An incident from the colorful life of two friends...... Ronit and Shane... each a unique sample... both one of a kind!!! They bumble along life's pathways.. stepping on toes.. laughing at life... each with plenty of friends.. yet.. lonely...., misunderstood for being different ... till the two meet.. and then all the years of silence seem to find a release ... thoughts and ideas.. gush like water from a burst dam .. inseparable.. they are bonded ... friends for life..

One evening... during one of their absurdly long and legendary conversations.. Ronit finds Shane extremely agitated.. in a fuss.. losing his already many times long lost infamous temper at every little thing.. more so than usual.. .... Reason - Shane wants to download.. in a hurry... a BIG BIG hurry,. but it is a good 40 minutes before he reaches home.. Ronit (face muscles aching trying to stop the laughter) manages to console Shane.. telling him to be a Man .. that he can handle it.. and so on .. and so forth.. till finally Shane reaches.. no.. runs home.. but hey.. what is this?? Ronit is rewarded with a fabulously new set of exotic sounding, fanciful swear words from Shane.. Ronit painfully manages to make some sense of what Shane is softly screaming (he cant scream out loud.. he wants to download remember?) and understands then tragedy that is confronting poor Shane - the door is locked and parents cannot be contacted..... So Near... Yet.. .. Sooo far.... The short path between the main gate to the front door is trampled as if a hundred elephants have been pumping iron by the now desperately desperate Shane, hoping to see his parents arriving.. Oh.. what to do in such a situation? Cant knock at the snooty neighboring bungalow door.. to ask the hoity toity lady.. May I use your washroom please?? Shane is now beyond speech.. rather beyond anything.. Ronit is equally desperate.. he is dying to laugh.. but dare not, for fear that Shane shall surely and slowly murder him for it... Mercifully for Ronit, Shane disconnects the phone.. calling back after about a good 40 minutes.. to tell Ronit that his parents arrived just in time.. just as Shane was about to permanently freeze into an exotically twisted looking garden statue...

Oh the miseries of untimely downloads can only be felt.. they cannot be told!!!!

Picture this..


A busy road.. traffic whizzing by.. a yuppie complete with Blue Tooth headset, Ray Bans, snazzy tie.. et all.. purring along in a huge black car .. fasst..

when suddenly.. the car screeches to a standstill....... time is frozen in a capsule.. nothing moves.. but an innocent brown puppy .. gamboling along ...oblivious to its close brush with violent death.. the mad fellow thinks its all a game and starts to jump and play with the steaming but now immobile tyre.. Suddenly a passerby wakes up... calls the puppy away... the yuppie who has been sitting at the wheel, slowly awakens and soon disappears out of sight.....

So often.. we are like that puppy.. in our own micro world.. oblivious to the dangers that loom over and threaten us.. all the time complaining.. God where are you? Why dont you help??... While God waits patiently, protecting us, saving us and hoping that we awaken to the realisation of our self-destructive ways...

Human nature.... or rather.. nature displayed by 'humans' .. the less said about this, the better. Just yesterday.. I came across two polarities in human behaviour..

There was this old 80 plus something .. young cheerful man who runs a watch repair shop... He knew me cos I had gotten a wrist watch battery replaced from him less than a month ago. When I told him that the watch had stopped working because it was dropped, he was surprised!

He then spent a good ten minutes in bringing the watch back to life.. He peered at the minute innards of that watch.. apparently his eyesight was better than mine.. and then proceeded to carry out a couple of complicated yet delicate procedures with some strange looking apparatus before handing the now kicking, I mean ticking watch back to me.. Upon asking what his charges were, he calmly said "Five thousand rupees" Now, I ought to digress here a bit and let my valued readers know that I do not fully trust my hearing at the best of times.. .and after witnessing firsthand his obviously spectacular eyesight.. I had serious doubts on my own faculties.. so, I politely asked him again "How much do I owe you" and again he calmly repeated the same sum. I wearily put it down to his youthful sense of humor and handed over a hundred rupee note. Imagine my surprise when he says "I said Five thousand rupees" Now, I was getting a little irritated, cos I had a dozen errands to run before I could reach home, and here was this Gentleman stretching things a bit too far. I patiently waited with the note in hand.. till he laughed out loud and said.. Its my pleasure M'aam.. no charges... I walked out with a smile, blessing his soul (worth much more than the few rupees he might have charged me)

My next stop was a silver jewellery store. Here I was served by a young couple who apparently owned the shop. I was looking for a silver bracelet, and this lady was extremely watchful. The moment I picked up one piece, the rest she would gather together and immediately lock away. Finally, inspite of all the hide-n-seek, I managed to find a piece to my liking and after paying, picked up my purchases to walk out. The man however, insited I open the boxes in front of him to check that he had indeed packed the pieces I had chosen (costing a few hundred rupees).

I was amazed that he could not trust my trust in him!

Such is the nature of we the 'humane' beings...

Merry Christmas folks!!!!!!

Here is a Spectacular Space Photo of the Christmas Tree Cluster.....

Known as the Christmas Tree cluster, this colorful collection of stars lies 2,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Monoceros, the unicorn.

The cluster was first discovered in the 18th century but was captured anew in this stunning image by by the 2.2-meter Max Planck Society/ESO telescope at La Silla observatory in the Atacama Desert. The telescope was outfitted with a specialized astronomical camera called the Wide Field Imager and a series of filters, and then aimed at the cluster for 10 hours to get the full-color image above.



The swirling gas clouds appear red because of ultraviolet light emanating from the young, hot stars that look like blue ornaments on a Christmas tree. The triangular feature near the bottom of the photo is an area of gas called the Cone Nebula.

The brightest star, at the top of the image, can be seen by the naked eye. The furry texture of the light to its right earned that area the name Fox Fur Nebula.

The whole cluster is in a star-forming molecular cloud, and the area between the brightest star and the tip of the cone is a great place for studying how stars are born.

A great pic.. to wish you all a very merry and joyful Christmas.....

...

Time and again, history repeats itself, yet its lessons are rarely learned.

We are all too aware of cowardly terrorism, mindless violence and sudden death, yet everytime we are confronted with these, we are jarred out of our complacency; sadly, only for a short while.

Mumbai November 26, will soon be yet another statistic, yet another day we would all rather forget and move on. But, we as ordinary citizens, ought to be more aware, aware of the menace that pushes its roots deep before it explodes. We ought to keep our eyes and ears open and cultivate the tendency to be "Active and Aware Citizens' rather than mere onlookers. As we go about our dad to day lives, we ought to be on the lookout for anything that is not normal and report it to the authorities.

If only as much energy was expended by seemingly normal but crazed lunatics into doing some good instead of creating chaos... we would move Forward .. not Backward..



Those who have lost near and dear ones, whose minds are scarred can never be compensated enough. I would like to however salute our brave Police Officers, Our Army and Navy men for their wonderful courage and selfless sacrifice.

Childrens Day

Today is 'Children's Day'... yeah.. just another day.. for so many kids.. who unfortunately cannot be kids....

A friend of mine told me this.. today morning, on his way to office, he stopped at a local bakery and bought some hot delicous vegetable puffs. He bought a few extra, thinking of sharing them with colleagues.. However.. no one from his office ate them! This is what happened..

While driving .. he heard over the radio.. that it was Children's Day.. and as he was driving.. he saw some poor kids by the roadside... Down rolled his car window.. he stopped at the side.. oblivious of traffic honking behind him.. and pushed the bag into the surprised kids hands..

Wow! wat a nice gesture..

Maybe.. we cannot change the world all by ourselves, but every small gesture, every small act, every small smile counts..

So, what did you do to bring a smile to a kid today?

Guru Nanak's birthday

Yesterday, as I was just settling down in office, a colleague walked in with a huge box of (yummmm) kaju rolls.. Its my Gurunanakji's birthday he chirped... I said, this is a novel way of celebrating a religious feast! Upon which he got nostalgic and saidn...

Gurunanakji's birthday is celebrated in our homes in Grand Ishtyle... here all I can do is buy some sweets (he apparently purchased 3 kgs!)

One thing I learned after talking to him was.. the true Sikhs.. the true followers of Gurunanakji strictly kept away from 1) Alcohol, drugs and other intoxicants 2) Cutting of their hair was a no- no 3) Monogamy with one's spouse 4) And this one surprised me .. they were pure vegetarians!!!

Something new learned.....