time travel to my alter universe

I was reflecting on the past decade and realized how much my life has changed from what I had dreamt. Almost everyone of my friends lives has changed too! I have become engrossed with my family, career and so many social activities that I forgot that I had this beautiful blog world that I left behind.

Call it the Covid blues or catching up with your "past", I decided to dust out my old blog and check-in on my old pals. It was a bitter sweet moment. Most of my "Nanbargal" blogs had an old post dated 2008-2009, some gave error message and few are blocked. I was surprised and happy to see at least a couple of blogs with posts dated 2015-2017, but was thrilled to note that "Gils" was updating his blog regularly. :)

We keep running in this busy hamster wheel life, that we sometimes forget to stop and rest, stop and reflect, stop and relish what we have. Nature has given us mankind this opportunity to slow-down and rethink our priorities. I did! Did you?

Jenal oram

Vaazhkai oru rayil payanam pol
Poi cherugindra idam arindhum,
payanathai anubavika yen marakindrom?

Jenal orathil amarandhuvitu,
peru moochu vittal Padmini
Parandhuvarum pattampoochi ya parthu rasithaal
Padminiyin pathu vayadhu sirumi
Pakathu seat-il irukum pennai nottam vitan anda
vaalibavayasu paiyan
Katti vandha samaan paigalyai seriparthar middle berth Mahadevan
Ivargalin paraparapin naduvil, than parkal anaithayum ezhandha
andha periyavar, thanadhu payanaseetai badhrapadithikolla
than kaiyil irundha photo albuthin kadaise pakathil vaithuvittu...
Puriyadha pudhirukku vidai kidaithadhupol... punnagaithar!

Talking to myself

Sometimes when you feel you need to say something to someone, sometimes when you wanna cry & sometimes when you wanna shout at someone, its better you don’t. When you turn emotional, I’ve always felt you are losing control over yourself. Its better you think about it & even if your mind is filled with those thoughts…its okay…just leave it.Every damn thing in this world is a matter of time…after some days the thing would not be of any concern to you. Believe me, when you get engaged in some other thing more important, these damn thoughts of yours just vanish ! But if you feel you are not able to concentrate just take some time for yourself…talking to yourself is even better than talking to your closest of friends. Even when you have hundreds of people who can comfort you at any point of time, you will always find that you are the only person who is gonna be with you at all points of time understanding all your emotional turmoil..no one else does it as well as you do! dude you are always the greatest strength for yourself... forget it & you search the whole world for someone to comfort you, then you are a loser. Believe in yourself, only then others will believe you! If not you, who else… Solitary moments can reveal more meaning to you when you start enjoying yourself. If you don’t find pleasure in your own company who else will? think about it! you’ll find the bliss am talking about!
Found this in a friend's blog! Amazing!

Dreams

How many of you still dream about your school days? I do! At times my dreams are so scary that I wake up with jolt just to realise that Im way ahead of my school days and in few years my kids would be on their way to school !
Here are some of the dreams I had.
1. Forgetting to do my homework and not taking the right workbook to class.
2. Missing one ribbon and searching for it at 8:45am when the first bell will ring at 9:00am
3. Wearing a wrong uniform. (we had two uniforms in our school- White and white on days when we had our games period and normal brown uniform on non P.T days.)
4. Not polishing the shoes and getting caught during prayer.
5. Getting up late on Saturdays, when we had a special Havan period that starts at 8:20 am
6. Losing the calendar book that has the time table chart in it and not know the classes of the day.

Some times I wake up crying badly from these dreams! Glad that these dreams are never going to come true! :-)

Funny Fondue Experience

Its been more than a year since I blogged and I have come to realise that I have lost even the little writing skills that I (if any at all) had!

Anyways, wanted to share this experience somewhere and remembered my old sweet blog :-)

We had been to Minneapolis recently as Shyam had a conference there. Its a really cool place to visit. People there are very friendly, sweet and helpful. Its the land of more than 10,000 lakes and if you are a nature person, its amazing place to roam around.

We went to dinner at a place called Melting Pot. Its a fondue restaurant. Those who are wondering what a fondue is, in simple terms "you are asked to pay a fortune to cook your own dinner!" but yeah it was really a very funny and expensive experience.

So here it is. Its a four course dinner. First they provide you with a pot. To be precise its our "eeya pathram" and they have a inbuilt stove in every table. For the starters they gave us some cheese, jalapeno peppers, salsa, salt, pepper and a cup of bread, tortilla chips and some fresh cut apples.

We have to melt the cheese, add the peppers, salsa, salt and pepper and once done dip the bowl of chips and bread and fruits into it and gulp down! The second course was pretty simple. We get to choose either a soup or a salad. We opted for the salad and so don't know if we had to cook our own soup.

Next comes the main entree. Here we have to select a cooking style first. They have four options - Two had some wine in it and one was canola oil and the other was using vegetable broth. So we decided on the vegetable broth. They gave us some basic green vegetables like potato, mushroom, tofu, broccoli, some pasta and some green peas and some basic sauce and asked us to cook by ourselves! We have to dip the vegetables into the boiling broth and eat it!

Finally comes the dessert. Another pot of boiling chocolate sauce and some fresh strawberries and a tong to dip it into it!

For a total check of $90, a totally different experience and a good quality time spent doing something together :-)

The leaky cauldron

She always leaked
not because she was weak
neither was she stupid
nor because she couldnt blast,
but if she blast
for it would hurt, not her, but the other
afterall, she had to vent out
hurting herself, she leaked
to keep herself going for
it was just She :-)

The other you

Bunches of unwritten pages
Volumes of unspoken speeches
For the Ink be darkend and
the words be spoken,
their bond wud've been broken
Yet again Silence is a killer
and Speech is no better
For the gold kills one alone
Silver breaks the folks around
Better not the pages be written
and the words be spoken
for thee skilled to trance about heaven!

The day earth stood still

Today at 12.30 AM

While the whole world seemed busy sleeping and dreaming, Uma was juggling around with her dresses. In the past 2 hours she had changed her dress five times and finally decided to wear the Green coloured Chudidaar that Ram had sent on her Birthday. She applied Cuticura powder which seemed to accentuate her already bright face. She did her eye brows with Revlon kit she had bought a day before. She had never liked excessive make up, but today she didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.She chose the dangling green stone embedded ear rings and a green colored Bindhi that matched her dress. She looked again in the mirror. Well…not exactly drop dead gorgeous, but yeah…she did look cute today. That should be enough to knock the senses out of Ram.

RAM. Possibly it was the only name that she had uttered more in these recent months than even her own name. The very thought of going to attach it after her name in a few days made her blush and she turned pink. She had been looking forward to this day for the past one week ever since Ram told her that he would be arriving in the Air Emirates flight to Chennai at 2 AM. She had hardly slept for the past one week and kept rewinding and playing how she would react and what would happen on the possibly the happiest day of her life.As she walked dangling her car keys to her silver colour Santro, she smiled as she remembered how it all began on one Sunday Afternoon.

A few weeks before on a Sunday Afternoon

On Friday night, Uma’s mom had showed her Ram’s photo and his profile. She seemed quite impressed with the fact that the prospective groom was well educated and had very sweet and caring parents. Uma had one look at the photo and smiled. She liked his eyes and smile. His eyes had a captivating glare and even in the photo it shone with genuine warmth and humbleness.

He called up unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon. She had just finished her lunch and was watching the climax of a 1000 times rerun movie. She didn’t recognize the long number on her mobile display and began with a questioning “Hello?”
The voice on the other end boomed “Hi. Is this Uma?”
“Speaking.”
“I am Ram.”
It was as if the world had stopped spinning. For a split second she was unsure about how she should react. Should she say “Hi” or “Hello” or “Oh my god”? After a gap of silent 5 seconds she blurted a shy Hi to him. She walked from the hall to the sit out in her house and said “So…how are you?”
She knew it was lame, but she could not think of anything else. She also knew that it was past midnight for him and still he had called her. Then they started talking. They talked for almost 90 mins non stop about their mom and dad, brothers and sisters, careers and god knows what. They both knew instinctively that it had clicked between them. Uma’s mom smiled from far across the room.

Today at 1.00 AM Anna International Airport

She parked her car and paid for the parking ticket. It had been 6 weeks since they had been engaged and had been talking for every other day. She had by hearted his entire day to day schedule which included all his class timings, lab timings, conferences etc. She would call him in between breaks and they would chat for some time. Out of the blue he would send her “I LOVE YOU” sms from his mobile when in conference and she would blush at the very sight of it.

In these 6 weeks they had known every little detail about each other. She had told him about her mole on her right toe and he had told her about his scar on left elbow that was the result of an accident in his 4th standard. They had known the name of their favourite relatives, hated vegetables, sleeping habits, color preferences and so on. Even though they had never seen each other eye to eye, their love grew by leaps and bounds.

His parents had also come to the airport and she greeted her future in laws. The clock seemed to crawl slowly and with each passing minute her stomach experienced the same knot that she used to get on the days when exam results were announced. Exactly at 225 AM, he walked out with his trolley which carried 2 samsonite suitcases. He smiled at her as he walked outside. She remained motionless.He touched his parent’s feet and hugged them as she stood a mute spectator wondering what to do next. Sensing their need to be together, his parents smiled and told them that they would be waiting outside near their car. He came to her and looked her directly eye to eye. It told everything. Without any warning, he pulled something from behind his shirt. It was a fresh red rose. A few days before he had sent her a ring as engagement present. But this simple rose seemed to speak much more of his love for her. A flush of colour filled her cheeks and her eyes sparkled like never before. The happiness that was devoid in her for the past 6 weeks flooded her face and was reflected in every nerve and every ounce of her body. A small pearl was just about to escape her eyes when he brought his hand and rubbed it off with his fingers and said, "Yes darling! It’s me." He opened his arms in anticipation of getting that warm hug from her, for which he had come so far. She smiled a teary smile and stood speechless.He couldn't wait for her to come that 5% which according to books the woman had to move while the man had already done his 95%. He had travelled miles across oceans and countries just to be with her. Every hour, every minute, every second was too precious to be wasted. He moved closer to her and embraced his shy princess. He could feel her melt into his warm body. Goose pimples erupted along her arms spontaneously. He kissed her on her forehead. She shivered with happiness. The warm rush of blood through her body brought hormonal reactions in him that only they could feel and relish.

"I love you." He said, finally. She smiled at him and looked deeper into his longing eyes. She gave a gentle kiss upon his lips and spoke out, "I love you too."

The words seemed to hit his heart even before they hit his ears.

In love with thyself :-)

Life is So beautiful and So Iam
Everyone has a reason to smile and So do I
I laugh, I cry, I shout and shall die
For Iam so happy like a little sparrow that learnt to fly :-)

Nesathin Navarasam

- Shantham
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thozhanai thunaivan enanku ne nirka
thazhampoovin vaasam kandadhupol
thulli thirindadhu enadhu manam :-)

- Karunaya
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thaneeril ezhudhi veitha ettai pol
ipozhudhu tholaidhoorathil irukiraaiye
thunaiva ennai thuyaram thingindradhu :-(

- Raudram
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
therdhal vaakuridhipol kurivitu
thunbathil thalli vitu tholai dooram
thikku ariyamal odivitaya drogi x-(

- Shringar
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thunaiyaai ne neirka
un thunaiviyaai varugiren
thaalati thalai kodhuvaaya? :x

- Hasyam
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thoonpol nindru kondirukiraaye
en thalai anaiyai tholaithuviten
thukam en kannai thazhuvugiradhu
thuparindhu konjam kodupaaya? =))

- Veera
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thattikoduthu thalabadhiyaai ne iruka
thunbangal enaku thurumbai pol
thukkumedaikum nan thunindhuvitten /:)

- Bhayanak
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
ne dhairiyam sonnalum
thunbam enai thazhuvugayil
thalladi thavikiren tharaiyil manpuzhuvai pol :-s


- Aashcharyam
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thunaivan enaku ne iruka, mazhai chaaralil
mei silirthadhu, nam kaadhalin aazhathai kandu
thamarai ilai mel thaneerum thangivitadhu >:D<

(idu correct ana contextaa nu theriydhu.. but still)

- Vibhats
thalai saaika thol kodupen endru
thunaivan ne koora
thirumangalyam kattikollamale
unidam thanjam pughazha mudiyuma ena?

Sorry guys! Im taken ;)

Paavam ivanga ellam ipo kaadhal tholvi la dhaadi valaka poradha nenacha.. manasu kashtama iruku :P ;) ..

Dissonance

Far yet so near
two hearts can be
near so apart
oh my dear
connected by vein and blood
they make my eyes flood
When the Sun went west
and the ray of hope had to set
my heart and mind struggle
favoring ambivalence
When twin hearts cuddle
savoring jubilance!

Relationships

Ah! Relationships doesn't necessarily mean that between an eligible bachelor and an eligible girl. Relationship that i want dissect is between just two hearts. Hearts of two people be it boy-boy or boy-girl or mom-child or brother-sister or a stranger and stranger.

The test of relationship is only the "Time". Most of us get attached to someone if we speak to them a lot, not necessarily they should be related to us. Just the constant touch with the other person would create a bonding and a longing for the other person, which would eventually develop as care and concern. A relationship which doesn't expect anything from the other person except their time. And too much of intimacy would definitely cause problem. Familiarity breeds contempt holds good always! We like a person and accept them for who they are only till they don't become related to us in anyway. Once a person tries to become a part of our life, we tend to start expecting things from them, which we did not all this while. Also even their slightest behaviour which was their character would seem weird, if they are our own people. Weird!!

At the same time how much ever close and intimate would have they been, if two people grow apart and be out of touch for a while, their intimacy would start chiseling away. No two person are dependant on each other, yes we might miss the other person for a while, but then we keep moving on with life. Life and relationships are like rolling stones. We don't sit and brood over a person, if we do then we become a loser.

Well, love or hatred, its on how close yet detached we are with the other soul. There is no one permanent in this world for us. Only our own self would come with us till we go with the mud. So nothing else other than self love would give us happiness!

Not always does self love gives us happiness either. When you get into a relationship that is really intimate and special, that between a man and his wife, we tend to live for the other person. Their happiness and sorrows bother us much than that of ourselves. This is one of that kind, where both the man and his wife, feel for the other and so the distance between them, really doesnt matter much. Miles apart they can be, eyes neednt have met each other yet, but there flows a wave that always keep them bound. The waves of their thoughts and the longing for the other person.:-)

P.S. Raise in love to feel the difference :0)

The voicemail

Her heart missed its beat
If not that was him
It would have lost its rhythm!

Once upon a time ...

In the west lived a Prince, in the east lived a Princess,
for the rest of their life, they decided to share their nest
the best thing happened when they fell in love
and flew in their hearts a beautiful white dove
all this happened over the break of a dawn
and so shall their story go on and on :-)

Just so mad about Maddy!!!

I jus love this guy!!!! Met him today in person! Wow i kept pinching myself to check if it was true! I was standing soooooooooo close to him! Man he was rocking in his white shirt and blue jean! Felt sooooooooooooooooooooo happy!!

An attempt at Pencil Sketching

Tried my hand at pencil drawing.. edho kaila vandhadha kirukirken. Adjusht maadi :-)

Jai Hind!

Proud to be an Indian!

Inspiration!

The Magician

Today - 7.30pm, Teynampet Signal - Traffic Jam!

He held her hands with tears trickling down his cheeks. Wishing he had been a magician now. Praying at least the magician arrives in time to save his sweetheart!

2 years before, Marina beach

Dumbo, did it take 3 long years for you to tell me this? Do you know i have been longing for this moment for past three years! Confessed Sandhya holding Sandeep's hand with tears of joy rolling down her pink cheek. Sandhya couldn't stop smiling ever since Sandeep proposed to her this evening.

5 years back, College farewell

Sandhya and Sandeep were good friends at college and were their department heads as well as cultural committee reps of their department. They were excellent singers and used to represent their college during the inter college meets. This day was their last day at college. They shared the award for the best cultural heads and hence were allotted adjacent seats. The program for the evening had a magic show and Sandhya was so excited about it. One of the item in the show was that the magician cuts a small girl into 5 pieces and placed each piece in different boxes and in a swipe of his wand the girl comes back alive from the audience. Sandhya was so excited and tensed that she held Sandeeps hand so tightly. His eyes got locked at her :-)

Today - 7.50pm - Apollo Hospitals

Congrats Mr.Sandeep. Your bundle of joy has arrived! She looks like a little angel from the heaven. And your angel is right inside waiting there for you!

P.S. Dedicated to my colleague who was blessed with a beautiful baby girl yesterday!