The Empty Jar And 2 Cups of Coffee

I'm sure almost everybody has read this by now, it's one of the most widely circulated mails on the internet... But everytime I read, I just love it more and more!

So just uploading it for those few who might not have come across it yet!

When things in your life seem, Almost too much to handle, When 24 Hours in a day is not enough,
Remember the story of the empty jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students, If the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open Areas between the golf balls.
He then asked The students again If the jar was full..

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced Two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents Into the jar, effectively
Filling the Empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor, As the laughter subsided,
'I want you to recognize that This jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost
and only they remained, Your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter Like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else -- The small stuff.

'If you put the sand into the jar first,' He continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Don’t be under impression that u don’t have time, u have to manage time that is the key for your success.

So...

Pay attention to the things That are critical to your happiness.
talk to your friends.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time
To clean the house and fix the disposal.

'Take care of the golf balls first -- The things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.
'I'm glad you asked'.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend.

Not the final goodbye...

Just as I was beginning to get comfortable with Mumbai, its time for me to leave. And suddenly, I don’t think I’m too comfortable with that.

What was it that I used to say about Mumbai?
Noisy, crowded, polluted…???

And yet I can’t shake off the first surge of something exhilarating that I had smelled in this air when I had first walked out of Dadar station on 16 July. Something other than the smoke and dampness in the surrounding had caught with me and it’s as if I can feel it in my senses all over again. It smelled like freedom, a heady sense of purpose, and a spirit so like me that I could never walk away from, despite the city’s many vices.

Gosh, I’m surprising myself!

And yet, having said all that, I still have no reason not to go back to my precious Goa… as always!

But I know I’ll be back – back to explore Mumbai as Mumbai is, back to the gallis and locals, markets and malls, to the crowds where you can be invisible and not worry about being judged, to a life which knows not the snails pace, to never ending opportunities, undying spirit and most importantly – the freedom!

I know I’ll be back, to that part of me which is sure to bring me back!


This one is to all my new friends – Charlette, Sarita, Mandar, Mahesh, Pradeep, Megha, Hetal, Dinesh.
And of course – Atya and Gaurav…

Freedom

I’m sick again, and being unable to concentrate at all on studies at hand, I was flipping through a book that my cousin is currently reading and happened to come across a very interesting passage. It was on freedom and the book is ‘The Zahir’ by Paulo Coelho. Just then Komal called and after talking to her on the same subject on similar lines, I thought I would share this interesting passage with everybody else.
The author’s view could be debatable, I don’t know. But it struck a chord – do read till the end.

I’m free. I’m out of prison; my wife has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I have no fixed timetable for work; I have no problem meeting new people. I’m rich, famous, and if Esther really has left me, I’ll soon find someone to replace her. I’m free, independent.

But, what is freedom?

I’ve spend a large part of my life enslaved to one thing or another so I should know the meaning of the word. Ever since I was a child I have fought to make freedom my most precious commodity. I fought with my parents who wanted me to be an engineer not a writer. I fought with the other boys at school who immediately honed in on me as the butt of their cruel jokes; and only after much blood had flowed from my nose and theirs, only after many afternoons where I had to hide my scars from my mother – because it was up to me not her to solve my problems – did I manage to show them that I could take a thrashing without bursting into tears. I fought to get a job to support myself and went to work as a delivery man for a hardware store, so as to be free from that old line in the family blackmail: ‘we’ll give you money but you have to do this, this and this.’

I fought – although without success – for the girl I was in love with when I was an adolescent, and who loved me too; she left me in the end because her parents convinced her that I had no future.

I fought against the hostile world of journalism – my next job – where my first boss kept me hanging around for three whole hours and only deigned to take any notice of me when I started to tear up the book he was reading: he looked at me in surprise and thought that here was someone who was capable of persevering and confronting the enemy, essential qualities for a good reporter. I fought for the socialist ideal, went to prison, came out and went on fighting feeling like a working-class hero – until, that is, I heard Beatles and decided that rock music is much more fun than Marx. I fought for the love of my first, second and third wives. I fought to find courage to leave my first, second and third wives, because the love I felt for them hadn’t lasted and I needed to move on, until I found the person who had been put in this world to find me – and she was none of those three.

I fought for the courage to leave my job on the newspaper and launch myself into the adventure of writing a book, knowing full well that no one in my country could make a living as a writer. I gave up after a year, after writing more than a thousand pages – pages of such genius that even I couldn’t understand them.

While I was fighting I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parent’s wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with other person ‘for the rest of their lives’, to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers to whom they were incapable of saying ‘No’ or ‘It’s over’, to weekends where they were obliged to have lunch with people they didn’t even like. Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights when adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened they would say:
‘I’m not interested; I’m not in the mood.’

How could they possibly know if they were in the mood or not if they had never tried? But there was no point in asking; the truth was they were afraid of any change that would upset the world they had grown used to.

The inspector says I’m free. I am free now and I was free in the prison too, because freedom continues to be thing I prize the most in the world. Of course this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done or would not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked their forgiveness, when I realised that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don’t regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.

Ganapati Bappa Morya

Contd from Silence plz…

It was almost as if I was waiting for Anant-chaturdashi to write about the Ganesh festival of Mumbai. I had heard tales of this day from my cousins and many friends. It’s the D-day for the Ganesh festivities here – the 11th day where most Ganesh idols are collectively immersed on the Mumbai coastline. The sight is a one to watch!

The final aarti takes place and the processions start in the early afternoon. These processions are very similar to a typical Hindi film wedding barat only minus the designer dresses and jewellery. People dance, play numerous instruments, the most popular being the dhol, around the idol. And the idol, magnificent and standing tall and towering is taken in pick up trucks moving at snails pace. I dint have to go far to see it. Just sitting in my aunt’s living room window was enough to provide a wide view of numerous such barats.

Expectedly, it’s also a day of the worst traffic jams in the city. My cousin took his bike to work today, skipping the company bus. He said it would be easier for him to navigate through traffic and hopefully that way he’ll be able to make it back home before dawn. And even as he stepped out of the door, he left dire warning ringing in my ear to study in the morning and not to leave much for the evening. I took him very seriously – after Gokulashtami, I would have been a fool not to do so.

And so, I spent the better part of my evening sitting in the window watching people covered in gulaal dancing to the tuneless beat of the drums. I tried very hard to try to decipher one of them and I think it was ‘Mungda’… but I can’t be sure. Well, as long as they don’t play stupid Bollywood songs on the loudspeakers, I knew I would be just fine.

When I was in Pune a couple of years back for my studies, I would run back home during Ganesh celebrations. Every street would be blocked by pujas being performed where cars should be running, loudspeakers blaring all over the place and rangolis decorating the sidewalks leaving no place for pedestrians. And as an art lover I have to say this – it would be heart breaking to walk over somebody else’s beautiful hard work.

In Pune, there is a Ganesh temple at every nook and corner, 2 of them were just outside the hostel where I stayed, separated approximately by 10 metres. And it meant that every month for Sankashti and Ekadashi, nobody slept peacefully in the hostel. There would always be a fierce competition between the two groups to demonstrate who owned the loudest music system. It would reach such unbearable decibels that we would go complain to the rector and she would go scream herself hoarse at them and the music would be lowered to a respected volume. But after half an hour, we would be back to square one. By the end of the day, the rector would be too tired to do anything and we would get an earful if we even uttered a C of complaints.

Au contraire, in Goa, Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated in peace. Every house brings its own Ganesh idol and private celebrations go on all over the state. At my natives, Chaturthi means delicious smells of various delicacies wafting through the house, family members all sitting together for the aarti with taal, decorating the makhaí(the place where the idol is placed), drawing beautiful rangolis, collecting durva(the three leaved green grass specially offered to Ganapti) and many such small and wonderful rituals right from the day when the idol is brought in to the day we sadly bade him goodbye. It’s the time for family members to get together and have fun. After spending the entire day would be spent in preparations, all us cousins would then sit and play card late into the night.

Ah! Good old memories…
I never thought I’d miss this festival until I actually had to miss it. This is the first time I’m spending Chaturthi away from home.

Anyway, I’m not a very religious person and my knowledge of festivals and rituals is extremely limited. But I always thought faith was a very private thing. And festivals were only an excuse to celebrate it, bringing happiness and abundance in life. Really is that what festivals are meant for nowadays?

At my mum’s ancestral house, we have the same idol that we worship year after year. A few years back, I had asked my uncle, why is it that we don’t immerse the idol in the well like everybody else? And he had told me that a great deal of effort is involved in digging wells and such other wells, or streams, ponds and lakes are a source of clean drinking and irrigation water; and so it would be a shameful act to pollute them plaster of Paris statutes or even block them with clay idols.
Such is the kind of respect I learned not only for our festivals but also for the life sustaining nature from an early age. So it kills me to see that people cannot apply the same simple principles everywhere.

The festival spirit in people here is tremendous, but so is the disregard for others convenience. And nobody thinks about the kind of pressure we put on our environment. Sure, the energy and the mood they bring in is incredible but so is the level of noise and air pollution. And what happens to the ecosystem when these ‘Plaster of Paris’ idols are immersed in our seas? And what when broken parts of these idols of faith are washed off to the shore where they are cruelly left to rot along with other garbage and debris?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against festivals; I’m just against the way they are being celebrated.

Eat Cake

We read a lot of books, watch a lot of movies… many are good, too many are horrible, and few fantastic make the favourite list! But there are a few that leave their own mark, even if they were not appreciated worldwide and we don’t often hear about them. And they are slowly forgotten – the marginalised!

Lets see, we all hear about DDLJ and 'Sholay', but who really talks about ‘Dor’ or a very sweet personal favourite named ‘Socha na tha’? We all hear about ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’ and ‘Shantaram’ but I’m probably the only one who’ll mention ‘Eat Cake’!

‘Eat Cake’ is one very lovely book I had once read – about 2-3 years back. It’s not a literary genius and doesn’t have a very brilliant plot, nor is it a heart wrenching drama. It’s a very simple book about a simple housewife who tries to pull her family out of a financial crisis with the help of her cakes.
Even as a young girl, this lady develops a close bond with baking, especially cakes. And her love for those cakes is brought out in almost every page of the book. Her life, her dreams, her problems too are described with the help of the many cakes she regularly bakes. Every layer, every scent, every flavour has its own meaning. And it leaves you craving for a cake of your own, even though her family really wishes she would stop baking them on a daily basis.

It even finishes with 2 lovely recipes for cakes in the end.

This book without doubt is meant for a foodie – one who can appreciate the writer’s and the protagonist’s cake fetish. And I enjoyed it for that, it’s still on my mind after so many years and I wanted to make a little mention about it here.

Of course, I should also mention that the book I had read was an abridged version – part of the RD special editions – which meant that the story was over within 100 pages, and I sincerely don’t think that the book had any more to offer. But if you’re looking for something light to take you away from stress, here’s a cute next-door story for a pleasant evening read.

Go… Eat Cake!

Silence plz...

Forget enochlophobia, crowds…
Forget slums and the stench
Forget the sheer size and the volume
Forget pollution and the smoke, the dust…
I might get used to them. But the one thing about Mumbai that I might never adjust to is the constant level of noise, the relentless activity, steady undying commotion in high decibels.

I am such a silence loving person that Mumbai literally gets on to my nerves.

Currently I’m sitting in my aunt’s one-bedroom ground floor flat in Andheri (E) trying to get on with my Financial Management Foreign Exchange problems, while a huge, loud Ganesh procession is passing by blocking the traffic, so that all I can concentrate on is the drums, tashe, loudspeaker-ed Marathi songs coupled with the blaring horns of the traffic while the Dollars, Pounds and Yen on my notebook do a well choreographed Tandav Nrutya in front of my eyes.

Yes, it’s a festival of a lot of joy, exuberance and splendour. There’s absolutely no way you can escape the energy. But why-oh-why do we need to turn it into a freaking carnival?

The same was with 'Gokulashtami' a week back. Just outside on the street on the morning of 14th August, I was greeted with a huge road block as I walked back home from my classes. The traffic had been diverted and a huge pillar was being lifted supporting a horizontal rope tied between two tall buildings on which was dangling a small earthen pot i.e. ofcourse the prized Dahi-Handi. I hurried inside expecting the worst and it came… sooner than I had anticipated. 10 minutes later, the loudspeakers started with ‘Dhan Te Nan – Ta na na na…’

20 minutes later – (Song: Singh is King)
It has reached an unbearable pitch, and I can already feel the old migraine kicking up.

12 noon – (Song: My Desi girl.)
I can hear my brain pounding against the walls of my skull, synchronising a nice background beat to go with the music while I wholeheartedly prayed the Desi guys to get on with the Dahi Handi.

By 2 pm – (Song: And we twist)
I’m twisting and turning in bed trying to drift into oblivion with pillow over my head, buried deep inside the blanket.

By 4 pm – My brain is numb, and my ears seem to be revolting. I have two large cotton balls stuffed in them with no use, and I have tears in my eyes. I mean who plays ‘Main talli ho gayi’ on Gokulashtami?

6 pm – Finally the Govinda team arrives to break the handi and claim the prize and I silently begin the countdown. (Song – Govinda aala re aala)

8 pm – Suddenly everything goes quiet. Have I gone deaf?
But no, the handi is down, the team has claimed their prize and the crowd slowly disperses. I have tears in my eyes again… this time of happiness!

I had immensely enjoyed the festival of Gokulashtami before this, but this year was a totally new experience – different and in no ways pleasant. If the Dahi Handi fod was scheduled so late then what inspired the need to play Bollywood songs throughout the day? Who had asked for such atrocious free entertainment? Is it just me who cannot understand the public mortification of our festivals?

But ofcourse with Ganesh Chaturthi coming up, I knew this was just the beginning.

To be contd…

Kaminey

Dhan te nan... ta na na na!

A little late with the film review but Mumbai was closed last weekend with the H1N1 scare and so I finally watched the movie I had impatiently waited for this weekend.

My verdict of Kaminey - WICKED!
Four stars ****

Guddu - Innocent, naïve, an NGO worker with a stammer who gets his girlfriend pregnant... absolutely cute!
Portrayal by Shahid – m - m - mindblowing!

Charlie – A petty gangster, who lisps his way into your mind and fuzzes it completely! Reciprocal of Guddu...
Portrayal by Shahid – Abfolutely Fexy!

Sweety - Naughty knows no boundaries, not just a hapless lady love but a fierce feline who completes the movie.
Portrayal by PC – very convincing, I can’t think of a better person to play the role!

Other sundry characters are cast so well, it gives you an idea of how seriously Vishal Bharadwaj takes his movies. Out of them, the most memorable are Amol Gupte as the callous communal leader/politician Bhope and Chandan Roy Sanyal and Charlie’s half-boss, half-best friend Mikhail.

About the plot – The first half is impeccable. It’s full of rib-tickling dark humour and the story unwinds beautifully, comfortably flitting in and out of the lives of the two brothers who have wilfully separated, until fate collides their lives and turns it into an upside down roller coaster ride. But the first half builds a momentum the second half can’t quite keep up with. At times it loses its ground and drops its pace as the plot gets thicker and a bit confusing. It shocks and baffles you and you really need to keep track of who’s who and who’s killing who. But just when you start to feel apprehensive that it’s going to wander off track, it slams on the accelerator back again. The full on gang wars and violence can get a bit extreme but doesn’t go overboard. And the end wraps up the loose strings nicely, it’s predictable but fitting and thankfully doesn’t get too clichéd.

The film is extremely creative and fresh! Dialogues and sequences are mind-blowingly original and the humour cracks you up. After beautifully portrayed ‘Omkara’ I had high hopes from this one and it did not disappoint me. I’m one of those who watch max 2-3 movies in the theatres every year, ‘cos I simply hate wasting my money and patience on mediocre movies, but ‘Kaminey’ was definitely worth putting in my annual list! I don’t know how much the masses will like it (my own aunt and cousin didn’t have anything much to say about it) but I know it is one of the better movies I had seen in the recent times. And after a long time, it gave me somebody to swoon over – Shahid! His ‘Charlie’ is going to stay with me for a while and has set a benchmark that is going to be hard to compete with in the future, especially for him!

Pothole

I know the monsoon started a while back, and so did the potholes.

But the pothole I’m talking about is a little different, the one I had anticipated, foreseen and yet I inadvertently managed to get myself into it. And now I’ve fallen so deep, all I can see is the muddy claustrophobic space engulfing me and the murky grey clouds obscuring the distant blue sky, waiting no doubt, to pour insult on injury. How did I get here, I ask myself… when did I sink so deep?

I had read somewhere a while ago, “There comes a time in almost every man’s life when he tries to run away from life. The trick is to know when to stop running and how to get yourself back!”

And as the sky starts to pour and the space around me closes in, I finally know it's time for me to stop running. As to how to get myself back up, I’m working on it!
I’M WORKING ON IT!


The woods are lovely, dark and deep...
But I have promises to keep,
And Miles to go before I sleep...
Miles to go before I sleep !!!
- Robert Frost


Dedicated to my repeated CA final fiasco…

Size Zero

“Oh my god Sharvani, you look so thin!” I hear the umpteenth time.
And quite uncharacteristically, I roll my eyes, make an exasperated noise and march out of the group leaving everybody to stare at my retreating back.

Outside, I sit alone on the veranda wall, fuming. I was already in a foul mood, but had been dragged to the house-warming party of a relative by my ever-insistent parents. And now, whatever little mood I had left for the party had evaporated with that last statement.

Yes, I’m accustomed to it by now, but it still is quite grating to hear it everywhere I go.

I’m thin – so what?

Some clarifications –
· Being thin does not mean I don’t eat enough; I’m just genetically built that way. I’m NOT a believer of size zero to starve myself for fashion. So leave me alone!

· Thin does not necessarily equal fragile. On the contrary, I’m one of the most energetic of my lot. I’m strong and I have great stamina. In my trekking group, I know how it feels to be one of the first to climb an arduous mountain and then watch others who are left behind huffing and puffing.

· Being thin also does not mean I’m weak. I boast a strong nervous system. Proof? I've never had a major sickness, I don’t remember the last time I had visited a doctor and definitely don’t remember the last time I had taken any medications except a few antibiotics for a wisdom tooth pulled out.

And people, it certainly means that I don’t have to watch my diet, constantly counting my calorie intake. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I can finish that entire chocolate brownie when many have to satisfy themselves with a tinsie little bite.

And as a added bonus, my mum’s cooking is one of the healthiest in the world. And I’m grateful to the healthy eating habits that my parents have inculcated in me right from my childhood. So there’s no way I’m going to put on weight, try as I might.

So there! I’m proud of being thin. I don’t need to be told that I look like a combination of a hanger and a stick insect, which FYI I don’t. I don’t like to be greeted with a ‘Have you lost even more weight?’ I’m perfectly happy with a ‘Hi, how you doing?’ and I’m tired of the constant sermons of what I should or shouldn’t wear and how much I should or shouldn’t eat.

Those who flaunt my category or those who parade in the other extreme (always carrying a few extra pounds on their conscience), know that we don’t want that look from you, even if all you want to do is show you care. Because all that we’re thinking while pretending to listen to your ‘you’re-too-thin’ gospels is… Just. Get. Off. My. Back.

11 august 2009

I had a dream - one of the few dreams that I actually remember.

I'm in a huge auditorium, conducting a symphony orchestra. I'm waving my arms delicately the baton in one hand and smile on my face, urging the tired and yawning band to play the one last piece for me.

The melody goes – and I sing along silently…
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday to me!

The music stops. I turn around and take a bow. When I straighten up, I realise that the entire auditorium is empty.

I woke up with the same sick, empty sensation deep inside me. I try to shake it away but it doesn’t go. I don’t know why, but I dread my Birthdays, not because of the prospect of getting a year older but something inexplicably seems missing.
A Void – that always puzzles me. How? Why? Can anybody explain?