Just Emkaying: February 2011

Feb 22, 2011

Villages and Cities, Rivers and Trees

I just got back from Home, a wonderful place that is untouched by the evils of society. By Evils I mean, Cellular Networks, E Mails and Facebook. And "Modernity" as we, the lesser souls of the city, know it.

Life in the Village is so different. It's as if the the Village itself is breathing. The rooster actually crows at sunrise, and you awake to trickles of sunlight shooting in through tiled roofs, to the smell of early morning dew and dust (not the city version) in the air, smell of fresh coffee brewing and the morning bath getting ready under burning wood.

Children walk/run to school, chattering about their pony tails and picking interesting stones. In the rare occasion that they do catch a bus, there's a broad smile when they climb it, because its a joy ride for them. A Cadbury Eclairs is a treasure to be savored on a right occasion and the sound of the school bell ringing in the end of class is the sign of freedom. Freedom to run through fields, over bridges, skipping over rivulets and staring at birds, all the way home.

Everyone smiles at everyone, and asks their welfare. Everyone helps everyone and there's never a task a couple of hands can't help you achieve. Old Men and Women tell tales of old, and the grand children run around in the courtyard playing tag. No Complicated Wii and No roller coaster rides that need safety belts to have fun in.

Rivers gurgle their way through the village, gently teasing the rocks and skipping under wooden bridges. Trees are massive skyscrappers, and its amazing what green does to your eyes. Large expanse of green and green, tall trees of areca nut rubbing shoulders with coconut palms , towering over mazes of banana plantations.

And as twilight sets in, flocks of birds settle in for the night in their cosy nests, singing goodnight to world around them. Oil Lamps come out on the "Tulsi" and Gates, and the temple bells ring loudly for the last prayer of the day, before the village goes off to sleep, under the beautiful watch of the twinkling stars.

Cities are just cement and rock. And its making the people in them, just as lifeless as themselves.

Home in the village is the only place I can sit and do Nothing, and still feel content in just being.

Cheers
M

Feb 17, 2011

What are you to do with dreams?

Dreams kill me. They really do. I mean its like living the whole thing and your thinking and running around and just doing things. Going through all those emotions and then you wake up. And your caught between being blown away and feeling stupid.

And how come you don't get dreams that make you laugh, like comedy dreams? Its either scary, or a thriller or a sad one or a completely crazy one. I had dreams where people from absolutely different places and time lines are pulled in to one.

Recently, I had a series (Check for dreams under the Dreamlog tab) of dreams all revolving around one single person and its like watching a TV Serial, just that its so real. The Series is still on.

If you do a quick Google search on meaning of dreams, you'll get tons of literature on dreams, a few porn sites and lots of horoscope stuff. But more or less they all point to one thing (Except the porn of course)- Your most inner thoughts and subconscious mind come together to show you what's really on your mind.

Fair Enough. So what then? React or realize or what?

At the end of it all, what do you do with them?!!!

M

Feb 16, 2011

100 Must Read Books

I suddenly awoke to my long time wish of reading. So some surfing later I arrived at three different sets of must read books. Namely

1. The BBC List 100
2. From the Affiliate Marketing Blog
3. D J McAdam's list

Some of the books are common, while the BBC List has more uncommon options. I don't suggest or recommend any of them particularly, but I liked the ones on the Affiliate Marketing Blog. So am re producing the same below

  1. Plato, The Republic
  2. Homer, The Odyssey
  3. William Shakespeare - One really must read all of Shakespeare
  4. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
  5. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables
  6. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  7. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
  8. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
  9. Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White. 
  10. Owen Wister, The Virginian  
  11. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
  12. Franz Kafka, The Trial
  13. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
  14. James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  15. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
  16. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
  17. Egar Allan Poe, Complete Short Stories
  18. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Essays
  19. Henry David Thoreau, Walden. In my mind, Thoreau and Emerson should be read regularly by all Americans, but that's just one man's opinion.
  20. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
  21. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
  22. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
  23. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
  24. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
  25. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  26. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  27. Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
  28. Bram Stoker, Dracula
  29. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
  30. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
  31. Jack London, The Call of the Wild
  32. Henry James, The American
  33. Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
  34. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
  35. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
  36. George Orwell, Animal Farm
  37. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
  38. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
  39. P. G. Wodehouse, Carry On, Jeeves
  40. Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth
  41. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
  42. Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  43. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
  44. Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
  45. Henry James, Daisy Miller
  46. E. W. Hornung, Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman
  47. Henry James, Washington Square
  48. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
  49. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. This is the book you must read, but you might want to read The Fountainhead first.
  50. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
  51. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
  52. Hermann Hesse, Demian
  53. Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
  54. Albert Camus, The Stranger
  55. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
  56. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
  57. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
  58. George Orwell, 1984
  59. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
  60. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
  61. Sun Tzu, The Art of War
  62. Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Essays
  63. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
  64. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
  65. St. Augustine, Confessions
  66. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
  67. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
  68. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
  69. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
  70. Sun Tzu, The Art of War
  71. Anne Rice, The Witching Hour  
  72. Lee Child, Die Trying
Some more from the other lists...

  73.    Harper Lee, To Kill a Mocking Bird
  74.    Joseph Heller, Catch 22
  75.    Audrey Niffenegger,The Time Traveller’s Wife 
  76.    Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
  77.    CS Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia
  78.    Jane Austen, Emma
  79.    Jane Austenm Persuasion
  80.    Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
  81.    Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
  82.    Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

I hope to read these books in a manner that makes sense to me, and that I learn something from them. Not a wild chase to complete a list, actually.

Meanwhile, you might want to check out www.goodreads.com Nice stuff for book lovers. Arrange, review, find friends and all that.

Cheers
M



 

 

Feb 14, 2011

Straight from the heart

Though I may have managed to drag around to the other side of 25 on this Feb 14th, am very happy. For many reasons.

Am happy for the 150 odd wishes on FB, a dozen odd sms, 30 odd calls, 40 + personal wishes, some great surprises, lottsa cake,  a kid who couldn't get enough of jumping on my shoulders, 2 dear friends whom I dint meet in a loooooong time, 2 best buds who called me as usual in the middle of night to regale stories of times gone by, some old food, a dear friend ("giggle") who went a long way to make it a great day and gifts :)

Its moments that these that make me grateful for wonderful people around me. Though a lot of my buddies are going to get married soon, and probably life won't be the same as before, am hopeful that there will always be people around the corner that I can hug and feel at home.

Though there are many reasons to be unhappy, I think its time to put it all behind and enjoy each day as it comes. Or At least try to.

Life is wonderful sometimes.

M

Feb 8, 2011

Dreamlog - On French Island

Walking around the beach in the morning sun was as normal as it could get. But not for Ajay. He was on an island in France which was hardly the size of his college block, with his friend, on the invitation of the girl he loved and even more painfully her fiance. Which was what made it un-normal so to speak.

What made it strange was that he couldn't understand how there were grape vines growing out of the sea, what the hell his friend who had nothing to do with this part of his life,was doing there with him, and why there was an Indian style STD telephone booth in the middle of a beach in France.Through out this journey, he never once saw the face of the girl nor her fiance, but heard them throughout, talking to each other about things only two people in love could. He could only imagine of course.

He also got into an interaction with some Thailand natives, arguing about the size of the L shaped swimming pool in their home, which was tiled with colorful mosaic which looked more like a Lego collection.

At the end of it all, he woke up with a feeling of sadness and confusion.

P S  - Point to prove that "Ajay" has some wacky sixth sense(for the umpteenth time), "Ajay's Friend" sent "Ajay" a face book message asking him how he knew this "girl" in question on the same day in the afternoon.There are no coincidences in life.

***
Living a lie is a difficult task. Doing it everyday is emotional suicide.


M