For some reason, I have always wondered what if it meant something awful like poo? But it doesn't, it is a flower native to Hawaii and is my favourite colour - yellow.

A few months ago, I started to, again, lose the battle to make people spell my name correctly. People who had no trouble with Neha till then started calling me Nehe. It was so common that it became obvious that it was an automatic spell correct. I wondered what it would mean and it is a yellow flower that grows in Hawaii.

PS, it is also place in China on the border with Mongolia...

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How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

Before Sunrise has this interesting conversation between Celine and Jesse, that goes:

Celine: Yeah. I think its because I always… I always have this strange feeling that I am this very old woman laying down about to die. You know, that my life is just her memories, or something.

Jesse: That’s so wild. I mean, I always think that I’m still this 13 year old boy, y’know who just doesn’t really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I’ll really have to do it. Kind of like I’m in a dress rehearsal for a Junior High play.

Apparently, we all have an age we imagine ourselves to be... crazy but i think i have so earned my years that i cannot be any age other than what i am. i remember all my years to feel so different, it's like each new year has taught me a new language and you cannot go back to not knowing it - i feel just the age i am.

i cannot be 17 - that girl was at high school, she didn't know anything; and was safe in the cocoon of being at home and under unnecessary tyranny of school and syllabus

i cannot be 21 - that girl hasn't ever been away from home; i think she looks different to me and she has no idea what she is studying and why

i cannot be 23 - that girl is stuck and realising that the razzle dazzle of glamour doesnt take too long to fade; but also she is now aware of a deeper beauty and deeper strength within her; oh the thoughts she has started thinking are beautiful

i cannot be 27 - that girl has yet to see the dramas of living alone - i am proud of how brave she is, but sad how lonely she will get before the end

i cannot be 28 - that girl will go thru a marriage that will she show her how that she can fool herself too - it will feel like pouring molten iron in her spine. stronger but humbler because she will do things she never knew she had it in her - but that girl isn't there yet, and so i cannot be 28

i cannot be 30 - that girl is wondering if life is going to be an unending story where all efforts are going to go waste - it won't, but she doesnt know that.

i am 32 - i am that one who is standing on cross roads, with innumerable regrets and undeniable wisdom for all that life that has been lived, knowing that there are many roads that i can take, and then it will be up to the road to take me up!

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

trying not to throw the baby with the bathwater

or in defence of religion!

the problem with religion isn't really a problem with religion, it is a problem with fanaticism and to a limited degree ritualism and then, of course, there is the reality of the human mind.

religion is a set of values to guide our decision making, when life is uncertain and we are emotionally hurt, it is because we have made gods out of things in the world and these things have turned out to be unreliable. we have rested in their comfort and they have eventually failed us. instead of living in fear, we make our gods more powerful. 

there is this quite excellent article by Devdutt Pattanaik about when Shiva told a story:  (http://devdutt.com/articles/when-shiva-told-a-story.html). it talks about how when other creatures feel hungry, they feel hungry; but when we feel hungry, we have to wonder why. religions are some of those stories, science are others. our gods are our stories, on how things work and why, on how to become and stay happy. it is vital we get these stories right, because we act on them. we cannot escape the imaginations of our minds, we have to constantly reconcile the stories and our experiences; to make being human a bit more fun, we mould our experiences as much as our stories; or maybe we mould our experiences a whole lot more than our stories. (Read the excellent Mistakes Were Made: But Not By Me on cognitive dissonance.) There is more to us than what we are conscious of, but that part of us still impacts us (imagine living in a world before gravity was discovered) stories somehow manage to reach that deeper part of us, hence there are very few of us that can live without stories.    

We need to get these stories right; religion is one of these stories. Is it the best one? Well, that takes me to a very interesting presentation at work about communicating science: it has been found that while the whole dataset shows a certain trend, it is commonly observed that cyclic trends exist within it that show an exactly opposite trend. for example, while temperature is increasing from august to december; if looked at temperature from an afternoon in september till the next morning, the temperature is quite distinctly decreasing. and that is called fooling yourself, i believe it is common to religion as well as science. Sometimes it is a product of genuine error and sometimes because we have become fixed and complacent. 

throwing the whole thing out - well that is just throwing the baby with the bathwater!  

Colours

I've gone ahead and got myself another boring red frame for my glasses... I liked the black one better, but I know that the black one was the trendy one and wouldn't quite go with my bad hair days and days without the beauty sleep! And since those days happen to be most days, I went with the red frames... also, turtle-shell sunglasses with brown glasses instead of gray... these are covered by insurance, so I didn't have to pay an extra, but I only get one pair of each a year!

I am also missing green among my tops; I have these beautiful khaki trousers and I have made up for all the jeans that I didn't buy for the past few years. I would love to have an earthy green shirt... but I haven't seen anything I like - green is tricky, it turns into blues and yellows before you can even blink!

But this whole talk about colours was inspired by design-seeds which is where you want to go if you are thinking colours! A few pictures from their website below. :)

 

who would have thought!?

That Tiger would climb up the stairs
That the fish would be relaxing
That happiness would not be found in situations


Tiger was our little pup, a Labrador - German Sheppard mix, who stayed with us for the shortest time. He was only a couple of months old and couldn’t climb up the steps to reach our apartment. We would have to carry him up and down in our lap, until one day, the neighbour's rather bully of a dog decided to pay attentions to Tiger, which led to him rather spontaneously picking up the skill.


There are a couple of fish at home, and they are relaxing but the initial months weren’t like that. All within 2 months the fish had these adventures: one ate another’s fin and killed it; another got hurt in a fight and then died in a couple of days, another one over-ate and died; 2 died within 2 days of arriving, one got stuck at the small 'window' of a decorative ‘castle’ and could not swim in reverse, once they all nearly died because a plant clogged up the filter! Once they nearly killed us, because the water from the tank had been leaking on the electrical appliances all night!


PS: this one is from the archives, originally written on 22/2/12