Victor Frankl

I have been thinking about how my life has changed post the 7th August (the final day of my P&Bs). Well it hasn't really changed that much..infact I have more deadlines to meet, demanding bosses to appease and irritating accountants to fight...life just doesn't change does it...It all depends on our state of mind.

During this team building the external consultant told us a story about a famous psychologist Victor Frnkl a survivor of Holocaust. His views on how we view our lives touched a cord somewhere...he said" even when we are reduced to nothing but our bare naked existence we still have one last freedom we can exercise and that is our attitude towards our surroundings"..

How true and how often I forget this.

Dharamshala

Dharamshala....Beautiful place...highly overrated or perhaps it was the company I had! It has an old church built in 1863.. A huge grey stone moss covered artifact with huge coniferous trees all around it...it was pure magic...there was an old graveyard with graves covered in moss and wild grass.... I was only able to spend 15 min there...my RO team wanted to go shopping..Idiots!! Well you can't have everything in life...

That's the kind of holidays I like...long walks in the morning, seeing old churches (at my pace), spending long hours beside a waterfall....relaxing with a book, a cup of coffee and momos...

Oh and we did visit the monastery...didn't get a sneak peek of Dalai Lama. The main sanctum has these awesome idols of Kalchakra and Viswatama and an intricate wall painting of Buddha and kalchakra... we just sat there for half an hour...no rules, sounds...I would like to try it again.

If you ever plan to go to Dharamshala then stick to the upper dharmshala (bhagsunag and Mcleodganj) and just plan for a day or two if you are the sight seeing kinds.

Delhi's woe

Five Blasts have rocked Delhi...they've hit the heart of Delhi..Central Park...Like all the other Delhiites I am forced to say"whats the world coming to". I remember Central Park before it became the 'Metro' park...one could stand there and try and locate the shops in the inner circle- Bata, Wengers, Host... Its all changed now...its neater now with a much better crowd spending time there....
Everyone thinks Delhi is fast and I tell them to come and live here...I'll always loved it....
I hope the families find strength in this black hour.

Roads taken

I am going to post one of my favouratie poems.....

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. ...Robert frost

I wonder which one i took....perhaps i am still at crossroads.... Knowing me....I probably am waiting for transportation to come by...

Lady Dragon, a Panda and Rats

Its over...finally the unbeleivable has happened..... and as Amir Khan says in his blog "crossed all my Ts and Dotted all my Is"....
There is a Lady dragon in my life (real name withheld for fear of swift and painful retribution) who is extrmemely Jealous of ..hmmm...lets call him Giant panda.. she goes about bitching to all who are unfortunate enough to be near her about GP, how he dominates us poor ..umm...what do I call myself... Rats, cuts her when she is blabbering, doesnt respect her authority coz she is a woman, blah, blah, blah.... Now Lady Dragon never realises that we Rats would never side with an omnivorous like her... The Panda in comparison is a vegetarian, doesn't breathe fire and well ..sleeps most of the time...
Now her Royal Highness wants to do a Power analysis of our small zoo/sanctuary/circus because she feels a certain power imbalance...She wants us measly fellows to open up and take over from our oppressors... Well somebody Please tell me how we Rats are supposed to throw up in a party organised by the Dragon ....
Well that's just some of the quixotian ideas LD has...
And thank you Shwets..you are a loyal friend and am all waiting for you to start your blog...
Oh no...I 've been called to the Dragon's Lair !!

Number seven

Ever tried writing a blog in the middle of a heavy intellectual discussion..its a real liberating experience...I didn't sleep the whole night...was busy writing my P&B documents..funny how there is always something more to be added every time I look at the document.

I won't have any respite till the 7th....The number seven never seemed like such an attractive number...I am almost in love with the number!

Clippin' my feathers.... Oh no no no!

Budget realisations are so complicated...especially when you are short of time and I had two of those horrible things to set straight... Sion and I just had to go for a movie after that...Jaane tu ya.. a very cute movie... but what happened afterwards was nothing short of horrible..

We had gone for the 6 O clock show which ends at 9 pm...getting an auto is a hassle and a strain on your nerves at any hour, but at night for a woman its nothing short of a harassment. Every single auto person asked us to shell out 80-90 Rs even though the hall was hardly 3-4 kms from where we live. The way all of them come together to hound women is in itself troubling... we decided to take a cycle rickshaw back as we had used a rick to get to the hall... one after another all the rickshaw wallahs refused to go.. we were willing to pay but they probably felt we were asking them to cart us across the border...and the way they leered and laughed at our expense...one young fellow called us to him and we thought we had finally found one good Samaritan...but it seems he was just wanting to have more fun...we hadn't even mentioned the place before he refused....That's when I totally blew my fuse...and when I get angry I become incoherent too...We asked a traffic policeman to help us get this rickshaw and wonder of wonder this chap says that he has no authority over the rickshawallahs, we should instead try to get an auto....this statement comes right after he shouts tsome rickshawallahs to move away from the place... I told him that as a policeman he should be helping woman not making things more difficult for them but to no avail...infact when I threatened to report him he told me to go ahead and do it... By this time we were becoming a public spectacle

The most frustrating part was not the attitude of the rickshawallahs or the traffic policeman...it was the sheer helplessness and a sort of impotent rage I felt...am sure all the girls understand what I felt coz I can't put it into words.... its like the whole men fraternity gangs up together when a woman is protesting or raising her voice and this isn't the first time I have faced this... And no one joins in to help...they just look at you like you've lost your wits or something...

That however will not stop me from going for an evening show or even a late night show...coz after all for a crime that someone else did why should I pay! I am not going to let anyone clip my feathers....