My latest Crush...

He's so charming and cute. With such an innocent face that I just cant get angry at his crazy pranks. He loves cuddling me, and falling all over me at the time I least expect. I love that too. ;) He is so open and frank, that you feel embarrased at his big speech at times. He has a heart of gold, spontanious and yet sooo VERY naughty! I jst cant contain him!

Yeah, am talking about Kevin! Not the hollywood Kevin Costner or Kevin Spacey, but our 3 yr old hero at home, my nephew! He loves eating chocolates with all his 10 fingers, he loves piggybacking during family prayer. He irks me most of the time, for he cant sit still for more than 30 secs.

The other day, at midnight, my sis in law heard a faint 'Mommy' and woke with a start not finding Kevin next to her. She was perplexed and frightened as she groped around in dark. That's when she heard our Kevin brightly say, ' Mom, I am lying down here!' .

We all laughed at this story, but the underlying lesson i learnt amazes me. He dint cry that he fell off the bed.. or he had hurt his head.. he dint say mom i fell! The words he chose, shows the different perspective one can have at the worse of situation! Aint it?!

Inspiration from ODD places

Never knew Sidney Shelton could inspire me everyday. Below is the extract from his book 'The other side of me' Its worth the read... below are the words from his papa to keep Sidney from commiting suicide.

"Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what's going to happen until you turn the page."
"You don't really know what can happen tomorrow, do you? Every day is a different page and they can be full of surprises. I'd hate to see you close the book too soon and miss all the excitement that could happen to you on the next page- the page you're going to write"

Whew! isnt that neat.. Life with its own twist and turns, is sure a novel. what a perspective! Now you get the guts to go head-on!

I don't know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future.....

B A N G ! !

That’s what they heard, when I fell unconscious on the hospital floor, this morning. The last thing I heard was the screaming of a 15 yr old girl in pain. She was admitted in the same room as my mom. Bharathy has brain tumor and had been there for 5 months. Chemo, radiation, fever were hers reducing her to skin and bones. She had beautiful eyes, a sharp nose and lovely lips. Her mom, dad are police officers from Chattisgarh. They and Bharathy don’t understand English. She is in Class 11. Her head was shaven and the first time I saw her I mistook her to be a small boy. She hardly ate. Just the previous day, I had got her a pink teddy and a get well card to cheer her up. I had told her to eat properly and never cry. I had told her to be brave.

Hmmm…It was a big bang, my head had hit her hospital bed and I was numb for 5 minutes. The nurses rushed, carried me, saw the bump in my skull and finally I am told to have my brain scanned and my skull Xrayed. I am just praying there is no blood clot or whatever on my head. She was showing me her tubed neck, when I reeled. Unlike me, Bharathy is a brave girl. She lives through everyday torture from eating, turning over, walking, sleeping, everything. I feel embarrassed but truth is I just couldn’t see her in pain. Last thing, I heard was when they where taking some dumb liquid out of her spine. She was pleading, yelling, crying out of sheer pain and I just ran out of the room. I am still scared.

I am as lowly worse than an earthworm. Life is full of surprises! I could have a stroke, an accident, a fatal fall, and any crazy disease! Am so vulnerable. We all are! Fame, money, success, achievement aren’t in the thoughts of Bharathy. I realize, there is a huge truth in that.

Father, help me to remember how futile this life is. Give me the strength that I need. You love me and I love you. I can’t ask for anything more in this life.

No Rules, No Strings attached..

No Rules.. Sounds really good.. But all around us, we have rules..Traffic rules, govt rules, School Rules, College Rules, Company Policies( read as rules).. Is there an ideal place where there are no rules?? Incidently there is.. a community where actually there are no rules.. I am not sure if you would agree, but the Christian community has none..

Everyone can do whatever they want.. There are no rules! How does that work? Sounds crazy enough? Well, it goes like this.. You are on your own, you can do whatever you want. Then how do you know what's right or wrong? God loves us so much and he says that he lives in us. So when his spirit is within us, he guides and teaches what to do and what not..

How does the mighty God who made earth and all the planets live in simple people like us, who err every minute..God can't overlook any mistake/wrongdoing/sin. Mistake/sin deserves punishment( there is no big or small sin in his dictionary). So who gets the punishment? God took the punishment on Jesus his son, bcoz he loved us dearly. Yeah, thts why he died on the cross.. So now all the sins we did/doing/will do in the past, present, future are forgiven.. whew!
SO, whats the catch?? NONE! God loves everyone.. the terrorists, the rapists, the babies, the gangsters, the good and the bad. This is the unconditional love. We dont deserve it. But that's what is grace...

So when we ask God to live in us, he does. He does not force us, push us to do good. If he is such kind, he would have made us all robots.. but he gave us free will. So no rules. No strings attached.
and Bible.. that's a history, adventure, mystery and many more all combined to one book.. To be honest, its a love letter.. a love letter from God to the human race.. read it to know more...

"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. I corin 6:12
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life John 3: 16

Life in hospital..

I always believe that I grow an inch taller on every visit to CMC, Vellore hospital.
The earth seems to stop spinnin for a sec and then moves slowly in its own pace here. Disease, sickness, accident is never partial, and seems to come to all, the babies, the young and the old, the poor, and the rich.
The corridors are filled with waiting people, with anxious faces. Faces that are empty, distraught, scared, confused, lost in thought, sad, and sick, wrinkled, darkcircles with sleepless nights..The sick are wheeled to and fro in their beds, with their loved ones at the heel.
The docs, nurses, managers, the housekeepers, all are busy, yet have a pleasing smile that radiates in its own way.
The pain, the sick feeling n yr guts, butterflies on yr stomach, the stinging pain in your heart as you or you watch your suffering loved one, or anyone for that matter is real and true.
Yet the hope on docs, the medicines remain. The trust on God remains supreme, and the earth does spin in its own pace.. here in the hospital...

He sent out his word and he healed my disease He is my Lord, my healer.

Theory of Relativity

Einstein caricatured this matter as follows:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."
I never did understand it fully.. until now. Relativity applies to everything around us. Your perspective on things. To start with you may prefer a bike instead of a walk, a car instead of a bike, a train instead of a car, a plane instead of a train.
So all we have to do is take a step back, see a bigger picture, see what you can compare with, one higher and the other lower.. So no matter how depressed you are, how angry,disappointed or sick you are, you can always look above the situation! I bet you'll be satisfied wherever you are.. I have tried and it works ALL the time.
A friend had commented envying a posh car that zipped past them on the road to my bro.. and Pravee had replied, saying that he always looked at the left side of the road, where people with no roof over their head sleep on pavement.. THAT's relative outlook!

A thousand years before Thee are like 12 hours or like 4 hours. Psalms 90:4 http://www.bible-quotes-science-info.com/art/einstein-theory-relativity.htm

He is my friend.

I have many friends. Good friends, best friends, close friends, thick friends, caring friends, true friends, just friends, chat friends,friendly friends. All are unique. They are school friends, college friends, dell friends, kone friends, tcs friends, infy friends, cycle friends,bus friends, bus stop friends, train friends.
I am blessed with an amazing range of friends, right from sharing a joke, playing a prank, keeping a secret, playing and fooling around to listening my bla, bla all the time, lending their shoulder to cry upon, to help and direct, guide me.. "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" Proverb 18:24

But there is a twist here, and you would agree as well. There comes a time, when there is a frequency mismatch,when you and your friend sadly cant strike the same chord all the time.. What I mean is, I cant talk on my current workplace jokes/stories/issues to my school mate friend.. When you are excited abt something a new assignment/job/place/thing and you call your ol friend, who sadly happens to be in the middle of a meeting/shopping/riding/partying and who responds 'wow! thts great! Hey u mind if gve u a ring in 5 mins, am caught in somethg.. ' and whn he/she does call, your excitement would have faded.. Or you might not have been in touch for a long time.. and now you cant share your immediate joys/sorrows cause you have so much to catch up with before you could actualy come to the present.. Its no fault of you or your friend.. its just that we can share ol memories and catch a laugh with ol friends and keep making new..

But I have a friend who has been with me from school days. He was with me in college and with me now as well. He is so sweet. He listens to all my sobs, my anger, knows what I feel. He knows very well, how to excite me,encourage me and to make me laugh! Boy! am I so blessed to have him as my friend!! He never bosses me, or pesters in anyway. He always tunes to my frequency and helps me strike the correct chord! I just cant seem to loose him and I dont ever wanted to do that! My prayer for u, is that you also get him as a friend, a friend for life..

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged;
Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful,who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; Take it to the Lord in prayer.
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry,everything to God in prayer!

Xtra eFX

It was thursday eve and my colleague was saying it was raining cats and dogs.. It stopped me for a sec.. for whr i live gets flooded even for a 15mins downpour..
I wound up as fast as I could and headed out of bldg4 Mcity. It was pouring mad..with the distant lightning and thunder.. The Infy umbrella which easily holds 2 people got me wet in a matter of secs.. The wind was strong enough to push me down... I ran to the bus, along with few many people.. threw the umbrella out after landing one foot on the bus.. And that's when I wondered, how it would be in railway station.. without the infy umbrellas...

Hoping the rain would slow down, we started. The bus took longer than usual.. or was it my impatience... bus came to a stand still.. but where's the station?? It was blacked out.. The rain, was even more heavier with the wind and the thunder scaring the wits out of us.. I mumbled a quick thankyou to a poor security showing a torch light to show us where the staircase was.. Without the lights, it was hard to see where the steps were.We all ran up and down the stairs, dripping wet..

The railway station sheltor, already held some 100 infy folks... prev train was late?? .. I got into the middle of the crowd, trusting, that would keep my shivering body, from the cold menacing wind and the rain drops. All I could make out was black silhouettes around me. It was soo dark and the lightning brought light as powerful as the sunlight to show the station and the people in it.. It was so bright.. I have never seen lightning that real before.. I have always been indoors and I was told never to see one to safeguard your eyes.. But that day was different.. You have nowhere to hide.. and the lightning comes without warning. Light travels faster than Sound. Its not a theory.. Its true. So before the thunder thunders, we had no option but to witness the power of lightning streak.. a thick white streak up from the sky to the horizon below.. lighting up the whole night sky.. beautiful but yes very scary..

There were oooooohs aaaaaaahs.. and folks tried to turn the otherside to avoid seeing the lighting, only to see another one on the other side.. before we could react, the thunder roars.. It was so scary.. Powerful Lightning that can blind you, roaring thunder that could deafen ears and the heavy down pour of rain, coupled with the strong prevailing Wind... Wuf.. It was so much to grasp all at once.. No mobile camera, could capture what we witnessed.. We all sighed a big relief when the train atlast came to our rescue.

We seem so powerless, before these mighty displays of God's creation... What makes us think, that we are any better.. ?

When He rolls up His sleeves He ain't just putting on the ritz(Our God is an awesome God)There's thunder in His footsteps And lightning in His fists(Our God is an awesome God)
Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from Heaven above, With wisdom, power and love, Our God is an awesome God

How costly is..

a smile? Looking at faces around me, is my fav past time.. Some are round, long, egglike, oval, grumpy, serious, sad , angry, weird, lost in thought, worried, upset, bubbly, lovely, sweet and strange..

When I cycle to school, I caught this habit of smiling at unsuspecting strangers.. My target were either kids, their moms, or old women.. never a guy...
The adults response were mixed of surprise, ranging from staring cold look to 'have i known her' look, but min'd u there are a few who immediately smile and then ponder, who, and then the 'do i know u look.. few even ask their friends nearby, was the smile at me or u, do i knw her, i think i know her and even turn back to get another look at me...
Compare it to the kids.. Many kids, smile instantly.. the sweet, innocent, lovely smile comes natural to school kids, poor kids.. Yeah, there are those, who like their mom's stare at you and give the ' my mom says dont talk to strangers'
Yeah, yeah.. its for a fraction of second, and I would have driven past them, but it is so beautiful.. My habit still stays, and its sad, that adults, do a lot of calculation before they can see eye to eye and s.m.i.l.e! And it is heredity too... coz my mom's sweet smile radiates wherever she is !

Some songs I love...
SMILE, smile , Jesus loves you (3) for you are so precious to Him!
Jesue wants me for a sunbeam, to shine for Him each day. Over the hills and the valleys, to shine for Him each day, A sunbeam, a sunbeam, J wants me for a sunbeam, I'll be a sunbeam for Him!
"SMILE it improves yr face value and it costs you nothing! "- From VIVIDENT - a dental clinic.
"It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown."

The other side..

When people tell about the other side of the coin, or the grass is greener on the other side, I had believed that they were really two sides to any story.. But now I have come to realise there isnt.. There is just one pasture.. one flat world.. one life... No more or less.

We have always been taught to win, to succeed, to gain and never to loose. Funny.. we always try to reach the unattainable, set goals that are far so ahead and eventualy. I learnt from a 5 PM DD Metro cartoon, Flash Gordon, ( I think), that winning is not everything. It aint bad to take a wrong step.. so no use regretting.. It aint bad to fail.. we always learn..and something good always comes out of it..

So then, what does matter? To be happy.. in everything that happens around us.. As my dad often says, 'We are going to live few more weeks'..So why bother worrying! It aint easy all the time. But I have decided to make it a habit. To make others happy is even more exciting!

Lemme sing ths song for ya...
The time to be happy is now!
The place to be happy is here!
And the way to be happy is to make someone happy!
.. and tata tada tada ta da! ( Would be grateful if someone can remind me of the rest of the song! )