Long train journeys......Quizzing ......Daddy the quizmaster.......

Making a quiz for my college fest ,today, I realized, how much i enjoyed quizzing .....and long train journeys,coming back from spending a vacation with cousins at the Grandparents', when I would invariably be teary eyed and missing my cousins and Grandparents sorely!!!

Haven't been on a train since ages now.....
Daddy hasn't played quizmaster in a while.....
That time seems light years away!!!!

I wish life was slower and journeys were longer and vacations never got over !!!!

Some bright lady called Michelle Menard invented Nail Polish . Here's sending a thank you note to her for brightening up so many dull days , just like bright pink nail polish brightened mine today :)

Anatomy of a weekend in a city

My weekends end up being more hectic than my weekdays.

It all begins with Friday evening, when all seems hunky dory and the world sure feels like a good place to live in. One feels as if they can complete all their pending work, pay the bills and conquer the whole world , over the weekend!!! Going through the calendar of cultural events  and movie listings in the city , 101 plans are drawn up with friends and family and sincere promises made to friends, whom one hasn’t met in ages, about catching up over coffee and desserts......

Reality dawns on Saturday morning and more practical , doable  “ to- do lists “  are drawn up. There is a sudden urge to drift through the weekend ,sleeping, but the flurry and the activity in the house forces one to abandon that plan. However,  I try to put off thoughts of work and studying  by immersing myself in music, by listening as well as singing. So,  Saturday mornings could range from anything from Bhairav to Baul or Bhajans and that sets  the tone for the day. What ensues is music classes, piles of practical files ( for unfortunate students like me ) and grocery shopping ( for poor mum and dad ). Also, the mere mention of public transport, gets people like me hysterical, those who spend the better halves of their lives travelling!!!

Sunday seems to scream “  I’m tired, let me go “  right from the morning. All work is done at a feverish pace, as if its the world, not the weekend, that is going to come to an end . So, while Brother is sent off for  that much needed haircut , I am reprimanded for the mess that my wardrobe and my book shelves are in and set to the task of cleaning them . Kishore  Kumar and his songs are a common feature in our Sundays , as Father seems to be in a rather  melodious mood and keeps singing or listening to his songs.

Whatever remains of the weekend is spent in planning for the week ahead and lamenting about what a wasted weekend it was !!!

And then its back to the grind again .......

Ecstasy

The smell of raindrops on wet earth, a surprise gift of a bouquet of roses, all these leave us feeling truly ecstatic.
For author Truman Capote, Ecstasy was ' ideal apple eating weather, white sunlight descending from the purest sky, and a rustling easterly wind.'
In today's competitive world, success and money evoke the same feelings of ecstasy. However, a little scratching beneath the surface, and what one finds is, that for most humans, ecstasy lies in the simple pleasures of life.
For many, Hope is the only ecstasy in their otherwise bleak existence. The soldier who lost a limb or an arm in a war, makes his world go round with the power of Hope.
Contentment is another virtue that leaves many a soul ecstatic. Truly loving their lives and accepting happily whatever life doles out to them, can also make people feel high on life.
Ecstasy assumes different connotations for the youth all over the world. For some, it is the sense of achievement on getting that dream job or that elusive dream college admission. For many others, it is MDMA, the drug which holds many young people in its grip, wrecking irreparable damage on their nervous systems and rendering them dependent on it.
Ecstasy is also the very same emotion or feeling evoked by Akbar's court musician Tansen in his ragas, that used to make even the heavens open up in reverence.
But, what is Ecstasy without the Agony ?
Vincent Van Gogh grappled with these conflicting emotions when he was on the throes of insanity and was creating masterpieces at the same time. Similarly, a mother does not see the face of her newborn without enduring the agonizing pain of childbirth.
In the end, what makes life worth living, are the little moments of ecstasy encountered in our everyday life, which must be savoured and enjoyed.

..........And the head is held high,

Where knowledge is free.............

Tagore’s dreams of centres of learning ”where knowledge is free”, have remained just that, dreams.

The knowledge in question here is scientific knowledge and I am talking about the state of scientific education in India.

Science, in our country, is a story of decadence and stagnation . It continues to remain the poorer cousin of Technology, which is growing by leaps and bounds in India.

Scientific institutions, which had been built with the vision that they would serve as centres practicing and propagating Science, have derided and made a mockery of that very vision. These institutions have created and harboured environments of intellectual snobbery, intense professional rivalries and of fear. For a subject like Science to thrive, there needs to be a healthy, fearless environment where the mind can reason and ask questions in order to give rise to novel ideas and discover, unearth and unravel the many mysteries of the universe.

Educationists who have been entrusted with the pivotal role of grooming and guiding young people who have chosen careers in Science and research , have a proprietary attitude towards the subject. Merely holding on to knowledge and not sharing it will not increase its worth. Moreover,  the baton of  knowledge needs to be passed down from one generation to another.

It does not come as a surprise that research in Science in our country is abysmally low and that very few young people want to choose careers in Science. No cutting- edge research can happen in an atmosphere that stifles the creativity of students and renders  them  as mere puppets in the hands of the people “guiding” them.

Also, students cannot and should not be blamed and accused of being disloyal to their country , when they leave the country for foreign shores in pursuit of better opportunities in Science. They do so because the country has failed to provide them with opportunities matching their abilities.

I also agree that merely being cynical about the issue does not help. There are solutions to the problem. The government needs to create a number of research institutions with state-of-the-art facilities. The way Science is taught in India needs to change . Right from the school level, students should be taught to appreciate the Science that is involved in our everyday life, out-of-the-box thinking needs to be encouraged and the ‘only-for-people-with-intellectual-abilities-above-a-certain-level’ tag that comes with Science, needs to be gotten rid of.

I am hopeful of change and am sure that if certain reforms are implemented strictly, the day is not far when we would be world leaders in Science.

At one point of time in my life, when I was bang in the middle of my teenage, I wanted to be so many people ( or  rather, be 'like' so many people ), now at 19 years and 11 months, I just want to be myself.......

At 15 , I wanted to be like Miss Popular in school and also secure the marks she had secured!!!! At 16, I wanted to dress up like Miss X, Y or Z. At 17 , I wanted to have hair like someone else and at 18, I started wondering, where exactly was " I " in all this ???

So finally at 19, I started loving my unmanageably frizzy hair, I have my unique dressing sense, I have accepted the fact that I'm technologically challenged and I love myself despite everything!!!

Around this time, I read somewhere,
" Its better to be a first rate of yourself, than to be a second rate version of someone else "......

Makes so much sense now!!!

My first post.......

Okay, so the name of the blog is juvenile, but then , so am I........and yes, it does sound like a food blog,but my creative juices stopped flowing and this was the best I could think of ,that defined me.......:D I suddenly felt the need to blog to be able to give expression to the many things that keep going on in my head, things that I feel the need to share, to talk to people about, things that are probably insignificant , but still important.

And in the end, my blog is pink.....because its a colour that I feel was created for me and only me,
because I  have worn bright, neon pink pants to college and felt like a rockstar and
because the colour makes me feel that I'll never need to grow up!!!!

[Disclaimer- If in a month, after I turn 20 ,I finally decide to grow up and get over my obsession with pink, I will change the colour of my blog ;) ]