Fearless!!

As a child I ventured into many adventures that could well be termed bizarre..

One such occurrence was narrated by my mom recently.. I had just learnt to walk, after months of toddling around. The three most common actions you will find toddlers do, when you give them an object 1.) some just gape at it with saliva dangling from their mouth 2) some instantaneously take it to their mouth 3) some just fling the thing away as far as they could.. I was the third type. So when my mother handed me an emptied bottle, instinctively I let it fly from my house balcony. The bottle landed perilously close to a small monkey near a tree in front of our house. This enraged the bigger mother monkey.. The big monkey walked boisterously towards me and took hold of my shirt. The close proximity of the big beast made me scream my lungs out in terror. Neighbors came running armed with sticks and tree branches to rescue me from the big monkey. Just goes to show how a child can stand in the eye of the storm without batting an eye-lid. When the big monkey approached me, I faced it fearlessly. But once it wrested its hands on my shirt (my possession) , I just couldn’t digest it and let out a loud scream.. Typical childishness!!!

An Impossible Sprint???

i still vividly remember the day . I was in my 6th class. it was mid october when we had our school sports meet. The sun was scorching the already dry ground. it was the day when the track and field events were conducted. even at an early age i fancied myself as a good sprinter. But before that eventful day,never once did i put these skills to test in the field. So i joined the line-up for the 100 metres sprint with quiet optimism. The atmosphere around the tracks was hotting up with all sorts of murmurs flying around. Already the word was out that there was this giant of a guy , (atleast a couple of years elder than me) who would win all the sprint events without breaking a sweat. The crowd believed nobody stood a chance against this giant. i could feel the moral of my fellow competitors droop. I reinforced myself that mere words were not going to beat me. when it came to sports, even in those early days, i had a gumption in me "Nobody was going to beat me easily". Everything was in readiness for sprint.. the 100 meter sprint is the most glamorous track and field event.. onlookers had crowded alongside the tracks to catch a glimpse of the event.. I (the under dog)was to run in Lane 4. The giant guy ,( the favourite) was in Lane 3. Moments before the race, i was warming up in my lane, when i felt the enormity of the situation in front of me. Standing alongside me warming up in Lane 3 was a guy who was atleast a foot taller than me with a fully toned athletic physique. A thought crossed my mind "How am i going to beat this guys long strides with my short strides?". But the next moment, i refocussed my mind back to the job in hand, that is to sprint as fast as my feet could carry me.. The Whistle blew.. The Sprint was on.. I had a dream start and was off the blocks in a flash.. For the next 13 seconds,with my heart pounding vigourously and legs pumping vehemently , i sprinted as swiftly as i could to reach the red tape at the other end before others. When i was about to touch the tape i heard a loud roar from the crowd. For a moment i thought the reason for the roar was the crowd favourite had in fact won the race. I had a glimpse behind, the moment i touched the tape. It was then that i felt the stunning reality of having won the sprint. I had beat my competitors quite comfortably. The giant guy next to my lane was atleast 3 metres behind me at the finishing line. The crowd roared their appreciation. The giant guy was the first person to come up to congratulate me. i will never forget the compliment and the moment for my entire life. The appreciation i got from a fellow competitor was the best compliment i could get. It felt like i was on top of the world. there were innumerable handshakes and pats on the back.. in the same year i went on to win the 200 meter sprint, long jump, the 4*100 and 4*200 meter relays. the icing on the cake was i won the championship at junior level and our house won the overallchampionship. since then i managed to win quite a few sprints at school .. But this 100 meter sprint will be etched in my memory forever for the circumstances surrounding it...

Kindness - How much does it cost per kg???

In today's world where material wealth and social status are becoming more dearer to people, relationships and their worth have taken a back seat.. Often human values are pushed under the carpet in the name of competitiveness..
People are so geared up to get to the top of the success ladder, often they trample upon others to get there..
The most important virtues of kindness and helpfulness are no longer evident in us..
We have become self centered in our ways... The race to success has blurred our vision of the life's most important human virtues...

If we don't make a conscious effort to reverse this mindset, then we are sowing the seeds for a gloomy future..

Awe-Inspiring quotes

Here are a collection of quotes that caught my eye while roaming the world wide web..

There's one sad truth in life I've found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.

Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.

Should Sachin retire or not??

Indians are generally never short on views, particulary when it comes to cricket..
Cricket has such a huge fan following in this country.. so much so that it is considered a religion and the cricketers are
treated as demi gods, which they never claim to be... following the early exit by india from the World cup,
there was a huge outcry for a complete overhaul of the
structure back home.. some former players questioned whether senior player like Sachin, Sowrav should make way for younger talent..
this started a huge debate among the cricket fraternity as to when a player should retire? the war of words among former players started playing out through the media..
Ofcourse, in this case, sachin is the best person to decide when he should hang up his boots..
unfortunately for sachin, his body is also letting him down time and again after close to 17 years of international cricket..
Sachin has to decide for himself whether he is capable of contributing to the team effectively..
afterall as die hard fans of the little master, we dont want to see him limping through the last years of his glittering career..
we want him to retire on a high, relive those young years when he played without the burden of responsibility weighing on his shoulders..
. when sachin plays well and india win,, its a day of national celebration.. no other indian in his lifetime
could claim to have brought such unbridled joy to millions of his country men as sachin has done through his wonderful career.
everybody wants sachin to do well, infact we pray for him to do well..
when he fails, its a personal tragedy.. im sure no one will forget the innings he crafted against pakistan in the 2003 WC..
personally, i would like to see sachin recapture the throne of the best batsman in the world in the near future.... im sure a billion indians will agree with me..
spoken as a true indian and an avid fan of the little master.......

Towards god's own country

as i had never been to kerala before, i was filled with unmatched exuberance to say the least..
we started nice and early from our home and reached the ever busy chennai central station.. chennai central as always
was buzzing with tons of people.. The frequent announcements from the railway personal and the rumbling of trains arriving and departing..
We boarded the aleppey express.. To our utter bewilderment we had been alotted a cabin in the first class AC coach.. The cabin boasted of cozy beds and plush
interiors and a personal wash basin too.... the journey to ernakulam was an eventful one with me and my cousins chaffering along continously till we slept..
i woke up the next morning to my first view of this beautiful place on earth - kerala... the scenery outside the window was breathtaking with innumerous plantations and tall cocunut trees.
and the houses with their unmistakably keralish architecture... it was a sight to behold.. we touched down at ernakulam around 9 AM.... we had our breakfast and started to
Munnar by bus.. if our journey to ernakulam was comfortable, the journey to Munnar was anything but comfortable .a sense of deja vu.. the bus we took was small in size bcoz as the driver explained we were
about to take narrow winding roads on our way up the hills to munnar... the scenes we saw when we started climbing the hills simply blew me away... the spiraling road took us thru some of the most amazing surroundings we have ever witnessed..
atlast after innumerable twists and turns thru hilly roads, we reached munnar.. munnar is a small resort town... one of the major sources of living in munnar are the tea estates which engulf the mountains nearby..
We were too tired to do sight seeing at munnar that day, coz the journey had taken its toll... i will continue my experiences in kerala in my next blog....