PISCESLAB - updated

My website... updated with new photographs and content.

A funny video...

Trying to teach a dog to play the pan-pipe is not easy! ;)

About Diya - The First Venus

Well now my old memories have been triggered.

The first girl I remember, in my life.
Her name was/is Diya. We used to sit together, I think in the 3rd or 4th class.

We used to sit on the first desk in the second row from the door (which was towards right). Our classroom in those days was on the ground floor.

She and me liked a toy in common. It was a pencil sharpener in shape of a telephone, with a plastic wire for the telephone cord and blue buttons.

She left school. I remember her standing up and facing the class as the teacher told us she was leaving. I remember I was a bit shocked to see her go. When she left, I guess I lost all touch with her.

I wonder where she is now and what is she up to?

Pain is a Privilege

I feel sharing pain is a privilege. When you share your pain with someone, then you are elevating them above other people around you. It is a privilege given with great difficulty. It carries heavy responsibility for the person it is given to. It is a privilege not to be accepted without a clear mind.

So if someone shares their pain with you, try and put yourself in their shoes and actually feel what they are feeling. Remember always, you are privileged to see it.

Next time you feel like saying 'I can feel your pain', make sure you actually mean it before you say it.

Next time someone tries to share their pain with you, take it seriously.

Remember also sometimes the sharing process may just bring the person back from the edge of collapse and give them a new lease of life.

A Post Dedicated to G.

She was with me when I was happy, those were the last days of happiness and childish innocence.
She was my partner till 5th class in school. After that I lost contact with her. We were 10 then.
Few months ago, she tracked me down through Orkut. We were 26 then.

We re-connected after 16 years. It felt as if the years just hadn't passed. That we were still the same. Somewhere within us we were still kids and still happy and still innocent.

Yet many things had changed. I had learnt the meaning of love, pain and death. She had gotten married.

She used to appreciate my air-plane drawings and I used to be curious about 'Misha' magazines which she used to read. We used to cheat at exams.

I think she will always remain my special friend. The first person I bonded with. The person who knows and shared a part of me which no amount of pain or problems can take away.

The part of me which I keep locked away deep inside me.

Thank you G. for making those memories special.

:)

A Picnic!

The Beginning of the End

The Lords of Football!

Love, Hope, Hate and Faith

At one time, I used to be a great believer in Love and Hope. But then Life taught me a few good lessons.

Made me realise all these good emotions are not really good. They always make us more dependent on external factors and circumstances. The main reason is because we humanise these emotions. Pure Love becomes Conditional Love. Hope becomes Expectation.
Very few people are capable of Pure, Unconditional Love or Hope without Expectations. It takes a lot of experience to achieve this.

There is one emotion that we are very good at adapting in the purest form. That is Hate. We tend to keep Hate in our hearts and bring it out without reason or external influences. Hate gives us the warm feeling in our heart. When our insides start burning and we direct our thoughts in the purest form of hate towards ourselves and our surroundings. This emotion doesn't make us dependent on external factors. We can express hate in most situations easily.

Then comes Faith. Faith is the one thing that doesn't need dependence on anything external. You can have Faith in yourself, in God or in Luck. These things don't have an external manifestation. They do not depend on thoughts or actions of others.

What is the resultant of this post? Are we never to Love or Hope and only to Hate and Keep the Faith?
In my opinion, Love and Hope in their humanised forms are VERY dangerous. Conditional Love and Expectations make us do so many things. Then one day when the Condition is gone and Expectations have been shattered we feel as if Life has taken a Left turn. But since most people would find it difficult to have unconditional love and hope, I guess hurt and pain is the price we must always be prepared to pay to be able to love and hope. Therefore love and hope hide a negative aspect under their positive shell.

Hate is one of my favourite emotions to study. There is something powerful about it. Hate can motivate people in ways that Love cannot. Hate hides a positive aspect in its negative shell. Hate is good as long as it is harnessed. The same way burning fuel is good if its energy is harnessed.
A side effect of hate is purification. When you emerge from the flames of hate many unnecessary things have been burnt away making you feel lighter. Hate always starts with an external source. You hate someone, you hate something. But then if it is allowed to grow. It quickly takes over everything. Slowly, hate is the one thing that you feel.

At its purest there is perfect Hate for yourself. Where no external source or target is needed. You just hate yourself. That is when the true emergence takes place. IF and ONLY IF, you think at that point of time 'why do I hate myself'. In the light of hate are your smallest flaws revealed. Once revealed they can be removed.

Faith is something one should always have. It is one thing that the person has control on. Faith comes from within. It doesn't need an external source. God doesn't advertise, yet people have faith in God. Whatever comes from within you, you can control.

I am sure many people will not like me posting such a post, but this is what life has taught me. If you were lucky enough to get a different lesson, then please do share with me.
:)

And Life Takes a Left Turn....

Sometimes life can feel like an endless drive down a highway. Things keep happening with clockwork regularity. You get up, you go to work, come back, eat, sleep etc. Just like on highway you encounter certain signs on a regular basis. Signs for rest-stops, traffic signs and signs giving directions. You know where you are headed and you know how to get there.

But ever so often you come across a blockage on the road or some other problem that compels you to take a left turn. That is what I mean by 'Life takes a left turn'. In such a situation you are sure of where you want to go but not about how you will get there. That is when all our plans shatter and one feels like one has gone off the map. That is when the regularity of things is broken and luck/destiny/fate slips into the situation.

When you encounter such periods in life. Where it feels as if you have driven off the map and there is nothing to guide you. Just relax. Remember this quote:

"...with no other light or guide than the one that burned in my heart."
- The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

You always have a guide with you. That is the light that burns in your heart. This is not the light of love. This is not the light of hope. Those things make you dependent on external factors.

This is the light of faith. Faith in yourself and your luck/fate/destiny/God. That wherever you end up that is where you were meant to be. That your guiding light is never wrong.

Keep the faith... remember.

A Question of Love

The other day a question came to my mind.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone whom you have never met?

Of course humans are very good at fooling themselves so you may (on the surface) fall in love with someone who you have never met. Two questions arise from this:

- Can you actually call it love in the traditional sense?

- What kind of a foundation does this love give the people involved to build a relationship on?

What I think is, that it is possible to fall in love with a persons mind and soul without meeting them. But it never does provide a stable platform for a serious relationship. It is the physical side that rules everything. Much more than mind and soul. It is the physical stuff that nag us. It is that which may become a point to fight on.


Ideally, in love, there should be a balance of the mental with the physical. To complete the trinity of love one must fall for the person's mind, body and soul! Therefore to build towards a relation and to fall in love completely with a person, you need to match the mental with the physical. Only when you completely love a person, can you say you are in true love.

If you love a person's mind and soul only, then they can be your soul-mate but may not be able to be your life-partner because life is very much physical.

Life-partner is not only a person who you want to talk to everyday, but is the person you want to sleep and get-up with, eat and drink with, live and die with for the rest of this life.

A non-physical (in other words purely long distance) relationship has one big big advantage. It has the same effect as the setting of the Sun. Just as when the Sun sets the stars and the universe around us is revealed the same way when the physical is taken away or hidden from us, that is when the person's nature and thoughts are revealed.

The stars are always there just that the sun outshines them, making them difficult to see. The same way sometimes the physical side of things (looks etc.) makes us loose focus of the things that usually don't change a lot with age, like nature, mind and soul of the person. A purely long distance relation doesn't allow us to focus on the physical side of things for too long and makes us
look into the person within the body. This is both a good thing as well as bad, as I have already discussed.


The original question shall, therefore, remain unanswered because there is no single right or wrong answer for this question. I feel the answer depends on the people involved and the circumstances surrounding them.