Aristotle Onassis

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts.

Find a priest who understands English and doesn't look like Rasputin.

I have no friends and no enemies - only competitors.

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

The more you own, the more you know you don't own.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.

A wise man if there ever was such a thing!!! No wonder Jackie married him.. Get a clue guys really... I mean where HAVE all the men gone...

Just a thought...

Life gets summed up in the four letter EIIE and in that order..

Evoke Involve Inspire Evolve

Women of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your shackles!

Bearing the sign of the cross
Has never been easy for the circle
Being branded with possibility in her lower body
Has never been easy for the woman
Layers and layers
Of the thickest maquillage or greasepaint
Still do not cover up
The grave imperfections of the gaze.
The gaze that follows her
The gaze that binds her
To make her stiletto
A limitation
To make her endowment
A source of hesitation.

Long has she borne
Every burden as her own
Long have these masses
Turned against her; their own.
Flesh and blood of hers
Is what they’re made of
And yet
She’s the one they condemn
At city squares they stone.

Suffer not in silence o woman
Believe!
Your shackles are lashes and whips
Crack them every which way you feel
You can make a difference
You can be the change
You created the world
Your end will be its end.

Shying away from yourself
Never was the answer
If your mother told you so
It was because she knew better.
Your body is your weakness
Your weakness is your strength
Come lay down your weapons
Your war doesn’t really need them.

Flying’s not the peacock’s job
Looking pretty’s not the emu’s
So says the law of the world
But never for a second think
It’s true!

Come,
Leave your men and children behind,
Your juicer and your toaster behind
Being in love is for teenagers
Sprout your wings
Let’s go fly!

The Lily's Pall

While the mourners’ wails
Echo through the wind’s howls
Inconsolable voices rising from the shore
Taller peaks than the roaring waves
Consuming all in their unchangeable fate

The lily stands pale and white
Starkly against the morbid hues
Of the deal of death dealt out by life
Creeping icily up; freezing even fright.

The lily stands
Pale and white
Nobility or loss of sense
It’s hard to define.
My eyes dwell upon her loving gaze
That looks out over yonder haze.
Unsmiling yet in perfect peace
At the very rocks where
Her life ceased to breathe.
My own heart then skips a beat
Is this how life comes to be?

The lily stands there
Pala and white
As though in wait of a glorious fate
A life among the highest highs
Or as lovers great; a life denied.

The Evil of Man

While oft I have lain,
Vacant of thought
Devoid of pain
There have been so many
Moments when
Comprehending
The evil of man
has been my aim

Full-blooded nights
Followed by torrential rain
Hell’s fury belittled
By the bosom storm
Like autumn leaves
Inhibitions shed
Graduating from grief to vengeance
As from the cradle to the bed

The Ages of Man
Have come and gone
Summer’s children
Come winter; they’re gone.
The light of a thousand suns
Fading my dark skin
Paling into insignificance, finally
Bowing to my sins.

Sneaky Ways- Part 2

Graduation has little to do with formal education. It is about going from unemployed and broke to employed and broke.

Also akin to finally moving on from "Clueless" and Alicia Silverstone to "Legally Blonde" and Reese Witherspoon.

Attentive Creator.. Lol...

Attentive Creator

Free yourself...

Freedom is hostage to the idea of captivity. Sometimes subservience is so ingrained in our psyche that hostility to the idea of freedom is an unconscious decision our mind makes to legitimize the ways in which we pain ourselves. Human beings are the only animals who can find pleasure in not just inflicting pain on oneself but in fact subjecting themselves to it while all the time criticizing the world for undermining them. In fact, we are all captive to hypocrisy. Freedom is captive to human hypocrisy.

Absence of the Absolute

Love never meant to explain itself to anyone. Taint seeps in when we try to explain it to ourselves, to justify or quantify it. The only source of redemption is to forgive without inhibition. However, absoluteness was a never a quality that nestled comfortably in the spectrum of human emotion.

Winter Fire

Winter fire
Burning higher
Melting away my self control.
My hands are shaking,
A cold sweat's breaking
I have to move on now.

It came to me
Like a flash of light
In the middle of a dreary winter night

I thought I was a grown-up girl
Didn't ever think
These things were real

I'd moved on to a life of being alone
And then you came back to hold my hand
How can I be who I used to be
In the face of this hot winter fire.

I'd never thought it would be you
Never experienced this fantasy reel
But life is a ride, so says everyone
Winter fire engulfed me before I could breathe.

Winter fire's burning higher
I'm without control, I'm swerving now
I have to get off this road and find another
Another that's mine and can't be stolen.

Sneaky Ways-Part 1

Hope is a marketing device for religion, a euphemism for loss and a manifestation of the desire that you may actually eventually get your way.

Campaign to make this a part of textbooks worldwide!!!

I am a product of my actions and my exes' reactions!

I posted this as my state of mind for the day in my GTalk window and the reactions I got prompted me to put this on my blog!!

More on the subject will follow and boy oh boy! Can I wax eloquent on this subject or what!!!

Someday...

Someday
I will know
What it's like
To be just who I want to be

Someday
I will have
Everything
That is meant to be mine

But sometimes
Someday like that
Seems so far away

Sometimes
When I close my eyes
I can't see
All that is to be

For I
Am the lonely queen
Of my life
Because I always keep
All those
Whom I should cherish
Far away

But no one can tell me what to do
Or what to think
Or whom to cherish
And whom to dislike

Because it's my life
My world
And someday
Maybe someday soon
I'll be able to tell the world out there
Just that

Someday
Someday soon
Dreams will be real
And I'll live in them
All the colours will be real
And I'll be alive
Life will be spring
And I'll be the butterfly

Someday
Someday soon
Maybe someday is tomorrow
But I won't know
Unless I live today
Don't know wat's going to happen
Someday!

I remember...

Every moment that we lived our other life
Every second we breathed in each other's sighs
Everytime I saw the moon shine down on me
Everytime an orange light looked our way
Everytime a curious look fell on our intertwined hands
I remember

I remember
Each time I held back my sincere words of feeling
Each time I stopped myself from being
Someone I could never think of being
Each time I tried to understand all I couldn't help but feel
I remember

Now that I look back
At the point I had to let you go
I remember that it wasn't easy to say goodbye
I remember that you still had a hand to hold
And I held on to my destiny alone
I remember now

And yet it's so easy to forgive
So easy to give
Still a place for posterity
For you as
I remember

I remember now
And will for always remember
Reminisce and revive
Even sometimes in wonder

I have often thought
Whether what I remember
Will lose its colour
With the passage of forever
But for now
I remember

You, Us and all there is to remember....

Vincent (Starry Nights)

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

- Don McLean

It's Time...

It's time, I know...

To go home now,
To shut the door;
And move on now.

But I pray to thee!

To wait a while!

Maybe only until...

The irises shine.

Black and white.
They look at me
As if they know,
what is inside me.

Pray wait awhile!

Pray wait with me!

If only until the moonlight shines again..

Upon your sweet face,
Turned down at me.

As you look at me,
with moistened eyes.

Pray wait for me!
Pray wait awhile!

It's only a matter of time,

Don't move on now.

Though the warmth says you must go...

It's only a matter of time until the mist returns..

Wait, wait awhile!

It's only a matter of time..

The darkness will hide us again!

To be or not to be that is the question!

First of all, my apologies to the litterati for all those punctuation errors in the title tag.... But my aim here is to make my politically incorrect point and not to be tied down by the rules of language. In any case, my dilemma which is an age old dilemma faced by women the world over is a crazy mish mash of romanticism that is a part of our socialization during our upbringing which involves a lot of princes dressed in white riding on pristine ponies saving the maid from an unknown devil which has been tormenting her since birth(metaphors for parents and teachers and all those childhood bogey men, not that I had any of those...) But yes anyway, I'm talking about that agonizing time before you find out which one of the men is the one or IF at all any of them is the one.... There I finally got it out after all that confusion and chaotic writing, I have the principal card on the table.

So at the risk of being ostracised by my exes, I'd like to put my chaos on air for all to see. You see, I've always been pretty old school, very propah in some ways and a pariah in many others. I've always had very strict ideas about the dirty linen and soiled sanitary napkins(sic!). But about my love! life.. It's been out there for all to see and to discuss. Yes, I've even known it to be dinner table and cocktail conversation for many. Why? Because I'm not the kind who keeps everything under wraps. I love to share my happiness with the world. If I'm happy more likely than not you'll know it(unless I really don't like you, maybe even then you will, you see people can't resist a sob story!). So under such circumstances, it is very very necessary to understand whether your crush is crushing back (eew sorry I got that off a horrible teen website, but that's immaterial!).Because if you don't there is a very strong likelihood of looking like a complete fool/falling flat on your face. And since I'm not accustomed to either, I don't want a first.

Which is why I'm writing this in the first place.

You see my life is completely flooded with men just now... And I'm not exactly sure of which way I should direct the wind and make it blow.. Should it be the most probable way or the opposite direction or should I make it go where it had intended to go before it turned or should I just leave it be.

November 2008: Then and Now...

I let it be... I came through... :) There's nothing more sacrosanct than love. I mocked it at every step of life. I told myself I didn't care. But I do! I did! I always will! Pray when will we stop kidding ourselves about love? It is in the end, after all, all there is.... :)

Plato!

“Searching and learning is a process of remembering…………… and I, believing this to be true, am ready to search with you what virtue is.”
 Plato,
Meno 81d

Touche!

For my poor girlfriends!

For all my girlfriends who agonize over their boyfriends... Here's a lil something darlings!!!

All women think they know what men really want. All of them believe they know what men want just because they’ve been ditched by some airhead (also read as airhead or sniffling idiot) or handed out a rough sentence sometime in life by a man.

Their assumption of what men want is the following:

1) Topping the list is obviously the usual; SEX
2) A bunch of equally desperate nutheads to hang out with.
3) Free alcohol.
4) Good hair! (Oops, I can almost hear the guys say, Ouch!)
5) A beach house in Goa.

But hey, guess what when I was given this assignment, I did what people seldom do. I THOUGHT!
I asked myself, “What do men really want?”
And that prompted me to go on an ‘ask-all-your-guy-friends-about-it’ spree.
I did encounter loads of quizzical expressions and half-joking replies and even some raised eyebrows when some guys tried to size-up my intentions.(Ha ha at that!) But at the end of it all, I finally got the elusive answer to what men really want.

And guess what! It’s not very different from what you and I want (and I mean the chicks.)
So here goes the result of some painstaking albeit fun research.

What men really want:
1) A successful and pretty wife.
2) A good career. (Also read as MONEY)
3) Fame/ Recognition.
4) A good set of friends.
5) Regular road trips and a great car tied for this spot.

Well, This is exactly what every metropolitan girl (like yours truly) wants. So, I guess that just sort of puts the guys in the clear. Way to go guys. I knew you’d be vindicated some day.

(P.S.: What women really need though is to get over themselves and get a life instead of agonizing over what men really want!)

Apni Paathshala!

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.-Vaclav Havel

There are ways of thinking and there are means of doing. This applies to everything that we wish to achieve but have shelved for lack of time or effort. One concept that is always sacrificed at the altar of personal gain is the initiative to make a difference to the condition of the world today. The same appalling state of affairs that is now fashionable to balk at in dinner table conversations. Strapped safely into our jaded, cynical lives that is. So what are you doing for your world today? Why your world, your country or your neighbourhood for that matter? Only questions you say? No answers? No point in that eh? Well here goes then!

What I believe we need to do, is to educate one child at least and motivate that child to live, to create the truly wonderful thing that children are capable of creating in their lives; meaning. How often have we rolled our windows up in disdain at the shabby appearance of the boy selling flowers at the traffic signal or muttered something about pity or worse yet asked him, “Aye yeh sab kya karta hai, school jana chahiye!”? Don’t even bother answering that. But give it a thought.

In other episodes, we may have very graciously given clothes our children have grown out of to the children we see walking around close to the building. We believe we have done our good deed for the day and in some way improved their lives. But how do these mindless acts of so-called charity contribute to their lives? DO you really believe that these children care how they’re dressed? Well maybe in a superficial sense they do but what they really want is to be acknowledged as a success story, not a statistic! They want to be known by their names, live in houses like you and I, have a family to live with. That’s what they really want and need.

So why can’t we with all our haloed existences provide this kind of environment to one child? All we’re talking about is some time and even lesser money. But a lot of will; will to not give up in the face of the child’s resistance to your efforts to make contact with him or her. Most of these children, by this time in their lives, have seen things more scary than people like us will see in a lifetime. They develop a natural mistrust of people and refuse to believe that good does indeed exist somewhere in the world and that not everyone has ulterior motives behind giving them an opportunity to do something.

The statistics with reference to destitute children in India belong to the Stone Age. While one may endeavour to do something positive for these children, one doesn’t even know the extent of this problem. Thankfully, child labour laws have been revised to extend childhood to the age of 18. But this has also been done in a fashion that has affected the children adversely as many of them were then employed by employers as illegal workers and hence paid much less.

So what can you do? Take the time out for one child. Just one person more in the crazy scheme of your life. DO something! Don’t just sit there, look on and wonder what’s wrong with our world. Maybe, just maybe, YOU are the problem!

Note: To all those who felt even a twinge of emotion as you read this, the BMM class of 2007 ran a program in their first year called “Paathshala” that was a summer school for destitute children who live around the college. This project was privately funded by sponsorship garnered from a major corporation in the city. The program was a huge success and also contributed tremendously to the personal careers of several students (including, yours truly). However, the program was discontinued because of lack of initiative and left the children high and dry. But in the course of conducting the program we discovered that the children had a lot of potential to make it where we have and more. Very often, I’m asked by those children, “Didi, school kab chalu hoga?” and I have to look into their hopeful eyes and feel distraught and say that I have no idea, probably never. But YOU can change this! You can make Paathshala happen again. You can make it a reality, an institution, an initiative, an effort. You can make it anything you want it to be. You can make it yours. Do any of you have it in you? To dream? To create? If you do, I’m calling out to you to reach within you to make this happen. If you feel you can do it, I believe in you and trust me you’ll be glad you did.

Shirley

It was 14 years today. Fourteen years since we’d got Tubby. Tubby was a puppy then. He’s a big dog now. Nothing’s changed in this house since. Nothing at all except….

The walls which were once white are now an indistinct shade of yellow still spattered with long-dried drops of blood. The plants which were once green are now a fossilized cursory reminder that they hung there. The house which was once full of a bustling population of 14 people is now a haunted shell with a ghastly aura. It was fourteen years today”, I thought to myself.

How long does it take to forget that your whole family once visualized its life here? That you once had a whole houseful of people where you were a mere non-entity? What does it feel like to be the survivor, the chosen one?

I’m Shirley, Shirley Bernstein, sorry to sound so Bond-like but I’ve always wanted to be able to say it like that. Have I been thinking aloud again? I’m sorry for blabbering on like that without telling you what I was talking about. You see it’s just this place that gets to me. I’ve lived here ever since they took me away from my house. And good riddance I’d say. They never even remembered me there. It’s nice here. Airy, warm, comfortable. You just have to press a button to let them know you want something. But there’s something I don’t like around here. They all whisper around me. I wonder why. There’s always this hushed silence. I have neighbors though. Lots of them. Twenty on this floor alone they say. I don’t know how they are though. Sometimes, when they make a lot of noise, those awful blue men have to come to make them be quiet. An unholy cacophony, my mother would’ve said. She always said Mark was a nice boy. He never made any noise or messed around like the other kids. I never paid any attention to her. There are no favourites around here. Sometimes I think they don’t like any of us. Sometimes, I think. Actually I think it’s just me. I think too much, they tell me. I should rest more often. My mother never knew that. It was always Sherry do this, Sherry do that. I hated even the sound of that name. That was the only time she ever noticed me. How I hated all of them each and every one of them. They tell me I torched 12, Cherry Tree lane. Mighty funny thing to say: torched. Humpf! What do they know about anything? I liked Nina. She was a little doll then. Only 8 months old. I would’ve liked to get her out of the inferno but those ghastly Smiths next door. They didn’t let me. Maybe it was her fate, maybe she deserved it. Maybe she’d tortured someone else somewhere.

Bang, bang! “Do you have any justification to offer in defence of your actions?”

I hadn’t said anything then. But then they knew everything. The judge was looking at me with my mother’s eyes.

“We all get what we deserve in the end. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” That’s what my mother would’ve said.

The judge said, “Guilty!”

If I had just one more chance....

If I had just one more chance
I would go back to where I was
Before I strayed.
I've had my share of speaking
I've had my say
And who would've thought
Realization
Would come so soon this way.
I'd never thought that I would ever be
SO full of apology.

The sun is already coming up
But inside it feels like midnight
Without even the reassuring
Dim light of the moon in sight.

It's been a long time...
Since I last put my head on your chest
Felt your breath heave in and out.
Been a longer time
Since I've been your shoulder
To rest your day on.

All those moments
Which I reasoned were forever
Seem like
They were never
Yours or mine to keep...
Oh! If only I had just one more chance....

To Infinity and Beyond!

For You....

I only have to close my eyes and I can see

How you intend to take me farther than I can see

To infinity and beyond, my love

Maybe beyond the ends of the earth

Unfathomable but true

Is how I feel for you

Unknowing and perhaps uncaring

About what I need from you

But I don't have to worry

For you remember what I need

You fulfill my dreams, even before

I close my eyes to dream

Oh! For the light of day to never come

So the beauty of our souls

Shines only with the light inside

A love that the world hasn't known

I couldn't have thought I'd wait so long

So hard or even so longingly

For you to come back and soon

For you to run to me

Every second I have with you

Is something that God gave to me

A favour in return for

A little goodness I hope to do

I wish for the dream to never end

I wish to wish to go to infinity

To the end.....

For You....