I; 'my'

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.
I quote Prometheus in Anthem, Ayn Rand; and adapt.

When Nature Calls...

You just can’t say 'No'

Fe”Male”s become One

Be it sun or snow
So there you "Go"...

:)

Simply "Yanni"!

I can still feel the ecstasy when I first saw Yanni live on stage as the white curtains dropped in one go making it even grander. No - It wasn’t Live on the TV... It was LIVE...He was right there a few meters there – in front of me.

As the last stop in his World Tour 2004-2005, he had played here in Tampa on the 26th of Feb, 2005. Would I miss that chance?
I am happy that I have had very few disappointments (with an external factor) in my life that would stay green. I remember one of them - When Yanni had performed at the Taj in India, I think I was in my High School and I knew I couldn’t have made it anyways. I was wondering "I have missed this one good chance, am I ever going to make it?"
So the day I found that he was touring here, I was waiting for the Web portals to open online ticket booking. And the same day, I rushed to book my seats - comfortable, near but not too close and affordable.

Two of my friends working with me here accompanied me for this show. I had wanted someone who has seen me listen to and love Yanni's music to be there to share what I call my simple down to earth "lifetime dream". My friends around here couldn’t make it. The sugar coating came when my cousins agreed to come down from Atlanta. They are my god "people" - I felt it only when I came here. (Next to my own apt, Atlanta is my second home here - My first still remains the nest in NLC).

The show was to begin 8.00PM, and it did (with a 10 min lapse which we think was for the late crowd). He played unendingly... till 10:20 PM. No Nonsense...No "calling kids to the stage", No talking about world peace or cause, No nothing. Just pure, simple, amazing MUSIC from YANNI.

When the curtains fell, I thought I cried seeing him. Nah...I just had a glob of joy mixed with surprise and a sense of greatness stuck at my throat. All through, I didn’t move from my seat. He opened with his usual popular opening piece Santorini. (The one you might have heard in lotsa Indian TV programs as Title music - sometime back). My favorite has been "Nostalgia" and boy! Did it take me back in time - nostalgic!!!!

He had included lot of Eastern Music (from his latest albums like Ethinicity). Bringing together nations, languages and ethnicities and everyone beyond the standard borders with his non-linguistic music, is what he says he is working for. Indeed!

Anyone who had come to this concert would have left the place humming or their souls slowly jiving to the inner rhythms that would remain for a few days. He had to tease us, the crowd a coupla times in the end to make us "go away".

The only thing I took away from that concert was a book with his pictures (of this tour) and of course a "floating in the cloud" feeling. I wanted to buy a T-Shirt with his fine signature on, but they ran out of stock. No photos, No CDs.

This moment, I can be right in the same place I was - in the concert, listening, relishing and devouring each piece of his - I just have to want to be there!

Glad this chance came by, More Glad I stepped on it,
Just "elated" to have been there with the ones I love,
And "Dumbstruck" seeing Yanni,
The music would play in my ears,
For a Lifetime…

Ambition

No one can go back and make a new start. Anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
Do not act from being hurt and end up feeling guilty.
Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter.

Ambition stems from the base of emotions when emotion interacts with achievements or nicicities behind an achievement of others.
Ambition does not take limitation, capacity, circumstances, handicap of one while it develops iniside.
Ambition when pursued can also hurt.

I Quote My Father.

Romanticism :)

He (Chiding): “Rhea!!”

Rhea: You never call out my name except when angry!

He: (touching her hand softly) Oh dear! When do you let meI? You abode beside me…all along!

Rhea: (smiling) I shall pin this up in my blog :)

Life’s Dying Days – My Living Dreams

Born Out of a family more rich than wealthy
Driven to ask “What is Business” at seven
Yet not know how Stock works at Twenty Four
Yes, Life’s for those who believe in “Dreams” and bring it to the fore!

Dreams? I have never dreamt – funny?!
From Imaginations livid to wanting it to thinking it
It was the power of free will that worked
Yet every nerve of my earthly body and soul crying
“Things that you like the most set them free – If it comes back to you it is yours –
If it doesn’t it never was”
Yeah – The mind works in its own extra Special Way!

‘Love’ was not what I saw, wanted or believed in!
Yet was what my moments, more often than not, filled with.
Simple, Easy, Sub-Conscious, no pomp but Splendid.
But when it came to mine to be spilt, I sprayed it…

As much as I would want to live, I wish to produce
All my toil, muscles, body, mind and soul caught in the product
That I can hold in the very palms that started it all – big or small.
And without much dough, I am proud I can create a palm that
Can and will do it for me in the world if I don’t.

Never Mind! A Zany little girl who is more oxymoronic than
The word and the world itself, throwing ink in her dying days,
Cheerfully dreaming Truth always.

Overture to 'You' - again

Early 2004.

More often than not, you find yourself just ‘You’, standing alone amongst a mass of beings around; feeling silence in all the chaos they make; seeing things which otherwise would not have been captured in the REMs of our eyes; A sudden burst of mixed emotions that takes you through highs and lows at speeds that beat your mind’s speed too!

You don’t need anyone, might want someone. You feel a surge of energy that defeats the conservation of energy laws.

Anger and Sympathy, Hatred and Love, Celibacy and Lust, Greed and Simplicity alternating your thoughts on what you want, need and wish for. Questions without a question mark, those that had always been answers to ourselves and to others now posing a mammoth danger in our own self!

You are on the verge of revisiting your value system – but on a tensed rope of opposites! You relive your subculture and find yourself and alien. Flashes of past that is history makes you feel on better stands ‘cos here you are, despite mistakes, highs and lows.

You need to breathe hard, shout, scream, walk, trot, run, sit, sing, cry, dance, drink, kiss, fall, rest, sleep … all at once – now at this moment!

This is like, say, a labour process that may take minutes or hours, puts you through Pain, Glory, Past, Future, Old and New, You and Others – those moments of alternating feelings with so much inside you spilling out yet not all … There it begins and it has to end. Those few hours!
Like it, ain’t it?

And you come out as a newborn child – perfect or limping – but New!
I call it RE-SELF-REALISATION!

All over again!

Emotional Ends

July 1, 2004
7.30 pm

Am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Fort Lauderdale…I was early by an hour and the flight is delayed by an hour too... whoa! great!

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind tour of my emotions. Past, Present, Future all merging into one and making my brains blow out…of any imaginable proportions... Well, is that what you call “Insane”???

For a long time, I had been too naïve to have faced anything. What I did I guess was the best I could’ve at any given point and with the available amount of knowledge, maturity and experience. But what I did miss out is coming to terms with what I dealt with – with so much of efficacy. They were bundled into one big dirty sack waiting to be hurled out on me and soil my whole being and soul.

But haven’t I always been very near and dangerously close to earth and soil… so all that it could do to me is jus make me happier in the end.

In the time that ticks in our lives, boy! how many characters, souls, people and humans do we meet?!!! And not once do we not get out without any of these - Relationships, Goodness, Joy, Badness, Cruelty, Crookedness, Revenge, realization and learning.

It must be both annoying and pleasing to note that our life is but made up of just a variation of these and mixtures of these – a cocktail where at times the bartender gives you more alcohol than you had asked for and at times when you do need more, the guy seems to have noticed you are already falling off board and getting a wee bit too tipsy and so he helps you out by fixing you a mock tail!!!

Lol… Life is anything but ugly… It is a beautiful rhapsody sung and audible only to those ears that knows what noise is…and subsequently what melody can be!

I am talking in similes, metaphors and vagaries? Well, more often than we think, we say more than we think or we think we could, by not saying it, but mentioning what we got out of it. It gives that subtle feeling of understanding – a kind of handshake between yourself and your “you” that exists outside which leaves more than just a moment of slight physical activity in your brains… a sense of fullness to you and to me. For, what I see now, might have been experience to you or maybe a warning… though you might not completely put your fingers on what I am talking about… leave alone thinking about.

Nothing in this world is worth spending even a moment worrying for or spilling your sweet tears…except maybe yourself.

Peace – with yourself …sounds so far but we hold it so close and work for it night and day. Well, after all if we get what we want or need without a wait or effort, what is life for???

Good Life! Making emotional ends meet!

A "Gail" Conversation!

I feel like what Gail must have felt when he wanted to pull the trigger but couldn’t and didn’t.

Gail wanted to pull the trigger 'cos he thought the purpose for what he fought wasn’t purpose enough!
He didn’t because he hadn’t done justice to that seemingly unacceptable purpose also.

These are the exact words I wanted to type...
Didn’t 'cause I thought they were too abstract (even for me)
Sometimes what we claim as the goal, really mocks at us
We feel like a dinger scrubbing sewage when we explain our goals (even to ourselves)

Nothing is abstract...if we can frame it, we can sure read it

Me … Other

Note: Gail as in Gail Wynand, portrayed as the Second Hander in “The Fountain Head” by Ayn Rand.

Who let the skeletons out of my closet?

A Ghost at the Smoky's...

I was up in the Smoky Mountains…and higher up at around 2500 ft above sea level in the air lift.

Beautiful colors all around and below; Cabins and houses so enviably located amongst those colors in the valley. How I wish, rather dreamt of a Home, with a creek running by behind with a mountain as a backdrop. And suddenly I see these trees so sad and white looming from down there…my dreams being chased away by some horrible fear to take that place in my eyes. I see ghosts and skeletons down there in the sorrow sight of trees. I somehow see only those skeletons in my eyes, the rest of the world fading away from my memory and thoughts. White, wide, sad, sorrow and … lonesome.

And then I came out of it…to continue on my trip to the Smoky’s.

When did I let the skeletons out of my closet?
:)