Cheers!!

This poem was written for a special person to wish them a great life ahead. Enjoy!!

To You, With Love....

The special day has come around again,
And the gifts and wishes shall rain.
It’s a time to reflect and think,
It’s a time to eat and drink.
Flowers and cake are all for a day,
But the lessons learnt shall forever stay.
It’s to be a beacon of guiding light,
Beside you always to show what’s wrong and right.
All that you have seen,
Will make your senses sharp and keen.
All that you have felt,
Shall be a helping hand lent.
Standing on this threshold, what do you see?
Upon the verge of freedom, here’s the key.
Sure there will be troubles and pains,
Just like there will be profits and gains.
There will be obstacles along every way,
And to match a new joy every day.
Now on this precious moment,
Accept the wishes that I have sent.
Here’s to a long and successful run,
In the rat race you have just begun.
Go conquer the world waiting to be won,
Demand your rightful place under the sun.
Be confident, be bold and be brave,
For you have abilities others forever crave.
Don’t lose your gentleness or your strength,
Or let values and principles by circumstances be bent.
Brighten the world with the light inside,
All the while charming it’s people beside.
May success kiss your feet,
And joys accompany each heartbeat.
So cheers to a beginning new,
And a very Happy Birthday to you!

Long time.

For anybody who has been wondering where the writer of this blog has been, I am going to pacify you with the lame excuse of there being a wedding in the family and how there is so much to do and things to arrange and people to invite and shopping to be done so on and so forth.

Well truthfully I have not contributed to much since I have noticed that will the upper crest talks nobody pays attention to the lower crust( meant kindly ofcource). So here I am to tell you about the only thing I have done in connection to the wedding. SHOPPED!!

I have no idea how some people cannot like shopping I mean isn't there this exquisite pleasure in owning pretty things and then using them. I mean the feel of exchanging pieces of paper for all the lovely things that there are. The most fascinating are the shopkeepers. All those people are out to sell but only few can really charm you into buying even when you do not have the need. I happened to cross paths with such a gentleman and I am still confused about how he was able to sell me a dress which I had decided against.
I know you must be thinking about how this can't happen to me. But are you sure that you have never come across a salesman who charmed you into buying something you were not really needing to buy? And if you truly have not met such a person then let me tell you they are worth seeing for its truly an art to convince a person to part with his money in exchange of something he did not need in the first place.

To each his own.

YIPPEE. Another Indian bags the Man Booker prize!! Which just shows even if we can't play well at least we can write well. I know what I am saying goes against my earlier post but hey Adiga just won the Booker so how does it matter.

Imagine how one day long ago the seed of the idea must have formed in his head. He must have played with it, mulled over it ,argued against and for it and then finally decided to out it on paper. Imagine the hours he spent writing when the story came alive in his head and ran like a reel with him furiously penning it before he missed a single detail. The writing, rewriting, editing and then writing once again. My! the process must have brought him frustration, satisfaction , despair and joy all at once.

No no don't jump to the conclusion that my leaning towards the magic of the written word is turning into anything more than a leaning. Right now from where I am standing the grass looks greener on the other side.Thats all. Accounts is not a colourless profession mind you. For anybody who thinks otherwise you should really step into an accountants office before a deadline.

The adrenaline rush to fight our way through the maze of bills, challans , invoices and slips of paper with important numbers scribbled upon it and sometimes even lost school certificates to arrive at a profit and loss account. The hunt for the number which was right there, the search for the tax challan , the client was calls at the last hour with some vital piece of information. Its all there and much more.

( Psst. would have said more except I am in the process of developing an iron clad stomach)

The accountants who work on their accounts for a whole year and then look at you blankly when asked where a certain figure has come from. The books they send where you have to hazard a guess as to what they must have written. The entry that comes from nowhere but money goes somewhere.

Hah but thank the good Lord for it for if they could figure out what is happening with their business and their money what would I be doing? Probably predicting the unpredictable stock market.

Book Review.

This last week I have spent reading 'The God of Small Things' by Arundati Roy. For those who are aware of my reading habits a week might indicate something being amiss. Well yes the book took that much time and I have no idea why. But the strange part is that I am still debating as to what my final verdict regarding the book should be.

Has anybody else who has read it in the same dilemma? There is no one word to sum up the experience of that book. Somehow I felt that it was in parts brilliant, boring , absorbing and mundane.

I suppose that's how it is with these award winning books since nobody can write off the book as completely rubbish or completely awesome and nobody can talk about it because you have yet to grasp its meaning in totality,so you declare it brilliant because it has manged to confound so many intelligent readers all at once as to what dwells between its pages.

Had to say.

Its funny how I had initially started a blog in October 2007 but never found the inclination to write or post an entry.Then a casual remark was enough to rekindle the interest in maintaining a sort of online diary. And now that I have started this I cant get away from it. A constant strain of thought is running through my mind trying to mentally compose another article for my blog. Oh it gets a little funny too like how the other day I went to an aunt's place for brunch and seeing what happened with me I started wondering if I could write about this too?

We went there at the appointed hour and greeted and were greeted and introduced and made small talk with about the weather, clothes etc. You know the usual when actually everybody is wondering what they are going to be fed and the stomach is rumbling but you cant ask yet coz its rude so you pretend you have all the time in the world. And have you noticed how when you are finally served for example like with juice to start people peer in to the glass ask what is it, then sip cautiously and when the food comes they say they are too full to eat much. I mean really when you knew you were invited to a meal why stuff yourself before you leave your house? Or maybe they just say it because it is supposed to be said and then go ahead and do the exact opposite. I will have to observe next time.

Anyways I filled my plate with the delicacies being served. I was handed a spoon with the plate initially, then I got another spoon with the ' dahi bada' and I had to pick up a fork to eat the little fried chicken pieces. So here I was holding onto the plate lest it spill and trying to decide what to take a bite of next while mentally decided which one of the two spoons and fork to use to eat what when the waiter came and handed me a glass of water. Unable to help I placed the glass precariously onto the little glass table by my side. I don't see much purpose in those tiny glass top tables , they are only good for two things- decoration and tripping. Another matter was the chair i was sitting upon. Thought I actually wanted to sit on the bean bag I calculated that my plate would most probably tip and my blue dress will no longer look blue and my non-blue mother would definitely then look blue.

The rest of the meal was uneventful except for when I had to gulp the whole glass of water in one go because the chicken was too spicy and then had to look at the hostess with watery eyes when she asked me if I liked the food.
What I meant to say is that the blog has become like a favourite plant or a pet which you constantly take care of, worry about and absolutely enjoy.

P.S The comments are the cherry on the cake. The cake would still be there but be grossly incomplete without the cherry.

A pensive mood..

" Try to be like the turtle-at ease in your own shell" -- Bill Copeland



For anybody who has read even a single Reader's Digest they would surely understand the immortal nature of the book in question. So here I was spending the 'weak'end of my weekend rereading a copy of a certain issue when the above quote leaped out at me.

Raise your hand if you are one of the lucky ones who can truly at least for the moment say I am happy being exactly the way I am. Not only physically but also with respect to your surroundings and circumstances that you have reasonable control over. My hand is down a lot of time. Why is it that we never learn to be thankful for what we have? What is this weird 'bug' in human programming that keeps inner happiness just a bit out of reach? What stops us from stepping up and embracing that kind of satisfaction?

Isn't it always I wish i was smarter, richer, thinner, prettier,taller, more confident, more independent.........? The list of 'if only' is too long to mention here. Sadly we wait around thinking things will fall into place by themselves , never realizing that the peace with yourself that you want, the disquiet in your mind is not something that lies beyond our own self. It is within us to make our life as wholesome and as perfect as we want.

I know this topic has been milked dry by being repeated by everyone at every counselling lecture. They all tell you to accept your shortcomings. But now think from another point of view what if this inability to be constantly walking around as happy as a Christmas tree is actually good for us? It does not have to be only black or only white.
Maybe the reason for all this effort of soul searching and looking inward is just to provide us with an impetus to be better. Lets be optimistic since surely we have already lost the chance to ask God for another model in exchange. Here is the push you need. Here is the motivation. Do some spring cleaning , remove what you could do without and bring in the new.

Name:_________________

Much before the bundle of joy appears( really what about all the wailing and soiled diapers?) parents start choosing a name for the baby. And it is a big deal. A good example to quote here would be Baby Gogol of 'NameSake'. The importance of the right name can't be explained any better.
So when I arrived I was duly christened and the lamb sacrificed as per tradition, partaken digested and forgotten about. When a person of considerable importance to us recommended a name change the suggestion was accepted and in compliance another lamb was sacrificed and dispersed in the same manner. While the baby in question was blissfully unaware of all the momentous decisions being taken about her. I suppose even if the name was changed a half a dozen times more it would have affected the lamb population more than the blessed baby.

And so Baby Sehba came into being officially and the parents were happy that their girl was being called by a unique and hard-to-find-another-so-named-person name while the elders were happy that the name was as per the wishes of the 'higher authority' and the lambs were happy too.
The next three years passed uneventfully if I might say -The quiet before the storm. And then started the 'name game'. Let me explain . The game is something like this -every person has unlimited chances to get the name right. There have been rare winners who needed no extra chances and there have been losers who still cant say it right after years of association.
What is your name beta??
Sehba
Huh?
Sehba. ( a little louder)
Scehbha?
SEHba !!
OK OK you mean Shaiba.
No ma'am ( deep breath) S-E-H-B-A
OH I see. ( quickly jotting it down before the need to ask arises again)

I changed gears optimistically thinking that spelling it out on the first chance might help. But that too did not go down too well. A certain doctor took my dictation as such-'sehehba'. So now if I can help it I just snatch the pen without a word and write my precious name myself.
I remember how every first day when the new class teacher came in to take the name call my friends would start ribbing me , waiting in anticipation to see how this would turn out. I have quite a few memories of the person stopping at my name and peering more closely at the letters as if they would jump up and pronounce themselves. Tthis happens until I helpfully volunteer , " Ma'am that's me, Sehba" .
Thank you Saiba.
And there we go again. A certain geography teacher who taught me for 2 years called and spelled my name- Saheba. Who wants to bell the cat?
But out of school too the trouble followed. I had just given a sigh in relief that there would be no more versions developed as to how many ways my name can be pronounced in. But I was again wrong. For most commercial purposes one needs to send duly filled out forms so your name can appear on bank accounts,passports so on and so forth.
So I went out armed with papers to get myself a bank account. I had not to say a word. I submitted my form to the sour-looking man and was told my passbook and debit card would arrive by post later. I left thankful on not having to say my name.
As promised the passbook and card arrived- one for Sheba Ahmedi and the other for Sehmba Ahmedi.
To add insult to injury when I did a spell check for this document the darn computer offered helpfully-Samba???