The Jane Austen’s Book Club

I saw a movie “The Jane Austen's Book club” today. I really liked it. More than the movie story, I liked the concept of the book club, all of them reading the same book by Jane Austen and discussing their opinions, questions, views on the characters and arguing/debating was interesting.

I wish I were in a book club. I have never been in one before. I don’t remember knowing first hand any book club. I never did group study either. Hence don’t know much about reading groups. I never worked with another team member till recently at work. So not sure how good I am in a team.

Since I hardly read anything before, it is very hard to find some one for my book club. Meaning what ever I plan to read now might have been already read by any person I would like to invite to join my club.

I am pretty sure there will be tons of book clubs online but not interested in joining anything online now. I did discuss the very few books I read with like minded people. But those were quite high level discussion nothing in detail about author’s writing style or how I perceive the characters things like that.

One way is I can get a book, read it, find out from one of my friend’s if they read it already (I am pretty sure at least 3 or 4 very close friends of mine would have read the books I am interested in more than once) and discuss with them. None of these friends live close by (some live in different continents) so it should be one of chat, email, or phone conversation.

Will it be the same as talking to them in person? I don’t think so. It would be good if we can meet once a week in one of those ancient coffeehouses and discuss the book. Wishful thinking! Wait, I have a blogger friend who might be interested. Let me call her and see if she is interested J

I did not read any of Jane Austen's books. I read Pride and Prejudice – in school. Saw the movie. But based on my one experience – I read Da Vinci Code first and then saw the movie; I know that watching a movie is not the same as reading the book.

So I decided to get all the 6 novels by Jane Austen and read them. I also ordered the movies based on these novels on Netflix. I just love movies and Theater, just can’t resist. Actually I might come up with an article on movies based on novels after this experiment!

I am really excited about this adventure of mine. One of my college friends recently said that if I made up my mind about some thing I accomplish it. I want to see if it is true or if I still have it with this new exciting book reading adventure.

If any of you are interested in joining my book club contact me. We will see if we are compatible to proceed:-)

How to avoid fights in relationships? A five point strategy

Relationships are fragile. Handle them with care. Be it with a friend, a partner, colleague anybody, its the same concept. Everybody is human and we all are more or less the same. According to me you change yourself to change others. Do not blame the other person in a relationship. Even if they are wrong you can change yourself to change them as you want them to be. Trust me, I implement all these and I think I am doing fine with the people around me. Recently a friend of mine asked me what is my five point strategy and this is what I said:

1. Patience

Be patient especially when the other person is not. If you wish to win you have to be better than the other person. You need to find out their weak point so pay attention and listen, in particular when they do some thing wrong. If the other person is a rival or a competitor take advantage of his/her weak point and make that your strong point you will definitely succeed over them. On the other hand, if the other person is family make them understand where they went wrong and help them over come their weakness.

2. Perseverance

Being patient is not enough; you need to be patient consistently. People who are doing something wrong or let me put it this way, some thing that you do not approve (because what is wrong for you might be right for another person) will not be able to learn in one day. So do not lose patience if they repeat the mistake; work on helping them they will change over a period of time.

3. Action and Reaction

It is not necessary to react during fights always. Wait till the high tide calms down. Only then your point will be noted and understood. So if you are expecting a change or a reaction to your lecture do not respond to their action immediately. It is very important in any relationship to keep your calm and talk to the other person when they are in a position to listen and understand what you wish to convey. Chances are you will get what you want this way and you can actually reform them; make them think and not lose their temper next time.

4. Pattern matching

Always look for patterns in fights or heated conversations. There will always be one. Pay attention, find a pattern, do some research on it, and come up with a strategy to change your behavior, the way you respond etc. to reduce the intensity of the next unpleasant conversation. Try to implement that when the next fight or discussion happens. If you spend some time with a person it is easy to predict what they think and do in most of the situations. Keep working on modifying yourselves to be calm during fights and you can easily enhance your relationship.

5. Forgive and forget

Forgiving is a very difficult task, but it does wonders. Let’s say there was no mistake of yours and you are blamed for some thing you did not do. It is obvious to get all furious and think of getting back to them and teach them a lesson so that they don’t repeat what they did. Now, if you shout at them or let them know their mistake in a rude way it won’t work. Instead forgive them and forget that they have been mean to you. Be nice to them. Wait till they calm down and then they will actually realize and learn their mistake. If they don’t the first time then go and talk to them softly when they are in a good mood and let them know your concern. Once you forgive forget what they did; no point in having grudges. Life is short and too precious to lose in hatred and revenge.

How to manage him?

Karyeshu dasi; Karaneshu mantri;
rupecha lakshmi; kshamaya dharitri;
bhojyeshu mata; sayaneshu rambha;
shat dharmayukta kuladharmapatni

This is a Sanskrit sloka from our Hindu mythology which describes the idealization of a woman – A woman makes an ideal wife who serves her husband like a servant, advises him like a minister, is beautiful like goddess lakshmi, has a forgiving nature like earth, serves him food like a mother, and is like Rambha (the apsarasa) in bed.

Some feminists may raise their voice against this but I totally agree and will even go to the extent of saying that this is a good logic to actually manage your husband. As far as the beauty and the other things go, they are highly relative and can be taken in different contexts. I prefer taking the meaning in the way it works out for me

When I was 12 years old I came across an interesting poem in a Wisdom magazine. I wrote it down in my diary as I really liked the concept. I used to read it to my mom. Once my grandparents visited us and my grand mother had a fight with my grand father and was not talking to him. She started telling us how he irritates her all the time with his stubborn nature etc.

I gave her a lecture. I think that was the first time I did some remarkable marriage counseling. I told her how she should not fight and make up with him I read this poem to her and told her - it is as simple as following what is written in the poem. The poem was in English so I translated it in Telugu and told her that if she blindly follows what is said in the poem she will never fight with grand pa again

Of course she said that I was only 12 and did not know what it is to live with a stubborn person who gets his way all the time for 60 years. She asked me to save that poem for myself and try to implement it when I get married. Well, I did exactly the same, I did save my diary and I read this poem so many times that the lines were etched in my brain so well that I involuntarily follow everything that is listed. Here is the poem:

When you marry a man, love him
After you marry him, study him
If he is honest, honor him
If he is generous, appreciate him
When he is sad, cheer him
When he is quarrelsome, put up with him
If he is slothful, spur him
If he is noble praise him
If he is confidential, encourage him
If he is secretive, trust him
If he favors society, accompany him
When he does you a favor, thank him
Let him think how well you understand him
But never let him know that you manage him!

If you look at this, you might feel that you are actually doing what he wants and you might have to sacrifice everything and lose your identity in the process. But trust me it is not that bad. Try this and see; you will know that by investing a little you can make a fortune. Just start doing these small things and he will acknowledge all your actions in a great way. It will not be a one man show.

You may ask what if he is not noble, generous etc. Well then support him in what ever he does, how ever he is, accept him for what he is and mold him to what you think he should be. Once again guys this is not a strategy against you but it is a strategy to make any relationship work!

PS: The rules apply for both men and women. This post does not intend that only women have to do everything how ever her man is. I had this piece about woman and I thought it is a nice one and elaborated on it. Men should be equally responsible to make the relationship work.

How we became soul mates - a six word story!

Acquaintance Fiancé Friend Lover Husband Soulmate

New Year's Resolution - Save The Planet and its people

One of my friends is a regular visitor to my blog. She left me an offline message couple of days ago stating she was disappointed that I am not writing regularly and that she expected at least a post on my new year resolutions. How can I turn down my dear friend's request. So here you go - You asked for it, you got it :-)

Every year at the stroke of 12.00am on December 31st I become all what ever you call it, and tell my husband a list of things I am going to do this year. Yeah yeah a list of my so called resolutions which I hardly stick to :-) And most of them would be around weight loss, being more responsible etc etc...

But this year, I did not have any of those usual things in my list. I did give him my list of resolutions this year before 12.05am but the list was soooooooooo different. I wanted to share that with you all.

The over all concept was to make efforts to save the planet and its people. Here are my thoughts on how I/We can achieve that. Remember that every drop counts. It is the attitude that matters and makes a huge difference. I had an idea. Instead of me following some rules I thought I would go an extra mile and try to increase the awareness among my friends and the readers of my post.
Saving the planet - I will list three very simple things that one can easily do, and still make a lot of difference. Here is the list:

1. Go Green: Try to use less of plastic, Styrofoam kind of stuff. It is very easy to go green and do our part. I keep a ceramic mug and water bottle at my desk. I do not use plastic or foam cups to drink water/tea/coffee. I am planning to buy cloth bags and use them when I go to buy groceries. (reducing usage of plastic bags). Also ask for paper bags instead of plastic at stores.

2. Use less water: There is water scarcity every where. I use "Water miser" cycle in dishwasher and smaller cycles in my washing machine. We program our sprinklers for alternate nights instead of everyday. Water plants at night so that the plants get all the water. During day time some of the water gets evaporated. Don't run washing machines and dish washers unless they are full.

3. Recycle as much as possible instead of throwing your stuff. Try to ask friends and family if they would like to use the stuff lying in your closets, attic, garage from ages. Clean up the clutter and give them way. If you cannot find anybody to give with in your network call up charities or some organizations which are waiting to come pick your stuff for free and reuse them and give them to the less privileged. Couple of them are Freecyle.org and Hope

Saving/helping people: Once again three simple things that we can do to save people in need.

1. Support any organization from any country: There are many organizations coming up these days that strive for educating the people, providing food, shelter, better health facilities to the less privileges. Take up one organization from your home town or any other place and support them. If you cannot help them physically, send some financial help. These days you can make tax deductible donations to many charities. Another option is to help them improve their web site by offering your ideas and services (if you are a S/W Engr, be their site's web master) some thing anything you can do.

2. Volunteer at least one day in a year: Most of the companies volunteer to help many organizations during holiday season here in US. A week before Christmas I volunteered for Salvation Army. Helped them toy sorting for half a day. So if your company encourages such things sign up for them. If not, find some activity going on in your neighbourhood and help them. Trust me, such things give immense satisfaction.

3. Help people in general: It can be done in several ways. If your friends or family are in crisis help them. Financially, morally, how ever possible. Do not just sit and watch the show. There are many ways we can help each other in today's world. Every person has got his or her own set of strengths and weaknesses. Let us use our strengths in helping other who have that as a weakness. Help people improve their relationships, counsel family or friends to study more and find better opportunities - in one word counsel people to make better choices if you can.

These are my new year resolutions. I feel good about making these choices. I am positive I can implement most of them. I don't want to worry about silly things and be selfish worrying about silly issues of my life. There are big and better things to do :-)

Once again Happy New Year and lets hope to make this planet a better place by the end of 2009!

Secret of success

When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."

Patience and perseverance to try and try until you get what you have been aiming for is the secret of success.

Best living example to learn perseverance from are infants. They prove that they can do anything if they try long enough. I appreciate their enthusiasm in not giving up in trying to crawl, stand up, balance, walk etc...

Come to think about it, every person passed through the infant phase. So all of us have with in the capacity to achieve difficult things in life. Only that as years pass by we forget our true self and take things for granted.

Determination is the key. Nothing is impossible. If you think you tried your best but did not succeed then it means you did not try hard enough. Everything boils down to knowing the basics. Try to explore the building blocks. Master them, create a strong foundation and build on top of that. Sincerity in the attempt is what matters. Be truthful in your approach and success will be yours.

I am back to my personal blog!

Happy New Year to all my readers :-) Wish you all a very happy, prosperous and a different new year. Yes, I mean it when I say different. I think all of us should do some thing different this year to spice up our lives a bit. What do you say?

Coming to a little chat on why I disappeared from blogosphere - I decided to stop writing/posting/blogging for some time now as it is consuming a lot of time - blogging is just not writing. For me, it takes 20-30mts to write a post. But to be a part of the blogosphere is nerve racking. I mean when I started and I became successful I was on a break. I was not working, most of the time at home, blogging a minimum of 5-6 hours a day and offline networking with all the bloggers.

It was all great but trust me it becomes a little difficult to maintain when you are back to working 8-10hrs a day and rest of the time spending time with the family. Now that my son is growing, I need to spend more quality time with him, of course answering all his questions means more research for me :-)

I thought it was not fair to just post a blog once a month and respond to my reader's comments. I want to know what they are writing to keep in touch. You will feel out of place if you don't read your friend's blogs. So I started feeling guilty, out of place and a lot more when I was blogging at Sulekha. That is how I decided to quit blogging.

But one of my dear friends who looks forward to reading my blogs kept asking me from time to time to update my blog. Also, I miss writing so much. Now that I got used to it from the past one year. I want to write but not feel guilty about not participating in the community. Hence I thought I will write and save the docs in my laptop.

That did not work so well as I was not motivated enough. The reason that my blog is open for public reading forces me to write well. So I came up with an idea. I abandoned my personal blog and started writing in Sulekha as the community is quite inviting there. I rose to fame there and was treated so well by all the Sulekha bloggers that I did not wish to come back here. I had to market my blog which proved difficult.

But now, I wish to come back here and write. I need not network if don't have time. I can still use my blog to archive my thoughts and when I have time I can try for some visibility in the blogosphere. I love blogging. So why keep away from it right? So I will be posting frequently here. I may not get a chance to read others blogs much but I will definitely respond to all the comments (if any :-)

I am glad my friend asked me to write. I am back to my personal blog and I am quite excited to post great things here!

After 8 days of being tagged, I came up with my list of 8’s

Well, I have been tagged by Sophizz (Sophia) 8 days ago. Thank you Sophia for tagging me as I thoroughly enjoyed writing this one. I sat and thought for quite some time to make my list of eights. Added some, deleted some, moved the positions based on priority – I am telling you I took a lot of time to write this one

I told my husband about this tagging game and asked him to tell me about his list of passionate 8’s. He gave me a silly laugh - me and passions? Are you kidding? When I gave him a look:

I won’t leave you until you come up with some thing

He started to think. I asked him the easiest category first –Travel. He immediately told me 8 places he would like to travel. When it came to passions he took 4 hours to make a list of 3 that too I put words into his mouth by giving him options to pick and choose. He couldn’t even do that. His first passion after thinking for 1 hour was "sleep". And that’s it; he couldn’t come up with anything else.

Then I asked my 3 year old and he immediately came up with 10 passions in no time. I am not sure if he knows the meaning of passion but the list makes lot of sense. These are things he loves soooooo much. He was ummmmmming for every item, rolling his eyes, counting with his little fingers oh my god you should have seen him…

Cars
Trains
McQueen Car (from Disney pixar’s movie)
King (from Disney pixar’s movie)
Chuck (from Disney pixar’s movie)
You (me)
Dad
Amamma (Grandma)
3 Wheeler cars (He recently saw in TV)
Gold fish crackers

I was so proud of him, hugged him gave him a 1000 kisses, danced with him. I was sooooo happy. Of course I gave my husband one more look –

See, this is me in him. Watch him and learn some thing.

I am glad that he got all my traits and none of husband’s when it comes to imagination. Seriously man otherwise life gets so boring.
Here comes my list of 8's:

8 things I am passionate about

Nature
Travel
Honesty
Intelligence
Helping others
Driving listening to melodious romantic songs
Understanding and analyzing people
Accomplishments and achievements

8 things I want to do before I die

Write a book on relationships and marriage (write more but this is one topic I already started)
Direct a movie (a romantic comedy)
Sing songs for movies – music director preferably Shankar Eshan Loy – I love to sing with orchestra. Learn how to play guitar.
Fly a plane with my husband and kid to my side
Hike some tallest mountains or peaks – first in my list would be Half dome and El Capita in Yosemite, California
Act in Theater
Become CEO of some S/W company
Build our dream house from scratch on a nice hill top with an Ocean view in a rich village like Saratoga in San Jose, Tiburon in San Francisco, Los Altos hills, San Diego

8 places I want to visit before I die – I added this category

Manas Sarovar
Kashmir
Kerala
Delhi – Travel the whole city and live there for some time
France – Start from Louvre museum and travel to all the locations mentioned in the book Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Costa Rica
Amazon Basin
Alaska

8 things I often say

What is the point? / There is no point / The point is – There should always be a point in what ever I say or do J
Thank you
Sorry
Ayyo Rama (usually used to convey “I don’t mean that” or to convey “you are mistaken” with close Indian friends)
Really?
You know what?
I don’t think so
Oh my god.

8 books I have read recently

I don’t read many books. From the past 3 yrs it has been mostly parenting magazines, Weight loss and exercise magazines, Hollywood gossip magazines, local Indian magazines about NRIs etc.

The 2 recent books which I really liked:

Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Who moved my cheese? By Spencer Johnson

8 songs I could listen to over and over - I gave the links you can watch the videos.

Pehla pehla pyar hai – Hum Appke Hain Kaun
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gIODEFkvjTA

Chand sifarish jo karta hamara - Fana
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fBKbZH2lHVg

Ankhon mein teri – Om Shanti Om
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fOszdaumexk

Hai mera dil - Josh
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bk5H_ZQvdNA

Chand Chupa badal mein – Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
http://youtube.com/watch?v=J8gqpnU0Ahc

Sanso ko sanso mein dhal ne do zara – Hum Tum
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sjDZTT9BXGM

Tu jahan – Salaam Namaste
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sjDZTT9BXGM

Kal ho na ho – Kal ho na ho
http://youtube.com/watch?v=chf5uvR9n7o

8 things that attract me to my best friends

Smile
Honesty
The way I talk
I am very energetic and enthusiastic some times quite restless
I go beyond my means to help my friends
I advise a lot. I am very caring and listen to their problems
I have lot of funny stories to share. I can make them laugh so much.
Innocence and Ignorance – I act innocent if I don’t like some thing but I am actually ignorant of many things :-)

I am proud of me

My son was saying "I am proud of me" today. When I asked him why, he said he saw a cartoon and one of the characters was saying a difficult word and he is able to say it. I was happy that he understood the phrase and used it in the right context and was actually proud of learning some thing.

This made me think. Can I ever say that I am proud of myself? People around me said several times that they were proud of me. I have low self esteem. I think every person around me is better than I am in some or the other way. I am self critical and for some reason nobody can ever convince me that I am good at some thing.

These days I am on a job hunt. Trying to find a job after 10 months of break in software industry is not easy. This week I have an interview and I want to give my best. Today in spite of being a Sunday (whole family at home), Ugadi (our New Year festival) I managed to study for 6 hours. I learnt 2 new songs to divert myself from technology for a while, thought of two topics for my blog, and took some tickle tests (psychology tests to learn more about your self. These are pretty cool. If you haven’t tried these before try one you will like it. Their results are quite accurate.)

Later in the evening I was checking my email and received one forward mail. It turned out to be about a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer. He gave his last lecture at the university before a packed Auditorium. In his talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

I was very much impressed with his lecture. Not to mention I felt good that I actually follow some of his rules or principles. If you are interested here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

During dinner time my husband was complaining that our son doesn’t know how to write letters of the Alphabet properly and that we are not paying attention to him. This is his way of saying that you should do some thing about it. I confronted my husband confidently and said “I am aware of it and I am guilty that I am not paying much attention to him. Let me finish my interview and I will teach him how to write.” As I said this I already made a decision to take this as a challenge and make my son write in less than a week or 2. I am quite competitive you know. But here the point to be noted is the way in which I answered him. I never did that before. I was so sure of what I said and I did not feel bad.

Later my son asked me why I was studying so much. I told him I have an interview. He asked me why and I told him I have to find a job. He asked me why I want to go to work. I told him – “I like working. As you go to school to study and dad goes to work I too want to go to work. That will make me happy.” To that he responded saying, “you will be happy if you go to work?” and smiled. I felt as if I got a green signal from him.

Today I am proud of myself for what I am, for what I have accomplished so far, for my potential to do things. I still don’t agree that I am good at everything I do but I am proud of me (today) and it feels great!

Some things cannot change!

Like me being funny. Looks like funny and me can never be used in the same sentence :-( No it is true. I am sure that by now who ever read any of my posts will confirm that. If this is the first one you are reading you should read my previous post: I have been tagged – I don’t hate men! It is a game. I could have written some thing funny. But I did not. I ended up with a serious note on love and peace. I am sure everybody is cursing me for being such a spoilsport.

If you see my profile you will see it says I am a fun loving person. I am not sure if it is mis leading because I love being around funny people, who can make fun about themselves and others (of course with out overdoing it). I like watching comedy movies. I actually don’t like watching serious drama or sad movies. So where is the problem? I cannot make fun of myself or others. I tried and tried, I just can’t.

I can quote the exact situation how certain things happened in my life and it makes others laugh because I am so dumb at times (or most of the times). But that is the truth. I don’t make them up. I can be funny that way. I can also imitate people very well. There is some fun in that too. But other than that I cannot come up with hilarious stuff. I am too serious and dont participate in making fun of others. I sit and smile. Thats it. So basically I end up looking as a boring person, very philosophical which loosely translates to (for some at least) boring.

It is not completely my fault. I come from a family of very serious and non fun loving people. Actually my dad is a little funny. But my mom and brother are not so funny people. I got so badly influenced by them that it is taking a hell lot of effort to turn into a funny person (which I actually want to be). The only movies we watched when growing up, that too once a year are educative award winning art kind of movies. In Telugu we used to watch only movies by K.Vishwanath. Let me tell you, they are not funny at all.

My mom raised us with all these Epic stories, Sanskrit proverbs, the good and the bad, a strict list of do’s and don’ts. In Sanskrit there is a quote which says what ever you do, do it with Trikarana Sudhi - Manasa, Vacha, Karmena which means purity of thought, speech, and action. I don’t even know why I listened to her. I am scared to lie, make fun of others things like that assuming some thing bad will happen to me. Now I know I was so stupid

I have to change. I want to change. But when ever I make some progress, my mom makes sure I go back to where I started. She is in her 50’s doesn’t mean that I should be philosophical too like her right? Actually she did a great job as I turned out to be purer than her I am not boasting. She does not gossip much but when ever she does, I stop her saying:

Why should we talk about others? Everybody has their own problems. So let’s not judge them or make fun of them.

Yeah, I am that horrible. Some times it feels like I am at a point of no return. The worst part is I asked my 3 year old the other day – “Hey is mom funny?” and he immediately says “Nooooooooo” with a smile. I make him laugh all the time making funny faces, singing, and dancing with him and this is what I get. What is wrong with him? So now I tried the other way, “Hey! If you want ice cream say that mom is funny’. To that he says “I don’t want ice cream mom!”

A Thank You note from a blogging beginner!

I want to take this last day of the year 2007 to thank you all for accepting me into the blogging world and giving me a warm welcome. I really appreciate you reading my posts and taking time to comment. Each and every one of you made me popular. It is rewarding to know that there is some body out there who likes to read and comment on my work. I started blogging here and had a great start.

As of today I have 20 posts, a few page hits and some very good comments. I want to take a moment to thank each one of you for all the motivation. I would say the last few months of 2007 have been quite rewarding for me as a writer as I never imagined that I could possibly write anything. There is a joke on S/W engineers that if they become writers the story will be filled with keywords like if/else and do/while! So coming from that background and lacking writing skills and being accepted by the blogging world seems like a privilege.

While I agree that blogging is a very different ball game for me I am learning a lot by looking at what others are doing here. As I read the posts by some of the top bloggers I am getting some ideas. I am having a great time reading others blogs and the innumerable comments helps me step away from my own blog for a little while and get some fresh ideas and perspectives. I should mention that my friends are getting lazy in not posting their comments on the site but giving me feedback via email or chat.

I feel that my blogging experience here can bring about rich and wonderful conversations and lead to lasting friendships. I am aware of the fact that it can take a long time to build up a readership. In the mean time I am planning to enjoy the writing process. I started blogging to serve as a writing exercise. After seeing my words up on the internet, I now have the urge for people to read, comment, and relate to them… A natural inclination, I guess. Thank you for making my year a beautiful one!

I wish I were an Artist

I enjoy watching chick flicks, especially those highlighting artists. I have seen some movies about emerging artists. The pop artists, at least most of them, write their own lyrics, compose music and perform to the songs all by themselves. They own the song completely. They start writing at a very young age. Lot of creativity is involved in this process.

I really appreciate these artists. Teenagers start creating albums which top the charts. The lyrics are so beautiful, meaningful, and emotional. It is hard to believe that such a young person could be so expressive. Usually they write from their personal experiences. Come to think about it we all go through ups and downs of life. But to be able to express our feelings in such a beautiful way is amazing.

I wish I were an artist. I would have given a concrete form to my feelings and created something memorable out of my phases of life. When you come across some beautiful romantic songs, either the artist has found some one or he is in company with a friend who is in a relationship. Same is the theory with the sad songs. Artists put their emotions into words and convey it to the world. I wish I were like them when ever I listen to their songs.

I want to recall how I felt when I topped the class in my 10th grade for the first time in several years of my schooling or how accomplished I felt when I got into the best job through campus placements. I have had a few accomplishments and failures in my life. But I don’t remember how I felt. I can generalize that I would have felt happy or sad but nothing specific. I wish I were able to put into words or in some way recorded how I felt when I my dad passed away and I was all alone pregnant with my son in this country when my loved ones were in India. I wish I wish…

I found something in Orkut…

I was introduced to Orkut by my sister in law a year ago. She told me that she met many of her old friends via Orkut. Obviously the next day I opened an Orkut account and met some old friends. I spent a few days chatting with the people I got in touch with after a decade. But what interested me the most is the capacity to investigate a person’s profile. I explored the application and edited the settings not to be seen by others when I visit their profile. Now I felt like a detective! I had the power to sneak into other’s world.

I started reading some of my friend’s scraps and their responses to figure out the hottest and latest in their lives. I came to know of the secret romances, live-in relationships, marriage dates even before I got the invitation, flirt styles of my relatives and friends – it was so interesting. It was like a gossip magazine for me. It became a habbit, something like reading a news paper!

Why are people publicizing their life so much? It is a well known fact that the scraps are public. If the scraps in your friends scrap book they are visible. So if a guy is interested in a girl or vice versa, it is very easy to know everything about the person or for an outsider like me about both of them by reading their more than 1000 scraps!

I have a friend whose relative is having an affair with a guy. It seems it is kept secret from her extended family. She says she is still not sure with whom she may get married. Now my curious friend raided her scrap book and found out the guy in her friend’s list and then she filtered all her scraps to him and the other way too. It turned out that they have the most public romance ever exchaning cute and cuddly dialogues via Orkut. That guy even posted a snap with her in his album. Interesting isnt it? She tells me she cannot wait leaking this news to everyone!

Another friend of mine, saw a girl in a wedding. He was interested in her and wanted to know more about her. He could’nt get much information on her in that wedding. But thanks to Orkut now he knows everything about her and her family as she has all the conversations with her sister in Orkut.

Why don’t the Orkut users use the application to find friends and take the conversations offline via email or Instant Messaging where you can have private conversations? The worst part is some people get offended that others are reading their scrap books. Is this invading their privacy? I don’t think so. Something put on display is meant to be watched! I stopped my subscription to People magazine after Orkut happened in my life!