Some pics from our trip to Aleppey- taken in my mobile :)

click on the pics to enlarge them..

rubber plantations at our ancestral home

in the wild

fields flooded with rain water

uncle's home

Anthoorium blooms(side view)

Anthoorium bloom(frontal view)

Model of the king Mahabali in front of a shop

How a rich country became poor and may become poorer

The country has turned 63, pretty young age for a nation. Still a kid? I think so.. because its so immature in many ways.
To boast around, we have a superbly talented Prime minister to compensate for all the fifth grade pass outs in parliament. But to tell the truth, he is too cool, too cool in not a good way. He lacks a certain kind of high-spirit required to run a country. I feel we need someone like Sarkozy, the French president with his flamboyant ways but minus his carelessness and waywardness :-).
Somebody who can be strict, like a school head master capable of running around with a stick to make the pupil obedient.
Otherwise this country will spiral downward from a ‘developing nation’ to a ‘in-the-path-of self-destruction nation’.
There should be someone at the helm who is less scared to take bolder decisions. Enough power to get things done faster.
Where else will we find a mass murder investigation going on for more that ten years ,(the Gujarat riots). A scam of cricket tournament worth millions made headlines for a couple of days , now Modi is planning to conduct similar experiments in other countries. A country where a cabinet minister has been trialed and convicted for murder(shibu soren). If we look at the normal way of things, a country of our size must have already hosted the Olympics and the CWG many times. But a single Common Wealth Games is going to put us all to shame ( we can either pray like manishanker aiyer for the rains to spoil it before we do it ourselves or lets call it off before its too late). Which other country’s citizens will tolerate a corruption on toilet paper. Common, was there nothing left to squeeze money out that they had to do it on toilet papers.OMG!!
Hosting a Games of so big a magnitude without even a clear cut plan , I can only see it as a desperate attempt of a wannabe country. Whom are we fooling , ourselves.?
Both china and India started their growth around the same time, at present, its not even decent to compare them.
The only thing that’s meritious, is our so called democracy and the freedom of the individual.
There are about a billion individuals in this great nation of ours,
If each of us make an effort, will it go unheeded? More than half of the population is below forty, which is an advantage no other country enjoys. Lets take advantage of that and make a great nation out of india, together!!

jai hind

Freedom

Its our independence day again. Our country got its freedom long back but still the cobwebs of colonization exists eventhough the spider has left long ago. We still follow many a thing in a westernized form,sometimes its good but all the time and everywhere? The problem is they had left causing a slight fracture to our country’s very backbone, the unity factor, which is getting worser year after year.

But I have a different thought about freedom as an individual

Freedom to love all
Freedom to smile always
Freedom to show pain
Freedom to vent anger

Freedom to trust yourself
Freedom to take a chance
Freedom to stop at any path
Freedom to hug a stranger

Freedom to talk your mind
Freedom to play on the sands
Freedom to sing with the breeze
Freedom to dance with the flower

Freedom to think
Freedom to pause,
Freedom to say NO
Freedom to be me.
Freedom for my soul.

Rain, Ah.. it has turned beautiful again

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

These are the lines from the poem ‘how beautiful is the rain’ from Wordsworth. He sure was a fellow who enjoyed the rain. There are many among us who hates a rainy day. Its understandable as it causes many a hardship while travelling , it spoils the plans for an outing, among many other things. And the most horrible things of all is ,it exposes the poorest sewage system in the whole world, where I stay, when it rains, I feel I live in a gutter.
But there are many many beautiful things associated with the rains. The gentle cold breeze sweeping the dupatta along..having a pani-puri after the heavy shower, droplets hanging at the tip of ur hair..above all spending a rainy evening holding your beloveds hands.
Different people will have different outlook towards a rainy day.
An old married couple would prefer to spend their rainy evening eating hot pakodas with a really steaming cup of tea. They would talk about their children, grand children, grandpa would reminiscent of how tasty grandmas pakodas used to be. Grandmas shy wink …. So adorable isn it?
What would a young married couple do? The same thing in a little more lively manner. Wife cooking samosas, husband walking all around her talking such silly matters but all the while thinking of which is the best angle to hug her..:)
A college going guy? Endless messages to his newly found ‘love’. Thinking of her in the rain (in a red sari would be perfect), of the countless rains yet to spend with her. That cannot-be-suppressed longing for her kiss. A similar guy who hasn’t yet found his so called ‘love’ ? He too will be sending messages. But that will be to his peers, in the ‘awaiting conformation’ group.

And thus the rain comes and goes. Whether it splashes the muddy waters or whether it sprouts up the romantic side in you, its always a cause for celebration.

The 7th day !!

Atlast the seventh day has approached. When i started this 7 day 'course' i was very sceptical, whether i would hav the zest to complete . But here i go, posting the 7th day of positivity. This episode should actually continue, everyday we should take ten minutes from the mundane life to think of the positive things that happened on that day. It will do only good for the mind as well as the body. So here goes my entry for the seventh day which is actually a combination of th last two days

1. It was friendship day , most of my friends called and wished early morning itself.It was more joyful when friends who were abroad took the pain to call . And those of them who forgot, i wished them first :)

2. The whole day passed with the excitement of meeting my sister.

3. Got up early to go visit my sister. It was so exciting, with all her friends jumping over the chocolates i got for them, complimenting me for looking younger than my sister (blushing) etc etc (still blushing :P ). i even saw one girl snatching a piece of the chocolate from a boy and running away..she was only one-fourth of that 'healthy' guy!!

4. I got back the memory card of my new mobile, which was corrupted within a month of purchase. Now i can take photoes again...:-o)

5. My sis got me a beautiful top from her saved up money. i was overwhelmed, i felt more happy when i gave it to her and told her to take it.

7 days of positivity (Day 6)

I am not at all proud of myself today. The day was a total disaster. Still i can list out some points that can lead to positive thoughts

1. Got up at ten o clock in the morning, that sleep during those extra hours is simply great,anyone would agree, but my mother should not know this. :P

2. washed my clothes, cleaned my room, tidied up the cupboard.. This tidying process somehow takes me to a different world altogether, i forget all worries and everything and gets completely involved in it.

3. Since my sister is visiting me tomorrow, i went out to buy chocolates for her and her friends.. the word chocolate itself brings positive vibes around me ..ooooooooooooo.... :D

4. Continued with my book, three to four hours of continued reading, oblivious of the world around me. he he..(too much na)

5. I have a friend, she is a wayside vendor who sells tender coconut, maybe a few years elder to me, had a happy chat with her, she trying to converse with me in malayalam and me trying to decipher it, all the people walking past us stared at us like anything, but who cares, really... ;P