universe Theory

I was reading Micheal Crichton's Timeline when I came across this concept of "Parallel Universes" or the "Multiverse".
The
Multiverse sounds like a poem but it's not. It's the concept of many universes co existing paralelly. This also connects us to Time travel and stuff like these. The book was fascinating.
Can such a thing be?
Take, for example, me. When I'm at home, talking to my mother, I live in the world of relatives and their craziness. When I'm with my father, well that's a completely different world! When I'm with my cousin and family I live in a world of fun and well that's a different world too! With my friends it's a world of amazing camaraderie. With my colleagues, its a world of programming and deadlines and meetings and stuff. When I'm by myself, ah well, now that's a world I love. A world with my quirky thoughts and splendid dreams.
So..do parallel universes exist? Yessiree! At a teeny weeny tiny micro cosmic level they do...for me! And I know for a fact there are many kindred souls out there, existing in all their universes and going strong!
You go people!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Flower Rock

"Coorg is almost flooded!" - our gang was dejected at this news.
"So are we calling off the trip?"
We had planned for a weekend at Coorg and the trip was in danger of being dropped. That's when Naveen suggested Poomparai.
Poomparai - first time I had heard of this village. Supposed to be an hour's drive away from Kodaikkanal, this sounded like a good destination for us almost burnt out chennai-ites!

After a lot of Last minute plannings and confusions friday night found us on our way to Kodai. The little Maruti 800 mustered up all her energy to shoot us across the potholed roads. Saturday morning at the Kodai foothills we met the gang from b'lore and swapped vehicles.
We girls were unceremoniously bundled into the monster of a bus. The bus was built for load but defnitely not for speed. After a very slow and sluggish journey up the hills we reached the Kodai town and were met by a man with a Bolero from the resort where we were to stay.
Now that guy knew how to drive! He whisked us through the mountain side and we reached our cottages.

The Wilusa Holiday homes made a very favorable first impression on us! The rooms were neat and sweet and confusingly constructed. That made it all the more endearing. Our love with the cottages lasted until we found out that there was no water supply. Housekeeping informed us that once the power supply is back we'll get water!!
Ah well, philosophers that we were, wanting to waste no more time inside those rooms, I and Nivi set out on a small expedition to explore!

When a girl who's completely brought up in a concrete jungle of a city is let loose in a mountain side filled with little paths snaking from her, can you blame her for losing her head??
I was completely enthralled with the possibilities of adventure that lay before me. Armed with a stick(I had heard that if u keep tapping the undergrowth while walking in a forest path, snakes won't come near you. They can sense the vibration or whatever) and a camera we set out. We could see a waterfalls in the distance and we decided to reach it. Though we never reached it, we did end up discovering a small brook that actually fed the falls, with numerous distractions of side paths on the way!
After a while, when others came in search of us, we realised how late it had become and walked back to the cottage, all the while listening to remonstrations on how unsafe our act had been!

Then in the evening we found that only our tiny maruti was available to take us out. The bolero was making some other rounds. Of the eight, Five of us bundled into the car (no mean task, given the size of my fellow travellers!) and visited the main Kodai town for an hour of cycling around the lake and some shopping.

We started back when it was almost dark. There we were, driving through the dark mountain, five people who are all new to the area. We were discussing the next day's plan. Sunday was to start with a trekking to see Bisons. Suddenly, Satya who was driving shouted out, 'hey look, a bison!'. Sure enough, there it was. Standing at the side of the road, blinking in our headlights, munching away and looking as contented as a...cow! Then farther down, our headlights caught a wild hare in the act of crossing the road! Even farther down, our headlights caught a bridge. Even if the others didn't pull us up, this one sure did. All of us thought "That wasn't there when we came!". About turn. "We missed a turning, and I know where" - Man! Was I glad to hear our driver say this!

Saying hello to our friend the bison again, we finally reached the cottages. The temperature had dropped considerably and our hands were beginning to freeze. The idea of a Bonfire was gladly welcomed and the resort people took us to a big clearing that had been dug out a precipice. We settled in the stone seats around the fire and partook of our dinner.

Sitting around the fire, talking, we lost all count of time. When we woke up the next morning no one had any energy for trekking! We just lazed around. When we were waiting for the others to get ready, I and Nars went on another of those walks in the countryside. We took another unexplored path and ended up at a pasture like clearing. I took one look around and felt that I had stepped into an Enid Blyton. There was a green green meadow below me, dotted with black goats and an authentic goatherd! To add to the already pretty picture, we came upon a tiny babbling brook!!!
Dipping our feet in the ice cold water, yakking away to heart's content - Pleasures of the countryside!

After a while, we bundled up again in the two cars and bid adieu to the lovely village. It was back to Kodai for boating and cycling and walking around the lake! When it was dark, we started back, singing lustily at the top of our voices, with the mountain air working our lungs! Now that was one fun-filled, memorable trip wasn't it??!!!