Simple pleasures of life...

1· Waking up on a winter morning and realizing you have five more minutes of sleep and rolling back into the warm comforts of bed.
2· A warm shower.
3· Flushing a roll of tissue paper down the toilet and watching the roll struggle crazily for escape.*
4· Watching old episodes of The Popeye Show.
5· Humming “Jingle bells” to yourself at Christmas time.
6· Singing aloud your favourite song at top of your voice.
7· Hearing the sound of rain from your room.
8· Listening to your old favourite songs after a long time.
9. Listening to sound of ocean in a conch-shell.

* By this, I mean the entire roll. Put an end of tissue in the clean toilet and then flush. It's quite a fun to see roll unwind itself

Trying to fall in love

“Ahem”, asked the foreigner sitting next to me, “why is he constantly on phone?” The lady was from America on a client visit to our company. She was referring to my colleague who called up his fiancé at the slightest provocation.

“Uh, umm, he is trying to fall in love”, I answered. I knew that she won’t understand the answer and the frown followed by wiggling of her nose proved that I was right. Before giving her any opportunity to ask another question I continued, “Actually, he has just got engaged to a girl. He is trying to fall in love with her before they get married”. I felt I had given a satisfactory answer and started to resume me work, but the lady was still confused.

“Why did he get engaged to a girl whom he did not love?” asked our client.

“His parents arranged the marriage for him, so he did not get any chance to meet her before their engagement. He is doing all he can to fall in love with her and going by the number of conversations he is having, I think he is doing a good job! He will be in love with her well before their wedding day.”

“But the idea of parents finding a girl for you is preposterous!” her voice almost trembled with shock.

“No it is not” I protested, “it is so much better in life to marry first and fall in love later with your wife or husband, far easier and a lot simpler!”

“But dear, you don’t realize one problem, what if they don’t fall in love even after marriage?” she said with an air of a class teacher who has just stumped a second class boy.

“Not falling in love is not an option for them” I said with a concluding tone in my voice.

Love for Wodehouse

I was hooked to P.G. Wodehouse’s books from the third book onwards. It took me some time to get acquainted with his writing style, use of words and long sentences. Since then I have been acting as an unpaid marketing manager of Wodehouse, I certainly would have earned a commission from him had he been alive.
I love Wodehouse for a simple reason, that if such an attempt of creating humour with virtually non-existent story line were done by somebody else it would have been a plain disaster. Wodehouse did something to the words, which other authors could not even dream of - something called magic.
When someone asks me to summarize the stories of Wodehouse, it hardly takes me more than two minutes to do so. People then wonder whether it is worth reading two hundred plus pages just for that story, which is hardly sounded funny. I give them this reason: In fast-paced novels one does not get to notice the language, the objective is to turn pages as quickly as possible and get to the end. The meat, as Wodehouse would have put it, lies in the story, not language. Whereas in books of Wodehouse stories proceed at leisurely pace, the story line is humorous, but the true humour is generated by the language. One should read to books of Wodehouse to enjoy the language, appreciate the genius of the man who created magic with words.
If you are reading his books for getting a good story, you will be terribly disappointed but if you are reading them to ease the tension off your mind, to see the lighter side of life, to see how extraordinarily funny even any vapid situation can get then you will be in for a very pleasant surprise. Go ahead, surprise yourself!

Quote from Trial of Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak is known for his call "Swarajya is my birthright, I will have it."

Little is known of another of his memorable quotes, these are inscribed on a tablet outside Central Court room of Bombay High Court. He was tried and sentenced guilty for sedition and in the end he said these unforgettable words:

"All I wish to say is that in spite of the verdict of the Jury I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher Powers that rule the destiny of things and it may be the will of the Providence that the cause which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free."

Dressing Sense

Some people have an impeccable dressing sense. I wonder if it is their personality, their choice of clothes or they are just plain lucky, but whatever they wear they look good in them.
One of my friends is a lawyer by profession and a super model by looks. Every time I see him he appears dressed perfectly. This is true even when he about to retire to bed, he dresses in a manner as if he is giving demonstration for sleeping tutorial classes. “There”, the instructor might say “is the manner, in which one should dress for sleep, look at this person, he has managed to match the colour of his bed sheet and with the pyjama”. I wonder if he manages to impress the judges with his attires, unlikely, but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn if it were true.
Same is the case of a girl who I have seen only in photographs but never met personally. I have known her only because another of my friend has so many photographs of her that now he gives the count in kilograms, the latest score being 3 kilograms of her photographs. Imagine the survival rate of people who are forced to watch each and every of those photographs. Fortunately, the girl is a beauty and she is another one of those lucky people who manage to choose the clothes just right for them. Watch an average girl with good dressing sense and you give an appreciative nod, for face is given by God but dressing is chosen by mortals. Whereas if you see a pretty girl dressed shabbily, you have to fight down the impulse of calling the police to remove the eyesore. The third category, the one in which this girl falls into, are rare species of those having good face and good brains to pick out clothes. When placed in company of such finer sex a man can hardly be blamed for behaving like a clown. It is in such company that a man’s caveman instincts compete with his medieval chivalry and present before the general public a spectacle of never seen before buffoonery.
I can be shown in stark contrast with above two examples. I have been handed over ultimatums by many people about my dressing sense. Some of my friends just look up and curse heavens for sending me down, while the others have given up trying to train me – they have learnt that one has to face disappointments in life. After much introspection, I have found out what is wrong with me or my dressing sense. The reason is simple, I am plain lazy to go and buy new clothes for me. Nay, buying is an understatement, I am plain lazy to even dig out clothes from wardrobe, I just wear anything which is lying in front of me. So, for all those atrocities I have committed and will continue to commit in the name of poor dressing sense, my friends, I ask for forgiveness.