thought

sometimes we do not see things coming, for somethings in life we can never be prepared.
no matter how much we prepare ourselfves for some things we will never be ready when it actually hits us.

namesake

has almost left me speachless. fantastic book, must read.
how u can build a world, a home for urself in places that u never thought was possible. how the longing of going back seems to strong yet what u build with the people u love can be so much more precious. how u fight to be different or simlar to people around u. how difficult it is to understand things unless u have to go through them. how eventually u discover wht is important to u.
and in the end u only belong with the people that u love and thoes who love u.

passage from namesake

"As their lives in New England swell with fellow Bengali friends, the members of that other, former life, thoes who know Ahima and Ashoke not by their good names but as Monu and Mithu, slowly dwindle"

stirkes a cord.......................................

i do not understand

Harry Potter in the classroom from cnn

i started reading this article becuase it had harry potter in the heading and i would have happily dismissed it after reading it but
"Parents Against Bad Books in School, which is based in Fairfax County, ranks the Harry Potter series 48th on its list of the 100 books that have sparked the most complaints. But it's far behind such classics as Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye.""

thought

what do u do when u make a decision, that is, if not horribly wrong, it is certainly not right. but then u still have to go ahead with it.

and the point of this research is?

Do pretty people earn more? from cnn

""Good-looking men and women are generally judged to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts," Patzer says. "Controlled studies show people go out of their way to help attractive people -- of the same and opposite sex -- because they want to be liked and accepted by good-looking people.""
...
"Despite what the research says, some of the world's most successful people have been ordinary looking at best, and you would never mistake the faces in Fortune for those in Esquire or Entertainment Weekly."

i always find it difficult to decide if a person is 'beautiful'(or not) by just looking at them. the personality of a person is so entwined with 'looking good' that i can't separate it. and to tell the truth i do not want to seperate it.

we can wear the flag too :))

Indians can wear flag with pride from bbc
"Years after having won independence, Indians are now free to wear images of their flag on their clothing.
But not where it hurts national sentiments - below the belt."
...
"Caps and T-shirts are in but swimsuits and evening gowns are still a no-no."

quote

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
--Oscar Wilde

you can sell anything in Mumbai

Sold for Rs 12,000 via indiauncut (an excellent blog)

"Baby was bought in 3 hrs
1.We got to Hotel Almas for some refreshments and also to hand over the promised Rs 12,000 to the two women
2.Mehjabeen, the daughter of one of the touts is delighted with her booty and loses no time in counting the paisa.
3.We all pose happily for keepsake photos. The touts show no remorse handing over the baby to us
4.Ok bye, says Anjum, one of the touts shaking Naveeta’s hand. Further she insists that Naveeta not forget her!
5.Naveeta seems a bit flustered left holding the baby but he is exceptionally well-behaved and gives no trouble
6.One of the workers at Bal Anand the orphanage where handed over the child
7.Little Asif looks only too happy to be snug in a blanket after a bath. It’s been quite an ordeal for him. "

crime against women

India wakes up to its battered women from indianexpress
"Swati suffered nine years of terror and beatings at the hands of her husband and in-laws for not paying an ample enough dowry, before they eventually tried to kill her by burning her alive."

Another Imrana: Father-in-law rapes Assam girl from indianexpress
"The family, who are Bangladeshi immigrants, did not inform the police about the rape, but went to local religious elders who gave the decree that she divorce her husband, he said"

i wonder has the crime against women gone up, or is it that media is publishing more abt such crimes, or maybe the mukhtaran mai's case has made indian media bold to be able to report such cases.

Bombay Univ says mini skirt ban helps stop rape from indianexpress again
"Bombay University plans to ban women from wearing mini skirts, tight tops and shorts, saying this will help prevent rape.
Officials at the university say they would prefer to see women students in a traditional salwar-kameez with no deep neckline"

next step if this does not solve the crime... all wear burkhas(no religious context intended), stay at home(y even go to college) and never peak in the outside world. perfect soln isn't it. IDIOTS.
they better go and get there brains checked if they really think that the salwar-kameez clad women are not victims of such crimes.

the following article is an old one but it is a must read. i do not know which part of the article to quote and which to leave out.
Women fight back against rape epidemic from IE

flowers

beautiful slide show of flowers on flickr

quotes

A smile is a light in the window of the soul indicating that the heart is home.
--Anonymous

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.
--Anonymous

To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.
--Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz

blast in london

no link is needed to find this information.
but all i wonder how will any of this ever help anyone.

dance- a form of art not sport.

Budding Dancers Compete, Seriously from nytimes.

"But as dance competitions have become big business, questions about the appropriateness of having young children compete, especially in midriff-baring outfits, and about the virtues of forcing an art into a competitive framework in the first place have also grown."
...
""I played sports all my life, and I've never seen anyone work as hard as they do," said Dennis Spitzer, a physical therapist from Fresno, Calif., who had come with his wife to watch their 10-year-old daughter, Lindsay, compete at the Waldorf with the Dance Studio of Fresno. "They are going out there to win. If they don't win, they feel as badly as we do when we lose. It's not dance. It's a sport."
Those words are anathema to many in the dance world. "Dance is not a sport, it's an art," said Elsa Posey, a past president of the National Dance Education Organization, who has run a studio in Northport, N.Y., since 1953. "In art, the competition is within oneself." "
...
"Such agonies of defeat - the exception, not the rule - come with the territory of competition, and they raise the issue of judging, which, in dance, is an inherently subjective process."

anonymuncule

Be everything you are not!!!

Sometimes you can be happy for someone, even if they don't care.
Soemtimes you can be sad, because they don't care.
Sometimes you want not to care and move away.
Sometimes when you move away, you wish you had tried once more.
Sometimes when you think of all the times that you tried, you wonder why it didn't work.
Sometimes when it doesn't, it hurts and you try to reason why.
Sometimes when you try to reason why, you do not have all the answers.
Sometimes when you do not have answers, you want to ask questions.
Sometimes when you ask questions, you do not get the answers.

And then you realise...

...that you can decide to be happy,
but you cannot decide not to be sad.

...that you can't not care,
but not have the strength to try.

...that no matter how far away you go,
it will hurt no less.

...that no matter how you reason it,
you will not have the answers.

So let the tears flow, give up, stay put, and don't think...
that is, be everything you are not!!!!

--shob