Strings... It's my life

I used to be regular TV buff during the good old days of doordarshan. Viewers used to get to see couple of movies a week, one being regional(say Kannada) and one Hindi. Those were the days I came across the so called party song "Its my life..."


Most of the movies viewed on TV were made in the 90's and early 2000's. As usual there used to be some kind of outdoor party as part of the college trip or so, only one song used to play in the background, it was "Its my life..." with early version being by Dr.Alban and later by Bon Jovi.

The lyrics is just amazing, it talks about how to live your life in the present. Words those inspiring are "It's now or never. I ain't gonna live forever. I just wanna live while I'm alive".

There is another album by Nsync that had some fabulous numbers. The one "bye bye bye" is true to life with its lyrics the title of the album is catchy, its called "No Strings Attached". Its quite nicely picturised, where song starts with all the puppets breaking the strings that are attached. while on the contrary album picture still shows the strings attached.



Now I was trying to go through the lyrics of both the songs and try and understand them. Its quite easy to understand its my life as it talks about the perfect way to live your life. The lyrics of "No Strings Attached" is not the greatest as it talks about a guys heart with "No Strings Attached".

I too in my teens thought that there is only one way to live, its my life. As time gets over our thoughts, you realize that your not alone, you have a family, a girl friend or a wife. so its gonna be "its our life" and its now "strings attached". Few dare and realize this and get away from these in their early age to have actually "No strings attached". For rest of them its gonna be a life long journey... which one gets used to it, as they say "if rape is inevitable, then enjoy it..." its easier said than done.

It's also quite possible to have the life with "no strings attached", many of the top personalities in various fields of art have proved it. I feel they have indeed lived their lives. As we are talking about songs, I'm inspired by singer and actor late Kishore Kumar, one such... good to read his biography.

It's to be like a clear dew drop on the leaf of the lotus plant, being the part of the slush, and still without attached to it. I'm part of it... still "Strings Attached"

Moral; how do we cross the river?

Recently I happened to see Ravi’s post on moral of the story. He has a very interesting analysis on moral. Makes everyone think, that there are alternate ways to get out of the same problem, not though morally correct for all.

I was looking at the recent activities happening on the moral policing. It’s quite gripping experience, women beaten up for going to pub. Also lovers beaten up at park by police as it’s considered not moral by the society.

Short story:
Many have heard this story I think. This used to be the story in our 4th grade curriculum. Please ignore the story if you have already heard it.

Rama is a farmer by profession. He is very well respected hard working farmer in the village consisting of a few houses. Rama daily goes to the field at 6 in the morning after his early morning ragi malt drink (there used to no breakfast those days). Since Rama as farmer grows only wheat, he usually bought ragi from market fair and his wife would cook the ragi malt for him and his sons Lava and Kusha.

Rama has been in this village since birth, he is like most of the folks in the village who followed many rules and regulations passed on from generations. The village had a group of people who summoned the defaulters and punish them according to their wit. There was no authority other than the wise group of people to maintain law and order in the village. Rama was later included as one of the wise people as he followed them very sincerely.

One day Rama along with his 13 year old son Kusha left to the fair that happens at distant place, they had to walk along for a day to reach the place where they bought the ragi for their daily needs. As the journey was long, Rama hired a donkey as the traveling means. The donkey was strong enough to carry one person astride. Rama made Kusha ride on the donkey as he walked along easing Kusha’s efforts of walking. A wise man traveling in the opposite direction saw this and said “It’s not correct of the young son who is energetic to ride the donkey while his father walked.”

Kusha was a good son, he realized his mistake, and he made his father ride the donkey while he walked along. A set of wise people crossed them commented “It’s not correct for the energetic father to ride the donkey while the poor son walked along. Rama was shocked by this comment; he got down and both walked along the donkey, as another passerby commented, “how foolish of them as one of them could ride donkey”, Rama was in dilemma now, he didn’t’ know what to do.

Then after thinking for moment, they decided that both father and son would carry the donkey while tying the legs along a log making the donkey up side down. While they were crossing over a bridge the donkey panicked and started moving, father and son couldn’t hold on to it as the donkey fell into the river below.

Rama realized his mistake; he thought he shouldn’t have listened to any of them as he couldn’t practically please all. Life is the same; there are so many moral police out there to point out your mistakes and correct you. Now what’s correct? How will we cross this river?

Money and matter... money matters!!! short story

Other day I was thinking of medium to be connected with god. I mean there are thousands of religious people (gurus) out there; whom almost every layman thinks is close to god.

I realized that i may not be closer to god or the supreme power, but just be a part of him. The way my thinking goes is that whole universe is him or his/her creation and i being just a small part of it. May be this is just the way I think.

Short story:
Raj is a well placed and handsomely earning professional today. He is just like any other successful young generation who through his hard work has earned lot of fame and glory.

As a kid Raj was brought up in the sub-urban part which forms to be the oldest part of the big city, I mean people there were not so well educated and belonging to the lower income group. Raj as not well-off would be more oriented towards money matters, hence perused business studies. He was brilliant; he gave business solutions to most of the complicated financial problems, though they may not be ethical.

In the vicinity of his dwelling, there was a place of worship, where people would throng in hundreds and thousands as they believed miracles happening there. People would spread the word by mouth that miracles continue to happen and any new believer would be blessed with fame and glory. Raj too was part of it, he used to visit the place and offer his prayers to the idol in the shrine.

Raj in his early struggling career days visited the place and was offering a new garland to the idol. The garland was very interesting, it had all brand newly printed currency notes of one rupee all stitched together making it a beautiful necklace for the idol. The 21 note garland looked awesome on the idol, all people around just couldn’t ignore it and were all praise for it. A young boy of age around 11 was next Raj and offering his prayers as taught by his parents, he couldn’t control his blushing and asked Raj “how mean! The idol is just worth Rs.21”. Raj was shocked at the crude comment he replied back saying “No son, it’s not about money, that’s the way I can payback to the god for his blessings”. The boy was a bit too confused and asked “should we return him back? I never heard this before! Does god expect that?”. Raj thought of explaining the business laws and tricks he had studied in money matters, as the boy left with a smile.

Raj understood it. Probably we may one day realize the business needs of our own idols and thousands of religious people (gurus) those close to so called ‘god’.

Truth about dung: short story

As a kid I used to wonder whats the use of dung. I mean whats cow dung ? is it of any use ? I just wondered. All I could say was dung was nothing but animal waste.

As a science student I learn't that cow dung is a rich manure used in agriculture, and not just that it can be used to produce bio gas with methane and can be used to generate electricity for lighting in rural areas. I just thought wow...!!! now cow dung is of so much use. Its science that has enabled to see us what cow dung is.

A short story:
Krishna who is now a chemical engineer happen to be born in one of those communities which worshiped cow. As a kid Krishna was brought up in the city life and he had limited exposure to cattle. In the neighborhood there was a small number of cattle that was brought to the nearby field for feeding. As the locality in which he stayed belonged to the ill-literates and so learned people, Krishna as young boy would be proud of himself that he learn't and studied in a school.

As a 8th grade school boy he was a topper in the school, he knew more than what an average 8th grade pupil knew. Hence the teachers gave a him some kind of tests in maths and science which were typically taken by the students of 9th grade. He cleared that by a mile, and hence was the most a brilliant student the school had seen so far. After his graduation in chemical engineering where is did loads of experiments in lab, he got employed as engineer in one of the top chemical firms, got married and had son of age 8 named Krishh(latest name ...).

Just when things were all fine, his father died. As a good son, Krishna had do all the formalities. After the funeral at the nearby graveyard Krishna along with family members returned home. There was lamp placed at the entrance of the house and just by the side there was a patch of cow dung. People who came back from the graveyard would come and soil their feet in the cow dung and entered the house. Krishna too did the same thing, as his feet got soiled with cow dung and entered the house. Krishh who was curiously seeing way things happening, didn't understand anything.

He just went to the back door of the house picked up the phenol bottle (a disinfectant) and mixed it with some water and started sprinkling all the places that was soiled by cow dung. All the relatives and family including Krishna were dumb struck on what Krishh was doing. Krishh also removed the patch of cow dung from the place and sprinkled some more of disinfectant. Krishna barely managed to get some smile on and said "I knew the chemical composition of cow dung makes it a disinfectant, hence can now be replaced by phenol, I'm just following our customs".

Without his father's influence as Krishh realized, we all may be able to clear the dung customs and traditions, once we understand it.

Question why?

Many people have written why they created their blog meaning a question concerning the cause or reason for blogging. Well I try to answer mine with some of my writing intelligence.

I have not been a serious writer so far, I even never thought I would be able to convey something through my writings, until I first tried my bit on writing. Sunil Koshy and Ravi(gurus) have been inspiring me to write what ever I feel. At last I got something to write...

My first venture with the ink was at the age of 14-15, those days all I would read are things like Nancy drew, hardy boys etc.. As I read and got fascinated towards more stuff on mysteries and more suspense and more whys? and hows? It got into my nerves as I would try vain to solve the mysteries by myself. It was a crystal maze out there as I tried to read the authors abilities to create mysteries.

In the end I thought enough of reading, and now I knew that these books contain mysteries that are not so obvious. Like the one you doubt will always be innocent, there are always clues left by the culprit which is ignored so on. I had plan in place to write a mystery and I created characters who will solve them(something like famous five.. crap)

My mystery book started with introducing of the initial detective characters and then introducing the mysterious letter sent to the detectives, which states something related to the detectives group. The interesting thing of story was that detectives have one member with in the team who is doing all this. I created enough circumstances that lead to someone outside the group. After writing for 35 odd pages I concluded that I had enough mysteries and enough people but no one to solve it, as it was mystery for me too. I'll still have to solve the mystery and find half written book though.

I mystified the story fooling myself, now that called for a blog to be started with the ink-ventures of mine.