Everyone going wild!  

The city of Bristol from Ashton Court: taken on 14th April 2005 

The Road to Infinity: taken by me on 14th April 2005 at Ashton Court. 

Few facts about girls...

Girls please don't be angry after reading...

If you praise her,
She thinks you are lying
If you don't,
You are good for nothing.

If you agree to all her likes,
You are a wimp.
If you don't,
You do not understand.

If you visit her often,
She thinks you are boring.
If you don't,
She accuses you of double-crossing.

If you are well dressed,
She says you are a playboy.
If you don't,
you are a dull boy.

If you are jealous,
She says it's bad.
If you don't,
She thinks you do not love her.

If you attempt a romance,
She says you didn't respect her.
If you don't,
she thinks you do not like her

If you are a minute late,
She complains it's hard to wait.
If she is late,
She says that's a girl's way.

If you visit another man,
you're not putting in "quality time".
If she is visited by another woman,
"oh it's natural, we are girls".

If you kiss her,
You are not a gentleman.
If you don't,
You are not a man.

If you fail to help her in crossing the street,
You lack ethics.
If you do,
She thinks it's just one of men's tactics for seduction.

If you stare at another woman,
She accuses you of flirting.
If she is stared by other men,
She says that they are just admiring.

If you talk,
She wants you to listen.
If you listen,
She wants you to talk.

In short:
So simple, yet so complex...
So weak, yet so powerful...
So confusing, yet so desirable.
So damning, yet so wonderful.

William Wordsworth. 1770–1850 The Solitary Reaper BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,	5
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands	10
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas	15
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:	20
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang	25
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,	30
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

:)

Clairvoyant says:
With love even if the one u love dies... a part of u dies with them and a part of them lives on with u.

The English countryside on a cold spring day. 

The M31 Andromeda Galaxy. Amazing isnt it? 

A line I hate...

I dont know about anyone else.. but I hate it when I read somewhere '... and I never saw him/her again'.
These words are so true sometimes.. you never know when you are meeting someone face to face for the last time. When they drop out of contact, move away or just die.
Ofcourse it is not possible to know everyone you ever came in touch with all through your years on this fine planet. But still the very fact that 'you never know when you are meeting someone face to face for the last time' should make everyone of us cherish each and every hello.
Extending this line of thinking a bit we can see a hello is like a birth, a start of a relationship... a relationship often based on simple things like standing in the same line or travelling on the same plane. The birth, the beginning is the most difficult time. When we say hello we initiate something which has to terminate with a goodbye. Thus great responsibility lies on the person who initiates this birth.
In simple words the responsibility for the relationship and the main burden of pain on its ending (i.e. the goodbye) lies on the person who initiates it.. the person who says hello first.

But when we think of practical relations it is the law of percentages... very few relations (<1%) that we start so happily, actually make us sad when they end. These are often basic relations like love which is most strange and complicated itself. It has no beginning and no ending. It is the one true relation that can be maintained across physical distances. Thus the relation of love has the power to remain unaffected by all kinds of 'goodbyes' including Death. Infact strangely enough Death makes it stronger sometimes.

Some Lucid Thoughts...

The Twin forces which guide a career path:
1) Skill Set
2) Domain Knowledge

Any career path is a delicate balance between the two. The 'ideal' career path is a compact yet flexible skill set targeting several interrelated domains. The two extremes are a narrow skill set with narrow domain knowledge which is often seen in engineering fields. The other end is a flexible wide (if not well developed) skill set and overall domain knowledge across various domains.

Thus the main aim of designing a career path is to find a balance between Skill set development and acquiring Domain knowledge. The depth and width of both being important factors.

Poem

Mariana in the Moated Grange
Alfred Lord Tennyson

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary
I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,

Oh God, that I were dead!"

Mariana in the Moated Grange by Sir John Everett Millais, 1829-1896 
2. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised—oh,
happy chance!—
In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.
3. In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which
burned in my heart.

-- Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross

Smile!

There is only one difference between Marriage and War..
In a marriage you get to sleep with your enemy at night.. ;)

Me.. and Shy!

Some words of wisdom from a friend:
Arti says:
u very straigh fwd but shy
Arti says:
n jokes apart
Arti says:
being staright fwd does not mean
Arti says:
u say everythg thts in ur mins thts not relevant to the situation

Again.. this is most amazing and funny.. esp. the last line.

Four of Disks from the Thoth Tarot Deck.. representing the Security Structure...  

This card describes my life perfectly. 

Turning my back on home and hearth...
rejecting everything nice...
on a lonely journey of life..
"Miles to go before I sleep"

Excellent Quote!

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

- Charles Caleb Colton

Vanilla Sky...

Today/Yesterday saw Vanilla Sky. It is one of the best movies I have ever seen.
Right next to 12 Monkeys.
"I will tell you in another life, when we are both cats"
Man thats so profound! Who comes up with stuff like that? That person surely has a non-linear thinking process.
Just when life couldnt get worse.. you see a movie like Vanilla Sky and it makes you feel strange.
It is all very very strange.
:)


"We are afraid to live, but scared to die"
- Inderpal Bahra

Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, "Did you bring joy?" The second was, "Did you find joy?"
-Leo Buscaglia

Q1: Did I bring joy? -> Id like to think I did.
Q2: Did I find joy? -> Too bad I cant lie.
:)

Me, Rawat and Raj (Right to Left) 

Choices..

Everyone always has two choices.. just two choices.
You might have 10 choices in front of you but they can always be neatly divided into the basic two choices.
The high path or the low path. Facing a problem or running away...
both choices have equal merit. Sometimes the desperation levels are so high that running away is the only logical choice one has.
At other times running away is the last thing on our minds.
What truly decides it for us is the fact that how attachted are we to the answer to the question that has put the choices before us.

Whatever talk we may generate about the choices... in the end it comes down to the two.
There is no escaping it. No hiding from it. The only reason we get confused is because we try and confuse ourselves by inventing more choices than their are. Maybe we dont want to face the hard truth that our options are limited. But this confusion leads to more anguish than accepting the hard truth.

So as the poem from Robert Frost says..
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Maybe by facing the two choices we can make a difference.

Azahar Machwe
27th March 2005