https://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=NOIOMM_8e53d408

Now, one day lets say you get into a different bus, which takes a different route. Immediately, you don’t feel drowsy anymore. You are more aware of your surroundings, more alive and you start taking in and enjoying whatever is around you. True, you might take a while longer to reach your destination and feel bored. But in some strange way, you enjoy the journey, without knowing know how far you are from your destination…I don’t know if everybody feels this way, but I certainly do!

I think the same logic can be applied to the bigger picture as well – Life Everything changes: seasons, circumstances, relationships, people, the economy (:P), your job, your residence..Heck, even your computer has a “save changes” option. (Okay that was a sad one, but I think you get the drift..:P)

Sometimes, change can be good. It forces you out of your comfort zone. It makes you feel alive, and forces you to push your limits. But more often than not, it is preceded by or accompanied with a feeling of uncertainty, insecurity and a weird sense of fear-cum- excitement. Big changes can be extremely overwhelming. But at the end of the day, it makes you a stronger person. As British Novelist Arnold Bennett aptly puts it -”Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” But whatever said and done, there is no way to avoid change. You can probably stall it a bit, but not avoid it as change is the only constant in life.

Given this, I’m sure you would be surprised to read, how we actually ended up with a pet dog. Fluffy, or Puppy as he is more fondly known, is today the apple of everybody’s eye. He is the four-legged darling of the family and manages to steal attention wherever he goes.

We first met Fluffy on a rainy day in July, 5 years ago. We knew the vet who had him and heard that there was a “very tiny, cute little Pomeranian” there. On hearing this we just had to go and take a look at him. Mom was still reluctant.

The minute we reached the Vet’s clinic, we heard the tiniest bark. It was from little “Tony” (That’s what the Vet had named him ). He was this tiny little furball tied with a blue leash and had actually craned his neck to see all of us. He had the twinkliest eyes I’d ever seen with an innocent puppy look that said “please come and play with me”. He immediately started wagging his tail and I think that’s the moment we all fell in love with him.

The most ironical part was that he went straight to my mom! (Remember the dialogue, either the dog stays or I stay ). She immediately carried him and started petting him with absolutely no qualms whatsoever. It was as though she had lived with dogs all her life. (“YES!!” My Sister and I thought to ourselves. “Half the battle won!”

We were almost ready to take him back home with us, when “Tony” suddenly yelped. My mom was carrying him and she was startled. Later we noticed that he had a small wound caused due to a bite from another dog.  Mom and Dad were reluctant to take him and suggested we leave him at the Vet for a couple of weeks until the wound healed. My sister and me were very sad at thought of leaving him back there. In 10 minutes, he had already touched our hearts….

Initially I never understood or even tried to understand the lyrics, but that particular day, maybe it was because I had no company,the fact that bus was over-crowded with sweaty, irritated co-passengers and that we hadn’t moved an inch in the past 20 minutes, I decided to seek some comfort in my music playlist :p

It was on shuffle and this was the first song that played…

♪ {The last time we talked Mr. Smith you reduced me to tears. I promise you that won’t happen again}

Do I attract you?
Do I repulse you with my queasy smile?
Am I too dirty? Am I too flirty?
Do I like what you like?

Yeah, I could be wholesome
I could be loathsome
I guess I’m a little bit shy
Why don’t you like me?
Why don’t you like me without making me try?

I try to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I tried a little Freddie
I’ve gone IDENTITY MAD! ♪

And pressed pause right there…And I repeated the same thing 3 times over…

Now, I am sure you are wondering..WHY?

Well as I mentioned earlier, I have HEARD the song plenty of times before but that day was the first time I actually LISTENED to it

The song continues like this…

♪ I could be brown, I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful, I could be purple
I could be anything you like…♪

‘Do I like what YOU like?’, ‘Why don’t YOU like me without making me try’ ,‘I could be anything YOU like’

Don’t these lines basically reflect what most of us believe in? Most of the times without the slightest thought or even realisation we are trying hard to please people around us,trying to live up to appearances and expectations of the people we know, without actually realising why.We live off borrowed principles and values and seldom think about why we do a particular thing.We never think about whether we like ourselves.We never ask ourselves whether we are happy with what we do or who we are?From the clothes we wear, to the food we eat to what we say and the way we behave is all carefully planned around ‘What will people think if….’

Anyway, thats all the time I had to think about this because I didn’t realise that I had to get off and still had to push my way through a sea of standing people and yell at the driver to halt for a second as the stop had already passed… Enough to disrupt anyone’s trail of thought…

I just thought I should put this up here for everyone to think about.Until next time…

Title Source and Inspiration:  ‘Grace Kelly’ by MIKA

I am sure most of you at some point of time have read e-mails containing the following…But everytime i read some of them I really do wonder WHY?…Here are some of the best ones I have come across..

1. If you have your finger touching a rear-view mirror that says ‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear’ how is that possible?

2. Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

3. Why are they called ‘stands’ when they are made for sitting?

4. Why call it ‘take a dump’ when you leave something behind?

5. Why do sleeping pills have warning labels that state ‘Caution: May Cause Drowsiness’?

6. How do ‘Do not walk on the grass’ signs get there?

7. Why do tourists go to the tops of tall buildings and then put money into telescopes so they can see things on the ground close-up?

8. Why is it that you must wait until night to call it a day?

9. If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

10. If you mated a bulldog and a shitzu, would the new breed be called bullshit?

11. Why is it that if someone yells “duck” they are helping you, but if they yell “chicken” they are insulting you?

12. What happens if you put this side face down while popping microwave popcorn?

13. Why do some strings of Christmas lights have warning tags that read ‘For indoor or outdoor use only’? Where else could you possibly use it?

14. If someone says “the best just got better”, would you ever buy their product? Aren’t things always good, better, or best?

15. At a movie theatre which arm rest is yours?

16. If laughter is the best medicine, why do people say they died laughing?

17. When you hear someone say ‘Don’t believe everything you hear’, would you believe them?

18. What is the meaning of the word ‘the’?

19. Why is yawning contagious?

20. Why is it that the most important things in life aren’t things?

21. Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

22. Why do people use the phrase ‘Don’t piss me off’ when they are angry?

23. Why is it called research when looking for something new?

24. How come the snoring never wakes up the snorer?

And finally..

25. If there are 365 days in a year and there are 52 weeks consisting of 7 days each which equals 364 days. Where does that extra day go? (Wow,thats a thinker?!)

PS: I love number 10!

“Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.“

Two situations arise which make you realise how fast time flies. Either you are too busy caught up in your own life or sometimes you don’t do anything and guess what you haven’t been doing ‘anything’ for several months!

In both cases you can just feel time slipping through your own hands. Its always something like ‘I am too busy today, I will meet him over the weekend.’ or ‘I will take guitar classes after I am done with my entrance exams’. And guess what? Before you know it a week has passed by…then a month and then a whole year! And suddenly it feels like that particular incident took place in another lifetime! Or you realise that you haven’t accomplished the things that you wanted to in the time frame set by you.

But before you think I am preaching, let me tell you that I too have been busy (lol) doing nothing for the past many months and before doing nothing I too was ‘caught up’ in my so called busy life. So this is experience speaking.

‘I don’t have time yaar’. How often have we heard this phrase being used? But think about it. Since time immemorial a day has consisted of 24 hours. Isn’t it ironical that today with all the conveniences around us that are designed save time we still complain that we don’t have enough of it! Today our lives revolve around fast food outlets, frozen dinners that can be prepared in 5 minutes, laptops and blackberrys that help us communicate on the go and a zillion other gizmos.

But can you remember when you last visited an old friend/relative and had a heart-to-heart with them? Can you recall the last time when you laughed till tears came out of your eyes? When was the last time you spent an entire day at home with your family playing board games or flipping through old photo albums and baking cookies? Do you remember what you did in your free time before everyone bought a computer or about the last time you went for a picnic in the countryside and the drive itself gave you a ‘natural’ high?

I am sure for most of us the answers to these questions would be No, only to go on to defend ourselves by saying its okay because I was too busy. Hello… Too busy doing what??? Yes, most of us have college or jobs that can take up anywhere up to 12 hours in a day, 5-6 days a week and we need at least 7 hours of sleep to rest our tired brain cells. That still leaves us with 5 hours in a day and Sundays. Which if you think about still leaves us plenty of time to do a lot of things because you aren’t going to do everything everyday or every week. It just requires a little effort, a little perseverance and ability to imagine yourself being happy and content because doing these things is definitely going to make you a happy individual.

Coming to the second aspect of doing nothing and realising that time has passed you by. Well, I recently discovered there is a solution for that too! I graduated college last year and right now I am in between things as I want to pursue my higher studies. I am not working right now and that really leaves me with trust me A LOT of free time which I didn’t know how to use constructively. But as they say that you are only as bored as you tell yourself you are. There are tons of things to do when you are free apart from watching re-runs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. This is the best time to take up a hobby that you were interested in but you didn’t have the time for. You could do a couple of short term courses, learn a new language, dabble in film-making, learn to cook an exotic meal or join an NGO and donate some of your free time to a cause that interests you. It depends upon you! This is the time to introspect, discover your passion and then follow it. Because tomorrow, you may go back to being ‘too caught up in your life’ to do any of these things.

Hmmmm..Sounds difficult? Well it is not that difficult once you try to open up your mind to any kind of experience you can slowly try and become a self-motivated individual. I am trying it out and I’m loving it!