QUAKE!!!

As I snugly sat in my sofa watching a nice Bengali movie called 'Mahanagar'(a Satyajit ray classic) and while my mother was dilligently cutting up some spinach for the oncoming dinner of dal and jeera rice, the earth shook!!!

As I live near the railway station, our initial reaction was a very calm- "is it a goods train?" My sister sitting in the same room barely felt a thing!!! By the time we realised that it, indeed and unfortunately so, a quake, the jitters began!!!

I have this weird giddiness after every quake. I don't know if it is a physical reaction to the quake or a mental state that translates to a state of light-headedness! But I've been a little dizzy ever since!

Just two calls came in after the quake. Half the people didn't feel it and don't know of it yet! The news channels haven't started their, "Chennaiyil bhoogambam; makal padatram" rounds yet!

although extremely jittery, my mom continued to cut the spinach and I resumed watching Mahanagar. Four quakes and a tsunami later, we are well aware of the futility of life, I guess. And also, we were hoping that our building experiences a million tremors a day(due to the trains) that one more wouldn't quite damage it.

I AM scared. But well, one can only hope it was a minor earthquake and nothing happened to life and property anywhere in the world!

God bless the world.

(P.S.: It does seem uncanny that this quake happens just after Dasavatharam talks of tsunamis! Sheesh! Why can't Kamal Hassan make movies about global harmony and universal peace?! *rolls eyes*)

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UPDATE: Quake hits Andaman Islands. Recorded 6.7 in the Richter scale. Tremors were felt in Nungambakkam and Koyambedu area and many other parts of Chennai!

SHEEEESH!!!

Looking within...

...I find a million dreams

...a little firefly

...a gentle lilting breeze

...a never ending song

...a thousand feet dancing

Looking within...

         I find...

                     maybe there is a meaning in being after all....

:)

Words seem to fail me when it comes to how much this bunch means to me! Every once I meet them, they reinforce my faith in life. The elusive happiness that we are all searching for-these people help me see it!

I don’t know if it was God’s way of telling me he cares for me or if it was just good ol’ Dame Luck- I knew them through unexpected means and am I glad!!!

One of the best bunch of friends I have, one of the most reliable and funniest lot too! When I do whacky things, they won’t laugh- because they too will want to do the same! Be it watching Gabtun movies together, making mad gifts, talking Rahman 24X7, playing Harry Potter quizzes at Barista, breaking guitar strings :P, fighting on who’s got the best/worst handwriting- innocent, perverted, normal, abnormal and weird- together, we just live life like it should be!

Known as the official thanks giver of the group, I really want to thank that ‘whatever’ that has brought this beautiful friendship about. They are my cushions- whenever life fails to make me feel happy, it just takes a moment of meeting them to set things right! :)

Storytrails

I work for storytrails as a storyteller. I've not yet begun work, as such as I'm still getting trained. I have also begun contributing to the storytrails blog. Do check it out and leave your comments there:

 

http://storytrails.blogspot.com/2008/06/down-lanes-of-past-thinnais.html

 

:)

THE Search

A lonely searching voice within,
Seeks to find an echo nearby.
Again and again, it breaks melody,
Only to find mocking ears.

Ears that shut down on the music
as it issues forth in sweet dulcet tones
The melancholic strain seems not to melt any listener's heart
Oh! But where is any listener around?!

The music stops, though it must go on
Sometimes a distant aching strain is traced
The heart no more can survive the isolation
Whither is the echo?!
Whither is a similar strain?!
One more doesn't make a symphony
Let the music be heard again!

PHOTO COURTESY: Bart van Slobbe on Flickr

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON MY TRIP TO YERCAUD

I blinked my eyes quick, asking my human camera to capture the breathtaking view! God clicked from above too! And then, roared with loud laughter!

Hills- bathed in twilight. Light! Misty views. A crack of lightening. Thunder. Copse of trees. The valleys below looking like million glittering gems were strewn! A heavenly scent- a mix of trees, wet earth, rain, dried leaves, slush. Overcast skies. A world bathed in blue. Hairpin bends. The valley alternating with buttresses holding back the excited hill soil. Contoured face of the hills further hand-moulded to make way for vehicles.

Threatening bundles of clouds-sagging with the water within- resembling pregnant women with their bulge; looking menacingly at the earth in one of her mood swings!

Ah… the hills are an alluring constantly enticing lot!

It looked like a setting of some horror movie- an estate house- with its clichéd asphalt stone masonry and curtained windows; a lonely guy sitting on the doorstep; the hill steeply climbing up. And as you opened your mouth wide to exclaim on what a lovely setting it made, lightening cleaved the sky and thunder bellowed like an evil laughter. Were they celebrating Halloween up there in the heavens?!

Pitch darkness. Hilltop. Seven human beings standing. Looks like no others exist in the world save us! An ethereal feeling. The heavens huddle together for a good cry. A streak of lightening. The Chinese entrance to the Pagoda Point gets illuminated. Suddenly it feels as bright as day. Brilliant luminous with a shine at the edges. We look down at the valley. Once more it looks like God has opened his bag of gems very clumsily and spilt and scattered its contents- necklaces of diamonds, rubies, amethysts lay lined below!

Once more lightening strikes. We are urged to take a walk till the tip. But the fear multiplies like the lightening! We are on top of the hill and surrounded by trees- two things not too encouraging for us to risk it. Moreover, wild bisons were supposed to be on the prowl in the vicinity and known to chase and attack in the night. And it was 9 in the night but looking like midnight.

But oh, we were almost near the tip of the hill and the whole world lay strewn- in its myriad colours at my feet!

Being on top of the world literally DOES make you feel near heaven- giving you an out-of-the-world experience!

Man’s power- to have shaped nature according to his whim- created a settlement on top of a hill- breaking mountains, rolling off stones, holding back the rest of the hill from sliding down in jury; oh- such a proud yet humbling feeling!

And at that moment- at the top of the hill- somehow my life seemed to have clinched a new ‘height’, fulfilled an old wish, attained more meaning and somehow- a better person seemed to have emerged…