Bike month!!

PS: BTW, got a 21 gear(3 X 7 actually) bike couple of weeks back

Write a letter & send it through the post office!!

Copied from "Today's Highlights from Answers.com"

"Read a book. Do a crossword puzzle. Play an hours-long game of Monopoly. Plant a vegetable garden. Take a walk. Have a chat with your mom or dad. Sight-see. Put the pictures into the photo albums. Start to tackle the list of projects that has been getting longer. Take a child to the zoo. Write a letter, put it in an envelope and send it through the post office. Cook a gourmet dinner. Help your daughter with her homework. Get into a pickup game of basketball. Repaint your living room. Give your dog a bath. It's National TV Turnoff Week, April 20-26. Also referred to as Mental Detox Week, it's a good excuse to turn off the TV, the computer and all the other digital toys that keep us inside and focused on a screen."

PS: Was reminded of all the snail mails that wrote to susi from 2001 to 2004

The Chennai urge, resolutions & other musings

• In recent times, I have got this great urge to go to chennai to just idle my time there. After I joined the firm, I visited chennai either to attend friends' marriage or send-off/visit friends. And the schedules in most of these trips were tight and may be I missed the Chennai I am used to. Idling away time either chatting with someone on the phone in the middle of the day or listening to those FM channels or an evening spent in besant nagar beach doing nothing but to just stare at the sea and the horizon or to read a book in half a day to one day. Think a  weekend trip to chennai is long due now. 
• I'd love to start reading books again. The last one I read was "Almost  Single"  by Advaita Kala, about a month back. Turned out to be a bit girly book. Was good in general. Had read "Catcher in the Rye" before that. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Have been doing a lot of reading lately -  the article types mainly and I can say with good amount of certainity that almost all of them were in one way or the other related to finance industry. I never thought I would crib on this because wanting to know about the finance industry was the major reason for me to join this job. Also, I am pretty much sure that I would have got bored out within 6 months if I had joined in some other industry.  If you know some good books, do drop me a mail. 
• Not into running for the past two weeks. The runners' club has got a 24 km run tomorrow. Think am going to skip that. I should pretty soon get into the groove if I need to do get  anywhere near the 2 hours mark  in the Hyderabad half marathon coming up in August.
• The itch to buy a good mountain bike is increasing with every passing day. But I am not really sure whether a guy like me who wakes up at 9/10 in the morning and reaches to work at 11 is ever going to go in a bicycle. Still the temptation is irresistible.
• I had a look at the resolutions that I took at the start of the year to assess where I am at the end of Q1. On the half-marathon front, I think I am on schedule. Most marathons are scheduled in winter.  Dropped the CFA thing because of logistic problems. Though I am not blogging once in a week, I would like to believe I am more of a regular now than before. Planning to take the 4 -wheeler license sometime in july/august(Planning to enroll for training after may/june). And the *task* still awaits. And I am for sure to lay that to rest by the end of this year, either way.

That's it for now. BFN.

PS: Couple of good articles that I read can be found here and here.

And so goes life

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

- W. H. Davies

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.

- Alexander Pope

Ananthagiri - Prelude

Time permitting, will put entire travelogue soon.

Another year passes by!!

I am not sure if this a good time to wish the readers of this blog(however sparse they are!!) a happy new year. Me getting inch closer in knowing what I really want to do(atleast thats what i think). 2007 was a mixed year for me. Jan'07 to march'07 was the most difficult time in my short life in this planet to say the least. The next quarter just flew with my thesis. Joined the firm on the start of the third quarter of the year and life was really pleasant till now(sometimes a bit hectic, but who cares?? it is pure fun). Hope to blog regularly from now on. Looking forward to 2008(yeah I know its a little late). The first quarter of this year was just good( read as no major screw ups).

Newbie on the block. Welcome Rias. I hope he blogs regularly.

Chennai Superkings!!!

Every possible mistake...

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

- WH Auden

Just in Mood!!

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth