Poem: A Face

It has been a while since I wrote my last poem. So here is the new entry in poem list... I know that I suck at English poetry, but Winston Churchill and wall paper of my desktop says- "Never Never Never Give Up"... so I will keep trying. Though, Hindi poems will continue to flow... 

This Poem is collection of some totally random thought, that I was having this evening and I penned them down... so structure of poem is weak.  

A Face

It was a summer evening,

I was going on with some musing,

Passing by woods and bright summer stream,

I saw a face…

A face so soothing, so beautiful,

A face so pure, so soulful,

A face of faith, a face of grace,

A face little unknown, a face little known…

A face with unknown charm,

A face with known warmth,

I knew that this face was the answer,

The answer of my all questions…

I felt that I reached the destination,

The destination of an unknown quest,

It was end of my voyage,

It was the ‘moment’ of my life…

 

With an end came a new beginning,

I began the journey to love and life,

A journey to the self, 

I call it, my return to innocence… 

-anoop

Ciao...

Randomization

Last few days were little busy, new semester has started and I was trying to bring some new stuff in my teaching methodology, so I was occupied in work related stuff. In the mean time I had some interesting conversations with one of my friend and few students, which left me thinking…

Few days back I was talking to a very close friend of mine, and our topic diverted towards careers and work related stuff. I asked her about my work and how she feel about it, she told me that may be you are doing good over there in field of education, but that is not the right place for you. I asked her, then where I am more suited? Her response was you better be in any research lab. On the same note, during my informal conversations with my students, I often find them wondering about my career choice. For, both the cases I have same answer, that’s what I am and that’s what I want to do. I love teaching, I love interacting with number of people and I enjoy what I am doing.

After having a degree from US and good on and off-curriculum track record work in some MNC seems to be and obvious choice. But, I don’t identify myself with that life or little rudely I can say that, that life is boring for me. I know that sometimes I am doing some silly things here, which I often find funny and immature. But if everyone is scared of it than who will take the lead?

My philosophy is very simple and very straight forward; I want to be the best in the world at what I do. Definitely I am not at this point of time, and may be I will never be. But all that matter is by every passing moment I am improving myself and I am right on 'it'. My to-do list is little long and little ambitious, so I have lot to do in next few decades so why worry about what others think… just live life king size, be good ,do good and enjoy the cup of life till its last drop!

P.S.- thanks to Priyanka for pointing out a blunder... late night blogging is not good ;)

Ciao...

From Dawn to 'Dust'- Chennai and Mahabalipuram

So here we go… it was New Year weekend and I really wanted to make it better than my previous ones (sleeping, or working in laboratory), so me and one of my colleague Santhosh decided to visit Mahabalipuram, Kanchipuram and Chennai and have a little outing at these two places. We have been planning this for over a couple of months, but every weekend there is some work from University that was killing our plans.

The original plan was to visit these places on my Access, but considering weather conditions we thought why not have even more fun by traveling into local state transportation buses, that too the worst ones. Later, it came out a bigger adventure. We changed a plan little bit, and rather than going to Mahabalipuram, we started for Chennai. The day started with nice three hour bus journey, after reaching Chennai both of us were feeling hungry so we decided to take food at Sarvana Bhavan (famous food chain here), which is famous for its ‘thali’ (assorted food). As soon as ‘thali’ arrived, my first reaction was OH MY GOD!!! The reason for that reaction is here-

Anyways, I decided to finish each and every bowl of that ‘thali’, and I DID IT! After grand lunch, we visited Chennai Central mall for some window shopping, and also major attraction was landmark as I as out of contact with the new releases in fiction and non-fiction for almost 2-3 months. It was a wonderful experience to back to world of literature. We spent almost three hours over there and then moved to Marina Beach. To be really frank, I was not expecting anything out of Chennai beaches, but it was better than my expectation with a harbor in the horizon and some kites flying in the sky (I am a BIG kites fan!). I decided to take out my camera and try to click some pictures there to clean the photography ‘rust’ that I had last weekend. 

After spending few hours there and enjoying some delicious beach side bhajji (bhajiya (India fried snacks)), sugarcane juice we decided to start our journey towards Mahabalipuram. I was excited as we were on time and about to reach Mahabalipuram about 7:00 PM, and it would have been a great site to visit shore Temple in evening, but there were some other plans in store for us… Chennai traffic! We spent almost 3 hours to reach main bus stand and then further 3.5 hours to reach Mahabalipuram. By the time we entered the city, it was 11:30 PM and I was in no mood to spend my New Year’s Eve on roads of deserted town. So, we booked a lodge and rush towards the sea shore which was luckily 5 minutes walking from lodge. By, the time we reached there, it was 11:55 PM and withing 5 minutes we welcomed 2011 with a great show of fireworks on the sea shore! At 12:30 AM we decided to get back to lodge with aim of getting early and welcome first day of year on sea shore.

Next morning, we reached beach at 5:15, and it was a great experience. A beautiful dark and silence all over with sound of waves coming from distance. That moment was the highlight of our trip! We could see people lighting the fire and sitting around it and enjoying the fresh atmosphere. Slowly, morning arrived to enrich us with a new energy and new hope for New Year…

After spending couple of hours at beach we came back and packed our bags with the plan that we will leave for Kanchipuram after visiting ancient scriptures in the town. We started with one hill top and visited many beautiful cave Temples there along with a light house. 

The next stop was ‘Five Rathas’, which is one of UNSECO site in India, after reaching there we changed our plan as we can clearly see that Mahabalipuram has much more to offer, and we canceled plan to visit Kanchipuram and decided to stay and enjoy Mahabalipuram. I got into my laid back traveler attitude near the place and lied down to enjoy the beauty of place. After two hours we visited the ancient Rathas and decided to go to visit the shore Temple. When we were walking down the road, we could see lot of rock sculpture work is going on and some of the great artists are busy in doing their work. We decided to pay visit to one of the artist and we have seen him making one clay model live in front of our eyes… kudos to those artists and their accuracy.

Finally, we visited one of the most beautiful temples on Indian coast lines and spent some time there. In return journey more surprises were waiting for us, as soon as we reached the bus stand, a sea of thousands of people was waiting for us and each bus was going jam packed. So, we decided to move a kilometer in opposite direction to catch a bus and get a comfortable seat. Luckily our trick worked and we got in but easily, and soon people started pouring into the bus and we could see people standing/sitting on top of the bus as well… anyways we reached Vellore via Kanchipuram late night with some of the great memorable experiences.  

And finally some flicks of waves striking the stones... 

Ciao

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