Saline Reads and Fishy recalls
Have been trying to read "Life of Pi" for over 2 months now. It's pretty boring so far. I'm on page 189, and it is not getting better... so what the hell is this guy doing trying to outwit a tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean on a lifeboat? I don't much care for descriptions of a hyena eating a zebra alive on the lifeboat either .... what with ripping its stomach open and munching on its intestines. Yuck! I thought that The Kite Runner was gruesome in its own manner, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to imagining incapacitated animals being eaten alive by hungrier ones.
Whatever happened to all the pleasant books? We need more vegetarian authors methinks :)
Having said all that, this reminds of the time a friend and I took a boat ride and went about 5 km into the Arabian sea off the coast of Trivandrum. Mighty spendid! The fisherman who took us out there insisted on me holding a line ... sure enough, those were luckier days and the poor fish took the bait in less than a couple of minutes. I was applauded for my dumb luck and I guess in some ways the misfortune of the fish. As a pious vegetarian I requested the fisherman to throw the fish back into the water but he said something about it bringing him bad luck. I debated arguing with him, but I didn't fancy a 5KM swim back to the shore.
It was an interesting day, as I recall. The fisherman and his mates pushed the motor boat out into the water and alongwith my friend, and myself almost six or seven of the fisherman's friends got into the boat. I'm not happy with crowding at the best of times, and my visions of quietude and solace on the water was busted immediately. When we asked the fisherman why we had so many people come in for the ride, he simply said that it would take all those people to overturn the boat if it did capsize. Again, I don't remember arguing with him.
As Chris de Burg says in one of his songs
"Don't pay the ferryman,
Don't even fix a price
Don't pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side"
:)
All said and done, the experience of sitting on a boat while far into the sea ... being able to reach down and touch the water..... to be able to look into a depth of several meters into the azure blue is a stunning experience. The farther you go, the more gentle the waves, the clearer the water, and as for the bigger picture .... well, thats simply overpowering.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Two weeks into the new year
Little changes, little remains the same. Led my cricket team to one narrow loss and one thumping win. Still recovering from the pain of two extracted teeth and ice cream does not make me feel better ... is that me, or the teeth or the ice cream, I wonder :)
Every new year brings with it the promise of change, and I do feel the wheels turning. How far, fast and how quickly, only time will tell.
I have become work-busy in a desolate sort of way. I always seem to have some document to read, some meeting to attend and some intelligent noises that I feel obliged to make regardless of the day or time of day :) . The fact that I try and do this over the din of two healing extraction sites quite close to my brain don't make life any easier. And there's the smaller stuff ....the wheels of my car need balancing, but I really dont mind the steering vibrating while I drive back home. It breaks the monotony and distracts my mind from its regular patterns, at least for a bit. My car is embarassingly dirty, but I can convince myself to put off the washing. I need to scream at my contractor, but I've resigned myself to anticipating his excuses. I sometimes wonder why he doesn't do better .... with both his execution and his excuses. As I say in my literary pursuits .... "I nodded gravely" ... and so I shall, until the season changes.
And then there are unmistakable moments of clarity which always follow an evening run. When the blood has gushed into the brain and calmed the mind, sharpening its focus with the help of adrenalin and a few other chemicals.
Like this evening, when my mp3 player played 'Wonderwall' just as I stepped off the ground onto the road that led me back home.
The song seemed to anticipate my mind and its noises ...
"By now you should've somehow realised what you've got to do".
... how true
and then ....
"I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you now"
.... how very true ...
and as I begin to walk on a bolt straight road homewards, in the light of a setting sun,
"And all the roads we have to walk are winding ... and all the lights that lead us there are blinding"
I smile at the irony
then finally...
"There are many things that I, would like to say to you, but I don't know how" ...
I nod gravely :)
And then I think ..... maybe the unsaid has a life of its own. If the mass-energy equivalence may be believed, the unsaid should, in theory propel and direct life in so many ways ... In terms of Physics, this must create waves, vibrations, if you will, of energy and potential that must influence things at some level.
But enough of all of that. Do drop me a comment for a change and let me know how your year has unfolded so far. You can be anonymous :), I don't care. Let the unsaid change into mass, for now :)
Little changes, little remains the same. Led my cricket team to one narrow loss and one thumping win. Still recovering from the pain of two extracted teeth and ice cream does not make me feel better ... is that me, or the teeth or the ice cream, I wonder :)
Every new year brings with it the promise of change, and I do feel the wheels turning. How far, fast and how quickly, only time will tell.
I have become work-busy in a desolate sort of way. I always seem to have some document to read, some meeting to attend and some intelligent noises that I feel obliged to make regardless of the day or time of day :) . The fact that I try and do this over the din of two healing extraction sites quite close to my brain don't make life any easier. And there's the smaller stuff ....the wheels of my car need balancing, but I really dont mind the steering vibrating while I drive back home. It breaks the monotony and distracts my mind from its regular patterns, at least for a bit. My car is embarassingly dirty, but I can convince myself to put off the washing. I need to scream at my contractor, but I've resigned myself to anticipating his excuses. I sometimes wonder why he doesn't do better .... with both his execution and his excuses. As I say in my literary pursuits .... "I nodded gravely" ... and so I shall, until the season changes.
And then there are unmistakable moments of clarity which always follow an evening run. When the blood has gushed into the brain and calmed the mind, sharpening its focus with the help of adrenalin and a few other chemicals.
Like this evening, when my mp3 player played 'Wonderwall' just as I stepped off the ground onto the road that led me back home.
The song seemed to anticipate my mind and its noises ...
"By now you should've somehow realised what you've got to do".
... how true
and then ....
"I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you now"
.... how very true ...
and as I begin to walk on a bolt straight road homewards, in the light of a setting sun,
"And all the roads we have to walk are winding ... and all the lights that lead us there are blinding"
I smile at the irony
then finally...
"There are many things that I, would like to say to you, but I don't know how" ...
I nod gravely :)
And then I think ..... maybe the unsaid has a life of its own. If the mass-energy equivalence may be believed, the unsaid should, in theory propel and direct life in so many ways ... In terms of Physics, this must create waves, vibrations, if you will, of energy and potential that must influence things at some level.
But enough of all of that. Do drop me a comment for a change and let me know how your year has unfolded so far. You can be anonymous :), I don't care. Let the unsaid change into mass, for now :)
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Of teeth and that
Had two wisdom teeth extracted. Five stitches in my mouth. Painful! A dentist once told me toothache was only second to labor pains. I'm glad to be a man.
My new office is located such that I drive into a setting sun every evening. Rather nice.
After returning from a vacation, I have been submerged with work. The year has changed, but work seems to be getting worse.
And finally, hats off to Peter Roebuck for calling a spade a spade.
Had two wisdom teeth extracted. Five stitches in my mouth. Painful! A dentist once told me toothache was only second to labor pains. I'm glad to be a man.
My new office is located such that I drive into a setting sun every evening. Rather nice.
After returning from a vacation, I have been submerged with work. The year has changed, but work seems to be getting worse.
And finally, hats off to Peter Roebuck for calling a spade a spade.
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