In the Wonderful Land of Oz

Candles in the Wind

2007-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

On the 16th of August, it was 30 years since the day that the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley died of a drug overdose. Hype about this anniversary arose to a maximum with news channels such as CNN providing constant coverage of the events surrounding it. There was so much of Elvis singing, Elvis dancing and Elvis acting. This got me thinking about Elvis, his music, his moves and his life.

In 1997, also in August, another great icon of our times, Princess Diana passed away tragically in a car accident after being hounded by the paparazzi. In tribute to who she was and to her life, Elton John sang his second version of "Candle in the Wind" at her funeral. Yet, it was never as moving as when he first sang it for the american beauty, Marilyn Monroe, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1962. He was right, you know. Elton John was right. All these icons, or stars, or whatever they are called, they are all candles in the wind, living short but eventful lives.

You don't even need to travel over land and sea. There are so many examples in our small isle as well. No one will ever forget the enigmatic Vijaya Kumaranatunga, screen idol, singer, politician, who was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 1988. The voice of H R Jothipala, the works of Premakeerthi de Alwis, the face of Richard de Zoysa, will forever be etched in the minds of Sri Lankans.

What is it about these people that make us remember them with such passion? What is it about them that makes people dress up just like them, sing their songs, watch their movies, year after year. We make documentaries, we create exhibitions, we keep memorials. Year after year. They are never forgotten, never allowed to rest. Their lives are still constantly discussed, pondered upon, snooped about. It's as if they are part of our lives, as if they are people that we knew from our childhood. But the truth of the matter is, some died even before we were born.

I think there are so many qualities in them that made them such icons. Their personalities are vivacious and attractive. They look good and most important of all, they had talents and personalities that no other human will have for another century.

Something I also think is that, the way they died played a big part in what they became at the end. Almost all of them died tragically. Tragic death of a superstar always leaves us aghast and in disbelief. I still remember my refusal to believe that Princess Di has passed away even though I was listening to the live coverage. We feel sad because these people touched our hearts with their immense talents. We feel that something so wonderful cannot have perished, and even that, so tragically. We feel sadness and sympathy, for the one who died as well as for ourselves. Through them and their talents, we saw something great and good, and we mourn for that.

Have you ever thought what it would be like IF they had lived? If they had lived to be 50 or 60 years old. Would we have still venerated them as we do in their deaths? Would Elvis ruin his life completely (he was half way there) and end up like Micheal Jackson? Forgotten, despised, joked about? Would Marilyn Monroe just wither away and become old like Elizabeth Taylor? Would Vijaya Kumaranatunga turn out to be "just" another politician who would be the ruin of us?

The answers to those questions will remain unanswered forever. Although a yes would seem like a likely answer for most of these people, you never know if they would have done what Audrey Hepburn did. Remain just as enigmatic throughout her life. Maybe Pricess Diana would have grown into a Queen of her own, maybe Vijaya Kumaranatunga would have being the best head of state Sri Lanka saw after D.S. Senanayake, maybe we would have still heard those famous words ring over the loud speaker at a concert hall:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis has left the building"

May all of them rest in peace!

Care to Meet the Witch of Portobello?

2007-08-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue. It was sometime ago that I had finished reading Paulo Coelho's latest, "The Witch of Portobello". I don't know exactly why I took so long to write about it, but here I go.

This story is the story of Athena, or Sherine Khalil. Always led by inituition, even as a child, Athena belongs to a universe of her own. Is it fair of me to say that? She was definitely not "normal" as standards go in society, but she had qualities that made her stand out wherever she went. Born in Romania and abandoned by her Gypsy mother, Athena is adopted by her Lebanese parents when she was just a baby. Due to increasingly violent political situation in Lebanon, her father decides to move his family to the sanctity of England. There, Athena grows up and marries at a tender age of 20, while dropping out of college. Following her heart by believing that it is time for her to have a child, Athena gives birth to her son at the age of 21. Yet, the situation at home gets more stressing by the day. Her husband, works tirelessly to keep the money coming to support the young family, while Athena rebels against her husband since she is not getting the attention that she needs. Finally, this tension ends up in a divorce.

Although she is presurrised by her parents to move in with them, Athena takes responsibility for the situation and moves into an apartment with her son, while starting to work at a bank. Her life is strenuous and monotonous until she meets with her landlord. This landlord belongs and accomodates a group of people who believe that music and dancing has improved their lives. Athena, who went to the first meeting out of curiosity, is absorbed into this world, because she discovers that dancing takes her into a trance and afterwards she is able to bring joy and productivity into what she does. She introduces this to her collegues at work and the management at the bank notices an increase in productivity. This allows her to go to the Middle East because the management believes that she will be able to induce productivity into their branch there.

Athena's mystical journey starts there. She meets a Bedouin who teaches her calligraphy, and through that writing, patience. Afterwards, she travels to Romania in search of her birth mother and is introduced into a world that worships the "Great Mother". She comes back to England, a woman who has found her past and her true vocation. Finally, she becomes popular as the "Witch of Portobello", because once she goes into a trance, she is capable of prophesying the future.

Although this is not my favourite Coelho book, it nevetheless left me amazed and thinking about everything that is mentioned within its pages. Apparently based on a true story, it captured my interest into subjects that I was hardly knowledgeable about: The worship of the Great Mother, witchcraft, etc. Behind all these, is a clear message that is poignant through all of Coelho's books, follow your heart, always be true to who you are despite what everyone else may say. My post does not end here, I need to say a few more words about the mystical journey that was the story of Athena.

I have heard (well, read) many times about the worship of the Great Mother. It is said that after millenia of male dominated religions, the worship, or the cult of the Great Mother is now again in arising. They believe that the Mother was born in the void, that was there before the birth of the universe. She is everything. She is the Earth (she is also known as the Earth Goddess, maybe that is where the term 'Mother Earth' originates from), she is the wind, the clouds and the rain. She is everything and everything is one. She is manifested in all of us. She was there before the first man took his first step and she will be there when the last walked the earth. She was known as Gaia to the Greeks, as Isis to the Egyptians, and Durga to the Indians. She is mentioned in all the old civilizations in some form, the woman who is all compassionate and a mother to all. Yet, as man established himself on this earth she was slowly forgotten and replaced by male gods.

Athena was able to touch the spirit of the mother, or, of the universal wisdom, when she went into a trance. Her path to this mystical journey was through music and dancing. Yet, it can also be induced by other methods, such as meditation. Many Buddhists have claimed this through the centuries, and some do still. They travels to different planes of consciousness and is empowered by a knowledge that is unusual to laymen.

Athena was able to help many from what she learned through her journeys. I recently heard of a story of a woman in Sri Lanka who has developed her skills in meditation to such a level that she is able to commune with the Gods and help those who are in need, especially those who are and will suffer from Cancer. This for me, stands out as a big coincidence. Here I have read an extraordinary story in a book by Paulo Coelho and now I hear of this lady who is capable of doing the exact same thing as Athena, although by different means. They belong to different religions, yet they speak of the same experiences.

In the old days, these women would have being labelled as Witches and persecuted for their beliefs. In Western cultures, this is still the case. The catholic church and especially european countries, during the end of the medieval period and at the beginning of the modern era, hunted and killed many women who they believed to be witches by burning them alive on stakes. This year, the government of Scotland, issued a statement to all the descendants of those who were thus killed apologizing for its deeds centuries ago. What was the reason for this manhunt, this shameful massacre of women in the most gruesome of manners? It is the fear of the unknown, the same reason behind all prejudice and discrimination, the fear of the "magic" that these women were able to incant, their mystical practices, languages and beliefs. Society fear and look down on those who dare to break the rules. This rings true in Athena's own words. The words that she uttered when she stepped up to receive sacrament at sunday church after her divorce, and was refused.

"A curse of this place!" said the voice. "A curse on all those who never listened to the words of Christ and who have transformed his message into a stone building. For Christ said : 'Come unto me al ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'. Well, I'm heavy laden, and they won't let me come to him. Today I've learned that the Church has changed those words to read: 'Come unto me all ye who follow our rules, and let the heavy laden go hang!"

To a certain extent, I must admit, shamefully, that I do not differ. I would be scared of people who talk of gods, who walk with angels, and who are able to predict the future. I would be skeptical and will keep a distance from those who dance unusually, who talk in a indiscernible language. I would be scared. Maybe that is why, our ancestors considered these women to be the instruments of the devils. Because they were scared. Yet, I also believe that it is our stupidity and our misfortune to think and believe that we know everything. That everything that society imposes and a religion preaches is correct and just. I believe that we are wrong, we do not know everything. This world, and whatever that makes it go around is so much bigger than us, it is so much wiser than us. All its mysteries and all its knowledge will never be comprehensible to us. We will never be able to explain everything, through science or whatever means. Because science, a product of human intelligence, has the same quality that we humans posses, the ability to error. So we must believe that there are things outside what we have being taught, what we have being made to believe and follow. Things that it is better not to rebel against even though we may not understand it. Once, a great man said that we must think and analyse whatever we encounter, we must not accept something just because someone says it is so, because society imposes and requires that of us. We must analyse it ourselves and believe what is right. That man was Lord Buddha, who, through his belief, attained enlightment.

Sir, Yes Sir!!

2007-08-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is how my dog Maxie travels in the car. In the backseat and in the middle! :) And no, he doesn't look like Yoda from Star Wars :))

The Enchanting Kingdom of Guge

2007-08-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

I am enthralled by Tibet, and I think I will forever be. I have dreamed of living in Tibet, but the cold and the food are the only obstacles I have to face (And they are big obstacles). So this documentary about a lost kingdom in Tibet really captured my heart.

In Western Tibet there once was the marvellous Kingdom of Guge. It's capital city is the town now known as Tsaparang. There are hundreds of caves, houses in ruins and palaces at the top of the hill. When the Imperial Palace of Lhasa lost its power, Guge arose to the occasion by housing Tibet's sovereignty and the protectors of Buddhism. Guge lies in Western Tibet and was a landmark on the Silk Road. Between the 9th and 17th century, Guge thrived with the best thinkers, best artists and the one of the most prosperous economies that Tibet has seen in its History.

Yet, this wonderful kingdom suddenly came to an end at around 1600's A.D. No one actually knows the real reason behind this. Since there is no written record of how it came to an end, archeologists have ventured into the country side to gather information from folk lore. They now believe, that the last king of Guge had many rifts with his own brother, the chief abbot. Towards the end of the Guge Kingdom, the sect of Yellow hats, from which the Dalai Lamas are descending, have become the chief priests within Tibet. It was their belief that the Head Monk should be the head of state (as it is now with the Dalai Lama being the head of Tibet). While this was the idea of the Chief Abbot, the King had ideas of his own. During this period, two Christian missionaries from Portugal ventured into Guge with the notion of spreading the message of Jesus. The King welcomed them warmly and was willing to listen to their doctrine while the buddhist monks saw this as a definite threat. The Chief Abbot pleaded with the Ladakhis in Kashmir and they invaded Guge. After months of war, the Ladakhis won over Guge and the King and all the Royal Dignataries were killed.

In the completely abandoned ruins of Guge there is one particular cave that is ghastly for the explorers who discovered it. It is filled with skeletons, hundreds of skeletons without any heads. Archeologists and Historians now believe that these are the remains of the royals of Guge.

The Murals in the caves, temples and palaces of Guge are considered as one of the best in the world. They depict the lives of the people of this once properous and enchanting kingdom that enabled Buddhism to survive during a dark period of Tibetan history.

Howdy Superman?

2007-08-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

And here I was just telling my mother a couple of days ago that I hope no family with the surname "Bond", would ever name their kid "James"... Boy, I didn't even know how crazy some parents can be! :)

Pat and Sheena Wheaton from New Zealand, were fighting with the government of NZ because they wanted to name their son "4Real"!!....... 4Real!! Just imagine having a name like "4Real"!!! I mean, I am speechless... And they wanted this name apparently because they couldn't believe their son was "for real"!!! *Urrrrrrrrgh*....

But the good news is that they lost the battle! *phew*... The policy is that you have to have a sequence of letters for names in New Zealand! :-... Ok well, something saved the poor baby from being called "4Real", we have to be thankful about it, but guess what they named him then? SUPERMAN!!! :) (don't you feel like banging your head on a wall?)

Yup, if you dont believe me, just check the net. This is "4Real"!! :))

In Brilliant Disguise

2007-07-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

The last two lines of Brilliant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen goes as follows:

God have mercy on the man

Who doubts what he's sure of

Now if you actually listen to the song, it doesn't make much sense. Although it is a brilliant, brilliant song, I failed to distinguish much of the words. Yet, if you go through the lyrics, it is a song about a man who speaks of his insecurities and doubts in his relationship/marriage. He doubts his wife's intentions behind being with him, he cannot believe why a woman like her would be with a man like him. He questions whether these feelings that she shows are for real or whether they are a brilliant disguise. Yet, towards the end, he doubts himself.

Ok, I get it to a certain point. He has all these feelings and he is in doubt over them. They say that "The Boss", wrote this when he was going through the ending of his first marriage. And unlike the passion and romance of love that most romantic songs talk about, this is a song that speaks about all the insecurities and doubts that every couple has to go through. But, I just don't get the last two lines.

If he is so sure of something, why is he doubting it? I mean, if that was indeed the case, god definitely should have mercy on that man. And I am sure that I am missing something important being said in these two lines! :(

So, I am asking all of you - if you have any enlightening thoughts about exactly WHAT these two lines should mean, please do leave a comment! :)

To the Boy Who Lived...

2007-07-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

... and to the woman who brought him to life!

It's over... It's finally over. The great saga that was Harry Potter, recently came to an end. With the publication of the final and seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", the story of Harry Potter and his adventures was over.

I started reading Harry Potter with much doubt. The first of its kind, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", came out and there was much hype around the world. Everyone was reading the book and there was much acclaim for it. But I, stubbornly refused to dwell on this matter. As far as I was concerned, it was merely fantasy. It had something to do with a boy wizard and I was not going to be a part of this craziness. Fantasy stories about children, were, for children. That was my argument and therefore refrained from even reading a letter from it.

Then something magical happened in 2002. I met a friend of my father's who was also a keen reader. We were discussing about good books to read and he suddenly asked me whether I have read "the Harry Potter book". I gave a sly smile, a smile that in my head meant "oh, you gotta be kidding me, I'm a grown up", and replied saying "Of course not, its just a fantasy world meant for children". He looked at me and replied, "Trust me, that is what I thought at the beginning, but I gave it a chance and it was a wonderful book"!

Now me, I have a greater tendency than most to be persuaded and in some cases blindly led, by those I respect. And I respected my father's friend greatly. So I thought, if he can give it a chance why can't I? So I conveyed my wish to my sister and managed to rouse her interest enough to go and buy the first book, as I was merely a campus student at that time and had no money of my own.

It was one of the best decisions I have made, my decision to give this fantasy book a try! It was a wonderful, wonderful book!... It was a magical book, this fantasy world that is filled with wizards, witches and magic. It was a world which can be believed!

The greatest thing that I love about Harry Potter is its outward and inward beauty. What I mean by outward beauty is the beauty of the wizarding world that it represents. The author, J K Rowling, creates a world for all of us that is so complete in every manner. It is not a story about a wizard who performs spells and magic. It is world where there are wizards and witches, a world where it is shown how these wizards live their lives alongside muggles (humans who do not have magical powers). It is a world where you run along with these wizards in their quest for justice, where you meet giants, trolls, half giants, dragons and centaurs. Where you meet and sympathize with the house elves in a world where they are discriminated by the wizards for being lesser magical creatures. It is a world where you encounter invisible cloaks, photo frames that contain not still pictures of people but actual moving people, wands that choose their wizards, broomsticks and cars that can fly. A world where you meet ghosts and inferi (the dead) and dementors who feed on your misery and guard the wizard prison of Azkaban.

Yet, the inward beauty is the core of this great children's epic. These wizards and witches are merely men and women who have the ability to perform magic. With all their magical powers, they are human in every possible way. They are normal children who go to school, to Hogwarts; who have to stay in school and finish their O.W.L (Ordinary Wizarding Level) examination and graduate. Who love to play games, even if it is Quidditch. The human spirit is emphasized in these people in its most magnificent and worse ways. They have feelings, feelings of belonging, love, friendship, hatred and doubt. That is the power of Harry Potter, the ability it presents to us a world which we are able to associate ourselves with and be mesmerised by it.

But the greatest element of this story is its message as I see it. It is a story about love. The greatest spell or charm in the world is not what you point your wand and incant, but the feeling of pure love. It was his mother’s love and sacrifice for him that saved Harry Potter from the Killing curse of the Dark Lord and hence earned him the name “The Boy Who Lived”. It was this sacrifice of Lily Potter that lived within Harry, as a charm, running with his blood and protecting him. It was what defeated the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, or simply, Tom Riddle, over and over again. Although Tom Riddle was one of the greatest wizards, he did not understand love, family and sacrifice. He never understood why exactly this mere 11-year old, this normal boy, this boy who had no special talents, who was just an average student and wizard, repeatedly beat him and ultimately vanquished him. He never understood the pureness of Harry’s innocence or his heart or his friendships or his parents’ love. He did not understand the absolute power of that love, from his parents and his friends, and the sacrifices that people make willingly for that love. His pure ignorance and disdain for it is what brought about his destruction. This, I believe, applies to all of us. That love, in the end, conquers all. That those who understand love, truly triumph, they win and they are the ones who are capable of bringing more love and peace. That it is the magic that we all possess, the magic of love.

For those of you who have not even tried to read Harry Potter, I would like to say: Please, please please please, give this a try. The first book is a small book. It would not take much of your time to read it. And if you don’t like it, it wouldn’t have wasted so much of your time and you do not have to continue with the rest of the books. But I think that most of you will love this. That just like me, you would hold that first book in your hands and rejoice in the magic and the miracle that lies within those 223 pages.

Lastly, it is with great admiration and gratitude that I would like to say thank you, to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Your adventures and your lives brought much life and wonder into so many around the world. We learned so much through the triumphs and turbulences that you had to go through. Finally, my warmest gratitude goes out to J K Rowling. I marvel at the wonder that is your imagination. Thank you so much for sharing your world with all of us! :)

Get Rid of Your Ghosts!

2007-07-19T21:19:00.001-07:00

A post by one of my favourite authors (he is one of my favourite persons too), Paulo Coelho in his blog, has the following article. I cannot just leave it there expecting people will visit his blog and read it, it's too good to pass by and I thought this story deserves as much publishing as it can get :) So here it is, and I hope it inspires you as much as it inspired me :)

Note: Ok, I know that the picture of "Ghost Busters" is not entirely appropriate for this post (if you read till the end, you will know), but I tried to search for a pic of a Ghost and I got scared by the results I got, and I am definitely NOT going to put a picture like that on my blog! :) And I need a picture too, hence - Ghost Busters - they anyhow help you get rid of ghosts so it's kind of appropriate right? :)

Getting Rid of Ghosts - Published by Paulo Coelho in his blog

For years, Hitoshi tried in vain to awaken the love of the woman he believed to be the love of his life. But fate is ironic: on the very day that she finally accepted him as her future husband, she learned that she had an incurable disease and would not live for very much longer.

Six months later, when she was about to die, she said to him:
‘Promise me one thing: never fall in love with anyone else. If you do, I will come every night to haunt you.’

And then she closed her eyes for ever. For many months, Hitoshi avoided other women, but fate continued to be ironic, and he discovered a new love. When he was preparing to remarry, the ghost of his ex-beloved kept her promise and appeared to him.

‘You are betraying me,’ the ghost said.

‘For years, I offered you my heart and you rejected me,’ replied Hitoshi. ‘Don’t you think I deserve a second chance of happiness?’

But the ghost of his ex-beloved was not interested in excuses and came every night to frighten him. It described in detail what had happened during the day, the words of love that he had spoken to his fiancée, the kisses and embraces they had exchanged.

Hitoshi could no longer sleep and so he went to consult the Zen master Basho.

‘It’s certainly a very intelligent ghost,’ said Basho.

‘It knows everything down to the last detail! And now it’s ruining my relationship because I can’t sleep and during intimate moments with my fiancée, I feel somehow constrained.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of the ghost,’ said Basho.

That night, when the ghost returned, Hitoshi spoke first, before the ghost could say a word.
‘You’re such a clever ghost, I’d like to make a deal with you. Since you watch me all the time, I’m going to ask you about something I did today. If you answer correctly, I will give up my fiancée and never take another wife. If you answer wrongly, you must promise never to appear again, or else be condemned by the gods to wander for ever in the darkness.’

‘Agreed,’ replied the ghost confidently.

‘This afternoon, when I was in the grocer’s shop, at one point, I picked up a handful of grain from a sack.’

‘Yes, I saw you,’ said the ghost.

‘My question is the following: how many grains of wheat did I have in my hand?’

The ghost realised that it would never be able to answer that question and, in order to avoid being pursued by the gods into eternal darkness, it decided to disappear for ever.

Two days later, Hitoshi went to Basho’s house.

‘I came to thank you.’

‘Be sure to learn the lessons your experience has taught you,’ said Basho. ‘First: the spirit kept coming back because you were afraid. If you want to rid yourself of a curse, simply ignore it. Second: the ghost took advantage of your feelings of guilt. Whenever we feel guilty, we always unconsciously long to be punished. And finally, no one who truly loved you, would force you to make such a promise. If you want to understand love, first learn about freedom.’

Ah, the Spoilt Brat!

2007-07-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

He needs to be feeded, he needs to be carried around and he will even bite you!! May I introduce to you my dog, Maxie!!

These days I am alone at home. Well not entirely alone, my grandmother is there and of course my two dogs are there to keep me company. One of them, Piyasena, is out of the house most of the time these days, simply because it is a busy time with women. So its just Maxie and me at home.

Due to the fact that my mother is not at home, it is perfectly understood that Maxie is to be given maximum attention. He is missing his best loved care taker (my mother) and left alone at home when I have to go to work. So, he believes that it is his god given right to be spoilt as he wishes when I am at home.

The latest habit of his is to make me feed him. He refuses to look at his dinner or lunch and walks by as if not bothered about it at all!! Although I try and coax him to eat, he will put on his best airs. So now, I have to sit next to him and feed him mouthful by mouthful. Believe me, I am not doing this because he is being rather cheesy about the whole matter, I simply ignore him in the past when he puts on a show like this, but I cannot have a thinner version of him when my mother gets back, or else, all hell will break loose!!

At night, before I go to sleep, I am SUPPOSED to take him with me to my room to sleep on his rug. The orders given to me were to make sure that he is not left alone, in the dark, in the living room, where, poor him will have to get up in the middle of the night and find his way to my room!! So when I try to make him walk to my room, he absolutely refuses, puts all his strength in NOT moving one step!! So finally I have to carry him!

These days, he has managed to get himself an ear infection. Under the prescription of the vet, an ear drop needs to be put in both ear twice a day! This has become such a traumatic experience for me, and I dread even thinking about it! First of all, its impossible to catch him. Being a part of a poodle and endowed with a certain amount of intelligence, he has come to identify the bottle carrying the ear drops and runs away as soon as he sees it! Say that I finally get him cornered, I hold him tightly and just as I am about to put the ear drop, he shakes his head! I give him a slap on the head and scold him and try again and this time he bites me!!

I dare not complain all this to my parents as I am perfecty certain about the answer I will get: "You must be mistreating him, so that's why he is acting this way"... Now you tell me, what am I supposed to do? :)

But I must admit, all these complains of mine are simply because I love him and even adore his spoilt manners! Although I scold him terribly when he does these things, in my mind I am smiling at what a darling he is! Its not like I get licks on my face when I carry him to my room or his exhubarant joy at seeing me coming home or him following me everywhere I go! For all his spoilt ways, he is the best dog in the world!!

When Billie Beat Bobby

2007-07-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

Once there was a boy named Bobby and a girl named Billie. One day, they decided to play a tennis match and Billie beat Bobby.

At a time when there was a notion that Womens' Tennis was not upto the par of Mens' Tennis, the match played between Billie - the great Billie Jean King - and Bobby Riggs in 1973 meant so much more than a mere Tennis match.

Bobby Riggs became a tennis champion in 1939, at the tender age of sixteen. Yet, his career was not to flourish very much further. In 1973, he challenged the then World Number 01 in Women's Tennis, the great Billie Jean King, who had recently won the Wimbledon Championship. This challenge was to proclaim to the world that women can never be as good as the men, they were just weaker, they belonged to the kitchen and the bedroom - they were just women. He went as far as to say that if he was going to be a male chauvanistic pig, he is going to be the number one male chauvanistic pig!

The days leading upto this much anticipated match were filled with much hype with men siding with Bobby and most women siding with BJK. During a television interview Bobby rattled on and on about the supposedly said "superiority" of the male species and how easy it would be to beat Billie Jean King. In the end, when BJK was asked about her opinion, she merely smiled and replied "You shall see, wont we?".

On September 20, 1973, the Houston Astrodome buzzed with excitement. The pressure was not only working on the minds of the players, but the audience as well. The match drew the largest crowds for a live match ever and an estimated 50 million television viewers.

It was a walkover for the 29 year old King, who beat the 55 year old Bobby Riggs in straight sets. 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. It was a brilliant day for women all over the world.

Billie Jean King was present at the Wimbledon Finals in 2007, where for the first time, winners from Men's Singles and Women's Singles were given equal prize money. The 2007 Women's Champion, Venus Williams thanked her for being a campaigner in the move for equality.

Once there was a girl named Billie and a boy named Bobby. They changed everything.

The Cave of Swimmers

2007-07-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Lying in the southwest of Egypt near the border to Lybia, the Cave of Swimmers is a cave depicting paintings of swimmers. The amazing fact about this is, at present time, it is situated in the middle of a desert. There is an easy explaination for this - the paintings were made some 10,000 years ago during the Ice Ages.

I discovered this archeological wonder through the book and movie, The English Patient. The credit of the real discovery goes to Laszlo Almasy (I do not know whether it is the same Count Almasy that is the main character in the book). These paintings are created on a granite surface and it is Almasy's belief that they depict the real life events of people who lived in the area surrounding the cave. The cave itself was formed by a flowing river and thus explains why people who came to swim would have drawn swimmers.

Unfortunately it is geographically and politically impossible to reach this magnificant place for the normal tourist. It has survived millenia because of the granite surface, the natural pigments of the colors and the lack of sunlight. May it survive for another millenia, being a vessel of the history of mankind.

The Ringmaster's Daughter

2007-07-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is the story of Petter and his stories. Endowed with a vast and wild imagination, Petter makes a living selling concepts for novels, screen plays and dramas. The story of the book consists of recounts of Petter from his earliest childhood memories to the present time.

Petter did not grow up as any other child. He had a multitude of thoughts and stories criss-crossing through his brain that sometimes even he found it difficult to manage. As a child, rather than playing with other children he preferred to either watch them or simply sit alone and let his imagination run wild.

As he grew up, and with the loss of his mother, he started living alone. As a way of earning a living, Petter entertained the idea of selling his ideas of plots for novels to authors who are frustrated and maybe going through what is known as a writer's block. In this manner he managed to create such a large web of people who are his clients. This web even spreads internationally and finally ends up in "The Spider"'s - as Petter is to be known within the literary world - own fall from grace.

The underlying concept of this book is of Panina Manina, a fairy tale told by Petter to the love of his life and his daughter. Panina Manina, a trapeze artist in a famous circus falls down one day and breaks her neck. As the ringmaster comes to her aid and bends over her, he sees a pendant that he placed in a chain around his own daughter's neck when she was very small before she was swept away by a torrent. He identifies Panina Manina as his own daughter after so many years. It is the story that finally helps Petter to find his own long-lost daughter.

This is a different kind of book, the first time I came across this notion of selling off ideas for novels and for monetary purposes. It is an interesting read from the Norwegian, Jostein Gaarder.

Hail Marion!

2007-07-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

She was just a 22 year old, simple, French girl. This is going to be the most important match she has played in her entire career. Placed as No. 18 in the world, she has no chance of winning this. She was playing the No. 01 in the world. She was playing it at the temple of tennis. She was playing the World No 01 Justin Henin, in the semi-finals of Ladies' Singles Tennis Championship at Centre Court at Wimbledon. Her name is Marion Bartoli.

Marion Bartoli was doomed from the word go. She came to Centre Court as the under-dog - unknown, lacking a fan base. All those who gathered there were convinced this was not going to take up much time. Probably a 6-0 6-1 victory to Henin, maybe give a couple of more games to Bartoli. For me, she was not very likeable. There was hardly a smile on her face and she had annoying habits. This is my own prejudice. She was always jumping up and down, even to the ball boys and girls. And she had the most unique serve. Stand on her toes, hold the front of the tennis racquet with her left hand (she was right-handed), get the proper grip with her right, crunch up her wrist, take her right arm behind her back in a wide arc and SERVE!

The first set started. It was so obvious that Bartoli was at a loss as to how to handle the world number one. Soon it was 3-0 and Henin was leading. Before long Henin has won the first set, 6-1. It was going to be a no-game for the Belgian who won the French Open couple of months ago.

Yet, when the second set started everything started going haywire. Suddenly, the shy french woman started playing some good shots and Henin started making mistakes. Soon enough it was a bizarre event to see. The world number 01, the confident Henin, was running from one end of the court to the other. And when she wasnt doing that she was running to the net and then back desperately trying to reach the ball. The shots that she was able to return were only returned to right where Bartoli stood, making it not such a tiresome job for Bartoli. Then suddenly Bartoli broke Henin's serve and was one game up. When she won that game, the audience was so quiet, the quietness that can only be the result of shock and awe. They were incapable of believing that someone this young, someone this inexperienced, someone who has only managed to reach the third round in a Grand Slam so far, would actually be getting ahead. Yet, this young girl remained unfazed, her eyes were only for her father. The father who gave up his career as a physician for 3 years, and survived on his savings just so that he can train her and make her dream come true.

The audience sat up in their seats. They wanted a proper look at this girl. She was going all guns at Henin. Henin, in the meantime, would have probably played the worst match of her life. The audience never expected this match to be so enthralling. They expected this match to be a completely one-sided game, over in a matter of an hour and the outcome being that their favourite winning by a big margin. Yet, minute by minute, this is proving to be going down to the wire and not in an expected manner either. Henin was getting tired and playing badly, or more so, Bartoli was playing superbly. Her strokes were precise and fast, placing, magnificant. And she finally won the second set 7-5!!

The shock on the faces of those who had gathered was obvious. It was even obvious in the tone of the commentators. Henin looked out-of-sorts and wide-eyed. I sat up properly in my chair and looked at my mother who gave me an uncertain smile. What was happening? This cannot possibly be happening. Henin was sweet and cute (again my prejudice), and she was the best at this game. She was supposed to win this and go onto win the Wimbledon Cup. That was how it was supposed to be. But I think, although no-one actually voiced it, they wouldnt help the awakening of a sense of pride and respect for the young Marion who was a fighting tigeress behind that calm demeanor, who had the guts to put her foot down and proclaim that if Henin was supposed to win this, she will have to earn it.

Thus began the third set. The shock has weared off a bit and everyone was confident that this was merely a hitch in the world no.01's game. She is going to come back. She had the talent and the experience. It could not have being more far away from the truth. Justine Henin, was destined to lose the set 1-6, thus throwing her out of the competition, and enabling Marion Bartoli to proceed to the Finale of the Ladies Singles!

Everyone stood up for her. For this young girl, who had a dream that needs to come true and a destiny to fulfill. Against all adversity, her determination, her belief in herself and her spirit soared. And many of those who were gathered on that sunny day and many of those who witnessed the match through television rejoiced in this truimph of human spirit. The woman who walked to a place she has never been, with only a handful of fans, walked out with the applause and admiration of all, including mine.

Interviewed just after the match, she commented jokingly on the moment when things started turning around for her. "I saw Pierce Brosnan up on the stands during play of the first set. He is one of my favourite actors. I thought I should at least play good tennis for him!"

Hail to you Marion, not many women would have made James Bond stand up for them!! :)

I Only Wanna Be With You

2007-07-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

Artist : Vonda Shepherd

I don't know what it is that makes me love you so
I only know I never want to let you go
'Cause you started something, can't you see
That ever since we met you've had a hold on me

It happens to be true
I only want to be with you

It doesn't matter where you go or what you do
I wanna spend each moment of the day with you
Look what has happened with just one kiss
I never knew that I could be in love like this

It's crazy but it's true
I only want to be with you

You stopped and smiled at me, asked me if I'd care to dance
I fell into your open arms and I didn't stand a chance

Now listen honey, I just wanna be beside you everywhere
As long as we're together honey I don't care
'Cause you started something, can't you see
That ever since we've met you've had a hold on me

No matter what you do
I only want to be with you

Goodnight, My Someone!

2007-07-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

From the Musical - The Music Man

Goodnight, my someone,

Goodnight, my love,

Sleep tight, my someone,

Sleep tight, my love,

Our star is shining it's brightest light

For goodnight, my love, for goodnight.

Sweet dreams be yours, dear,

If dreams there be

Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.

I wish they may and I wish they might

Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight

True love can be whispered from heart to heart

When lovers are parted they say

But I must depend on a wish and a star

As long as my heart doesn't know who you are.

Sweet dreams be yours dear,

If dreams there be

Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.

I wish they may and I wish they might

Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight.

Goodnight,

Goodnight.

Good Book + Good Movie = Good Weekend

2007-07-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Since nothing much is going on in my life, the above equation is valid only for me! :) The experience of watching a movie with an open mouth and not wanting to go anywhere else because you are hung on a book is something I haven't experienced in the recent past. It's a feeling that always made me content and left me feeling amazed. Kind of a difficult feeling to explain! :) I thought I cannot pass upon writing something about this wonderful book and the great movie!

Good Book = The Magus by John Fowles

What a wonderful book! It wasnt that the story in it was extraordinary or a story that would be embedded into your life forever. What got me hooked was the writing!I am not much of a person to comment on the merits and demerits of writing, but this has got to be one of the best, if not THE best, piece of writing I've read.

As always, I will not tell you the plot of the book. But the story is about Nicholas Urfe, a british school teacher, who finds his life boring and uneventful and applies for a teaching post at a school located in a breathtakingly beautiful Greek Island. Here he meets the recluse Maurice Conchis, who takes him through a journey, one of the most bizzardest experience that Urfe has being through in his life. I will tell you only that much.

The book is very thought provoking. Psychology is at the center of its theme. The plot is so unsure of reality and illusion that you almost end up questioning everything about your own life. All credit must go to John Fowles, who is a brilliant writer. Reading this book is like sitting around a bon-fire listening to the best story teller of some tribe in ancient times. The entire story is woven right in front of your eyes, and instead of reading word after word, you listen spellbound. The book ends up in one of the best romantic lines I've heard:

"You can't hate someone who's really on his knees. Who'll never be more than half a human being without you"

Good Movie = Little Miss Sunshine

Great great movie!! If you ask me how the movie is, I will keep my thumbs up for a week!! Ok, I know that sounds weird, but it was that great!! The best thing about it is that it was nothing much! Allow me to explain.

"There are two kinds of people in this world: Winners and Losers"

Being the central theme of the movie, it is also the catchy line of the father of the family. The story is about a family. The father is a very unsuccessful businessman (or something like that) who has come up with 9-step program to make people winners, although his business is going nowhere. The mother is a very busy housewife, who commits her life to her family. Their teenage son has taken a vow of silence in order to bring discipline into his life with a dream of becoming a pilot. Their less-than-10 years daughter, is chubby and spectacled, and strives hard everyday to win a beauty pageant - the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Then there is the mother's brother, who is gay and has recently attempted suicide while the Grandfather is addicted to marijuana.

Ok, at first it seems like everything is chaos and it will end up as a movie that is bound to depressed you when you actually get a glimpse of the family life. But that is so far from the truth. The movie turns out to be about 2 hours that the whole family can laugh and enjoy thoroughly. The seemingly bunch of loosers protrayed through the family, turns out to be all winners after all. And that is the lesson that it is trying to send across. What makes a winner is not someone who ends up getting exactly as he/she wanted. But a winner is someone, at the face of adversity, stands up and still says I am going to try because this is what I have strived for. A winner is someone who accepts the suffering that life has to offer because it is a part of life and that a winner is someone, who wants a loved ones dream to come true and who stands by his/her family despite everything.

I sometimes watch the names of the cast and crew at the end of the movie until the very end. And I only watch them because I loved the movie so much that I do not want to press the stop button or get up from the chair, but be absorbed into it just for an extra second. This was one of those movies!

Just like Ally

2007-06-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

I love Ally McBeal! Well, the series is all over now, but I had the priviledge of watching an old episode and it brought back all the memories!

Miss McBeal, as the courts addressed her, was a weird one. She thought and did the weirdest things. But if you actually think of it, everything she did, everything that ran in her mind, is as exactly as we would have done it. She was always true to herself, even if it went against her, and I loved that about her. So please let me take back what I said earlier - Miss McBeal, was a lovely one.

The best thing about her, the thing that made me warm towards her and like her was that she was a hopeless romantic. I, being a mushy kind of girl and a hopeless romantic myself, fell for her and to a part, understand where she is coming from. And this made me love the character and the TV series even more.

Her best friend in the series, John Cage told her:

"... This world in not romantic anymore, but some of the people in it, still are. And therein lies its promise. Don't let the world win, Ally McBeal..."... I loved that line!

Having the knowledge that two people she knew were getting married because it was the convenient thing, Ally once asked a friend of hers : "You have to have your heart pounding at least when you walk down the aisle, right?". And in my mind, I nodded and agreed with her - Yes Ally, that is right.

So just like Ally, I hope and wish that someday I have a pounding heart, a pounding that deafens everything else when I walk towards the best man I know on our wedding day! I hope on that day I have an absolute conviction that I want to spend the rest of my life with him and that his love for me is the forgiveness I crave for, for being the mess I am. And I hope that if fate is to decide otherwise, I would still have the strength and wisdom to say Yes to life!

To all things EXTINCT!

2007-06-24T06:02:00.001-07:00

When we say extinct, we always think about the animals or plants that have ceased to exist on this earth. But can only living things be "extinct"? I looked into the definition of extinct, and here is what I found at the Online Free Dictionary:

1) No longer existing or living;

2) No longer burning or active;

3) No longer in use;

What I have in my mind, and want to pen down would coincide with the third definition. A hobby that is no longer in use. A hobby that has grown out of style. A hobby that once was the most famous amongst children and adults alike. A hobby, that was Stamp Collecting.

I was channel surfing when I glimpsed at an old old movie, and the actor was holding his stamp collection, and something triggered in me. I used to collect stamps. When I was small, this used to be my hobby.

I wouldn't say with all my heart that this was my choice of a hobby. I most definitely wasn't the kid to be sitting at one place and doing something like this, those things bored me. It was indeed my mother who voiced her opinion to both me and my sister that this was a good hobby to have. And anyways, she had collected stamps as a child, so what was wrong with it and she would like to have someone to pass these onto.

I was enticed. My mother seemed to approve this project, and my sister seemed fully interested too. I doted on my mother (and still do) and I wasn't going to let my sister have everything (and I still won't). Anyhow, there were these small small, jagged edged, pieces of papers with various colors, people, places, animals that caught my eye. So I thought, "why not"? In any case, now I had an answer when someone asked me the question, "what are your hobbies?". I was now equipped with evidence to show that I was an ardent stamp collector.

Thus began my stamp collecting. Some rare ones we got from our mother and the rest came from our father, who brought anything and everything that his mail brought him. We, my sister and me, fought over who got the best stamps and who had the most stamps. Our parents bought us identical stamp books. They were huge - big green hard cover with a thin gold border going around it, and the pages had a blank border at the top and the rest of the page was square ruled. We sorted the stamps by country and then the countries by alphabetical order. Wrote the name of the country at the blank border and carefully pasted the stamps. This whole process took months, because untidiness was not a virtue. Impatient as I was, I had to go through the turmoil, since I had to show off my stamps to my friends.

I learnt a lot from this hobby of mine. About countries, and where they are on this earth of ours. Whenever you come across a country you haven't heard before, it is so exciting to find out where it is and which continent it belongs to. Stamps I think, teach you a lot about diverse cultures and countries. A stamp will portray the best the country has to offer. And when you look at it, you begin to understand that in different countries, there are different people, so vastly different. Different religions, different animals, different celebrations. To a child, as well as to an adult this brings a clear message and understanding. No matter how different we are, culturally, socially, religiously, we are all alike - we print stamps!! :)

Today, I honestly don't know what has happened to that hobby of collecting stamps. Is it still there? I barely hear about it. Then again, where are the resources for a hobby such as this? We are so dependent on Email that the need to mail a letter or something is quite non-existent. How is it that the children of today gather their stamps? How does a parent teach his or her son or daughter, the art of collecting, the art of patience in collecting? This is why I think that Stamp collecting is extinct, or nearing extinction. There is nothing that any of us can do actually, we cannot stand against the advances of technology, we rely too much on it. We've probably lost a good one there, but that is life - it changes constantly.

However, having said all this, I must say that, in the end, I betrayed my own hobby. Something else was creeping into my mind, something else was grabbing my love, something else was trully thrilling me more. I was growing more and more fond of my Lego collection. I had names for all the Lego people, I made up their lives and I played endlessly. I made families from all of them. Almost all the fathers in those Lego families behaved just like my father - the righteous man, the man who provided and gave everything to his family and the mothers acted just like my mother - house wife, great mother, did the cooking, taking care of the family, etc. And as you can imagine, the children went to school, laughed, played and bickered constantly - just like me and my sister. That was my life, my Lego people, oh how I loved them! There is a rumour in my family that I even made all of them stand in a line and taught them Kandyan dancing. Although I have no recollection of this, knowing myself, I cannot dispute it either.

Yet, there was one small hitch. Although I played with it, this Lego collection belonged to both my sister and me. Whenever there was a fight or an argument, my hot-headed sister would carry off HER part of the Lego and hide them somewhere. This caused major problems for me. Suddenly, houses dissappeared from my Legoland, but the worst was the disappearence of family members. Some families were left desolate with only the father and the son. Some families were left without any adults. I was only a kid, I did not know how to cope with situations like that. My sister's trump card was the Hospital. It belonged to her, and when these rifts between us arose, the Hospital disappeared too. I don't have to tell you what that did to a country!!

So in the end, after years of this struggle we finally came to a compromise. She needed something in return if she was to give me FULL ownership of her Lego. So I gave her the next best thing. The thing that she would have killed for! My stamp collection! Yes, I gave all of my stamps to her, but in return, I had the satisfaction and joy of enjoying MY Lego and teaching them as much Kandyan dancing as I pleased, without any worry that parts of this country that I built will suddenly go missing! Even today, I have no regrets - somethings in life are just worth it!!

Of War and Peace

2007-06-17T07:48:00.001-07:00

This is one of the best statements that I've come across regarding the absurdity that is War:

"...The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed. Thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes - because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself - and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud..."

Source: The Magus by John Fowles

Imagination Unlimited

2007-06-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

I can't believe this... I am actually writing about a worm and a caterpillar. It is with the greatest of regrets that I say, I hate worms and caterpillars!!! I know that it's not a nice thing to say, but I get all creepy whenever I see one. But of these two species, I just have to write about.

Two reasons:

1) This was the FIRST time that I have ever seen these animals.

2) Man, the beauty of them. Not in my wildest dreams, or in someone else's wildest dreams, would there be such a creation!

Atlas Moth

The Atlas Moth, in its early stages', a caterpillar, is 15cm in length!! (I know I would just die if I see a caterpillar that big). But once it become a moth, it will only live for one day. Just one day, having the most beautiful set of wings. They do not posses stomaches since there is no reason for it to exist (since it'll die in one day) and only lives so that they can reproduce. What a life! Just a question, if you had just one day to live, what would you do?

Christmas Tree Worm

The Christmas Tree Worm is an under water creature, mostly living in Coral Reefs (I think). It actually lives in a tube, and when it pokes its head out, the twin "christmas trees" you see are sort of it's antennae.

Amazing isn't it? The beauty and complexity of all living things. Nature, I think, is the greatest designer ever, with an unlimited imagination!

Hey Jealousy!

2007-06-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am a jealous person! There, I said it. Whenever it involves someone I love, be it a family member or a very very close friend, I become jealous that someone else might take the place I have in their hearts. This has led me to not like several of my female cousins who are of my age, but the most undisputed, THE most pathetic case of jealousy, is me hating my parents’ flower girl! REASON: She was standing too close to my father in my parents’ wedding picture!

After a life long co-existence with this jealousy of mine, I have become very tired of it. It is such an evil thing, like a plant that spreads too fast. If the seed of jealousy gets itself planted in your brain it spreads its roots and branches faster than a forest fire. It gives no peace of mind, all that it cultivates it suspense, doubt and more jealousy. Like an endless vicious cycle, you dig your own grave deeper. I am so tired now. So I am taking the first step towards entirely getting rid of it. I will acknowledge it: I am jealous, and I am NOT proud of it.

As with every other thing in my life, I decided to turn to Buddhism to get me out of this mess. When I googled away on this matter, I found some really interesting articles.

To begin with, what is jealousy? According to the Buddhist abhidharma text it is:

“a disturbing emotion that confuses on other people’s accomplishments – such as their good qualities, possessions or success – and is the inability to bear their accomplishments, due to excessive attachment to our own gain or to the respect we receive”

The ‘attachment' that the above definition mentions is the undue importance that we, as human beings, have placed on a certain area of our life – be it our looks, the amount of money we have, etc. Sometimes, we measure our sense of self-worth by only looking at this aspect of our lives. Therefore, when someone else has more success in this particular area, we become jealous.

Jealousy also arises because of our insecurity and mistrust. Most of us are unsure of our own self-worth. When people are uncertain about the place that you have, be it your parent’s, sibling’s, friend’s, lover’s heart, jealousy slowly creeps into your mind. It causes one to feel that he or she will abandoned.

Buddhism teaches that the root cause of jealousy lies within this notion of “I” or “me”. The feeling that “I” am special. It makes “me” believe that “I” am the only one good at a particular task, like advising a friend, and therefore when someone does the same thing, I become jealous. It makes “me” feel that I deserve the best in life, and that life should be fair to me and when someone else gets what I want, I feel jealous.

The remedy that Buddhism offers is for everyone to understand this fallacy concerning “I” or “me”. It is important to understand that each and every one of us is equal, this is the teaching of Buddha. Therefore, everyone deserves to be happy, they have the same wish to be happy and successful like “me”. There is nothing “special” about me, we are all made of the same things!

The Buddha teaches that to be a happy person we have to be open-hearted. The heart has the capacity to love everyone. Accept the love from your parents, sisters and brothers, friends, pets. Some people are so closed off to the rest of the world that they only concentrate on the love of one person. If that love disappears, the love you get from everywhere else “does not count”. This is the wrong attitude to have. Just because someone doesn’t love you, it doesn’t mean that there are other people that doesn’t love you. You just have to open your heart and you will experience the ultimate joy of life, love and compassion. This makes you feel less insecure and you slowly begin to see your own self-worth.

Sometimes jealousy comes forth in various disguises. Sometimes when you love someone, but the other person is unaware of it, it is not possible to express your feeling of jealousy in an outward manner. This causes the person feeling jealous to express his or her feelings in maybe anger or sarcastic manner. It is important that all of us identifies exactly when and how this nemesis raises its ugly head.

Some very interesting and quite true commentaries by Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

“Rejoicing is the best remedy for jealousy and envy. Rejoicing does not depend on material or physical actions—it can be done while you are working, eating, or sleeping—it can be done at any time and it is such a simple way to create good karma. If a person has many friends and you feel joyous in your heart, that person is lucky. This result is due to the good karma he created in past lives. Having many possessions and children is the same. Seeing this, you should feel joyous in your heart. You may feel jealous of some couples, of their harmony and enjoyments—but you should think that this result is due to the fact that they created the cause for such experiences in past lives. So why shouldn’t they experience the result of enjoyment now?”

“If we have a good heart, we experience much happiness and relaxation. We have no reason to feel angry or jealous and we have a very happy mind. When we speak, sweet words come out. Even our face is happy and smiling. At night we go to bed with a happy mind and have a very comfortable sleep, without any worries. Otherwise, if we live our life with a very selfish, ungenerous mind, we think about nothing else except me, me, me: "When will I be happy? When will I be free from these problems?" If our attitude is like this, jealousy and anger arise easily, strongly and repeatedly, so we experience much unhappiness in our life, many ups-and-downs. During the day we have a cold heart and at night we even go to bed with a cold heart and unhappy mind”

Western culture, I believe, sometimes provokes and sustains the feelings of jealousy and envy. Their ideals of survival of the fittest, and winner takes it all, causes those influenced by it to become rather competitive. The best athletes are glorified and the richest people in the world are revered. Competitiveness causes people to look at their opponents as people who are below them, who do not deserve the same things as you do, and therefore you try to find and exploit the weaknesses in your opponents. There is also Western romanticism that proclaim that your better half is waiting for you to meet her or him and to live happily ever after. Ignited from a Greek myth by Plato, it is Westerners belief that there is someone out there for every one of us, who will complement us in all ways and with whom we shall share every aspect of our lives. This, they call as true love. This has become synonymous with Western romanticism but has little to do with reality.

The path I have to take for salvation from this jealousy is long and arduous. But I think it’s a path that will lead me to happiness, contentment. It is a path worth walking.

Refresh Your Soul

2007-06-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

When I go to the bookshop that I usually go to, I always glance at the bookshelf where Paulo Coelho's books are, hoping that there will be a new one. And a couple of weeks ago, there was! :) It was called "Like the Flowing River" and I grabbed it, bought it and came home!

There were so many other books in my "to be read" queue, yet I jumped this book ahead of everything else so that I can have a wonderful book which I know will be definitely worth the read.

It is a book which has the sub title "Thoughts and reflections", a collection of Coelho's stories and articles which have been published in newspapers and put together at the request of all his readers. There are excerpts that I would like to share, that has sunk in me deeply.

The Story of the Pencil

This is a story told by a grandmother to her grandson about how much she wants him to be like a pencil. The young boy is at first flabbergasted, because to him the pencil his grandmother is holding is the same as any other pencil and therefore lacks any special qualities. But the grandmother goes on the explain the five qualities that a pencil have, and those are qualities that will make anyone happy is he/she is to hang on to them. They are:

1) Even though you are capable of great things, there is always a hand guiding you. Be it your god, or your destiny

2) You will have to sharpen the pencil once in awhile. Although this may hurt the pencil, afterwards it will be sharper. Similarly, you will have to go through suffering and pain during your life, but it will make you a better person.

3)The pencil always has a eraser to wipe out the mistakes. You are sometimes given the opportunity to correct your mistakes, this is not a bad thing

4) What matters most is not its wooden exterior but the graphite inside. Always pay attention to what is happening inside you

5) The pencil always leaves a mark. So be conscious in everything that you do, because you will leave a mark.

Genghis Khan and his Falcon

The story is about the great Mongol warrior Genghis Khan and his favourite falcon. At a time when Genghis Khan's army could not find water, he ventured alone with his falcon to find water. In his journey, he discovered a thread of water running down from a rock in front of him. Three times he filled his cup and tried to drink the water but all times his falcon hit the cup so that he could not drink it. The next time Khan filled his cup and the falcon took flight to hit it, Khan pierced the bird's breast with much sadness. Although the falcon was his favourite he cannot allow such disrespect in front of his troops. In the meantime, the thread of water had dried up and Genghis Khan went forward to find the spring that fed the water. He found a pool in front of him and a poisonous snake dead in the middle of it. He understood that his faithful falcon, his friend, had saved his life. He brought the dead bird back to camp and ordered his men to build a gold figurine resembling the falcon. On one wing he wrote:

"Even when a friend does something you do not like, he continues to be your friend"

And on the other wing he had these words engraved:

"Any action committed in anger is an action doomed for failure"

How One Thing Can Contain Everything

Paulo Coelho was trying to explain the alchemical idea that each of us contain the whole universe within us and that we are, therefore, responsible to its well-being, to his friends. He was failing to find the right words when a friend, who was a painter, asks everyone to look outside the window.

He asks what they see. They all reply saying that they see a street. The painter sticks a paper over the window so that the street cannot be seen anymore, and he uses his penknife to cut a small square in the paper and asks what they can see if they looked through the square. They all reply that they would be able to see the same street that they saw earlier. He cuts several more squares in the paper and says:

"Just as each of these holes contain within it the whole view of the street, so each one of us contains in our soul the same universe"

Meeting in the Dentsu Gallery

A poem by a Japanese poet and calligrapher, Mitsuo Aida (1924-91)

Because it has lived its life intensely
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by.
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can.
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,
Does not need to explain itself to anyone;
It lives merely for beauty.
Men, however, cannot accept that 'merely'.

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what's the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

You don't always have to pretend to be strong,
there's no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn't be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,
it's good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again)

This book is filled with much more wonderful stories. It is Coelho's opinion that a miracle is something that fills the soul with peace. This book is a miracle!

The Phenomenon that is Nikolai Nikolavich

2007-06-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts as well, I find it rather difficult to read Russian novels simply because every character has two names (which is not wrong, because even we do), but the problem is that whenever the character appears, BOTH these names must be mentioned ALWAYS!!! I can never keep up with it, it just blows my mind and so decided to search about this 'phenomena' on the Web. I came across this article which explained everything and I have linked it here for anyone who is interested:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/03/why_must_russian_characters_ha.html

Apparently the family tree is given as a bookmark - which is true, I have it in my "Dr.Zhivago" - and that helps a lot :)

Here comes the Hotstepper!

2007-06-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

I am driving to work in the morning and Shaq says, "I will bring you our version of 'Here comes the Hotstepper', after the break"... Shaq happens to be the DJ that hosts the Morning Show in YES FM, and that is what I listen to all the time...

So I wait, wondering what he has cooked up this time... It's so much fun, the Morning Show, and the DJ's never fail to bring a smile to the listener's face :) Time goes by and the commercials finish up and Shaq plays the track...

I know this song, it came out in the 90's... And this version is sung by a woman, a woman with an Indian accent and probably inclined towards Classical Indian Music... So do I need to say anymore? You can just imagine how bad it was... A classical indian singer, singing a rapper's song :)

I was finding it rather annoying, whenever the woman sang, "Na.... nananana.... nanana naaa... nana naaa nana naaa... nanana naaaa", it just got on my nerves... She is trying to put a rhythmic tone into it (I guess her point was to annoy people) where it just should have been a flat tone... And I am thinking "This just can't be... I need some good music, that doesn't get on my nerves early in the morning"... But I am at a lost as to what to do: Not that I can switch the radio off - then I will hear my thoughts ringing around in the car, and I don't want to hear everyone honking and shouting and it's not like I can switch on to another radio channel either - that would be a loyalty problem :)...

So I listen to this tortourous track, and then it stops and as is the tradition starts on the original track... Now I know this song... I have known it for ages... It was a mega hit when I was growing up... But when the beat starts and the rapper sings 'Na.... nananana.... nanana naaa... nana naaa nana naaa... nanana naaaa' something very discomforting starts to settle on me... There is a tingle in my memory... This song is not 'just' a song, but it has a memory which I have put at the most furthest corner of my mind...!!! And to my utter horror, I start remembering...

The year was 1994, and the place was my school, Visakha Vidyalaya. The annual 'English Day' was coming up and each grade is supposed to do an item! So we girls get together and started brain storming... We were cool, we were hip, at least that is we thought of ourselves (I know, not very modest, but hey, we were teenagers ok?), and we needed something to 'talk about'... What we finally came up with, I can't remember very well... I remember pestering my mother to make me a 'Care Bear' mask, she had to go around searching for dress makers to do the perfect job!! Cuz, I am NOT going to be a snub nossed Care Bear...

Then I remember this song... and something to do with dancing... and some of it comes filtering from the back of my mind.... we were wearing jeans and tshirts tucked in... looking like boys, or rappers, I dont know WHAT we were trying to do... we came out from the side of the stage, in a line, dancing for 'HERE COMES THE HOTSTEPPER'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was painful... the memory of it... How embarassed I am to even think of it... I wanted to close my eyes and not listen to the song because I feel like dissolving in my own embarassement... Ok, I am going to say it: IT'S SO PATHETIC.... What were we thinking?? I mean, come on... we were not dumb, were we that bad at this transition period of our lives to think that dressing up like guys and dancing to a rap song would actually make us cooler? WHAT WERE WE THINKING? I blame my parents, I am sure I told them what was happening... They should have stopped me, that's what parents should do right? I mean, didn't they know that 13 years down the line, I would be mortified at the mere thought of it??

Anyhow, trying to see the brighter side of things, we WERE teenagers, and people know not to take teenagers seriously, RIGHT??... oh but when I remember that we did this in front of the WHOLE school, principal, teachers and all the students, AND the students from the invited schools... and that means, BOYS!!! Oh, we sooooo wanted to impress the boys!! I am sure the only impression that they got about us is, 'Man, these girls are gay' - not that being gay is anything wrong, just that it's the complete opposite of the impression that we wanted to give!

I try and console myself... I've come a long way, I am much more sophisticated now... I hope so, I loved the song then and now I have a different view right? I like to think that I have better taste, more sophisticated taste...

And then Shaq says 'I like to play you another song from the same era', and instantly the radio starts blasting 'BOOMSHAKALAK'... And suddenly my entire demeanor is changed... Until that point, I had one hand on the wheel and the other with the elbow resting on the window sill with the hand on my head...

The music started playing....

My fingers started tapping on my head....

My shoulders started swaying....

The singer says 'Wriggle your body' (or belly?)....

And my hips started swaying to the opposite motion of my shoulders...

There was a big smile on my face...

People from the tri shaw nearby peeped to see this mad woman smiling and dancing while driving...

Ok, maybe I am not sophisticated after all!! :)

The Meeting of Giants

2007-06-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore
For me, this picture is the collision between the greats of the logical mind and the aesthetic mind. This ordinary picture simply portrays ALL the heights that a human can achieve!

Home and the World

2007-06-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Named as the 'Great Sentinel of Modern India' by Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore is one of the greats of literature, be it poetry, prose, drama and music. I had the priviledge of coming across this Nobel Laureate's novel, "Home and the World" or in Bengali: "Ghare Baire", buying it and reading it.

It is a story about three people. It is a story told from the view points of these three people. It is the story of Nikhilesh, the husband, a zaminder who holds truth and morales to be of the highest values; of Bimala, the wife, who has spent her entire life within the walls of, first, her father's house, then, her husband's house; of Sandip, the religious fanatic, who preaches "Vande Mataram" to gain more for himself.

The story starts with Sandip, an old friend of Nikhilesh, arriving at Nikhilesh and Bimala's house to stay during his "Vande Mataram" campaign to arouse the Bengalis during the period of 1905. Bimala, or 'Bimal', as lovingly called by her husband, although deeply in love with her husband and entirely devoted to him, finds herself becoming attracted to Sandip and his seemingly patriotic speeches and flamboyant ways. She who has being walking within the boundaries of her home, is suddenly thrown into disarray with the arrival of such upheaval.

Nikhilesh slowly understands the distance that appears between him and his wife. He is deeply saddened by the turn out of events:

- "Today my sobs are out of tune. I have got to stop this weeping. I shouldn't be cowardly enough to restrain Bimal with these tears. Where love has turned into a lie, tears shouldn't try and bind it. As long as my pain expresses itself, Bimal will not be free. But I have to free her completely or I will not be free of the lie"

Sandip, was the complete opposite of Nikhilesh. He did not mind exploiting others in the name of the country or the people. He was a fanatic in a sense, to get what he believes for the good of the country by any means; be it thuggery, thieving and even murder. He justified all this to himself by proclaiming his supposedly love for his country. Nikhilesh was someone who always believed in not exploiting his country, its people and it's dignity even for it's freedom. Classic example of this was when Sandip demanded and caused riots because he wanted all the shop keepers of the market place to burn their foreign bought clothes and buy swadeshi clothes. And he demanded Nikhilesh to order these people to do as Sandip desires since Nikhilesh owned the market place. Yet, Nikhilesh knew about the poverty that the poor people around him and around Bengal had to shoulder everyday. Burning the clothes that they bought thinking of investing in a business and buying more clothes will most definitely leave them destitute and therefore he refuses, bringing forth on himself the wrath of Sandip and even his wife.

Sandip had a power onto himself. The mysterious power that is inherent in some of the most devastating men of this century; Hitler, Prabhakaran. The power of speech and attraction. Bimala was a moth attracted to this flame of speech of Sandip. Yet, Sandip's innerself is portrayed in his words:

- "For that moment I forgot that this was the reason why the male species was the active one: we are meant to stir up the lives of the passive ones and make it a life worth living. If we hadn't made the women weep for so many years, the door to the vast treasury of their grief would have stayed shut forever. The male was meant to make the universe weep and gratify it thus. Why else would his hands be so strong, his fist so powerful?"

Chauvanism like this is an absolute disgrace to the male species itself.

Nikhilesh is a man who believes in truth. He realized amidst his grief his own salvation:

- "We think that freedom lies in getting in your hands whatever you have wished for. But in reality, freedom comes from giving up within yourself whatever you have desired" - How TRUE!!

This shows him the illusion that he has being under for the entire 9 years of his married life. It gives him the strength to set Bimala free and thus himself.

Meanwhile Bimala, who was convinced by Sandip, that in her resides the goddess of the entire nation, feels a power that she has never experienced before. She crosses the boundaries of her normal world, her home, and enters into the realms of the world and is immediately engulfed in the illusions that make it up. She believes that there is magic in her and she plans to use it to gain what Sandip wants from her husband, blind to the fact that Sandip is actually using her. Yet, when she encounters her husband, she finds that she has nothing left. The true power that she held over him, the bond that existed between them, has being released by him. It is echoed in her words:

- "In all those nine years, I had never seen such indifference in his eyes. It was like the desert sky without a drop of moisture, draining all colour from the object it chanced to look upon. I'd have been happier if he had at least shown some anger. I couldn't touch him anywhere. I felt I was a lie, a dream: and when the dream ended, I was just the dark night"

In her words, we also see the truth that we even today suffer from. It is true about most of the politicians, or enterpreneurs or anyone who holds the reins of power in his or her hands:

- "True power was exempt from all fault. The thief steals, but the victorious king loots"

Finally, the true nature of Sandip becomes apparent to Bimala and she realizes the mistakes that she has done. In provoking the villagers in a fruitless effort andin losing the only man she loved trully. Although she no longer lives blindfolded, she feels like the loneliest person on earth:

- "A lonely human is perhaps the biggest anomaly in Nature. Even the person who has lost every relation to death is not truly alone - he has company from beyond the grave"

I will finish my narration of the story here. I know very well, that anyone who wants to know the plot can definitely find it over the Internet, but I am not spilling it!! :) But may I finish it off with one of the best lines I have read, it's so true.

- "When the eternally familiar turned unfamiliar in an instant, it was a nightmare"

This was a book that I truly enjoyed reading. It is insightful, and it shows that no matter how many boundaries that you have created within yourself or by those around you, they will be crossed at some point in your life. The only things that we are armed with when we encounter the unknown, is the truth, our principles and our morales.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

2007-06-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

The 'dead' are not just the ones who literally die... They are also the ones who leave our lives because they don't want to be there anymore... This is a tribute to those I have loved and lost...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone - By W H Arden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

What do you know about writers?

2007-06-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Trying to answer a question by his mother, an adolescent of 15 years, compiled the following answer... He wanted to be a writer and he voiced this to his mother and in return, his baffled mother, who wanted him to become an engineer and write in his spare time, asked him "What makes you think you can be a writer when you know so little of them?"

(a)A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published.

(b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced, as he is, that he has been born into an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood would mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites each sentence many times. The vocabulary of the average man is made up of 3000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not the average man.

(c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say. Even so, he secretly hates all other writers, because they are always jockeying for the same vacancies left by the history of literature over the centuries. And so the writer and his peers compete for the prize of 'most complicated book': the one who wins will be the one who has succeeded in being the most difficult to read.

(d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology , neoconcretism. When he wants to shock someone, he says things like: 'Einstein is a fool', or 'Tolstoy was the clown of the bourgeoisie'. Everyone is scandalized, but they nevertheless go and tell other people that the theory of relativity is bunk, and that Tolstoy was a defender of the Russian aristocracy.

(e) When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says: 'I'm a writer' and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works.

(f) Given his vast culture, a writer can always get work as a literary critic. In that role, he can show his generosity by writing about his friends' books. Half of any such reviews are made up of quotations from foreign authors and the other half of analyses of sentences, always using expressions such as 'the epistemological cut', or 'an integrated bi-dimensional vision of life'. Anyone reading the review will say: 'What a cultivated person', but he won't buy the book because he'll be afraid he might not know how to continue reading when the epistemological cut appears.

(g) When invited to say what he is reading at the moment, a writer always mentions a book no one has ever heard of.

(h) There is only one book that arouses the unanimous admiration of the writer and his peers: Ulysses by James Joyce. No writer will ever speak ill of this book, but when someone asks him what it's about, he can't quite explain, making one doubt that he has actually read it.

The teenager is Paulo Coelho. The author of 'The Alchemist' and so many other wonderful books. He is one of my favourite authors and the above is copied from the preface in his latest book 'Like a flowing river'. It was the most truest and funniest thing I have read in a while :) I hope it brought a smile to your face! :)

I carry your heart

2007-05-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

I am not much into poems, most of them just leave me confused... I think the fault lies in my inability to comprehend a deeper meaning which leaves me wondering, "what does it actually mean?" :)

Yet, this poem is something I understood straight away and it is one of the most beautiful things I've heard... It is also used in the movie "In her shoes", where it is read by Cameron Diaz's character at her sister's wedding...

I Carry Your Heart (I Carry It In My Heart) - By E. E. Cummings

I carry you heart, I carry it in my heart
I am never without it
Anywhere I go, you go my dear,
and whatever is done by only me, is your doing my darling
I fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet
I want no world, for beautiful you are my world, my true
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,
Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart

E. E. Cummings was an American poet, essayist and playwright. Cummings has a very unusual style in his poetry where capitalization and punctuations are most of the time ignored, thus making people write his name as "e e cummings" rather than "E. E. Cummings"... This notion was born from the fact that he once wrote it without capitalization and punctuation, yet some scholars choose to identify this as Cummings being humble rather than adhering to his style.

If you want to read some selected poems of Cummings, you can always find them here

NOTE: "In her shoes" is a pretty good movie, fun and heart warming! :) I couldn't mind watching it again! :)

NOTE 2: Doesn't E. E. Cummings look more like an African American Jazz Singer than a poet? :)

Nostalgia....

2007-05-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

I feel nostalgic... I always feel nostalgic whenever I read a Shyam Selvadurai book. Within the story he speaks of places in Colombo that are still standing, and therefore, what is the reason for me to feel nostalgic?... I guess because it reminds me of the places that I loved, that used to be there, but for no apparent reason (that I can understand) have simply.... disappeared!!

This was the third book of Selvadurai's that I have read, and I think (although I maybe wrong) he has only written three novels... The name is "Swimming in the Monsoon Sea"... It was a very captivating book for me, as has been his "Funny Boy" and "Cinnamon Gardens"... I guess his books possess a certain charm for all Sri Lankans as it is our country, and our culture that he is writing about and hence we find it easy to "move with the flow".

I would like to point out an instance where I find it very difficult to "move with the flow"... I have tried so many Russian novels, my latest being "Dr. Zhivago"... and their fate is always the same... With a struggling and resisting mind, I do try (I really do try) to proceed... Yet, around 20-30 pages (the maximum being 44 pages) it just gives out... I simply can't handle all the people and OH MY GOD, THOSE NAMES!! I am sorry (that is if you are Russian), I just can't find the capacity to remember all these names and with so many characters!! *URGH*... and to top it off, they MUST have two names all the time... Nikolai Nikolavich, or something... and why is it a must that you have to ALWAYS mention both names??? *GROAN* (Mental Note: Research on this phenomena)

Ok, getting back to me feeeling nostalgic... This was the second novel in which Selvadurai mention the "Green Cabin"!!! I bet all you Sri Lankans know what I am talking about... One word comes into your mind:

LAMPRAIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES!! The best Lamprais in the whole wide world, and Green Cabin has it! It has to be from Green Cabin for me to eat a Lamprais, everything else, just doesn't measure up...! :) The whole experience is, for me, a time travelling voyage into the Colonial Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka may have been under the rule of the British empire, but being the hopeless romantic that I am, I am charmed by even that! This woderful landmark in my past and now my present is still standing and I wish Green Cabin many more years to come!

This reminds me of another wonderful place that I used to go with my whole family, and it is that place that I remember with nostalgia - The Fountain Cafe!! Situated in the Elephant House building behind Hotel Taj (You are given all these details simply because I have no idea what you call that area), this was a place that reminds me of good food and great times!! :) Their Hot Dog still remains the BEST hot dog I have ever eaten and their Mixed Grill was a slam dunk as far as food is concerned!

When I was small and my whole family was living in a place called Lunuwila to the North of Colombo, about 50 kilometers from the capital city, I used to attend school in Colombo. My father used to come fetch me and my sister every friday evening to go back home. And on the way, he always bought us an Elephant House Hot Dog! :) That was a treat we always waited for impatiently! *SIGH* Yet, this wonderful wonderful place is now boarded up! It is indeed a shame to see this place (I believe this does not apply only to me) and hence our memories shut off!! Yet, I have NOT given up! I still sometimes go and have a look at it, whenever we are passing that way, with a glint of hope that maybe - just maybe - it will have those magical words hanging on its door - OPEN !!!

Some good things in life, are worth not giving up! :)

P.S: My name happens to be Russian.. !! :) Isn't it ironic? ;-)

Oh my!!

2007-05-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

This is about all the things that make my heart go "Oh my!!" The visual impression of that would be a squeezy heart with a big sloppy smile like the following pic.

Ok, so here I go (and my mind sings: here I go, here I go, h..e..r..e I g..o..)

Best Song Line / Most Romantic Line:

"You are the reason why the opera is in me"

This is the most wonderful and romantic song line I have ever heard in my life!... Coming in the latter part of U2's "Sometimes you can't make it on your own", I have heard this many times... Yet, it was today that I really "heard" it and I can't seem to get over it... :)

What beauty!! It's simple, yet so strong... As for me, I was never the one for the mushy love lines... I think the traditional lines have lost some of their charm and some of them seem soooo.... what is the right word? Impossible!! And then some of those love lines are so vague and generic. This line for me is the total opposite of all those. I shall repeat it, it is SIMPLE!... There is nothing confusing about it, there is nothing infinite about it and there is nothing unbelievable about it... It's a spur of the moment thought, something that happens to him now because of her, something simple and wonderful... and he says that she is the reason for it... When, at the climax of the song you hear this, you go "Oh my" :)

May I also add that this is one of my favourite songs? :) Of course I may! I love the song mainly for its lyrics, and the music... man, the music!!! No wonder it won the song of the year at the Grammy's... If you think that I only got captivated by the music and the lyrics, the icing of the cake was, what was written at the beginning of the video:

"My father Bob worked in the Post Office by day and sang opera by night; We lived on the Northside of Dublin in a place called Cedarwood Road; He had a lot of attitude, He gave some to me - and a voice; I wish I had known him better" - BONO

Hail to Bono, I would like to say, in this day and age where music is somewhat in a dilapidated state, thank you for your music!! OH MY!!!

Dream Trip:

To the rooftop of the world - Tibet

Yes, Oh my, if only I can go to Tibet!! These are what my dreams are made of... Tibet, a land surrounded by the highest mountains in the world, and a nation governed by a God-King.. Isolated from the rest of the world for millenia, Tibet has now come to the world asking support for her independence. It has forever been a country with the magic and mystery of the ancients. A country, whose people are the most peace-loving in the whole wide world.

I remember, when I was small, I used to feel this urge to someday go live there. My most recently read novel was "Seven years in Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer. It is definitely one of the most best travelling novels ever... Harrer was a professional mountaineer, who was captured by the English when he went with an expedition to climb a Himalayan mountain. He was by nationality an Austrian been in a Colomized country at the very moment the Second World War broke out. Captured and put into an POW camp, Harrer and some of his friends wanted to be free, and it was Tibet he thought about. This is his story about his escape into Tibet, the trials he had to face when overcoming one of the most difficult terrains in the world - the Himalayas, his settlement in Lhasa, his friendship with the young God-King and finally his escape back to India when the Red Army invaded Tibet.

It is a book filled with magic.. The magic of the Himalayas, the magic of the tibetans - their customs, their traditions, their religion, their simplicity, and most of all, the magic of the Dalai Lama.. A true lover of Tibet, Harrer describes with deep passion everything you want to know about this mysterious land and its beauty.

Tibet, Oh my, I wish I would someday visit you! Harrer says that only 2% of the Forbidden City he knew exists now, but I would consider myself lucky to see even that 2%!

Those are some of the things that my heart goes "Oh my"... As you can see, although I don't much prefer mushy love lines, I am a hopeless romantic, a very mushy kind of girl, who goes "Oh my" at the sight of a simple White Rose! :)

She...

2007-05-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

What is this sadness? Where does it come from? Why does it keep following me? What does it possess that it has the ability to weigh on my heart? - she asks herself. She has arrived at that stage. She wants to know.

It has been there ever since the day he left. He didnt explain much, or at least she didnt understand what he said. She understood this much - he wanted to go. Who was she to hold on to him? She loved him way too much for that. So she just watched him leave.

It feels like crying all the time. And once she is finished with a bout of crying, she feels relief temporarily. Its as if the tears themselves are created in her heart. And when it becomes too heavy, she feels like crying. But why all this - she asks herself - why all this pain and suffering?

Some of them is because she yearns for him. Yearning to feel his touch, yearning to see his smile, yearning that squeezes her heart. Yearning for the look in his eyes when he loved her, for that moment, and wanted to look at her and she caught him doing so. Yearning for him to stroke her head and smile at her. Yearning for him to look back to make sure she is alright. She remembers it all - the feel of his palm when he touched her hand, the warmth of his body when he embraced her, the love on his lips when he kissed her.

More than anything she yearns for the man who cared. The man who cared enough to throw tantrums when she ate something that wasnt good for her. The man who cared enough to lie for her and the man who didnt care so that he can be with her.

She feels him everywhere she goes. He is in every smell she smells, every line she reads, every scene she sees. He lives within her, yet he feels so far away.

He remains only as a dream nowadays, the way he was. Try as she might, she cannot remember a time before him, nor does she recognize who he is now. He remains in her heart and she holds on to the memories, never letting him go. She recollects them everyday, so that she doesnt forget even the tiniest of details.

She remembers how he pulled away, with a tug at her heart. The mistrust in his eyes, is so vivid, its as if a hundred arrows are piercing her heart yet she is still alive. The everyday happenings that are so miniscule that they can be ignored, so she ignored them, until it was too late. At the end, she knew... she knew he lost his love for her. She remembers, now, how he never wanted to make amends...now she remembers.

Yet, sometimes she feels angry. The anger that comes from being rejected. The anger that comes from being left alone. The anger that she has for herself. How could she mess this up? The one thing that meant the world for her. The one thing that she was prepared to go to heaven and earth for.

But she knows, she knows what lies at the bottom of all this. Love. This is called Love. This chaos of emotions, that you cant ever seem to untangle. Love.

She hears the lyrics... " Don't leave me here alone, a house doesnt make a home"... one of her favourite songs. Her heart gives a start with hope. But she knows he wont come back. It was in the finality of his words... The words she didnt understand that much... The words that meant this much - he wanted to leave, and with her heart filled to the brim with her love, she didnt have any left to stop him. That is the day that she loved him the most, the day she let him go. He had said something about her not fulfilling his expectations of her, so she knew - even if she stopped him, she didnt have anything more to give him....

Ha, Bye!

2007-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

"HA" - used in its sinhala meaning for the above phrase, means "OK" in English. So the title would actually mean "ok,bye"... My usual phrase to say goodbye to a person with a smile usually when they bid farewell to me with a "I'll be going"... But, a couple of days ago, I used this same phrase to bid farewell to a Buddhist Monk!! What blasphemy!!

For those who don't know (but I am sure most of you do know) you never say "HA" to a buddhist monk. It is always the more reverent word, "EHEI".... Never "HA"... AND you never ever ever .... ever ... say "BYE"!! Bye: No no word! What would have being proper is "EHEI HAMUDURUWANE"... with HAMUDURUWANE being the sinhala term for a buddhist monk!! Oh gosh, what did I do? I think I need to tell the whole story how this came to be!

Ok, let me start from the very beginning...

20 years ago - (I would have probably being about 6 or 7 years old)

I was scared of monks... I was scared of my mother... good god, I was even scared of Lord Buddha!.. I was practically scared of anything that shouted or scolded! My mother used to scold me all the time (she had a point, I admit), and I used to see the buddhist monks in the temple shouting at children (they had a point, exactly my mother's point)... And you were taught that there are many reasons why you will always end up in hell... Buddha was someone who administered all this... Sending the bad kids to hell and giving the good ones what they wished for (Maybe they didnt actually teach me this, because of my scary cat nature, this is what I learnt)... So this is what I did:
1) Learn all the "not" to do's
2) Try and not do them
3) Pray and pray every morning at school for things I wanted (passing an exam) and forgiveness for my mistakes (lying to my mother about how I got wet)

So the outcome was I rarely went near monks and never ever learned the etiquette of treating them, because I was so scared that they will shout at me for doing something the wrong way!

10 years ago

Until this point in my life, I lived like Rapunzel... Well not exactly like Rapunzel (no hair, no beauty nor a prince), but you know what I mean... No idea what-so-ever about real people and real life, had a whole bunch of ideas and ideals, and notions about my infinite capability to tackle any given problem thus making me the grand master of life! That was until I stumbled upon this girl who was basically mean to me in school and pulled up all sorts of lies and schemes to discredit me! Circumstances had it that I pretty much had to handle it on my own and pretty soon I began to realize how true Buddha's lessons are (the lessons I've heard all through my life)...

Thus started my emergence from the Dark Ages... I was definitely not an enlightened soul, but I wanted to be on that path... And I began to see that Buddha was no one to be feared, and he was not the giver of gifts... He was the most compassionate one and you always get for what you give! He was not a god, but a human being, who realized the ultimate truth, gave his gift to his followers and vanished forever from this earth leaving only his teachings behind! I had the utmost respect for Buddhism and Buddha and I wanted to know more and more about its philosophy!

Yet, I was still scared of the monks... They can still shout at you...

03 days ago

At an Alms Giving at my brother-in-law's house, I was keeping away from all that was happening... I listened to the preachings of the head monk (which was really good) and I was watching how everyone served the monks food and I listened what was being said... That was all I did... That was all I expected to do... Then the monks stood up to leave... The most venerable head monk bid my brother-in-law's father good bye and he looked at me!!!

He actually looked at me!! Me!! Me, who never went near him!! Me, the insignificant one, lurking in the shadows!! Me!! and HE SMILED most pleasingly!! ME!!! and he said:

"Api gihin ennam" - (a very friendly way of saying "We will be going")

I couldn't believe it... he smiled just like a friend... I didn't expect it for the whole world... And he said what a friend would say, and out came my words:

"HA, BYE"

Oh, those terrible, terrible words...!! I don't think he heard the "bye", it wouldn't have reached him.. but I know!! The words play slow motion in my head several times a day still...

One of my friends, Viraji, said that he will probably use this in one of his prechings next - to show how grown up women dont know proper etiquette, but it was my friend Kamalamala's husband, Nuwan, who gave the best remark:

"Ineshka's mind works perfectly... But there is a small hitch... There are common words that we use that we keep in the table in our minds for fast access... For the special words it takes a while and you have to search for it... That searching never works on her"

Hats off Nuwan, so rightly said!!

My Wish!!

2007-05-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

What beautiful lyrics!! And what a lovely wish! One must have a beautiful soul to say something like this and an even more greater soul to be wished like this!

My Wish - Rascal Flatts

I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow,

and each road leads you where you wanna go,

and if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,

I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.

And if one door opens to another door closed,

I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,

if it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile.

But more than anything, more than anything...

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,

your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,

You never need to carry more than you can hold,

and while you're out there getting where you're getting to,

I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,

Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but you never forget,

all the ones who love you, in the place you left,

I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,

and you help somebody every chance you get,

Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,

and always give more than you take.

But More than anything, yeah, more than anything...

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,

your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,

You never need to carry more than you can hold,

and while you're out there getting where you're getting to,

I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,

Yeah, this, is my wish. Yeah.

The Eternal Girl

2007-05-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl

This maybe a sad story, but it is also a story of triumph and courage of the human soul. And the story teller is no more than 14 years old.

Anne Frank, was a German Jew living at a time when the whole world around her thought she should be dead. She was born in 1929 in Germany and lived with her father, mother and sister in Germany until they moved to Amsterdam, Holland in 1933. This was the year that Adolf Hitler came to power and started turning words into action about his anti-semitism. Otto Frank, Anne's father, predicting that the future is not bright for Jews like him and his family, found a job and moved to Amsterdam, which was considered to be a neutral country.

Yet, fate was to decide otherwise. In 1939, at the start of World War II, Hitler began to focus on the rest of Europe and his aggression towards Jews began to progress. In 1942, Holland was under the rule of Germany (Germany invaded Holland, as it had invaded many other European countries), and Hitler has implemented what he called the "Final Solution". The Final Solution was simply a method he constructed to eliminate the Jews, by herding them like cattle into trains and sending them off to concentration camps where the more healthy were used for strenuous labor work and the others (especially the old, most women and children under the age of 15) were gassed and gotten "rid of"!!

NOTE: I am just stating the facts and not even trying to express my utter disgust about Hitler and all he did!!!!

When Margot, Anne's older sister was called to report to the Germans, their father decided it was time to go into hiding. He made arrangements for their family to move to a "Secret Annexe" in the warehouse building that he worked and on the day that Margot was asked to report, they moved to their new quarters. Their old apartment was given the look that they had fled in a hurry, and a letter was kept to make the Germans believe they had fled to Switzerland.

Life began for Anne at the Secret Annexe, and soon a business partner of her father and the family moved to this new place as well. Anne was at the beginning joyous because of the company that they had and but these feelings was in turmoil as they obviously faced life in confined space. Arguments between husband and wife, arguments between the two wives, arguments between parents and children were a common occurence.

The book is a product of the diary that Anne kept during this time. It was a diary that she poured all her thoughts and feelings about anything and everything into. Her words ring true about any girl who is a teenager that you find anywhere in the world. You see her ideas developing, she beginning to have opinions. And you also see the typical clashes between the parents and the child due to the child feeling that her views are not recognized by the parents and that she is still being treated as a child. Then of course, she is a girl who, in that age looks upto her father but sees her mother as the enemy.

Apart and including all this, Anne's life was typical to a girl of that age except for the hiding they all had to adhere to. She does speak about the atrocities that the Germans are carrying out against the Jews and the caring and compassionate Anne is illuminated in these passages.

Yet, this small girl was an epitome of courage and gratitude. Although she was in a position that noone wants to be, she was grateful for her life there because she was living, she had a roof over her head, food to eat, and need not be humiliated and tortured like most Jews during those oppressive times.

I had heard about this book since my schooldays, as we had to study a very small part of it under Sinhala (the book being translated into so many languages, among them Sinhala). I had always wanted to read and it was only recently that I managed to get hold of the book. It was an unbelievable experience. More than anything else, it was my disbelief of this small girl's (I am sure Anne wouldn't have liked me terming her "small") courage. It is a valuable lesson for all of us, especially for those who have whimsical natures.

She was a beautiful girl. Bright, cheerful, funny and compassionate. Your everyday girl that when you read her diary, you relate with her so easily. Her triumphs, her mistakes, her life and her love, manifests in her diary. She had many gifts: her courage at the face of adversity, her ability to write and express, and the quality that I think shines in her the most, is her will to change herself for the better everyday.

It was one of the saddest things to learn that Anne and her family and the others who shared the Secret Annexe with them were betrayed by an unknown person and the Gestapo captured them on the 4th of August, 1944, just three days after Anne's last entry in her diary. First they were sent to Auschwitz and Anne and her sister were then later on sent to Bergen-Belsen, leaving her mother alone at Auschwitz. Her mother, the woman that Anne truly never got a chance know fully, died at Auschwitz of starvation. It is said that although she witnessed her two daughters getting into the train, ready to be sent away, she kept believing otherwise and saved all her food under the bunk to give to her daughters when they came.

Margot, Anne's sister died in Bergen-Belsen after suffering from typhus and Anne closed her eyes forever a couple of days afterwards suffering from the same disease. It is indeed a shame that few weeks after her death, the British forces liberated the concentration camp and that Hitler killed himself just a month after! Life is definitely not a Hollywood movie! Her father survived and returned to Amsterdam and found her diary and spread it among friends and family as a tribute to Anne. Later on, with the advice from a university professor, he published it and now it has become a book that has being read my millions and translated into more than 40 languages.

She dreamt of becoming a writer... She wanted to write a book and become a novelist and it was with a pinch in my heart that I read her words: "I want to be remembered even after I am gone".

If I have the pleasure of meeting her, I would tell her this. That not only was her dream became a reality but also that she will be remembered eternally. Fly high, brave girl!! And may you rest in peace!

Our Champs!!

2007-05-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

We won the runner's up place in the Cricket World Cup! Man, that was one hell of a tensed up day... :) 28th of April 2007, it was... Everyone was hoping and wishing and walking around without concentrating much on anything else awaiting the start of the finale of the World Cup 2007...

Australia vs Sri Lanka... it was definitely expected that Australia will be there in the finals, and very much expected that they will win too... But the irony was that no-one (expect maybe the Australians and a few Englishmen) wanted them to win... Everyone was keeping their fingers crossed that Sri Lanka would win.. And of course the whole of Sri Lanka desperately were praying!!

There was much preparations in the country... The TV channels were showing the finals of the 1996 World Cup where we won the cup to boost the morale (of whom I wonder, definitely not the team)... Everyone was discussing about it and getting ready to get-together somewhere where there is food, music and good company to have a good time... Some were getting together and having religious functions (???)... and of course yours truly got herself and her father and mother a packet of popcorn and some orange barley (the items of celebrations in occasions like this)

YET.......

It was not going to be a day of celebrations... We didnt win the World Cup but that is not what I mean... When finally the appointed time arrived, it was not going to be... Heavy rain... Match delayed by 15 minutes.... The match again delayed by 15 minutes... minutes became hours... And this caused the hyper to go down a bit... Our moods were just like the weather... gloomy, damp!

Then the match finally started... A 28 over for each side match :( .... TERRIBLE is not the word... A World Cup match should not have external forces messing with it, because then the final outcome will always be associated with it... "It rained on that day... the pitch was affected, the outfield was affected, etc"... So on and so forth... plus you need to play a good solid match to get the title of the World Champions!!

From the word go, we were hammered until we saw stars... Adam Gilchrist... what can I say? Unbelievable batting! At one point everyone was holding their heads (at home) and I was thinking: "What is the point in all this? What is the use in playing cricket with the Australians?"... It would probably be the longest 28 overs in a World Cup finals for all Sri Lankans... But it finally came to an end with the Australians scoring something like 290 in 28 overs!!!

And then the Lions took up the bat! And my questions were answered instantly... What is the point in all this? So that the Australians are always kept looking back... They definitely didnt have a good time defending their "grand" total... Jayasuriya, Tharanga, Sangakkara and Mahela gave them a run for their money!!

THEN....

BANG BANG BANG ..... (why are they firing crackers?)

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG (that's not crackers, that machine gun fire!!!!!!!!!!!)

All of us (my father, mother and me, my mother grabbed Maxie, and I grabbed our other dog Piyasena) dashed to the pantry where there are no windows... The gun fire continued for about 45 minutes and finally all of us having the match first most in our minds slowly crept back to the living room to watch the match and check news...

LTTE decided to make an air attack on that night and a light aircraft was flying over the city of Colombo without lights... And the anti-aircraft machines have fired... The attack wasnt a success at all (thank god for that)

In the midst of all that, it has rained in Barbados and we lost... Marginally though, I might add... Terrible mix up at the end... The batsmen were offered light, which they accepted... Australians celebrated their win... Umpires warned them they shouldnt celebrate because the match isnt over... la di da... So finally it ended at 4 o'clock in the morning, everyone freaked out about the attacked and weary about the loss and of course the loss of sleep...

BUT...

Australians may be the Champions... And they deserve it for the way they played, they are true Champions! But the Sri Lankans are champions too... by their own right! Maybe we didnt win that game, but the fight was all that mattered! It is said that it is not important whether you win the game or not, what is more important is that how you play the game... And play we did! To the end in a grand fashion that Lions are said to possess!

There is talk of Gilchrist having a golf ball inside his glove, how this is illegal and about revoking the fact that they won the World Cup... I dont know, regardless of this, I dont care... Sri Lankans are Champions and they should be mighty proud of themselves!

OH AND BY THE WAY...

My popcorn packet and the Orange Barley was kept untouched and was later consumed during an episode in History Channel (which for me has an equivalent hype to a World Cup final)

Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog! :)

2007-04-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

Marley & Me

Superb book! :) So hilarious and heart warming! :) I sound like the NewYork Times giving a book review, dont I? ;-)

But it is - a wonderful book!! A definite read for dog lovers! And if you didnt know this about me, I LOVE dogs! :)

John Grogan's account of his Labrador Retriever, Marley (named after the famous Bob Marley) is a wonderful tribute to dogs all over the world. Marley is so comical, that he seems like a character taken out of a Disney animation movie... And I can definitely relate to Grogan's experiences because I have gone through the same experiences at home with my dogs (well, Marley is like an extreme, yet...).

Marley is slightly mentally unstable, never listens to any command, and worst of all, is probably the only dog in the world to be kicked out of Obedience School :) The book recounts all the funny, and touching moments in Marley's life and it is absolutely wonderful!

This book is important to me because I found some answers I've always being looking for... I have always being reserved and ashamed to admitting to anyone else about how deeply I felt for my dogs... I love my dogs more than about 99% of the humans that I know... They come in my priority list right after my family... But to be honest, I've always felt weak about telling someone exactly how I felt... I feel honestly bad about caring for an animal more than for a human being... Yet, through this book, I saw that most dog lovers go through the same ordeal...

After reading the book, I feel less ashamed about it and less defensive... How many people in the world do you know who would love you so endlessly and so selflessly? Less than a hand full, most definitely! Everyday of your life, you hear people telling you - "why cant you be like this?, why cant you be like that?"... and I go through trying to answer this - "you've become fat, why dont you do some exercises?", the truth of the matter is, dogs dont care about that... If you love them, they will love you right back guaranteed... Whether you are black or white, tall or short, stupid or not, fat or thin, the way they come running to you when you get home is NEVER gonna change (and if they dont, its a sure sign that he/she is sick)... So I'm gonna pat myself on the back and say "It's ok" :)

A Triumph of Mankind

2007-04-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Mahatma Gandhi

The gentlest (spelling?) of souls... The saviour of millions... The humblest of men... I, LOVED his autobiography! :)

In his autobiography "My experiments with truth", Gandhi travels through his life from the time he got married (when he is 14) to some years prior to his death. Although he is proclaimed by many to be a saint, he is nothing but a man to me... A great man! I find it easier to love a man than a saint. Simply because ordinary men make the same mistakes that we do, they go through the same rough patches and makes us see that if they were capable of doing something wonderful, maybe - just maybe - we also have the same capacity, because we are made of the same things. And Gandhi's autobiography is a testament to that: He speaks of his many failures, even after he became a mahatma, and his triumphs over these!

His modesty is so earth shattering... He describes in detail about his experiments with having a proper diet. Yet, at the end he makes sure that the reader knows that just because it worked for him, it does not say that it will work out for everyone... We must all experiment and found out... Sound so much like what Buddha said huh?

Mahatma Gandhi is a perfect example of having faith... His faith in his God, his religion, is his rock of gibraltar.. When everything around him crumbles down, his faith remains unshattered and this is what he clings to and it has never let him down... I believe that faith is something we lack tremendously in modern days... Be it faith in your religion, faith in a loved one, faith in your own heart! We dont have answers to "what to do you believe in?", "what do have faith in?".... The answers that we give are as vague as our faith... To love, to believe, to trust without any doubt must be such a wonderful feeling! Is it our fault that we are unable to experience such beauty of the soul? I think that it is... We are so damaged by the society today... Maybe it is a religion that lies to us, maybe it is a lover who betrays us, whatever it is, it makes us defensive, disabling us of pure love, pure faith and taking our innocence away from us... Mahatma Gandhi - for me - portrays a human being who lived in times like those and overcame it... example PERFECTO!!

Have you ever felt so lonely and so desperate that you want someone to come and rescue you? The value of people like Bapu is prominent here... He was the guiding light for people who didnt have anyone to turn to... The most important of these would be the Untouchables of India, and then maybe the Coolies of South Africa... The feeling of utter misery that we may sometimes feel in our lives is a constant for people like this... People like Lord Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi are god's gift to those who are discriminated socially, it is their rope to a better life!

You should all read this book... It is soul energizing, yet humble... That is how I will always see Mahatma Gandhi!

Why Oz?

2007-04-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

I never explained why I named my blog site "In the wonderful land of oz".... Well, it was just after reading the book that I realized although it is a fantasy story meant for children, it has collected fans from all walks of life because its hidden meaning taps the heart of anyone...

In the land of oz, you realize yourself; you understand yourself; you discover yourself... The scarecrow finds that he is actually intelligent, the tinman finds out that he does indeed have a heart and the lion finds that he is the bravest of them all...

I would like to make this site Oz for me... Where I give voice (more like publish) to my inner thoughts... Trying to clarify and sort out all the thoughts that stumble in this brain of mine.. and try to find myself... Yes, you are right, I still dont know who exactly I am... And my target would be to accept all, the good, the bad and even the ugly...

So there you are... in this internet age, I am Dorothy walking through the wonderful land of Oz :)

Being a Woman : Curse or Blessing?

2007-04-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

Its such a blessing to be able to give birth to a child!... I am sure there are those out there who wont probably agree with me... But I think that its the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world :)

Yet, most women give their trust and loyalty and most of all their hearts completely... And this is such a misfortune! OR is it? Would it actually be our strength as well? Maybe you are left with nothing in the end, but at least you've experienced life to the fullest! Maybe it is our blessing as well :)

Heartbroken

2007-03-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

I now know why the majority of people who commit suicide actually do it.... It's the pain in the heart isn't it? It just becomes so overwhelming that you think it's easier to just kill yourself...

And, I guess with the last hope of bringing back to you what you lost... in the hope that you will see that they still cared...

2007-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

I loved this when it was used by UN for an ad!! :) Its got beauty as well as irony in it :)

Where have all the flowers gone

Long time passing

Where have all the flowers gone

Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone

Young girls picked them every one

When will they ever learn

Where have all the young girls gone

Long time passing

Where have all the young girls gone

Long time ago

Where have all the young girls gone

Gone to young men every one

When will they ever learn

Where have all the young men gone

Long time passing

Where have all the young men gone

Long time ago

Where have all the young men gone

Gone for soldiers every one

When will they ever learn

Where have all the soldiers gone

Long time passing

Where have all the soldiers gone

Long time ago

Where have all the soldiers gone

Gone to graveyards every one

When will they ever learn

Where have all the graveyards gone

Long time passing

Where have all the graveyards gone

Long time ago

Where have all the grave yards gone

Gone to flowers every one

When will they ever learn