Contemplations and Ruminations

This is my favourite place in Madras, it's the only place where that familiar feeling of high kicks in... the feeling that used to fuel our practice sessions every Saturday when I was in the church choir back home. The choir at St. Theresa's church is the driving force behind this heady feeling of high, they are the main reason the church is packed every Sunday evening. You see many expatriates here, I guess like me, they too are drawn in by the music and the singing. The sermons too are pretty good, there is this one priest I really like... don't know his name, but whenever he comes for the Sunday evening mass, he manages to bring tears to my eyes. It's what he says and the way he says it, he fires up the imagination... he forgets all the religious dogma, all the unnecessary rules and laws and gets down to the basics, it's what inside you that really matters. If you have faith, then everything will eventually work out alright. Everything is just so beautiful th...

Everything does seem better in the glow of candle lights...  I keep buying candles and candle holders and anything candle related.... it's an obsession, but a neat one to have, don't you think.  Anyway, see those small white patterns on the table, those are called kolam patterns. Kolam is predominantly a south Indian tradition where rice powder is used to draw elaborate patterns in front of houses, as a sign of welcome and respect. I picked up a few kolam stencils near a temple, have stenciled them on my table here and placed a candle in each design... cute right. Another candle holder I picked up recently... look at the patterns on the floor, how pretty. It's like happiness spilling over and creating beautiful paths... 

So it's yet another Independence day and the feeling of nonchalance continues... isn't that worrisome. I would like to feel pride, love, hope and comfort for our nation, but how do you feel all that when you step outside the house and encounter shabby roads and pavements overflowing with garbage, jackasses micturating whenever and wherever, all the filth that clogs the road when it rains or when nauseating drainage starts seeping through man holes, the maddening vehicles and motorists that seem to operate on some high end vendetta against each other... it's as though we live in a cloud of apathy. Reminds me of  District 9 (the movie, it's where an alien race come to earth and they are pathetic prawn like creatures, they end up living in slum dwellings as refugees), we are kinda pathetic like them. Why else would we allow our nation to rot... I just wish there was a place like Azkaban where we could dump all these roadside urinaters, the insane people who drive/ride ...

Lee Brice and his team have got some fine writing skills, most of his songs have amazing lyrics and Lee Brice  infuses life into them. He's one heck of a singer, he has the tendency to inhabit a song and you can feel it... he sings with unbridled passion and you end up with goosebumps. It's evident he loves what he does, and he's pretty good at it too. I'm only surprised the album hasn't reached the top of the charts yet... it's got so many wonderful tracks and I think my favourite is ' A Woman Like You ' where the woman asks her man how his life would have turned out if he hadn't met her. And Lee Brice goes on to list all the things he would have done like more fishing and golfing, more jamming with his band, being a better football fan, owning a dirt bike and stocking up on cold beer... the typical bachelor life. After he's done pulling her leg, he leans in close and whispers in her ear that he isn't that good at golfing or fishing, bu...

You all probably know bout my sister's wedding that took place earlier this month, that's what the past few posts have been about. And now she, my little sister... all grown up has crossed horizons and oceans to reach the land of Luke Bryan, Chris Young, Easton Corbin, Lee Brice and Jake Owen... okay, I just wanted to write their names. So anyway, she was the one I could yap away to, incessantly at times. She could read me pretty well, she knew when I was fake laughing, she could figure out when I say something and mean something else... she is like the paperback binding to my book. She is the cover, the adventurous sort, the colourful exterior that grips your attention and I am like the pages, full of content that nobody gets except a fortunate few (not very humble, am I...) who take the time to flip through the story. She pulls people in, makes friends easily... I hang back in my world, talking to characters and other people I am really comfortable with. I guess that's ...