Icy Hands Redux

A family who are close friends suffered a terrible tragedy last week. The wife/mother in the family was visiting her son in California and by a bizarre stroke of nature as she was out for a walk/run, she was hit by a car.

Accidents are terrible, no matter where or when they happen but when you are miles away from your homeland, somehow the pain is doubled, sorrows are tenfold and you feel alone regardless of how many calls you receive from well-wishers. 

The lady hit by the car was a really nice person with a great heart. She passed away yesterday surrounded by her son and her husband who flew from India to be with her. That must have been a VERY long flight. When I heard the news I was taken back 2 years when another one of our close friends passed away suddenly before we had a chance to say goodbye.

This is the fifth time in recent memory that some one close to me personally or in my family has passed away when I was in the US and unable to be there. This time it even happened in the US but a different coast means I can only offer respects personally when I go back home.

As I did that day, here are some quotes on a dark matter:-

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character Would you slow down? Or speed up?”

- Chuck Palahniuk

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.”

- Author unknown

Below are reposts from the archives:-

For certain is death for the born

And certain is birth for the dead;

Therefore over the inevitable

Thou shouldst not grieve.

- Bhagavad Gita (250 BC – 250 AD), Chapter 2

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come,
we are not.

- Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Don’t Stop Believing

Ayn Rand wrote the following words:-

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.

The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”

- Atlas Shrugged

When I went to bed last night, I laid down, closed my eyes and immediately remembered India was playing Australia on day five with a chance to do something no one had done apart from India in ages, take a Test Series lead. I put on my glasses and quickly rushed to my laptop to check the score and would you know it, Zak had led a fiery charge in the morning and India were on the cusp of a famous win. Pleased with the efforts and smiling alone in that apartment with no one to share the moment with, I thought it best to hit the sack and let time play its course.

I awoke this morning and the first coherent thought was the game and with the excitement of a kid waking up Christmas morning I once again rushed to the laptop to check the result praying for rains to have stayed away and hoping for the win. They did not disappoint. The victory was almost expected, the manner in which it came was not. A thrashing of epic proportions. India 1 Aus 0

Bringing me back to Ayn Rand’s famous passage. The Indian team is filled with veterans who have fought the fair and very long fight in their careers with individual brilliance but have very little to show for it keeping aside all the counting stats. They could have easily given up after their leader had shoulder problems and was unable to play but the efforts they showed were the difference between what is and what might have been. India have always been criticized as not having the heart to achieve things.

Over the past 5 days they have proved what is possible. How much longer will this fire burn? Were these dying embers or a spark of things to come.

We can all take a lesson from this effort. We can all get the world we desire.

It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s ours.

Winter cleaning

I spent a few hrs this morning just going through the archives and cleaning up the double posts or in some cases triple posts caused due to migration from blogger to wordpress ages ago.

Browsing the archives just got much better. Enjoy.

Weekend update

Wow, its been so long since I did one of these.

Spent the weekend in the big apple indulging myself and others in lots of debauchery. Drinks, bollywood night dancing, downtown in SOHO & NOHO exploring, eating Gatia rolls and in general having a good time.

I’m not happy I was not able to bring a digital camera to the US cause there were so many great moments this weekend that would have come in handy.

They say if there is no one in the forest when a tree falls there is no sound of the tree falling. Now if I’m in the forest exploring the sights, sounds and smells but no one is there to share them with me, does that mean it never happened?

So I got back to my apartment tonight and the main street of the place was looking lovely with lights and music and a chilly breeze. The catch was that it was completely deserted, it was almost spooky. I looked at my watch thinking it was out of whack and time was around 1 in the morning but it was only 7:45 pm… I kid you not I thought of House of Wax with Elisha Cutberth and that dude from One Tree Hill.

Luckily I found a place to rest my tired shoulders and grab couple of slices. Got back, started the process of something called laundry which Indian men and boys only seem to do by themselves in the 50 states of america.

I’ll crack open a beer now and watch Boston Red Sox try and complete yet another unbelievable comeback. All of baseball should be rooting for the Rays btw.

Inspiration from an Unlikely Source

The passage below is classic Shakespeare agreed, but the source for inspiration was the mentioning of this passage on a brilliant tv show I’ve been addicted to lately. One Tree Hill or OTH.

OTH has some of the best usage and presentation of music and literature in new age media. Enjoy the passage from Julius Caesar below.

We at the height are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures. (IV.ii.269–276)

Confused? For an explanation if required check this out.

Godlike

Easily one of the best sports writeups I have read in my lifetime, and I’ve read a lot.

Roger Federer as Religious Experience – Tennis – New York Times

Too bad this is couple of yrs old. But still a must read for a sports and especially tennis fans. Sameer/Arjun I’m looking at you here.

Quote of the day

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.– Alfred D. Souza

Road warrior

Once again I’m on the road with silence as my only companion. These words are not meant to be dark but just represent the truth.

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop but the devil is always on strike in my workshop. It feels good to be back on my own again after a long long time. I realize how much I really miss this place… but its not even that I miss it, its that I know I’ll always fit in. No matter how many years it takes me to visit the US again, it will seem like I never left.

I’m always fresh of the plane, never of the boat. Be it sportscenter, subways or shopping for groceries and buying chapstick, its like the last 3 years never happened.

Quote of the Day

How rare is it that you read an semi-obscure quote twice in one day through completely different sources.

Source 1 today was Civilization IV: a superb strategy game wherein every time you research a technology, the voice of Spock says a relevant quote. For Alphabet I believe the quote is:

Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some
few to be chewed and digested.
– Francis Bacon, 1561 – 1626

And the second source is obviously QoTd. The theme there was books so made sense but the very first quote? Freaky stuff.

Hail Big G

In case you’ve been enjoying Labor Day or decorating Ganesh mandals and not following every rss feed out there, supposedly Google will release Google Chrome (Beta) today. A brand new browser from the guys behind Gmail and everything else I love.

C’mon guys, you already have my soul.. couldn’t you have let me keep my firefox? You’ll most likely be taking that away from me as well.

Anyway, looking forward to downloading the beta today and playing with it.

Birthday Wishes – Platinum edition

My maternal grandmother turned 75 yesterday so we obviously had a big bash for her.

Attending the event were her childhood friends and other associates. Good times all around. Food was amazing, so was the champagne and chocolate liquor later on.

To many more good times…

How green is our valley

Watching the Roger – Nadal final at Wimbledon. Question: Is this THE best sports rivalry of our time?

Certainly is the greatest tennis rivalry in generations.. the best I’ve ever seen. 2 guys, extremely fit and confident going at it time and time again. Each trying to defend his own turf and gain a foothold on the opposite turf at the same time.

Nadal on Clay = Roger on Grass… or make that Roger anywhere else.

It is inevitable that Nadal wins on grass sometime and takes charge of the Championships from then on. But in the meantime lets enjoy something special.

10-4 Details

The moment I saw that image on my computer screen I knew I wanted to blog it.

Things that took that idea and made it a reality were:-

Scribefire plugin for Firefox 3. This allows me to post unobtrusively and get back to work.

Downloaded Fast Stone image capture but that and paint would not keep the video image from the GOM player.

Luckily GOM has a built in screen cap option.

Using that and pasting it into irfanview and saving it as jpeg allowed me to create the image.

Thanks to wordpress for making it so easy to upload, paste and center the image into the blog post.

Miracle of technology.. the above steps took about 3 minutes.

The 4th of October

Wow, real freaky occurrence just took place.

Today in India there is was a movie launched called Love Story 2050 which takes place on the 4th of October 2050. The 4th happens to be my birthday.

Anyways, right now I was watching an episode of Heroes (First season) called 5 years gone and a date they mention happens to be… drum roll: 4th of October.

Trying to insert the screen cap below. Hope it works.

The 4th of October

New start

First official new post on the wordpress blog.

Moved all my archives from blogger to wordpress today and soon will be exclusively posting here.

I like the variety of themes they have going. Only thing I’ll miss is being able to embed all sorts of cool analytical stuff.