House hunting and Arranged Marriage

We are house hunting and but can't help draw an analogy to the Indian arranged marriage system.

There are multiple people looking at the same person/house.
If you like someone/something but try to take some time to think about it somebody else will scoop them/it before you and you feel dis-appointed
You don't have much time to make a decision and have to take leap of faith based on just external beauty
The longer you wait the more desperate you become and are more willing to settle for less and your demands change from hard to soft to anything.
The longer it goes the less enthusiastic the broker/realtor becomes and starts focusing on newer clients.

Any one else feel this way?

Random thoughts

Life is very fragile and fleeting. Got to make something out of it before its too late. I realize health/sound mind and body are key to anything in life. I will never change the course of history, I will never be remembered in the annals of human kind, I will just be a single grain in the sands of time. Got to do something, train my body and mind. Feel better at end of my life that I did something for myself and my loved ones and the communities I interact with. I believe finally that is all that matters in my very very tiny world.

"I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” -Etienne de Grellet QUAKER MISSIONARY

Mountains!

I have realized that I am happiest when I am out in the mountains.There is something in my DNA which makes my heart soar and makes me feel very alive when I am in the mountains. Recently did a ski trip to Breckenridge colorado and was it stunning! The trip was decided and executed in 24 hours based on a 'The mountains are calling and I must go' whim! Video courtesy- Birbal Ekka

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.

Like attracts like.Just be who you are, bright. Automatically,as we shine who we are,asking ourselves every minute is this what I really want to do, doing it only when we answer yes,automatically that turns away those who have nothing to learn from who we are and attracts those who do , and from whom we have to learn, as well.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each others life.Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.


- Illusions,Richard Bach.

My wife is the best cook in the world!! You may call it favourtism,but that is how I feel. Today she made mind blowing Idli/chutney/sambar ,that too on her birthday and I said I am going to record this on my blog!! :)

First official marathon!

Another life long dream ticked off at 34 years,1 month and 21 days. First official marathon is in the books. Here is my finish video

Pitamakan pass - Sep 7 2015

30 miler.. Today I ran my longest distance ever in my life. A 30 miler in about 6 hours. It was slow but steady and still felt good post 30 miles, first ever unofficial marathon distance. Need to run faster.

My longest run ever 20 miles

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/860303029/share/0?lang=English&t=1439147842411

It's been a while since I have logged anything on this blog, but I have had a backend process running in my brain all this while saying that I need to get back to penning my thoughts. Yes, I will say chronicling my life and also penning my thoughts are the two main reasons which i find are motivations for me to keep writing on this blog. I feel that as time passes by and I grow older and as I am ravaged by the vagaries of life, I am curious to see how my thoughts changed. I am trying to again rejuvenate this blog and hopefully I am can keep it going a bit more longer this time. :)

What card are you dealt with?

Yesterday was another usual day at office. Had a couple of drinks post office with a few friends, took my usual bus route 17 at Nicolett and remembered that I had to get some stuff from Kowalkski's(grocery store) on the way back.So promptly got off at my stop and headed towards Kowalski's. I have to cross the Kowalski's parking lot to get into the store and I saw this car pulling in and inside it was a very pretty girl with a tiara of flowers on her head sitting in the non driver seat. She may have been in her 20's. I was immediately attracted to her,but she had a kind of sad face which kinda made me twinge a little. I stared at her a bit longer and I saw the driver,an older woman get out of the car but this girl made no immediate attempt to get out.Well there are lot of pretty girls in this world and here was one more and I moved on into the store. My work inside the store took me less than 10 mins, I came out then I saw this girl still sitting inside the car and she opened the door,I slowed down my pace to get one more appreciative look at this flowery tiara girl before she is totally erased from my short term memory. The girl seemed to be struggling to get out,then i saw a pair of crutches come out of the car first, I thought, oh! she may have broken a leg or something,poor thing! But then only one leg came out and she stood and closed the door and I saw that she had no other leg,it stopped near the thigh. The pang of emotions I felt at that moment of realization was like a jolt of shock. Somebody froze the frame and changed the entire perspective, from a lusty appreciative emotion, it turned to a whole myriad of other emotions - surprise,dismay,shock,melancholy. Her eyes met mine for a few seconds, she had that look of 'what is he thinking about me','is he pitying me?'. I gave her a quick sad smile,which she immediately understood and returned a 'I know' smile. I walked on,I kept thinking in my head - 'What card are you dealt with?'.

Joy of pain

There is a different kind of joy to be felt in some kinds of pain. Like today I ran 16 miles and the last 2 miles were a struggle. I couldn't speak for 15 mins after stopping. I just went home and collapsed on my bed and did not move for 30 mins. When I made the first movement and felt the pain of muscles being sore,aaah,one cannot describe it,its a pain of accomplishment and at the same time a pain which gnaws onto your brain. Every step I took meant some part of my body was creaking and the pain felt was indescribable. Aaahhh, the joy of pain. They say pain is weakness leaving the body,it definitely a painful way to figure it out. :)

Birdman

I decided to catch the movie 'Birdman' over the weekend as I was very curious to see why it won the best movie. Throughout the movie I kept on thinking where is this movie going.It had very powerful dialogues,witty dialogues,very powerful acting,strong cast,it has its share of humor,amazing camera work-the sweeping single shots just blew me away,then the last 10 mins totally threw me off.The ending was open to so much interpretation that I realized maybe that was what made the academy deem it a oscar worthy movie. But it is a very thought provoking movie,There are lot of powerful dialogues but for me in the entire movie there is this heated exchange between Michael keaton and emma stone which stuck with me,the idea of trying to be relevant in life! Its deep and makes so much sense to me about life. Riggan: Listen to me. I'm trying to do something important. Sam: This is not important. Riggan: It's important to me! Alright? Maybe not to you, or your cynical friends whose only ambition is to go viral. But to me... To me... this is - God. This is my career, this is my chance to do some work that actually means something. Sam: Means something to who? You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You're doing a play based on a book that was written 60 years ago, for a thousand rich old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over. And let's face it, Dad, it's not for the sake of art. It's because you want to feel relevant again. Well, there's a whole world out there where people fight to be relevant every day. And you act like it doesn't even exist! Things are happening in a place that you willfully ignore, a place that has already forgotten you. I mean, who are you? You hate bloggers. You make fun of Twitter. You don't even have a Facebook page. You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it.

7.5 miles running in a balmy 35 F and topping it off with a Caribou latte.The simple pleasures of life and the joy of living.

Sistine Chapel

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in my case I had seen thousands of pictures and I wanted to see the real thing, I knew about it since the age of 10-11 when I used to turn the pages of an encyclopedia and the brilliant colors of the painting used to fascinate me and the name Michelangelo had a ring to it. I remember trying to figure out who was a greater painter Leonardo or Michelangelo and reading up and comparing paintings of both of these artists when I was in my teens and venerating them. For me, the entire renaissance era was epitomized by these two names. It was far easier to get information once I had access to internet and have spent countless hours reading up and admiring the works of these two painters. Of all the works I truly dreamed of seeing the 'Sistine Chapel'. The iconic image of 'God creating man' and the hand of god giving life to man which was highlighted in the movie Benhur as part of the overture,a movie which I have seen many times was something which captivated my mind since I was a kid.

So when I planned my Italy trip I knew what was on top of my 'Must see'. The Vatican museum opens at 9 am to the general public,but if you shell some extra money you get a 8 AM entry directly into the Sistine chapel with no crowds.For me it was a no-brainer to go for this.We met our guide at 7:30 am who gave a brief history of the sistine chapel and explained about the paintings by giving us a pamphlet most of it which I already knew before.The sistine chapel is the last exhibit as part of the Vatican museum tour,basically saving the best for the last. So we had to walk through a lot of rooms which we would see later but first the 'Sistine Chapel'. My pulse was racing, my adrenaline pumping, I knew I was finally going to see and feel with my own senses one of the greatest creations of art in the history of mankind. We went down a stair case and there was a very inconscpicous door to the left which we entered, I was thinking the chapel was still further away,the door led into a huge hall and I looked up and my heart leaped, I WAS IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL. Its amazing that one of the greatest art creations of man has such an unremarkable entry. The thing is, we enter through a small door which is to the bottom right of the wall on which the last judgement is painted. The minute I entered I looked up and was just stuck with the realization that I was in the sistine chapel and then I slowly turn to my right and see the entire wall of 'last judgement' and my heart stops for a few milliseconds seconds, I never imagined it to be so huge. I cannot contain my emotions and my eyes just get moist, for me the realization that I am finally seeing something which I had dreamt of seeing all my life finally strikes home. That immediately changes to ecstasy and i want to just leap and shout with joy,but there is strict silence enforced in the sistine chapel and that too only with about 25 people in the entire hall and security around,not a good thing to do. Once my emotions stabilize I start focusing on the paintings which I have seen all my life only in photos.I first admire the last judgement,take in each of the figures,its brilliant! Then i turn my focus to the roof and the first thing i want to see is the creation of adam and i spot it, I immediately get underneath it and crane my neck painfully upward to see it, after admiring it to my satisfaction then i focus on the other paintings. We get a total of close to 1 hour within the chapel with very limited people after which we move on to see the other rooms in the vatican museum. Towards the end of the day I force my wife to come back once more to have one last look at the sistine chapel and this time its jam packed with people with no space to move around and was I glad that I took the cadillac morning tour.

I think I will never forget the moment I entered the sistine chapel and realized it was 'the sistine chapel'.

The entire sistine chapel was much bigger than I imagined. The photos really dont give a feeling for how large this place is.

Stoked about Stok

25 days to go for first himalayan climb! Climbing Stok Kangri which stands at 6153 meters and the 10 day trip starts from July 12th .Getting goose bumps just thinking about it. Not really a technical climb,supposedly the highest trekkable mountain in the world similar to Kilimanjaro, but its as high as Denali and I know the altitude and breathing problems faced. Excited and nervous at same time.

Stok is the highest peak in the pic.

Exercising my democratic rights.My first vote!

Earth to earth,dust to dust,ashes to ashes

Departed comrade! Thou, redeemed from pain
Shall sleep the sleep that kings desire in vain
Not thine the sense of loss
But lo, for us the void
That never shall be filled again.
Not thine but ours the grief.
All pain is fled from thee.
And we are weeping in thy stead;
Tears for the mourners who are left behind
Peace everlasting for the quiet dead.
Lucretius, Roman epic poet and philosopher (ca 94 - 55BC)

With Gary Mims at stone mountain,the climbing legend of north carolina who pioneered most of the rock routes in that state.

Dear Gary Mims,
I am at a loss for words,death always has this effect on me. The thought that I will not have another climb with you is crushing. You were an inspiration to me, I absolutely loved your attitude and the confidence you instilled in the people surrounding you,I for one always felt safe knowing you were there and have tried to emulate you in climbing. I will cherish both my trips with you in North carolina and Ouray and was indeed very blessed and privileged to have met you and climbed with you.I simply cannot comprehend in my mind that our paths will never cross again,there is still a deep knot in the bottom of my gut as I write this.

12.24 miles in 1 hour 56 mins 48 secs.Banana, milk and noodles diet last night and two rest days seems to have done the trick.Feels great, tired but fun.

Another day of running.6 miles in around 56 mins. Running was hard today.Looks like I had not fully recovered from my sunday run in the sun. Interesting how my body is reacting and struggling to adapt.

The local dogs have got used to me.I encounter around 5-6 packs on my route, yes packs , they are rarely alone.I still remember the first day ,when the sense of a new smell,that too running at around 5:30 am  alerted them from their sleep and few woke up and stood up ready to react, few warning barks and growls,some followed me for a meter or two, thankfully no standoffs occurred.Now ,after months ,they don't even care.They know who I am, some just rely on their smell to figure me out and stick to their cozy sleeping positions, a few more active ones who dont want to rely just on one sense just half open one of their eye, get visual confirmation and happily go back to sleep. Local guards of posh houses who earlier used to look at me in suspicion or curiousity no longer bother, I am now like one of those regular vegetable vendors who keep frequenting those roads who gives an aesthetic appeal to the road but do not matter as a whole. Early in the day motorists do stop to let you cross, yes, just like in US, but later on as the traffic increases all those civilities go for a toss, its every man for himself.

Running in bangalore has been fun and very Interesting.I only wish there were more parks, grounds and trails to run around instead of the roads.Its a pity that land is such a profitable commodity that there is no or very less scope for such free spaces.