Ever tried...

listening to the songs that totally had your mind and heart during your college days? those days when everything was drawn in the sharpest and brightest of colors, and songs would express the deep passions of your heart?

If you try this, 30, 40 years down the line, they give you an instant spirit-lift...that is what happened to me when I suddenly thought of some songs, and downloaded them (bless the Net)...I couldn't stop giggling, and it was the most delicious, spine-tingling feeling that swept through me....(I can just see my DD's face as she goes - oh Maaaaaaaaaaaaa!!)........some of the faves I remembered and tracked were: Jawaani aayi mast, mast; Ajeeb dastaan hai yeh; Dream, dream, dream; Pearly Shells; Are you lonesome tonight......Lord!! I think only this sums it up:

Dil dhoondtha hai, phir wohi, phursat ke raat, din.....

So, where are we headed?

It is at times like this, when the heroes (and that clearly included the ladies) of our youth pass on that we need to review where we are going...

Democracy means treating all people with respect, regardless of any difference, the common denominator being that we are all human, that we all have the potential to rise above ourselves. While it does not mean elitism, it means the recognizing of the elite - as opposed to feudal, and certainly as opposed to elitism by right - as well as the belief that everyone can rise to become elite....It does not mean a pedestrianization of culture, or a giving in to the lower side, or the base side of human-ness...it is to realize that we are not Bollywood item numbers in creation, but have it in us to create something higher, and something aesthetic in every part and areas of our lives and the way we live...

And talking about Pataudi...

that's one more icon gone...

There are some people who impact on us - for me it is Gayatri Devi, Pataudi, Jackie Kennedy, among some other, who have gone...I use 'is' because I still hold them as models in my mind...models of all that is gracious and elegant, fearless and very courageous, stylish but not vulgar, eminently cultured and yet discreet, and never coarse or crude, different and yet down-to-earth. Some notes in their personalities have struck a resonance - and this has nothing to do with any tangible reason...it is something completely intangible, something that I feel....kind of sympathetic notes?...but there...

I guess now their legacies will sustain those who are seeking for a blueprint to living...

Sharing some thoughts:

First class is not a boarding pass, it's a way of life...

and, a great favorite of mine - Excerpts from a poem by William Channing:

To live content with small means,

To seek elegance rather than luxury, 

and refinement rather than fashion. 

To be worthy, not respectable, 

and wealthy, not rich.

To study hard, think quietly, 

Talk gently, act frankly. 

To bear all cheerfully, 

do all bravely, 

await occasions, 

hurry never. 

                     
Which brings to mind what Pataudi said in an interview. To Karan Thapar's statement that his friends thought that Tiger Pataudi could have achieved more had he been a little less laid back, Pataudi's reply was brilliant. He said that he was probably prepared to accept that he was a little laid back, however - and here's the reply of a formidable cricketer - 'how much more I could have achieved by running around, I am not so sure. I am happy as I am.'


Clearly, clearly something to chew on and internalize...

It's about their personalities...

.......talking about people like Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi.....

or about Rahul Dravid, of Kumar Sangakkara, or Lionel Messi.....

or whoever one admires -

it's not so much about the game, for me....because there is precious little I know either about cricket or football....

for me it is always the person...I keep thinking about what might be going on in their minds, what kind of life do they live, what kind of people are in their lives, how are they like as people...

it's also about the way they conduct themselves on the playing field...

it's about the way they play...the beauty of the way they play...

it's about the way in they handle success and failure on the field...

it's about the way they work with their mates...

Think of...

the most delicious improbables you'd like to see come into your life....

for......you never know....

there might just be some lovely possibilities there!!

Sharing....

the ravage created by the earthquake in Sikkim...









This about sums it all up.....desolation...

Something that rankled...

was a statement I heard: Oh her life is going down the drain...

Somehow, the words troubled me no end, and kept teasing at my gut...till it came to me that in actual fact, no one's life even goes down the drain - no one can send anyone's life down the drain, and certainly we do not allow our own lives to go down the drain...we may make wrong choices in good faith and trusting, we are likely to take a whole lot of wrong decisions unknowingly, and more often than not, may make a number of mistakes, some serious and costly, and some minor. Even so, there is no need to define ourselves through another person's eyes, or damn ourselves because of anyone's judgments and pronouncements or predictions about us.

Each life is precious, and each life is certainly going somewhere, for, it's never too late to: put things in perspective, start afresh, begin anew, and discover something beautiful, hitherto unknown, within.