TILL THE SUN SHINES AGAIN.......

The African Nation of Malawi has population of 12 million ….. 1 Million Are orphans… reads the site dedicated to raising funds in helping the orphans in Malawi ….taken up as a cause by none other than Madonna who is even adopting a 18 month old baby boy from the same place. For a moment, when you first hear this… what is it that comes to your mind?

And she is not the only one….

The cause is good, the thought is noble but do they do it out of compassion or for yet another larger than life image? An image of a saint… or for staying in the limelight today and for years to come? Is it the latest celebrity fad? Or is it just out of pure sympathy?

'Raising Malawi' is intended to, as its advertisers have put in colorful letters on its site … to bring solutions such as educational support, physical support, medical support and to create a sense of self empowerment in the children. It can raise funds with money pouring in from mammoths of rich people. Maybe it will improve conditions of some people and the self image of certain other people but will it bring love ? Can sympathy showered by these people through adoption and highly publicized programs bring love?

That love that tenderly holds your hand when you cross the road, the love that when you are sick, a loving and warm hand on the forehead seems to bring along with such comfort like a banyan tree on a scorching sunny day. That love, that a warm hug from a loved one can give which …… can soak up worries, making one actually feel its claws slowly letting go of your heart as hope quickly comes in, to fill up ,and heal the void, which its sharp edges leave behind.
Or to be more practical… is it right to say that something is better than nothing?

A loving look or a loving word from someone who was or is close to the heart can for ages lie deeply embedded along with other deep secrets that we keep locked up in the treasure chests of our brain. Which we sometimes unconsciously take out during one of those lazy days when time just seems to stop and everything else around us seems to fade into oblivion.

What if you never experienced these heavenly feelings but as a basic human instinct yearned for it sometime or the other …. To fill up that gap that resides somewhere deep inside .. but then there is no one to do it… to look around and to find just more emptiness around you …

Loneliness can eat you up….. raw, uncooked and bit by bit. As for these kids, hope does show its bright head like the sun that plays games on a cloudy day and in the form of goodwill ambassadors in search of fame. But how many will be fourtunate enough to have it shine on them like a never ending blissful summers day?

Nitya

CHILDREN OF GOD

Imagine being in the dark with no light, no food, no sleep and no peace of mind….Imagine your bowels melting to water at the very thought of being brutally murdered, gang raped or of being left bleeding in the dark to die….
If you really did imagine it and you felt sick to the stomach, how would it be for the thousands of fateful children out there who went through the same or are going through the same? The bitterness of seeing your own country turn to ashes , your family and friends being wiped out ,no innocent days, no shoulder to cry onto ,no games, no school, no laughter or a happy day to look forward to or even worse having to bear a child at a tender age when you are supposed to chase butterflies in the garden…
You can look at the eyes of these kids and see all the years of pain and bitterness.. such intense eyes at such an young age… there is not an ounce of innocence in it or is it there covered by the veils of hatred?

Sad to even think that somewhere among the reasons given for this type of cruelty shown around the world filters to ‘religion’! If not the reason, it will be there referred to by the people who do such heartless deeds! Think of it for a moment ….where is their shame??

I know of people who I meet in my day to day life who refer to god every now and then and sings praises of him but interestingly cant even ‘speak’ good of people around them… and that makes me wonder what actually are they trying to prove?

Who is the true devotee of God?

I once asked a particular friend of mine how much can he actually do something to help the less fourtnate,how much could he sacrifice from his life to help such people … why I asked him ,because of the intense feelings he showed as his love towards god and how do u show your love to god?…. So much that I felt he could dedicate his life to helping others around him….he was fair enough to say he still has a long way to go to do some thing like that…

Not everyone can do something like that…

How many of the so called intense devotees of god could actually wipe the tears of the people around them and offer them as their prayer to the Almighty rather than chanting them or projecting themselves as true religious people???

God taught us all about love….. but never any religion… think about it…

WINDCHIMES

Talking to one particular batch mate of mine today made me recollect some old memories back in the college hostel where certain innocent things used to make up our day and give us so much happiness!

After exams, coming back in the afternoon, lunch and then off to sleep …sleep well that is something to be cherished! Soft pillows, soft music, soft lights and 1, 2, 3 off to dreamland with no worries and no tensions! We used to do that… and yannis and Kenny G’s music used to be our serenade to dream land!During our first semester, when my roommates used to be Ashly, Resmi and Aji,it was always Aji who used to just charge into the room ,slamming the door behind her and screaming ‘Hi guys’, waking up us rudely from la la land , and then….. we would have loved to strangle her and throw her gagged up into a well.

Food…yummy food.Back in hostel, anything out of the ordinary menu, used to be a feast!It was a time most of us would miss our moms cooking and even value it! The famous yummies back at hostel were ‘Kothu porata’ which is minced porata with minced meat,onions,chilles… it was something adored by all! And ‘masala dosas’ and ‘vadas’ from vadakkangulam and the ‘ullivadas’ and ‘bondas’ which our patti used to sell during coffee time during the evenings. There was also self cooking once in a blue moon at remmys room with tinned and canned food, tuna, eggs, bread, pickles ( beef and fish pickles), nutella and nestle cream!! It was yummy! We used to try out all sort of food combinations! Remmy used to mix up nestle cream with lots of sugar and spread it on two slices of bread , and it used to be sooo ummmmm! I used to adore it! Try it out!

The eating part will need yet another space and I will be back with more!

Last but not the least, selecting two more from a vast list of goldies (my new term) are books and coffee! Talking about the coffee…. Nestle coffee used to have its charm in the ladies hostel in vadakangulam… it was also kinda considered like a five start treatment …lol! And it always used to taste soo good who ever made it!! ( I still remember my room mate amitha asking to call for an ambulance before she tasted my coffee in case something went wrong …lol!). Books …there used to be booking for books on who will borrow it next! Sometimes you don’t even get your book back.

And my favorite … a book with coffee and rain outside with the wind chimes slowly singing in the breeze( windchimes could be seen in almost all the girlies rooms) ….. And then it was heaven!

BEAUTY AND THE STEERING

I want to ask a question, how many of you people think that guys are better drivers than gals? Raise a hand please!
I guess I know the answer when it comes to what a guy has to say …those male egos!
Be it at work, a gathering, on the radio wherever, I can always hear a guy complain about how a girl and a steering wont go together and how they can actually spot a car driven by a gal from even the moon!Exaggration at its peak!
Maybe they are jealous, at fear that gals may take over their territory and then the world would seem so less colorful. I know gals do make this world look sooo beautiful.
I had my boss who used to brag about how he can spot a gal driver with his eyes closed… sometimes he could go to the heights of insulting a girl driver and I used to smile sweetly whenever he said that wishing all the while to pour his cup of coffee over his bald head.
I think guys are ‘rash drivers’. Bad day at work, girlfriend had banged the phone, couldn’t strangle the boss, wife wants to go for shopping etc etc and etc… thts the way they drive at times… in Dubai, most of the accidents are caused by male drivers and when u ask them they say its not ‘entirely’ their mistake but that, a female driver was involved too.. again!
How? well what I guessed is….. that MAYBE …….there was a lady driver driving safely and in speed limits and a guy driver behind her feels so impatient (for variousss reasons) that he drives on to the fast lane, speeding up his accelerator, and when he reaches her car turns to her to give that hard stare that he doesn’t see the car in front of him had suddenly stopped and BANG!
Or else a gal driver over took him and it hurt his little ego that he tried to race her and when he passes by her car turns to show faces to her ,din see the car in front of him and again BANG!

Or elseeee, he saw a pretty female in a car pass him and he goes on ogling on her and again BANG!

I could gooo on giving various reasons …. Ha ha

But in the end how would that make a girl a bad driver? Huh, huh- huh?

So guys, just accept the truth… period!

Till next time

Nitya

COCO ATTACK

This particular cockroach had got trapped in a bag.It was smelly inside and it was getting suffocated …it prayed to its cockroach grandfathers and forefathers that it get out of there…
It was suddenly that the bag opened and our coco darling got a breath of fresh air…a hand came in and it got frightened that it jumped on top of it….little did it know its doom had neared…and that also in a different way….

When I had first heard the screams, I did get really frightened …I don’t know how many of the girls in the B.pharm block remember that one particular night when Amitha and Anjana of ECE just ran out from their room screaming coz they saw a cockroach, and later burst out laughing :D..tee hee…it was thunderous...Lord Zeus himself felt confused as he had not planned rain for that particular night… Ancy had come running down all ready to help..I think all who came there thought some robber had broken in and were trying to gulp… do something to the girls….

Anyways as it was said afterwards…the cockroach it seems died of mental shock and cardiac arrest…..such was the vocal statistics of our tie can girlies… why need another defense mechanism for India,when we can produce natural man made sound waves of deafening intensity that can even you know …. Kill a cockroach… cost effective too…hmmm….

I mean even I hate those chocolate brown creepy creatures….is it chocolate brown?…sometimes it does have a colour of Nescafe without milk …with the sides having a bit of Nescafe with milk color..

It could get me to do all sorts of gymnastics … and make me lose all sense of time,place and age. Especially when it just slides over you leg and you see it and you feel like eeeeyuuuuckk…

My roomies Keerthi and Resmi had once almost killed me with looks ….no no no,not that type of looks, killer looks that says, “we wish we could kill you”, when I once disturbed their sleep jumping on to the bed and also out of it , when I saw this little fella…coco ..looks like he had wandered far away from home and was confused where to go …………,coz he was flying as if he din know where to go… maybe he had his daddy looking for him which reminds me of the animated movie FINDING NEMO which in this case would have been FINDING COCO…

Something again that crossed my mind was that had the cockroach been something consumed by us Indians , we could have had a great time catching them and eating them for free back at the hostel! Ever thought about that ??

Before I end, I must make a special mention about Shibi who loved picking up cocos in her hands and patting them on their tiny head and whispering sweet nothings in to their little ears…(do they have ears??) ,it was in her hands that our coco said good bye and died of heart arrest while amitha and anjana screamed their lungs out …. Whether shibi buried him or not is yet to be found out…. It is also to be found out if father coco came and took back his dead body !

So before you squish a coco next time,think about its family,his friends,his girlfriend who might be waiting for him and be a little considerate…


Nitya