Whats in Name !!!

Years ago , I said "Whats in name ?"  to a friend , and he replied "everything's in a name " else we won't have known its Shakespeare who said that .  Now why I suddenly remember this is , my colleagues had formed some kind of project team  and asked me to search /suggest a name for their team ( well my colleagues found me worthy of  that only :P ) . One of them said like Transformer or Gladiator, you know Hollywood movies .  I wanted to say "what do you think of Titanic." well I didn't as they would have taken away this task too :P. I thought for a while , "Does the name of project changes anything about it".

Does name really  matter ? In quest of this question , I realised if not names "surnames" matter . Eg. "Gandhi" , If Sonia and Rahul won't have been "Gandhi" , we  would not have been interested. Infact when I was in school, I spent considerable time thinking about which relative of Mahatma Gandhi , Indira Gandhi married. Only years later , thanks to internet and emails I realised , Indira "Gandhi" had no relation  to M.K. Gandhi. "Thakeray" , if you are the one , you are suppose to say "Mi  marathi" in every second line , and you get a berth of Yuva neta in Party.  Then we have our own bollywood ruled by Kapoors, Khans and Chopras. And yeah I used to think Anil Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor are be related :D .Taking it further , based on surnames we classify people as Hindu , Muslim or Christian. We  divide them in castes , Brahmin , Kshatriya , Rajput etc.
 
You might get an oppurtunity owing to your surname ( read clout of surname)  , it might define what you would do when you grow up, It does not guarantee success. Does anyone remember "Rajendra Kapoor ?" Also none of the Kapoors are yet as legendry as the Raj Kapoor himself . Similarly , having a Gandhi surname doesn't mean one has best at his heart  for country. And therefore there are People who create their own identities like Amitabh Bachchan, Abdul Kalam ,Abraham Lincoln and Swami Vivekanand .

 Not necessarily , if you name someone Amitabh , it would apply he would be a good orator  or naming a kid Sachin will automatically make him a great player . Neither a project would doom , if  named  as "Titanic" (the movie was major blockbuster :)).Nor numerology adding extra Ks , As or any letters to any kind of work and person would change the quality of work content or a person !!!

well I did find good names for the team , few of them were inspired from Harry Potter series :) .

I guess name is what you make of it , good / bad or nothing .

Mumbai Blasts

I am angry , very angry . Another set of blasts and once again PC tells us Indian Mujahiddin and Lashkar behind blast . Thats a real IB work , before Diggi raja figured that there could be RSS hand in it .  No, I am not being regionalist nor am being an angry Mumbaikar . I am being citizen of this country . I am demanding for my safety which is my right and the duty of government.

How much more I need to pay for being Indian. We know the havens where the refuge  put themselves up and  for cheap vote politics they get water supply and a ration card. I put up with alive Qasab whose expenditure is my income tax . More than this is lives of 100s of people which are jeopardised in these blasts and attacks. And what we do , We conduct high level "talks" with our enemy . We send a poorly made dossier to them and they deny it simply !!!!

When this year Osama Bin Laden was killed , experts  in India  were aware  of more attacks and proxy war . Then why in world the security wasn't tightened enough?  Why there have been eyewashes of mock drills ? Why we always face those age old problems of lapse in security and communication gap betwen ATS , Police , Navy and IB ? When the govt . is suppose to wake up from the deep slumber ? Can govt. please look into security matters after it gets time from salvaging its "coalition" issues ? I want answers and am not taking  no for any of them !!!

I guess now PC will say , we are an open society and it gets difficult to trace such attacks !!!!

Delhi , Mumbai, Jaipur , Pune and Banglore . How many more major cities are to be blown up !!! Time government answered us now .

The Story Of Govind

 Govind  was a little kid who generally fooled around in his small village . His father was a Fisherman. Once his father and other men from village went fishing in the sea and suddenly a forecast of storm was issued . Govind immediately set himself into action and took  a  small boat with Red flag on it to sea . The red flag was made from his mother's saree. By then the wind had started blowing .He went deep enough to be spotted by his father's ship . The fishermen saw the Red flag and returned to the land . Everyone  praised Govind for his courage, bravery and presence of mind . At that age ( I was 8-9 yrs old), I didn't think Govind was courageous ( you see , he didn't save a drowning  fisherman like a bollywood hero and yeah I did watch bollywood movies at that age and even today) , he remained an ordinary boy  itched in my memory for long. Since he remained ordinary , I wondered about what could have been course of Govind's life. After the display of his act of "courage, bravery and intelligence" , will he still become a fisherman like his father or his life would be set on diffrent track ? Needless to say , the story of Govind was a fiction and was meant to end there and with time I also understood that Govind was courageous enough for world to know his story .

Recently , in one of my readings it appeared that , in general everyone has a story to tell. Only  few have extraordinaire to be talk of the town..... and these people create History. We often call them legends and they become our ideals to follow .And  to make it among those names is a challenge and a wish too :). Do I have it in me to create an extraordinaire? Am I too late ? Sachin Tendulkar had started his international career as early as 16 but then Abraham Lincoln was 51 when he became  President of US and successfully led the nation during Civil war and bringing the famous 13th amendment (prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude) .

The first question is much more difficult to answer , Do I have it in me? Its up to an individual approach and attitude.   I have known friends who have turned tides to rise among the crowd when they were refused an opportunity which they thought ( even I thought)  were deserved and I equally have known people who failed to convert a challenge into an opportunity (and even these people are talented lots ) . Instead I found them blaming situations , conditions, other people whatever you choose to call an excuse. So where do I stand ,the answer is unfortunately second and yup I blame the world and situations too ,often.Not that I am degrading myself , however I have learnt that its better to remain truthful than to fool oneself :) . and I do have an option to get into category first kind :) .

On a signing off note , I am leaving few websites below which I read often and are in no way inspirational ( they are for fun , laughter and entertainment and not to be taken seriously).

www.fakingnews.com
www.flyyoufools.com
www.gkhamba.com

Vanita

PS: Didn't provide a link for Tendulkar as I assume everyone knows him for his work :):)

The Special Trip to Vadodara -Part II

Those who read the earlier post, now know that  we had wrong ticket for  right train. The moment we discovered that ticket is wrong , Mangu ran out of the compartment to check the name . There was list put up outside every compartment , Mangu cross checked it and naturally our name were not on the list .I had followed Mangu ,Manju was wide awake and tight lipped . Apala still trying to figure out  what exactly happened.  I came back to take wallet and took some additional money ( By now Apala had figured out and was visibly shocked and surprised !! ). I think only 10 minutes were  left for train to leave.

Mangu and I made our way to a "ticket counter" through platform which was full of consignments which were to be uploaded and I guess some would have been unloaded .  When  we reached the counter , to our shock and visible surprise counter had been moved to far end of the terminus in newly constructed building. The idea was to buy ticket of general compartment and then take a new ticket of sleeper coach from ticket checker once we board. We knew we wont be able to make it to the other end and get on the board . Mangu called Manju and told her to get off the train along with the bags.

Mangu, Manju , Apala and me  were at Bandra Terminu at 11:45 PM. Let me describe Bandra terminus at that hour. There was a maalgadi , few taxis which were parked  after the day's work and few autos. Bandra local station is 1 km away and I think the last local train is at 1:00 A.M. The road was empty and atleast not pitch dark . I must add , Bandra station is very well surrounded by slum dwellers. If you ask me if I were feeling safe , the answer is , I wasn't even thinking about it . We first took an auto and reached terminus building. Mangu went to enquiry counter and asked if there is another train. No prizes for guessing , Dehradun express was last train to leave from Bandra. The train gave  siren of leaving the platform. We all looked at train leaving a platform with appealing eyes (there goes our train :( ). There we were , train gone leaving us behind .

We quickly got into action trying work out the options . Since we are professionals nad are working from past few years in industry and are well respected among colleagues for our knacks , wits and intelligence we never gave a thought to give up the idea of going to wedding. The options we had were either hire a car or take a bus. Highway developments in India have offered great options to mail trains i.e , travel buses and car. And yes you have companies which have created brands in travel . It was midnight and we knew  even the bus option might be little  unavailable.

Mangu called up Justdial took the no. of Neeta Volvo and other travels . Meanwhile we had return tickets booked through Redbus.in ,tried their no. too . We furiously tried  the nos , whichever nos were reached ( some of them didn't even pick up :( ) , travel agents told us that the last bus has already left Borivali . Manju called up her husband to take his suggestions . Apala said if we could get to Vapi , we may have some option. I guess Manju and Mangu were equally puzzled as I was at this statement.  But we were too busy to comment . What Apala  meant was we can take a cab till Vapi and from Vapi we may get some option.We reminded her , it may not be safe. Mangu said she checked with Neeta Volvo , they have a bus coming from Goa , will reach Borivali at 1.00 a.m . We knew it was too uncertain. The idea of  standing on highway at 1.00 AM wasn't inviting too. She said lets keep trying with other travels and I said I knw a hire a cab fellow from office who may give the cab. I wasn't expecting cab fellow to pick up the call . He did. I explained him the situation, he said he can give a vehicle. I said thts great however there was a hitch. He said charges  would be to and fro (this was the most expensive option ). I explained I already have return tickets and I cant cancel them as there wont be any refund . I knew he was right, thts how it works . I said , gimme 15 mins to confirm.

 We knew standing at terminus wont resolve our problem at hand. I looked at Mangu and Manju , the options we had is go to either Andheri or Borivali Highway .It  was difficult to predict where we would get bus.  All this conversation among us was  at high pitch and volume. The Railway staff and fellow auto stand drivers  heard the conversation for free !!!!  ......  ( high entertainment drama for free) .  We approached the auto driver who was standing in a group of auto drivers .  Before we could say anything , he said , I can get  the bus tickets for you. Where do you want to go ? We said Vadodara , He said I will charge 450 bucks as fare upto  Borivali . Since I do the most of the travelling part in this part of the city , every one looked at me expectantly. Frankly it was difficult to decipher how much he was overcharging ( he was overcharging for sure ) . As it was already past 12  ( fare is 1.5 times ) and the auto fare had increased jus six month before.  That day my gut feeling was actual fare could be anywhere around 300-350 , if we took metered auto (After 3 more months I realise reter won't have charged us beyond 250 :( ) . While I was working on this part so we could negotiate , Manju countered whats the guarantee we will get the tickets . The driver replied , if you don't get tickets , I won't charge you a single penny .  Now that's a stake out .   Then he said since you ar 4 people , you need to take two autos and the charges would be 650. Later part obviously came upon enquiry.  I am an experienced auto rickshaw traveller ( I take a lot of pride int :D) , I said  assertively, we are girls and we had like to be together . We take a single auto. Auto fellow already knew he has squeezed enough ,agreed.

On the way he said , I think you can get bus at Andheri highway itself but charges will remain same.  For the first time I knew , we are going to pay highest charges for an auto upto Andheri . It fell in place , in Mumbai networking works , the auto fellow  probably is used to passengers like us . Passengers who would looki for a last moment ticket , in emergency and with wrong tickets :| . He  had tie up with travel agents who  would give him a commission and he took it form us too in terms of charges .  Rest went as predicted, we got tickets on Andheri highway , bus was expected in 10 minutes and it came. I wanted to negotiate with the fellow , however my temper prevented me from reasoning out. He was adamant over 450 bucks which Mangala paid him ( she  likes to adhere to terms of contract ) . Later I told her he charged us heavily , she said she knows but atleast now we are traveling comfortably and without worrying.

Once we settled , Manju said we get good Pav Bhaji ( road side , obviously) at Borivali station . I said yeah I am already feeling famished . And for the first time during the night I asked who booked tickets . Manju said , Kinjal booked it . I sank in the recliner seat, for two reasons , one, she was getting married and hence needed to keep quiet and she had done one smart thing , she had forwarded tickets to all of us as soon as she booked it . I had specifically opened it checked all details like the train, time, names and gender except the date :) . It was almost 1:30 a.m when everyone drowsed to sleep.

In morning we called Kinjal , explained her in brief what happened and she directed us to "Vivah sthal" :) .

The special trip to Vadodara

 As I have mentioned everyone in my age group is planning to get married , or getting engaged or by now is possibly already married . Kinju  was also looking for a good life partner . By gujju standards  she was quite late to get married. I mean in general trends , girls of her age in Gujrat were  married and would have one kid in nursery .As usual her parents were worried  and seeing her parents worried and stressed , she was worried. Kinju is smart , intelligent and will be a very good home maker ...

In May 2010 she went to celebrate her birthday to Ahemdabad , and returned with a ring in index finger . Yes !!!  she found her match in Harshil and she is happy .Hence we were happy too for her. Here "we" indicates  Manju , Mangu and me :) . Since Kinju was getting married , it went without saying tht we would attend her wedding in November at Vadodara . We started to plan in "May" itself   ( Planning early helps....:D ). Mangala said , "we will book early air tkts for one way and by train for one way . We will save time and money and will get to attend maximum of her wedding. "  I agreed ( which I always  do ) . Manju  , however had certain task to complete and there was no specific deadline . Hence we decided to postpone plan for a  while and meanwhile we got busy in our prospective lives.

Around July -August , one of the grandparents of Kinju or Harshil passed away . It looked like the wedding would have to be postponed.  Kinju was really worried . Already the wait was quite long for her ( From May to November ) and since Harshil  was working overseas , it was quite difficult for him too  ( I guess he understood her feelings and was not in a position to completely pacify her ).  Soon the clouds of doubts were cleared ( Kudos to Harshil) , and it was announced that wedding is on track.

The wedding was 28th Nov . In September we naturally ruled  out travelling by air , as it would have been very expensive( though we do sometimes behave like high fliers as if we are CEOs , we knew our pockets wont afford it ) .  It was almost third week of September when I spoke to Kinju. I told her one more friend of mine is getting married on 30th at Jalgaon. She asked me what am I going to do . I said I want to attend both the weddings .  Then me , Manju and Mangala spoke again about the modalities of travelling .Somehow by end of October , we decided to go on 27th Night return 29th morning . I checked if I could go directly to Jalgaon from Vadodara . There was a train in afternoon , however  I developed cold feet of travelling alone to unknown location (  I do travel alone sometimes :) ). Since I have never travelled to Jalgaon earlier, I decided to be back in Mumbai on 29th and go with the second set of frnds to Jalgaon.

The tkts were booked by Kinju for 27th night and 29th morning ( amidst all the confusion and urgent -important works of office ) for all of us and Apala  .  Apala is also known acquaintaince to us and a good friend of Kinju . Return was planned on 29th , Apala was taking an early train as she wanted to join office . Manju , on 26th  informed that there is some legal work related to her newly bought house she needs to complete on 29th . Again we rushed to change tkts , Manju even contempletd of not attending the wedding  . She knew this would upset Kinju alot . So I booked return journey by bus , on 28th Nov Night  ( The option of train was checked and rechecked , but it was simply wasn't available). I told Apala to also tag along , rather travelling alone.

27th Nov 2010 , Me  , Mangala and Manju  reached Bandra Terminus where Apala joined us. It was around 2200 hrs. We went to assigned compartment . The train Dehradun express leaves at 2330 hrs . To pass time , Apala started talking about ghost stories.  She told us about the top 10 horror places in India  and google actually gives some ansewrs for this search criteria. I was amused at interenet and google . I did check on this later, its an interesting stuff . Then there were stories Kerala and Maharashtra. They were not first hand accounts of any of us . They had been heard over the ages and repeated . We also covered the topic of dreadful dreams.

We had reserved two middle birth and two lower Berth . Manju mentioned she gets a coffin like feeling on these berths . We set out our explainations on how she may not get the similar feelings (including how middle berth would be installed between upper and lower ). It was 23 :15 ,  fellow came and rested his bags on one of the middle berths and cheerily said "thank you". We looked at him puzzled . I coldly said "these are reserved by us ." He replied politely , "u might be mistaken they are reseved by us" . Soon two guys joined in. Mangala said "can u please check the seat no. and the compartment on ur tkt?" She is always very polite . He confirmed , he infact had a right tkt .I think Manju was quite drowsy to suggest anything.
The  claimaints seemed regular travellers , I mowed down a bit and said may be "I think the problem with IRCTC server and we should wait for Ticket Checker to arrive." ( u see I am the expert on everything) . Everyone agreed on this . The fellow who had annoyed us by saying thank you said "may be date of ur tkt is wrong "  well we didnt  agree ( How can be our tkts wrong , we are one of the best and sincere girls)  . All this while we never considered we could have "wrong tkts". Mangala who had the copy of tkt opened it and quitely checked the date and passed it on to me  . Guess wht it was 27th Dec !!!

and the adventure of the night began :) :)...... Contd.....

Agatha Christie Novels

The past  three weeks of New year had been little less happening. Exams in first and second week and an unrepaired mobile didn't offer much of exciting things . Reading is always a good escapade :) to beat routine .As I said in my earlier post that I was to read "A monk who sold his Ferrari" ,  and I did go to one of the leading bookstore to buy it . However the book was out of stock (Not my fault:)).The shop had some kinda sale, it was also end of the year . The people had literally brought down the whole shop. In that mess I saw offers on Agatha Christie novels .  Excitedly picked up 6 Christie novels and consoled myself to buy 3 only (concept of frugal spending :P) . One of them  was fiction which she wrote under the pen name Mary Westmacott and other two were Poirot series .

Its said that her fiction is not as good as crime novels. I seem to disagree . Her fiction novel equally offer wonderful reading as much a crime novel would. I read "A daughter's a daughter " which explored relationship of a mother and daughter . It was quite a page turner and made me to introspect my relationship with my mother . We grown up daughters seem think we know where her interest would lie (which sometimes may not be true at all ) .

The Murder on Orient Express and Hickory Dickory Dock , both made an amazing read in past one week. Poirot , who solved cases by utter logic and study of available evidence ,  was incredible. I may have known who was the murderer in both novels, however never could guess or reason  the motive . These two novels and also the previous one  which I have read did inspire bollywood. I could faintly recollect the scene's of movies of the 1960's era while reading.

Also now reading her first Poirot book "Mysterious affairs at Styles . One of the point Poirot makes it , even the innocent will destroy the eveidence if it incriminates him or her . :) Quite amusing .


PS : I would surely read A monk who sold his ferrari . After all its search led me to my favorite writer :) .

Number of Years

Shreya was standing by the window of her hall. She had just turned deaf on her mother's rant until,

"You wasted 3  years behind him," Her mother raged in anger and at the same time spoke in a  desperate voice.

Shreya thought, she always gets the no. of years wrong. Can't blame her, I never told her much. 

Just then her brother came and stood beside her and handing her a cup of tea.He asked,

"What's cooking here?"

Shreya smiled,"She always gets the no. of  years wrong."

 "Does it matter? "

Shreya let a sigh! "Frankly, even I don't know."

"What do you mean? "

Shreya kept staring out of the window, it was a long pause. She then said "I don't know if he even ever loved me, worse, I don't know if I ever wanted him in my life. "

He felt like giving her hug and tell her "Its past, The more you rake it up, more you hurt yourself," however he simply stood there silent, joining her to watch nothingness of the world.

As we move towards 2011

1st Decemeber  made me realise 11 months of 2010  are gone.......its the 12th month....... and next month it would be 2011 . Time flies !! 2010 may not be the year of significant happenings in my life however this still would be an year of  significant importance  . The year was of self discovery , analysis and in changed (I changed job) scenario I had spare time.This year begun with bunking office party for night out with my girl friends . I must say it was great fun and I had office next day :-/.  So the begining was cool... :)

This year also marked itself a place Sachin Tendulkar's achievments . He became the first batsman to score 200* in the history of one day cricket.

Then we had IPL season 3 in India . IPL3 redefined marketing and advertising strategies and expenses. (yeh laga citi chauka nad "xyz" super sixes  etc...) . It was epitome of commercialisation. Hyderabad matches were moved to Mumbai , due to disturbance of Telangana formation .  A full set of matches moved to Mumbai . Only after watching Semi finals in stadium which were also moved to Mumbai after bomb scare in Banglore and I getting tickets on last moment , it made me realise what a leap expenditures in marketing had take.  The once upon a time banners were now replaced by electronic screen and I better not speak about cost of tickets.
The mess which was publicly dug out between ex external affair minister and ex IPL chairman Lalit Modi was really shameful.  The mess as well the behavior both .

Then Rahul Gandhi travelled to mumbai ,  he travelled in local train  (won my heart ) and made me rethink over taking him seriously . Just I was trying to take fellow seriously , towards the end of the year he came up with comparing RSS with SIMI . Does he even know whats the history of RSS ??? and trackrecord of SIMI??? The worst part is  , he is being tipped as "Future Prime Minister ."   What does the "FPM" do , coins new term like "Hindu terrorism"!!! . I thought terrorism has no religion

Between this our government  did pass nuclear liability bill which will ensure in future we will able to meet our power consumption requirements throug nuclear energy .Also the necessray ammendments ensure better compensations in case of accidents (still low compared to other countries like USA) .

Meanwhile amidst all this , I did mountaineering in Maharashtra .I did climb the Bhimashankar and Karnala . It was good test of stamina and fitness .I enjoyed the breahtaking beauty of Sahyadri and Maval from the peaks . I  enjoyed these treks as much as the tales of Bhimashankar , Jejuri and Karnala .

How can I forget the CWG achievements of the players . I confess , I didnt follow the games however the achievments of Indian sportsperson  made me proud .Raining of medals did compell me to take look at the games on television . Saina Nehwal , who is no.1 Badminton player made India proud by winning across the continent .
Kalmadi , I must say is the guy who should go behind bars . It brought so much embarrasment to our country. The farce of games village and mismangement of finances making India more poorer :( . Guess what Kalmadi has a company to serve in Jail. Telecom minister Raja who made us poorer by lakhs of Crores . I want to see him behind bars too.

Oh!! I forgot ,  I did once again tried losing weight :) this year . I am not kidding . I do take a lot of pride in saying that I feel confident enough in my curent apearance . However after second look in the mirror I realised ,is it bad if I can look much better and fitter . After all its for health . I did lose some but not much . its a continuous process ;)

It was an interesting  ride of sports ,politics and my life and my views on it (my blog) this year. Hope to see much better things in future . As the year is reaching its end , yet again there is much more curiosity about the new year and I hope it brings a lot of happiness &  prosperity for everyone . :) :)

The Monk Who Sold The Ferrari

How many times does it happens , that a friend highly recommends a book and tells you to buy the book. It happens , its normal. We often go and buy such books , what if recomended book is not what you would want to read .  Something like that did happen to me .I told my friend , will check about it .She was persistent, told me , you must buy it ASAP , its very good . I said, yeah sure. Then a follow up call came , Did you buy the book?  I said , not yet . Then the friend asked  whats stopping you ? go go , buy the book . And yes the friend is dearest to me ,  I promised that I would surely buy the book. 

Thats what happens to people (In this case my friend )  when they read "The Monk who sold the Ferrari "  by Robin Sharma.

I was with my friend when she had bought the book . She has been buying self help books for an year now . I am one of those people who discourage people from buyig "self help/management" books. I think investing in self help books as one of the most boring ideas. I find self help/management  books uninteresting , not a page turner sorts etc . However  these books could give very good insights on varied subjects. I am aware of people , who say books like Alchemist and who moved my cheese have changes their perspective of life . Too heavy to digest . It isn't that I haven't read  any self help books. I have read two books and both had been good..

When I read Rich Dad Poor Dad which encourages you to make investments , I painfully became aware of  the fact I actually have a zero saving till date and since then I  have been seriously working on my savings ; well almost . I have also read "How To Lose Your Weight " by a dietitian Rujuta Divekar the book make not you lose weight , however it gives good insights to curb craving habits , eat when you are hungry and train your stomach. It also advises to read the calorific value and the % of fat while eating/choosing packaged food . I was atnoished to find out one of the leading brands of digestive biscuits which claim to be good  for health and fitness contain 25 % of saturated fat .

However I have failed to complete both the books . After a point I  found Rich Dad Poor Dad complicated and the second one started to bore me.

I do have an option of not buying the book . However , as I mentioned , she is dearest to me so I should respect her view and would not want to disappoint her . Her "persistance" has also generated a certain  amusement to me.

With these mixed feeling I am would buy "The Monk Who Sold The Ferrari " by Robin Sharma , read it and let the world know if this  book is any good..... :) :) ( The way my friend has marketed to buy book , it ought to be good :) ) .

Vanita :)

Sometimes its about life

Two weeks back I got an oppurtunity  to watch Ranbir Kapoor & Priyanka Chopra starrer Anjana Anjani . Given a choice I may not have seen the movie as neither both of them as cult actors and nor the movie  got any rave reviews.The movie is about two characters , who want to suicide . Apparently they both suffer a setback , Ranbir professionaly  and Priyanka emotionaly .Contrary to my perception of idea I liked the concept and  decided to explore the subject of Suicide.

The suicide rates were quite high in the area where we lived .I have clsoely seen/known people who took suicide as an option to their problems. The most prominent was  15 year old boy , who hung himself  to ceiling. He was my classmate who had dropped and was two classes behind. He was an average kid who was like any other kid. He was loved and wanted in a family . It was year of 1999 ( I remember it because I was in XII std.) , when he died .  The reason to suicide , he wanted to watch DD2 . His small request was ignored, and then what struck him,only god would know . He went in other room ,  hung himself to ceiling fan. When the parents realised  that what had taken place, they tried everybit to save him . But it didn't work . The windows were grilled & door didn't break . The eyewitnesses said the boy didn't want to die . He suffered to live in his last moments. That day  unknowingly I learnt one lesson of life,  "life is god gift and death isn't."

The teachers at our school felt it was necessary to imbibe that suicide is for coward mind. Life will always throw up challenges ,and one should always face them.I am thankful to them , as every time I faced a problem , the teacher's words would come to rescue and I had face the challenge with fulll strength . With time I also learnt its the stress and emotional breakdown due to crisis which leads to suicide .

A survivor of suicide told me, it was a foolish act . Her exact words were "I want to achieve so much in life. There is so much to do . She said I want to be a model, actor and at the same time rule the corporate world. I want to give back to society what I earn and so on. " when I asked her what led her to the act , she replied "impulse" and then I asked "what impulse?" she simply said "feeling of not wanted ." She confessed it was weired thought.

I read in one of the articles in Times , "Crisis" makes or break you . Its up to you , how you handle it . The "down and out " situation tests you strength to endure pain. If you are lucky there are people to support you in the recoveryand if you aren't  , must  fight back to recover.

Its possible sometimes things may not work as we had planned since life plans for us a bit differently .

Suicide is never an option, life is. :) :)

Vanita

A clean Sweep

I had been dying to write about the latest adventures of Indian Cricket. We had a clean sweep at Australia in test match series in India. We won the series by 2-0 yesterday. In last decade India nad Australia have grown to be Arch rivals . Stats will definitely show how much grit Indians have shown while playing Australians. I read in one of the interviews where Ricky Ponting said ,"if you ask them, they're a bit flattered by that result."  Of course we are and the cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar himself said ,"Beating a top side like Australia is a remarkable achievement and it means a lot to all of us."  Well still lot of arrogance in our rival captain whose team slumped to no. 5 ranking  and I guess he still has alot to learn from this old country where every rival is treated with respesct.

In the first match at Mohali the victory was sealed by VVS Laxman and Ishant Sharma . VVS played with a sore back . When asked about pain he simply said , "When your mind goes away from pain and towards a goal...it helps" . Truly Inspiring . Ishant Sharma who was injured too stood tall  to play a supporting role. Of course there was lot of chaos , desperation on Australian side who let six by runs in the end for win....

After the first win , we knew the second one is even going to be tougherr......

In the second match at Banglore our dear Tendulkar completed  6th double century & put India in a safer  position. The debutant Chetshwar Pujara who had been playing consistent domestic cricket was out on 4 runs on a wonderful delivery from Mitchell Johnson who also played very well in both matches. Everyone had pity for Pujara , i.e, he may not get a chance again to play International match . However as they say destiny had some other plans . He along with Murali Vijay a put a up good partnership stand and later went onto make 72 runs himself. Murali also hit a debut century while playing along with Tendulkar in fist innings while chasing 476.

Australians played very well beyond doubt. We just out played them .....