Misunderstanding

This happened sometime ago, when I visited a chat room. I visited that chat room to test some ICQ commands, though IRC chats are not considered as much safer. But I accidently saw a user with a nick ‘sad girl’. So, I just said hi and asked why she is sad. I don’t remember the exact talk between us, but it was something like this (and that person’s English was really bad, no offence meant, it happens with people from non-English countries):

“there is a misunderstanding between me and my best friend”

“I see, is it a girl or a boy?”

“boy”

I did not ask, ‘ if he cant understand you, why are you calling him your best friend?’

“what exactly happened?”

“difficult to explain, you wont understand…..but I am sad”

I might have sighed and asked myself ‘ what is that which I can not understand in this context?. May be it wasn’t easy for her to explain it properly. But if she is not willing to tell it, what is the point in she staying there and telling the public that she is sad? May be she might tell it to a person from her country. And with the very same logic, she don’t want to tell that to me. So, I just wanted to check whether she is interested in any talk with me at all. If she is not, I don’t have to waste time and I can quit the room and proceed with other activities.

“ok, I understand that you are sad. Lets talk something else’

“about what?”

“you tell anything you want to, I will just listen”

“you ever had misunderstanding in your life?”

“yes, many times”

“what was that”

I see. So, it really is a woman at the other end. She don’t want to talk about anything but want to know what kind or misunderstanding I had in my life.

I told her two incidents that happened in my life which has the element – misunderstanding. In both case, I really felt very bad and sad and hurt and what not? One is a dog story.

This happened about 11 years ago. I was living in a rented house with my mom. It was a house with partition. That is, in one partition , we lived and in the other, there lived the house owner. It was built on a big land. There were lots of plants, trees, a well...... And yes, the house owner had a dog. A ferocious unfriendly dog. They kept him tied during (most of the) day time and let him wander around the area and guard at night. It was very difficult even for me to enter my house if the dog is untied. So, I tried to befriend with him and more than that, I love dogs.

One day, may be it was a Sunday, coz, they freed the dog during day time and it came running inside our house. I came to the hall hearing sort of scream from my mother and I saw the dog in the hall. I asked my mom to go inside slowly and I stayed there, looking at him. The dog came to me, sniffed and then started walking here and there. I gave him a biscuit and it accepted it. But did he became friendly? Nope..

Though he did a sniff job, he barked and barked at me whenever I opened the gate. One fine morning, I found that the dog teared the side bag of my bike and he even damaged the seat cover. The house owner said sorry and said his dog is very naughty. I did not tell anything, though I did not like what has happened.

During the same week, house owner went out of town. He said he will be back only after two days and a relative of his will take care of the dog. Next day morning, I heard kind of strange sound from the place where the dog was tied. When I looked, it was a horrible scene.

The dog got stuck in the chain. They weren’t using a leather collar for the dog but they used an iron chain directly around his heck. He was staying there in a hung position, standing in his hind legs, making some kind of sound. I ran to him, I did not bother whether it will bite me or not, I wanted to save his life at any cost. But I couldn’t. He died. My brother-in-law’s brother came that time and he saw the scene, then another person, who used to come there to pluck coconut also saw the scene. I told them that they house owner will come only next day and hence, my relative helped me and we buried the dog.

But house owner came a day early which was a surprise, cutting his trip. He was looking for the dog and I told him what happened. but he did not believe that. Yes, he did not believe me at all. He might have thought that I killed the dog since he damaged my bike. I did not sleep that night. I immediately wrote a letter to my would be wife, who was living in a different city, since I wanted to tell somebody that I did not do anything wrong. I actually wanted to save the dog and not to kill. The dog looked at me before he died and he might have thought this ‘ at the end, my master did not come to me, but my enemy came to help’

This incident created a little gap between me and the house owner. He did not smile at me for days or even weeks. May be he inquired about this with the coconut man and somewhat got convinced. I still don’t know. But anyway, he came to attend my marriage.

Even today, I remember that incident very clearly and it still gives some unpleasant feelings. At least that dog and then God knows I was his friend and not foe.

The second incident is not too old. This happened may be an year ago or so. Here the characters are human. Me and a friend who I considered as my best friend that time. When it happens between friends, the wound stays longer and the pain, hurt, insult and such things are deeper. This incident had a software application background, the yahoo messenger and its photo share feature. My friend was showing some pictures which she asked me specifically to not to save and she suspected that I did save, just coz of a bug in yahoo.

When we use yahoo photo share, yahoo creates a temporary file folder to keep the picz. If we try to stop the streaming process in the middle, it will say the other person is saving a bigger version of the picture, where as it is yahoo which tries to compleate the streaming process. This is very funny, yahoo telling "its not me but it is that person...". But it wasn’t funny in my life. I felt like humiliated and hurt. This time also I turned to the girl to whom I wrote a letter years ago, but there was a change, she was there with me, as my wife. She consoled me, this time too.

Sometimes it is like this, this life. We have to stand at the receiving end without any reason. And it becomes very difficult to clear the misunderstanding, sometimes it even is impossible. We cant prove our innocence. May be this is where ‘its my fate’ theory fits. Or the deepest aspects of the karma theory fits.

That girl did not show much interest in the dog story. May be she is not a pet lover, I did not ask. Or may be she was in a different mood. But she was interested in the second incident. She even wanted to know the kind of friendship I was having with my friend. Anyway, I felt that, that girl was bit relaxed after talking to me and at the end, she even typed a smiley….

It’s just a misunderstanding, but it is enough to make a big damage in any relationship. In some cases, it gets resolved and in some cases, it leaves a permanent mark. It depends on the kind of people involved and the situation. So, it is better or wise we understand this reality and move on...

All The Best Mr.Gates...

Every one of us know who Bill Gates is. I don’t know why he is called ‘Bill’ Gates. His name is William Henry Gates III. Yes, even that III is there with his signature ( In his signature, he writes it as William.H.Gates III). As per Microsoft’s official site, he is ‘William (Bill) Henry Gates III. Ok, whatever it be , its Bill Gates and we all know who he is.

Today will be his last day in Microsoft as the Chairman(more than 78,000 people works under him, in 105 countries). He is quitting the job, that too for philanthropic activities. We all might have cursed (take it lightly) him whenever we got that deadly blue screen, the specialty of Windows OS. But now, I feel proud of him. During the start of this year, he was the third richest man in this planet. He could buy anything that money can buy. He had seen enough money.

He is not quitting the chairmanship just as a show. He has a wealth of 58 billion USD and out of that, it is said that he decided to part 27 billion USD for his philanthropic organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

With a helping hand to fight AIDS

The most interesting and wonderful thing he was quoted as saying is about poverty and operating system. He said compared to the poverty and death, the thought of which operating system somebody is using is pretty silly. Yes, he is a visionary, of course he is. But I never expected such a noble thought from a businessman.

Gates giving oral polio drops.


So, ALL THE VERY BEST, Mr.Gates.. God bless you !

Chatterbox ?

My wife used to say like this: “you explain too much, make it short”.

(But she wanted me to write her long letters when we were engaged! ..no emails that time)

Why am I so? Coz I have patience. I don’t mind taking some time to explain. Same is applicable when I am the listener. Just like me sending long mails, I love to read long mails from my friends (its only my like; I hardly get any such mails). (My wife is very impatient and much faster than me in almost everything like reading, writing, typing, computer programming logics (I am more logical in other areas), eating, sleeping, drawing, coloring….)

So I write long stuffs? So here comes the shortest blog…

“What is Matter?”
“Never Mind”
“What is Mind?”
“Never Matter”

Just for Today !

What is one of the greatest teachings of Reiki? Yes, teaching, may be the spiritual aspect of it. Many Reiki healers might have their choice, but for me, I liked the following one:

Just for Today..
Do not anger
Just for Today..
Do not worry
Honor your parents,
Teachers and elders
Earn your living honestly
Show gratitude to all-
Living beings

Prayer ? I Dont Have Time To Pray

“Jay, I did not pray today.. I did not get time…” there was sort of guilty feeling in my friend’s voice. Then I told her:

“Don’t worry about it. It is good to have a time for prayer, but don’t worry about it if you miss it. He is not going to punish you…..”

That reminded a poem I read sometime ago. Author is unknown.

I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.

So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My duty toward god was now done
My soul could rest at ease.

All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer.
No time to speak of God to friends,
They'd laugh at me I'd fear.

No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time the time to die.

I went before the Lord,I came,
I stood with downcast eyes.
For in his hands God held a book;
It was the book of life.

God looked into his book and said
"Your name I cannot find.
I once was going to write it down...
But never found the time"

Those are not my thoughts and will God behave like that? I don’t know…as I said, its not my thoughts of belief. I just copied it just coz it came into my mind.

Thus we talked for a while about being busy and missing prayers. What will happen if we miss a prayer? Nothing, in reality but it depends on the person and his/her level of guilty feeling.

As I said, it is good to have a prayer time but do we need to limit our prayers only to that time and allot a slot for being with God?

I don’t believe in that. Anytime is prayer time. In Indian tradition, other than the morning and evening prayer time, we are supposed to offer prayer before we eat anything. Most of the drivers here pray before they start their vehicle. We can extend that still further…when we hear some good news, when we here something sad, when we get opportunity to thank somebody, we can also thank God…

I personally don’t have any guilty feeling to offer a prayer even when I am at toilet. We can not hide from Him, anywhere we are whatever we do.

How much ever busy we are, it is better we find some time in the morning and night, without any excuse. May be, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. If somebody is offering a prayer as a duty, there is no point in making a lengthy one, make it short. Coz, there is no point in kneeling down, folding the hands , thinking some other thing and utter something. Coz, he looks at our heart and not at our lips….

I don’t believe in a standard format of prayer. Prayer can be personal and private. Everyone can pray in their own words. But my personal belief is, at night, it is a good idea to thank God for providing us with food, cloth, shelter, money etc. Is that also is a prayer? I think it is…

Cruelty to Animals - Some Heights

In Indian epics/puranas/age old stories we can find two types of people (well , not talking about humans). The Devas and the Asuras/Rakshasas .

The Devas are those with good qualities and Asuras or Rakshasas are with demonic qualities. Are they just stories? Nope… those epics and scriptures goes very deep….they are psychological….they are symbolic…..and they are not outdated.

Just open up the eyes and look around.... Can we see some good things happening around? Cant we see some good natured people behind it? And what about bad things? So, these people are still there, even now. Those Asuras are sort of predators. They even eat fresh meat and drink blood. Is that an old story? They are very cruel and they dare kill very brutally.

The other day one elephant got killed in India. How? They poured petrol and burnt it alive. The poor animal ran for water and they threw fire crackers at him. May be this is one example of the height of cruelty to animals by humans.

The reason behind the killing is that the elephant killed some humans and the authorities did not hear the complaints from the locals. And the funny thing is the forest department says they did not hear any such thing.

But why did the elephant came out of the forest? Its coz of we the humans encroaching their forest and destroying the food and water of those poor things. Animals wont do farming. Its not there in their nature and God has provided enough for humans and animals too. If humans steal what belong to the animals, where should these animals go? And I wonder why it is needed to eat a tiger? a Crocodile? Didn’t He provide enough for the humans? Do we need to kill birds and animals brutally to enhance taste?

Whatever be it, those people who did that brutal/barbaric and shameful act should be punished. Cruelty to animals should be given high priority and special courts should be opened to make faster trials..

Going Green ..

Finally the first hybrid car came to India (yesterday). It’s from Honda, the Honda Civic. In the automobile field, a hybrid car is one of the best options to go green.

The hybrid car that arrived in India runs on petrol (engine) and electricity (motor). The battery gets charged (using regenerative braking system) when the car is running on petrol. At low speeds and when we are waiting at traffic signals, the petrol engine is turned off automatically to save petrol and cut pollution. But what is the funny part in it?

When it comes to India, they attract an import duty of 104% and thus the price gets (more than) doubled. Now its price tag is 2.15 million. Who will buy it then? News paper says “rich people with a green consciousness” will buy it. But I think it’s the ‘rich who just want to try out a new thing’ will buy it… Anyway, Honda already got 100 individual booking plus some corporate booking.

This is one aspect which the Indian government (or any other similar stupid government that exists in the world) should learn from the US policy in this regard. There what they do for such green car or green items (may be not every item) is import duty exemption. And in some cases not just that, they offer subsidy too.

Indian automobile industry produces about 2 million units per year. How green will it become if 100 green cars ply all over India? So, the price of green cars should come down and more importantly, there are hundreds of thousands of vehicles which violate emission norms and those should be addressed first, if anybody is really concerned about environment…

GPRS Dangers!!

No, this is not a technical one about GPRS.

What will happen if the GPRS in our phone doesn’t work? Will it create any major problem? I don’t know what will happen with others. But I can tell what it can cause with me…

I bought a new phone, Nokia E51. My previous phone, the E50 had GPRS but not WiFi. I was bit over happy about the WLAN aspect of my new phone. As soon as I put my SIM in the new phone, at the shop, I got the GPRS settings from my service provider, Vodafone. So, I wasn’t worried about the GPRS thing. All I wanted to do was hurry back home and try the wifi capabilities and then try out how to make a call without SIM.

The WLAN worked fine and hence, I used my wifi for everything and did not try GPRS at all, for which I have to pay (my broadband/wifi is an unlimited account). But next day, I was away from my home and I wished to check my mails and? Oh no! there is something wrong with the GPRS. I started worrying about it, though the handset had one year warranty. With my exposure to softwares and its concepts, I suspected a software problem. But since it’s able to access wifi access points, I was in a dilemma. I called up my service provider first to make sure that there is nothing wrong from their end. Unfortunately, I got a wrong man on the line he told me that it will take 24 hours, which was nonsense. The only positive thing with him was his English with an American accent.

So I waited for 24 hrs. nope, it did not work and my wife started telling that its an issue with the handset. I wasn’t sure whether she was speaking out of her solid software experience or gut feeling. Then comes the most unfortunate part. We all went to attend a house warming ceremony and my wife’s one of the ex-colleagues was holding an E51. She borrowed the handset and tried the GPRS, and it works fine…. I became sad and mad…

We came back home, thought I was listening to my wife and son, my mind was full of GPRS. I am living in this apartment since two years and I know the way to my parking place very clearly. There is a sharp curve (optional, only if you want to try it else it’s a trouble less way) which I used to take. That day also I took that curve and DASHHHHHH I hit something……..

It was a sign board. Was it there all these days? For a moment, I thot it wasn’t there or its position wasn’t the current position. It wasn’t a big hit, my car did not develop any dent, but there was a minor scratch. I love my car and this made me vary sad. I do care for my car and always keeps it in great condition both engine wise and look wise. But……

My wife’s comment was apt “ you and your GPRS….why are you taking it this serious? …”

See, the GPRS can even damage your car…

(Yep, it was a software issue and NOKIA ppl had to reload the Operating System)

How to make a Free Call without SIM

“Can I use that phone?” asked my son
“It doesn’t have a SIM and you need a SIM card to use it” Me
“What is a SIM? What does it do?” he asked

I had to spend some time to make him understand at least some basics of what SIM is. Its not a kiddies’ thing. But after that I thought , do we really need a SIM to make a call or to send a text to somebody? But if I tell that to my son he will get totally confused. I had done such mistakes earlier talking to him some advanced things (like telling him the rarest blood group is not AB negative. Then I had to explain a lot ). So I did not tell about the SIMless call.

Day by day, mobile phone is becoming more and more sophisticated and advanced. My first mobile was a monochrome one and using that all I cud do was make and receive calls, send text and short emails. Now I don’t know whether it even had a calculator or alarm.

In mobile technology, evolution was also revolution. Things changed very fast and these days what we carry in our hand is nothing but a small computer which has Windows or Mac or Symbian or a Motorola running in it, as an operating system. When it became a computer, the merits and demerits too followed it.

If media player, MP3 player, video calls , TV etc came as positives, it was followed by Trojans, spyware, virus etc too. These things work just like how it works in a computer. There are lots of P2P (peer to peer) applications like LimeWire, using which we can search the ‘underground’ and do things. In the same way, there came P2Ps for mobiles too. It is these P2P applications that actually help us make a call even without a SIM card. All we need is a wifi phone installed with one such application and a public access point (some cafés, malls, hotels etc provide it).

One such application is Fring, which was founded by a co-CEO of ICQ (Avi Shechter ) I am not a promoter of it and if anybody want to install it, please read the terms and conditions and its privacy policy VERY CAREFULLY. Using this application, we can even chat with/call our MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, Skype, AIM, Twitter buddies or even make international calls for free. I personally tried this and it works. How it is done? Instead of me telling how it is done, we can see how it is done with the help of this video :




As a disclaimer, I am not responsible for any data loss or damage of any kind which might happen to anybody who is trying this out. And also, if anybody is having an unsecured wifi at home, their neighbors or even the public might use it as a public access point and even make international calls using the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). In such case, well, its not my problem…

Good News !!

This again is an old blog....We people in this area had some broadband related issues since an optical cable got cut coz of the government agency's digging for the treasure ...oops sorry they are going to build an underpass... usually the government works start once the 'treasure' is reached in proper hands in appropriate manner...

10-June-08

I did not read news paper for a couple of days. It wasn’t a deliberate action, may be it just happened for good. News papers usually carry lots of ‘bad’ news, like killing, kidnap, riot, blast, rape (the one I just can’t bear is raping small kids… I think they are the ones who are most eligible for a death sentence, may be by stoning).

See how the mind works, when I thought of rape, there comes a killer even within me. And that aspect is there in everyone. Bad things trigger bad things in us which again attract bad things (till we observe it , understand it and learn how not to react to it).

News papers are not reporting these things for fun or for educating the people but for business. That means, this news sell. And may be most of the people want such things to be seen in the news. It doesn’t mean that news paper people should not print such news, but the sad thing is the culprits escaping the law and coming back to the society.

But today, I think I read some good news too. I like ads. Especially ads of new electronic goods, automobiles etc. Today’s paper had some laptops and mobile phones. Not just that, for the first time in my life so far, I read that missiles were used for something good.

China fired about 20 missiles to drain a ‘quake lake’. This was to cut through a rocky dam created by the earth quake formed lake which was a threat to the people.

And the paper said that US developed the fastest computer so far. It can process more than 1.026 quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) calculations per second. Whoa !!!

And another good news is that the evangelist that I mentioned in one of my previous blogs (a mail to somebody), K.P.Yohannan, came under State government’s scanner. When I wrote that mail (or blogged it), I had no idea about his assets. A primary investigation showed that over the years he received Rs. 1,044 crores (243,811,704.18 USD) from just one American evangelical organization, Gospel for Asia (Texas based). And he don’t have any record for what purpose these amounts are being used except for 144 cr (1.44 billion). That is, for 90% of the money he received from abroad, there is no explanation. Police also found that he has lots of investment in real estate and in all the Trusts he formed, it’s only his family members. Not just that, labour law violations in his establishments, using private wireless network without government's security clearance....

That is why I wrote earlier, God business is one of the most picking up business and profitable business these days. One can become a millionaire if one has a little patience.

Watch Out !

Watch your Thoughts as they becomes Words!

Watch your Words as they becomes Actions!

Watch your Actions as they becomes Habits!

Watch your Habits as they becomes Character!

Watch your Character as it becomes your Destiny!!

7 Ways to a Happy life

1) Never hate anything or anybody
2) Don't worry too much (yes, I learnt it from my own life)
3) Live simple
4) Expect a little
5) Give a lot
6) Always smile (don't look at me)
7) And keep in touch with God, always !

A Date with Tennis

I wrote this a week ago and did not post it...very bad...very bad indeed

04-June-08

When I said ‘ one day I will play tennis’, I never thought that day will come this soon. Coz today I played tennis for the first time in my life. In a proper tennis court with a decent racquet. So, how was it?

May be we started it in a wrong way. That is, my partner, who is not that good a player, did not explain how to play the basic strokes, nor did I ask, since I thought I can do that. Now I understood why Sharapova hit the net many times while serving, though she is world No.1. Tennis is not at all a simple game. That doesn’t mean that it’s a very difficult game. But in tennis, we have a lot to learn. And it will take a lot of time and practice to master it. Shuttle badminton is much easier than tennis. One can learn the basics in a day or two. But in tennis, it takes long even to become comfortable with a stroke (just look at the world champs, even after years and years of practice, in every game, they fail to serve properly, at least a couple of time and it shows the difficulty of the game).

But I am happy that God has given me a chance to try it. He provided a decent racquet and He also provided one of the best tennis balls to play. Strange are his ways.

Thank you GOD.

I see !

Deep within my little soul, I see only thee
Deep within my nest of sorrow, I see only thee
Deep within my beatitude, I see only thee
I see only thee, Lord, I see only thee !

Badminton Woes

Oh! not again !!

Since my son missed his school bus today, I had to drop him. Thus I had to reshuffle my morning activities. Then decided to avoid gym.

Swimming went fine and I was happy about it. As soon as I reached home, I got a call from my gym trainer asking me to come to play badminton. I felt sooo happy again. He said the guy who gave me disappointment is sitting there alone since nobody is there to play. I thought it’s a chance, if its singles, I even had a chance to show him that I too can play badminton... So I ran to club again…and what was the scene there?

He was playing with his friend, as usual, and there were 4 of them, including a kid. I did not see them avoiding the kid since he don’t know the rules or hitting here and there. I asked one of them,

“then why did he (trainer) say nobody is there to play?”
“yes, we were looking for somebody to play with”

I waited for another 5 minutes and then went up to meet the trainer guy and told him, that am going back home. He is a nice guy and even he too felt it bad.

When I left the court, one of them asked:

“you are not playing?”
“Nope, I am going”
“why?”
“I just am going”

And the other guy avoided an eye contact with me, just like yesterday…

In our club, badminton court is the only place which already gave so many disappointments , hurts, heated talks etc , so far. There were lots of mails flowing in our forum complaining about the attitude of people coming there to play. They won’t give others a chance. Once a guy wrote that even though he waited for 30-45 minutes, he could not play…he wasn’t worried about it, but what hurt him was the ‘smile of those guys’ at him.

I am better put. I am not hurt that way, they did not laugh at me. Good ….else I would have asked, “why are you laughing?” And that might spoil the present friendly relationship with them.

Anyway, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling….. This apartment complex has about 1000 apartments. And there is only one badminton court…may be I need to get used to such situations…

But what is community living, if we can’t care and share for a few people around us? It looks like these days people are becoming more and more selfish and arrogant.

(That reminds me another incident. The other day I was drinking a tender coconut, on the road side. I parked my car, came out and had the coconut. Another car came driven by a lady and a lady sitting with her. She just sat in the car and asked for two tender coconut. The seller gave it. Since its summer, there was rush. When that lady finished drinking, she waited for him to collect the empty ones. He was bit busy, and by that time she threw it on the road. Then she started honking asking him to collect the money, he was busy giving coconuts to those who were waiting. So, she took the car further…but I liked that guy’s expression. He just smiled at them and said “ok, you go….” …she did not dare to do that, anyway)

Dear Badminton, is it coz of these reasons your name starts like this: BADminton? Well, I still love this game (play and not to watch) and whenever I get a chance, I will play it….

Impossible is nothing!

(Not talking about me, but God..hehehe)


2-Jun-08

Can same thing provide us with happiness and sadness?

While checking out a sports channel, I happened to watch a tennis match between Sharapova and Safina. The match is going on when am writing this. While serving, I saw both of them hit the net, many times. Well they are world class players and still? This took me back to my last weekends…

I like tennis, but I never played it. I don’t know the rules of it too. But what I believe is, one day, I will play tennis. Same with badminton. I have never played badminton in a proper way, in a court. I have a racquet and we play inside our small hall, mostly playing the underarm shots, just for time pass. Our apartment complex has a badminton court and its always full. That is the next most popular place (and most popular game) in the club after gym. But I always wished to play in that court.

I got acquainted with a couple of people in the gym and they used to play badminton. I had expressed my interest in playing badminton to one of those guys and he said:

“Its ‘our boys’ who are playing in the morning, you can join us”

I was so happy but I said:

“but I don’t know how to play…I never played in a court”

“its ok, we too are not good players, you can join us”

......When I went to gym, he was sitting there and asked me:

“You wanted to play badminton, right? Then go and get your racquet” I cut my gym and rushed home to get my racquet. But when I came back, I saw him standing at the entrance of the club and he said:

“We can not play today. Two of them are playing, two are waiting and then some kids too”

I got really disappointed. I called up the gym trainer and he asked me to come to gym. I started my workouts…these days, I don’t do cardio since I swim. But I went to treadmill and ran very fast to throw away my disappointment.

Trainer’s duty was over and he said there are only a few kids in the court and hence we will go and play badminton. I saw two kids playing singles. Trainer said we will join them but I said, let them play singles, and we will also play singles, anyway the court can accommodate 4…

I was so happy to be there in a real professional court with a racquet in my hand. And we started playing and then, from the face expression and smile on the trainer’s face (whenever I scored) I realized that, I am good at it, as a beginner…

Next day, when I went to gym, I carried the racquets (2) with me. I saw my acquaintance playing with his friend (who is also an acquaintance of mine). But I did not join them but went to gym. When I started workouts, he called me and asked me to join them. They were playing doubles. I replaced my ‘closest’ acquaintance and told all of them that I am new to it and I don’t know the rules.

Nobody explained to me what the rules are and or how to begin. Me not knowing the rules became a little problem to them, since they were play playing a real game and not for fun. Nobody showed any interest in explaining anything to me. After sometime, I read their faces and minds and told them:

“Ok, you carry on”..and then my ‘friend’ told: “ you watch it for a while”

I watched for sometime and then decided not to waste my time and then went back home. I really felt bad. When I was waiting to say bye, one of them avoided eye contact with me and just avoided me.

Well, just one month, if I play for just one month, I will beat at least 50% of those who are already playing there. Nobody comes in this world learning every rule of the game. Nobody by-heart some rules for nothing. When we are into it, we learn it. If I ask them about the fighting rules in a Kumite (karate sparring/fighting), they can’t answer, but I can …not coz I am great, but just coz I was into it for sometime. Its not at all a big deal. And as far as badminton is concerned, it looked very simple to me and I had the reflux.

And if we are impatient, it is always better not to invite others to join us and don’t offer our help to teach somebody something. Coz, others will simply get hurt. I don’t know about others, but (now) I enjoy being in the swimming pool and giving some tips to those who are new to it (and I love to get tips from better swimmers)

But today evening, it was a different story. I called up the trainer to know whether we can play badminton again and he said yes. He is a guy who is willing to teach. I rushed there with two racquets and what I saw is, a coaching camp for kids going on! I really got disappointed. But then comes the Billiards/Pool trainer guy in the form of God….by nature, I like active games and not lazy ones. So, I wasn’t much interested in Pool. But in that situation, even pool was OK for me. I have never played that too. No idea about how to hold the cue stick….

He gave me an idea about it and then today I played three games of Pool. I won one and lost two….

(Well well well….World No.1 Sharapova lost to Safina, at the end)

Blueberry Cheese Cake - How Much Will it Cost?

How much will a blueberry cheese cake cost?

It all started with a friend of mine, she simply felt like eating one blueberry cheese cake and she let me know that.

Though this is a popular cake, I had never eaten it. So I did a search and even asked another friend who is a professional cake maker. She said it is slightly expensive cake but it tastes good. Thus I decided to buy one. When I told this to my wife, she added KFC chicken into the list, when my son heard of KFC, he added a zinger burger into it, when he went for zinger burger, wife also wanted one and as usual, I was asked to buy a veg burger…. So, what is the cost of a blueberry cheese cake?

It did not end there…since I did a lil research on that cake and blueberries, countries where it’s grown….. I got an idea about the cost in India and in Philippines. When I happened to discuss the cost aspect with the professional cake maker friend (from Philippines), it looked like she got irritated (since she could not agree with me) and she stopped responding to me…she simply ignored me…and we all know how we feel when a friend deliberately ignores us… it can not be measured in terms of money..…. So what is the cost of a blueberry cheese cake?