The Way to Victory

The new Golden boy for us Indians is Abhinav Bhindra. They say it’s the first ever Olympic gold medal for India in an individual item. Also this Gold medal was the price for India for waiting for 28 years, since the gold medal in hockey in 1980. Everyone is happy and so am I.

But there is something that we conveniently forget. Why is it so, that India had to wait for such a long time to achieve such a victory? The reasons that any one will put forward can be varying. Some may say that because of lack of funds or infrastructure or proper training. Or the authorities can simply state that Indian sports persons are just not Olympic material. Then there will be another group of ardent sports fans who may say that it is because our kids are not given the proper encouragement, at the proper age. I admit that it is all true.

But I think above all, what we lack is the heart to win. I happened to see the women’s archery competition. It was a qualifying round and when I saw there were only three more shots to fire. There was a contestant from Korea called Kwon Un Sil and the contestant from India called Pranitha Vardhineni. Two shots were fired in the order that the Indian fires first and then the competitor. The second shot of Un Sil was much better than that of Vardhineni and naturally she got a better and louder applause. After the second set of shots the point status was 99 for India and 96 for the competitor. But our contestant visibly lost heart after the second shot, probably by seeing a much better shot by the opponent that she fired the last shot without confidence and it turned out to be the worst among the three, while Un Sil did better than both her shots before and won the qualifying round. At that time the camera focused on our girl as she was packing her bags and the heaviness of her heart could be clearly seen in her eyes.

So that is why I said, what we lack most is the spirit in our hearts to win. If the true spirit is there almost anyone in our Olympic can bring home a gold medal, for all of them are equally talented. So it is not the training alone that matters. No amount of funds or training or even the state of art infrastructure can by a Gold medal, if you don’t have it in your heart to win. Our main problem is that our spirit is like the carbon dioxide locked down in a soda bottle. When the bottle opens there is a considerably good effervescence and after keeping it open for some time, there is not even a single bubble even if you shake it.

Our sports people, be it cricket or hockey or football or any other form, lose their heart with a single defeat or one wrong move and simply give up trying. It seems that we just decide that we can’t win. Some times it is as if we have taken it for granted that only China, Australia, Russia or USA can win matches and medals. We are a nation having the one sixth of the total world population and still we think that others can out so us. It is so funny, isn’t it? How can we forget the history of our nation where many of our forefathers never looked back or thought twice before walking in to the cross of fire of the British? How can we forget the spirit of people like Bhagath Singh and Mahatma Gandhi who never lost their heart even when they were tortured and beaten up? How can we forget the everlasting courage of our nations leaders who tried and tried till they got us what we enjoy today, our freedom? Where is that spirit of ours which makes us hold on to Kashmir? Where is that heart of ours which gives us strength to uphold our values and culture? Why do we have to lose more than win when it comes to sports?

Once I heard in a Page 3 News report that Tom and Katie Cruise was stuck in a hotel room in France for more than three hours due to a traffic jam caused by the arrival of Shahrukh Khan, that too at a time when their marriage had given them huge publicity. If a Shahrukh Khan can do it in the field of entertainment, why isn’t there anyone to do so from sports? Of course we do have Sachin Tendulkar, Sania Mirza, Vishwanathan Anand and now Abhinav Bhindra. But is that enough? So, what I think is, may be we should start the preparations from the psychological level. The encouragement to try without losing heart till a victory is achieved and to maintain that victory after that must be given to kids at a very early age, so that it helps them in whichever field they choose to follow.

As for sports persons, the true inspiration is believing in oneself. Just remember the dialogue in Chak De before the final match, “ Today I am not going to tell you how to play, you have to play your own match. You have to go out there for that seventy minutes and play. Once played, not even God can take back those seventy minutes. So go out there in the field and play your best and make yourself proud for that seventy minutes for the rest of your lives.” Happy Independence Day.

Being Bean and Ok with it.

I love to watch cartoon network and POGO. Apart from my favorite cartoons like tom and jerry, loony toons and woody woodpecker, I religiously watch Mr. Bean. Although the episodes have been repeatedly telecasted over the years, I still love to watch the show. I don't like the animated version, because Mr. Bean can be enjoyed only if portrayed by Rowan Atkinson, not animation.

I know many people who doesn't like or even hate Mr. Bean. But I love to watch him because in today's world you seldom see people with that sort of openness, innocence and ignorance. And it is ok to be among the very few like Bean.




Just watching him gives me an assurance to remain what I am. It is just so good to see him so happy being himself. He may seem nerdy or awkward or foolosh to those around him. In the show he is shown as someone who doesn't have any friends, but he is contended with the one friend he has, his teddy bear. Even that teddy is note as cute as other teddies. But he is different.

I am not forgetting his girlfriend Irma Gobb. Irma seems to love Bean, but he sees her more as a companion rather than a love interest. In one of the episodes she leaves him, when he fails to propose to her. Rowan Atkinson himself had once said that "Bean is a child imprisoned in a man's body". Like that he is happy with the child in him. He thinks he can do things in a better way than others. He is so systematic and tidy. He is a do-it-all-yourself guy and unfortunate enough for others, he often disrupts them.

Most of he times I feel as if he is watching us through the TV, seeing us laugh at him and I feel as if he is laughing at us for what we are, similar to one another, while he is so different. People are not always dashing or ravishing. They are not always intelligent and talented. Not all of us have enough common sense. But we try to hide our true selves and project ourselves as someone else. We want others to admire us. We want to be the best, the popular and the fairest. But we conveniently forget the truth that there is a Bean inside all of us and when we laugh at him, it is satisfying, because in a way we are laughing at our own inner selves.

Some times we try to work on some gadgets or repairs and we fail. What do we do? We give up and say "its not for me". But we never admit the fact that we want it badly and its not for us because we can't get it going. But Bean? He tries. He tries real hard. May be we laugh at his efforts, but they make him unique. His difference from all of us makes him really Special. He dares to be different and stupid, while all of us tries to impress one another and be like some one else. He is impressed by himself and he himself is the only person he needs to impress. Just look at the way he parks his car. Everytime he does it, he overturns or crashes another vehicle. But he is always happy by the way he parked his car and it is nice to see the proud smile on his face, when he secures the car door with a rope.

So, ask me, and I would say, it is not just OK, but its great to be Mr. Bean. No matter what you are, you will feel happy and contended and above all like there is no other Bean, there will be no other you or me.... Don't we always wish to be some one totally different from others? Now is the time, Be yourself and Be different.

From what To what!! The real train of thoughts?

Everyone has dear ones in their lives, like father or mother or sibling or spouse or friend or some one like that. Even I have many people who are dear to me. And believe it or not, even some of my foes are dear to me. It always confuses me when I try to find a reason why they are dear to me. At least once in a day I think about that. Still I haven't found an answer. I think of such things when I am in the kitchen or in the garden. And sometimes I think of these things while I go for rides with my husband, R. He loves to drive, be it a car or a bike. So while he is enjoying the drive I let loose my train of thoughts. And if I am not thinking and confusing myself I look around myself and analyze the the things that are happening around me. If that is also not happening I sleep.



Sleep...... Sleep is the greatest blessing to man. Its the most precious natural phenomenon. We may have hundreds of problems and according to me half of them can be solved by sleeping off. And above all I love to sleep. I can sleep in many ways, with my eyes open or closed, while sitting or standing or lying down etc etc. I love all these types of sleeping. But one of my favorite sleeping is when I am traveling. While I was studying for my MBA I had a total of two hour traveling in a day. The only disturbances in my sleep during those times were the ticket checkers and the well conditioned roads of Kerala. What is transportation through our roads without sudden brakes?



Even though the traveling at those times were tedious I liked the transport minister of Kerala during that time, B. Ganesh Kumar. May be it was because he was young and had unconventional methods to impart progress in the transport department. May be it was because he was full of sense as much as he was full of non-sense. May be it was because he was a film actor, and his face was familiar as a result. Of course he was not a lead actor, but a supporting actor. But the truth is that I always notice the supporting actors more than the lead actors. Most of them are both good looking and better actors than many of the lead actors, at least here in Malayalam film industry. But they seem to lack something, may be luck.



No! Don't ask me if I am lucky or whether I have luck. I am just not interested in listing out all the incidents in my life so that myself or you my dear reader is able to analyze whether I have luck or not. If I do so, I will get irritated, then angry, then loony and then may be my heart will just stop beating. And then....... I will die. I hate dying or rather I am scared of dying. I think it will be terrifying to close your eyes one last time with the realization that what you see at that time is the very last of what you get to see in this world. It will be terrifying, I am sure.



Some people are called terrorists because they have demonstrated the extent of terror death or near to death causalities can cause. One such terrorist is Osama Bin Muhammed Bin Laden. He is smart. If not how could he own the whole world. the world consists of people who love him, hate him or is interested to know more about him. See how he is still fooling so much people all around the world in spite of the intensive search to arrest him and produce him before the International court of justice.



Oh Crap!!!! Why should I bother while I have my dear ones and I am dear to at least some of them.

Life and hope

Sometimes when I think my life is being unjust to me, God shows a sign to let me know that he sees me through a corner of his eyes if not directly and fully. Every time when I am down something good happens and it brings a ray of hope and then I think life is not as bad as I think it is to be.

I may sound silly if I say one such issue is the tug of war between me and my husband regarding our PC. He is always busy working on it and when I feel like typing up something it’s engaged. For the past few weeks I have been feeling very low about this situation and today morning I was on the verge of asking him to buy me another PC and it would have sounded childish. But then his head office rang him up and told him that they have decided to give him a laptop as a token of appreciation of his good work. Isn’t it a good sign for me? I think yes it is good.

The above said instance may be a small one. But these sorts of solutions come up to almost all of my problems irrespective of the intensity of the issues. Dear friend, if you are person who knows me personally and well enough to understand me, you may think I am in a good mood today. Yes, I am and I hate to be in a bad mood on any given day.

Who doesn’t have problems in their lives? It’s just that nobody has the time to raise their heads from their own problems, so that they can look around to see what others are going through. Some does not want to see their surroundings, to keep themselves as the centre of their own worlds. But through the different experiences in my life I have learnt to live my life to the fullest, come what may.

A year back I was worried like hell when my husband had a lymph node infection. He had to take medicines for about nine months before he was hundred percent cured. But now I know someone my age whose husband has been diagnosed with sarcoma in the lungs. So I am lucky, am I not? This is just one instance. I can find similar comparisons for each problem of mine.

So I just want everyone to raise their heads and look around. Then only we can view our problems in a wider perspective and that will help us to realize that the solutions to all our problems lie within ourselves and we just need to identify them and many a times we may even be able to help others too.

N-Deal? Who?

For the past so many weeks the front pages of almost all the newspapers are filled with news regarding India's signing the Nuclear Deal. Many political parties are supporting it and some are opposing it. Some say its good for the country and some say it will be a mistake if we sign it. So in short we have a prime minister who is running around with a pen ready to put his precious signature and on the other side the whole bunch of politicians on a constant debate about this N-deal. Then finally yesterday the left (in layman's words, the communists) withdrew their support for the congress led government..... wait wait,.. I see you are astonished, yes communist parties withdrew their support to the congress parties in the parliament. But the UPA convinced the SP (Samajwadi Party) to support the N deal in the parliament and the tug of war continues.

At this stage let me ask you a simple question, Why is there a government in any country? To rule the country or in case of democratic nations like ours to lead the country. I think I am right. What makes a country? Is it just the geographic boundaries and the government? I think no. So to make a country we need the most important element the population. So what is this government doing for the population or in other words the "AAM JANATA". Again I will be right if I say nothing.

All the while they have been running after the N-deal the country's economy was going totally in the wrong way. That is DOWN. Even now the fact that the Inflation rate is in the 11-12 range and last year it was in 4-5 range does not mean a thing for the government. I know why. They don't, I mean not one of them, have to worry about day to day life. They get to eat, sleep and lead a leisurely life on the money squeezed from almost all the tax paying Indians.

So what if the majority of the population is turning even their last drop of blood to sweat to earn a decent living. And above all I don't know why the hell I am writing about these issues when neither I nor you can do anything about it unless all of us Indians stand together and raise our voices for our rights. For that all of us have to fulfill our duties and its nearly impossible since its a proven fact that unity is not possible in diversity (remember what we studied in school 'unity in diversity'), and that is something that our politicians and the politicians of other nations know.

I am sorry but I am just another voice in the tower of Babel.

(to be continued.. some day.. if I feel like it..)

Wandering Soul : Left with no choice

Yesterday I happened to see the movie ICE AGE 2 – The Meltdown. I wasn't watching it for the first time. I have seen it more than 10 times before yesterday. But it was yesterday that it provoked a thought in my mind. In the one of the last scenes Scrat, the saber toothed squirrel nearly dies and it seems he is going to heaven. All through the two parts of the movie he is shown to be having an obsession towards his beloved nut an Acorn. So naturally his heaven has acorns sprinkled all over and the best part is that there is a giant acorn waiting for him. Now in the movie Sid the sloth saves him and he's sucked out of the heaven. But what I started thinking was, if that was Scrat's heaven what would be mine.

The truth is I couldn't find an answer. Of course the first thing or person that I wanted to be in my heaven was RJ but then I felt a little uncomfortable to have him with me round the clock, since he's not required to work in heaven. But he was to be with me for a certain period of time in a day and the rest of the time he had to work, he is the first and most important ingredient in my heaven. Then I want all the animals in the world. All this on the assumption that I will not have to worry about feeding myself and them. So my heaven will be a place where I won't be required to do any sort of work, I will get my favorite foods, especially lots of fruit drinks, There will be Renu to love me and all sorts of animals for me to love with a special preference to all the pets I have loved through out my life.

Of course Renu is not the only human being that I want to be there with me. But the main problem is that I don't want any one of them permanently with me. Everyone should spent some time with me and then mind their own business. By the way I want a home in heaven and a car too. The car can be any SUV and the home should have a river or ocean by its one side and a mountain to its other side (A hill would do). My home should be small and cozy and I must have a laptop to scribble my thoughts.

Hey hey! It doesn't sound like heaven, does it? But this is a sample of what I want. And if these things are not relevant in heaven I wouldn't want to spent time there. Since hell is one “hell” of a place I wouldn't want to go there too. So I prefer to come back to earth. But if the oil and water crisis keeps on increasing, earth too is going to be something near to hell. So where do I go? So its almost sure that I am going to be a wandering soul, and if I keep on writing like this. God will surely decide to send me to hell, which I don't want to happen. So Adios Amigo!!

The Daily Diary

Today, as I was going through my journal cum diary, and i came to think of a funny ritual we had while I was doing my MBA. There was a faculty member of ours who insisted on making us better people, by teaching us how to manage our time and utilize it efficiently and effectively. And the method he found out was to make us keep a daily diary and submit it to him on every Monday.

Before starting this ridiculous practice we students had a discussion about this. Many of my classmates decided that there is no use in boycotting the order since he was a very important member of our examination board and we didn't want to lose internal marks. So they decided to bluff all the way through the four semesters and be saved from any sort of humiliation, because the teacher was very good in doing just that. But as a truthful student I was sure that I will be writing the truth. So that day, at night, before I went to sleep, I took a fresh notebook to start diary writing.

I had to start with something like the time I woke up that day. I was and is still am a late sleeper and late riser. My bus was at 7:30 and I used to wake up by 6:45. I would just get ready and go. But how could i write such an irresponsible action in my diary? So I decided to lie for the first and last time. I wrote, 5:00 am - Woke up. Again a new problem came alive. If I woke up at 5:00 then what did I do till 7:00(thats when i start to get ready.)? So I had to invent some thing that could be done during that 2 hour period, which will seem to be a very systematic and fruitful utilization of my time. My creativity started working. I filled in the space with unthinkable actions like reading news paper, studying etc. So again I had to write down lies.

Then it was easy to write the next part, 7:30 to 8:30 in bus. 8:30 to 9:00 reading room, 9:00 to 11:00 first period, 11:00 to 1:00 second period, 1:00 to 2:00 lunch break and leisure, 2:00 to 4:00 third and last period, 4:00 to 5:20 reading room, 5:45 to 6:30 in bus. And then came the next session of creativity. The next day again I wrote the same lies, and it continued day after day after day. Thus I too became like others, filling my diary with lies and more lies.

In between I tried to be more truthful and every time a got a hilarious comment written on my diary margin by my teacher. Its obvious that our teacher knew all of us were lying. But he enjoyed making us do something so stupid. Luckily the practice ceased somewhere in our second semester itself due to lack of cooperation from students. But I have kept that diary safely hidden among my journals. And whenever I go through the entries, I think, if only I could really practice what I had written down there, I would have been a university rank holder and a much more disciplined person.

Everything our teacher told us was write, about not wasting time, managing time and utilizing time etc etc, except for the one thing that we had to submit the diary on every Monday for him to read and I am sure he used to pity us for lying and not practicing what we wrote.

Gone with the Wind

When I started a blog, I intended to be a regular blogger and I even had dreams of being a famous writer through my blogs. But then amidst the hustle and bustle of my daily life as a "dedicated" house wife or in current terms, home maker, I didn't actually get enough time to fulfill my intentions.

I have always wanted to be a writer, that too a famous one. I do have lots of ideas, but the problem is that I am not getting the flow. I think I have some sort of a writer's block. Some people say that writer's block can be overcome by standing upside down. How the hell can I think about what to write when I can't even breath properly.


Anyways today I felt a little bit refreshed when I thought about writing. I think what ever block I had has gone away for better or for worse.. So here I am ............................