With Arms Wide Open

31st July 2009 – Early Morning is when we found out that “we’ve created life”. Since then a lot of people have asked me that how does it feel now. To be honest it still has not completely sunk in. The realisation is getting deeper and deeper with time. But whenever someone asks me about it I always remember the song With Arms Wide Open by Creed from their album Human Clay.

Scott Stapp wrote this song when he came to know that he was becoming a father. I have always loved this song especially the part starting with Well I don’t know if I’m ready. Anyway, here’s the song. Enjoy!

“With Arms Wide Open“

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is gonna change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open

Well I don’t know if I’m ready
To be the man I have to be
I’ll take a breath, I’ll take her by my side
We stand in awe, we’ve created life

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I’ll show you love
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I’ll show you everything …oh yeah
With arms wide open..wide open

If I had just one wish
Only one demand
I hope he’s not like me
I hope he understands
That he can take this life
And hold it by the hand
And he can greet the world
With arms wide open…

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I’ll show you love
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I’ll show you everything..oh yeah
With arms wide open….wide open

Showeriya

This is for someone whom I lived with once (many of you will already have got the hint) and how his habit of taking seemingly endless showers, multiple times a day would infuriate us all.

I was just going for a shower and this popped into my head. So here it goes (sing along to the tune of Saawariya)

Showeriya haa haaaa
Showeriya haa haa haa
Showeriya
hooo Showeriya

Shower mein bitha ke
Paani se nehlake
Zamane se churake
Lejayega

Showeriya haa haaaa
Showeriya haa haa haa
Showeriya
hooo Showeriya

Shower mein bitha ke
Paani se nehlake
Zamane se churake
Lejayega ek roj tera udke jiya

Showeriya haa haaaa
Showeriya haa haa haa
Showeriya
hooo Showeriya

Shower ke darmiyane mein
Paani ke is fuvare mein
Meri to zindagi basi hai
Tu to har lamha yaadon mein
Teri har ek boond ka deewana bana

Showeriya haa haaaa
Showeriya haa haa haa
Showeriya
hooo Showeriya

Shower mein bitha ke
Paani se nehlake
Zamane se churake
Lejayega

Showeriya haa haaaa
Showeriya haa haa haa
Showeriya
hooo Showeriya

Why I ain’t rich?

Cause as I often say

“Paisa to haath ka maiel hai aaj hai to kal nahi… lekin mere hi haath mein permanent disinfectant hai.”

Amazing Sound Illusion

We all have seen tons of optical illusion emails floating around. But I recently came accross this site which had a number of sound illusions.

The ones that amazed me most were the “Virtual Haircut” and the “Sound for under 20s Only” ones (I could not hear the sound for under 20s one as sadly am no longer that young 😦 ).

Imp: Listen to them using stereo headphone and for best effect close your eyes while listening to it.

Links:
Top 10 Incredible Sound Illusions
Virtual Haircut
Sound for under 20s Only

Achmed – The dead terrorist

Watch this 10 min clip or else “I kill you” (watch it and you will get the joke)

Thank you!

This post is for all the people who got together, schemed against me, made up innumerable stories, left me alone at home on weekends to get bored and at the end of it all made it all worthwhile by giving me my best Birthday till date.

First of all a special thanks to the orchestrator or this devious plan, my very own loving wife Namrata. Thanks for planning the whole treasure hunt and for all the thoughtful gifts (including the surprise party). I loved every bit of it. And another special special thanks for not leaving the car and making me do the whole hunt via public transport. Iska badla liya jayega.

The next lot of thanks for Santa’s little helpers who helped pick out all the gifts and also navigated my-unable-to-remember-roads wife to all the different shopping malls around. Don’t worry will surely get her a GPS so that in case I am un-contactable some day she does not call you with her, “I don’t know where I am, I am lost” speech. These helpers are Shimul, Suman, Riddhi, Ushma (Namrata wanted me to remove your name but I can never do that to you) and Shiva.

After them come the guardians of the treasure. When I left home I did not even think that my quest for these gifts would take me to all these people. These guardians of treasure (in order of their appearance) are Riddhi, Suman, Shimul, Shraddha, Ushma, Jimit, Sanket, Girish and last but not the least Mrs. N Shah. Hats off to you people.

The next thank you note is for our own avatar of Batman’s nemesis Riddler, the very unique and the one and only Ashil whose well framed clues made the whole hunt such a big hit. Thanks once again boss.

Last but not the least a thanks to Pallav, Ashutosh, Kishen, Praneet, Sash, Binoli, Janu, Darshak, Sachinji and Shweta for coming and making this a memorable night for me.

Thanks everyone.

Updates

Its been a long time since I have updated the blog. Not that many people read it. But the only person I can blame for that is myself. If I let people know that I have a blog they will visit. So well I will start letting people know about it from now on. The one person whom I recently told about this blog is my very good friend Varun.

Anyways about the updates. The last few months have been very eventful. First there was a month when my wife was trying to convince me to buy a dog. For those of you who know her well you would have a pretty good idea of how “convincing” she can be. So finally I decided to buy her a puppy (in advance) as a gift for our second marriage anniversary which was yesterday.

 Then came the hard part of looking for a puppy we liked. As I have always been scared of dogs I was adamant on buying a small breed which is not aggressive, does not bark a lot, very loving and playful. After about a month of research and looking around we brought a puppy which was a cross between a Maltese and a Shih Tzu. And hence doof (that’s what we named him) became the first addition to our family.

He just turned 3 months last Saturday. He is so quiet that in the month that we have had him I have not heard him bark ever. At the most I have heard is a yap and that too about 4-5 times.

I return for the puppy I got a O2 XDA Atom Life as my anniversary gift. (Thanks wifey for that. I had always wanted that. And also thanks for convincing me to get doof. He is a bundle of joy.)

Other than that the past few weekends have been really busy. So yesterday on our anniversary we spent a quiet day at home.

On the work front. I just accepted an offer from my current employer to go permanent. I had been contracting with them since last 1.5 years and though I did not mind being on a contract I took up the offer of going permanent as there were many other benefits associated (sick leave and annual leave being the major ones).

Anyways before I end this post I would like to put up a picture of Doof. So here it is. Will hopefully keep on maintaining this blog.

Earth From Above

Late last year there was an exhibition called Earth From Above going on in Melbourne. More than the exhibition what piqued my interest was that the exhibition was on for 6 months and it was open 24 hours a day.

So with my interest aroused me and my wife went over to see what it was. I was prepared for a major disappointment as most of the exhibitions of art these days deal with what is popularly termed as “Modern Art” which is way beyond my understanding.

But to our surprise we found the exhibition to be a collage of delightful pictures from all around the world.

Without any further ado I present the link for having a look at these excellent photos on the photographers personal website:

http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/yann2/affichage.php

The photos are sorted by country and many of them have a description in English (which is as insightful as the pictures themselves).

Hope you all enjoy this as much as we did.

A few dates here and there – A short story

I have been dead since 3rd June 2003. That’s exactly 4 years ago. I died in a car accident when me and my wife, Susan, were going to the movies. We were driving along happily listening to music when her favourite song came on. As I always used to do, I took my eyes off the road to trouble her by skipping onto the next song. I was a couple of seconds late in reacting to the truck bearing down on us and now here I am, dead as a doornail.

I was just 26 when my life was cut short. It was as if the world which I had just begun to grasp within my hands had been snatched away. I had been looking forward to so many things when more than half of my life taken away from me – wanted to have kids, get a house, go bungy jumping, grow old along with Susan, go to Paris and do many more things. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

Now that I am dead you may wonder what fate had in store for me. Was it Heaven or Hell? Isn’t it? That’s what we have all been brought to believe in, that there is life after death, that there is a heaven where good people go and a hell for all the sinners. It’s been 4 years since I have died but I am no closer to the truth than you are. But there is another anomaly we all have heard of. Ghosts! This is what I believe myself to be. Not one that goes around scaring people. But I see myself as some form of energy floating around which no one is aware of. And having nothing else to do, no one to be with all I do is observe things.

I was right there when my father told Susan that I had died. I saw the anguish, the pain, the death of our dreams in her eyes. I saw her cry, saw her utter helplessness and heard her questions and prayers to god. Seeing her like this all I wanted at that time was to hold her tight in my arms and tell her to move on, wanted to give her the strength to forget me and be happy, and for her to wipe away the tears and smile once again. I wanted her to go out meet new people, have kids, get a house, go to Paris and fulfil all the dreams we had dreamt of together.

But time changes everything and everyone. In the past 4 years I have seen Susan do what I had wished for that day. Today I saw her in Paris, bringing her son back from school to the house she had bought along with Henry. On the way back I saw her stopping by the church. I saw her kneel down and pray for me, remember me. And a tear rolled down her cheek. It’s been quite a few months since my thoughts have flittered across her mind and I no longer want this. Today somehow I do not want her to move on. I want to be in her life. I want to be the person she snuggles up to late at night. I want to be the dad her kid looks up to. I no longer want to be forgotten. If not alive I still want to be remembered everyday. What else do I have to look forward to?

It used to feel so good in the beginning. Being missed everyday. Even though I wanted Susan to forget me and to move on it did feel good, on some level, to be remembered and wanted. It did make me feel connected to her, to the world, to the life I no longer have. But slowly as time moved on so did people. Today I saw Susan remember me after such a long time and again I felt the same rush, felt her love for me. How I have longed for it. I have seen life move on, Susan move on, while all I can do is stand at the same place and watch things go further away. There used to be days when I could feel all my loved ones around me. And I have passed days seeing it all trickle to a few days.

And I know I cannot blame Susan for this change. Though she still loves me the same, it is this this whirlwind of time that has confined me to become just “a few dates here and there.”

Who am I?

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ”

… This is my name for ever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation

–From The Bible.

I do not claim to be a reincarnation of Allah, Jesus, Krishna or any God per se, nor am I to be known by my name. I am simply a being of my actions. This is what is used to identify me. People say a lot of things about me but here is what I have to say about myself.

Among a few words that can aptly describe me are the ones from the title of my blog: deranged, demented, destitute. And the list goes on.

My wife says I am a nerd, geek, freak, a bore, and ofcourse an emotionally dumb person.

My parents say I am good kid. Only if…

My friends say … well I have never asked them so I dont know what they think about me.

Now lets see what you have to say about me……