The art of social Networking!

A lazy morning today was! Though i got up earlier than usual, i skipped my gym session. My mind said, get up, you should be gymming now. Body simply refused. My body won as usual! And so is the pattern, i lazily opened my tab to check my FB. Oh fine! FB is FaceBook for those who read this page like my dad. Their dictionaries are outdated. How can they not know FB? i still struggle at such ignorance, rather innocence. Was not FB considered the greatest discovery ever since man invented the wheel?

The opening post on FB was by one 'A' whom i had never known before. Oh ya, he is on my friend list, but should i really know him for that? Social networking this! And his post is in a language which i last learnt in class 5 to pass the exam. That is ok, languages barriers are meant to be broken. And the post also showed two pictures of a swamy with some random girls. They are there to test my general knowledge. Believe me!

Well, I scrolled down after getting to know that Swamis have some things to do with women, there is this post on how my cosuin's birth month flower is 'white rose' which signifies innocence and purity of thought. Oh ya, FB had analysed my cousin's character in the last few years of aquaintance. So I scrolled down again to learn "The age of the prophets of the world", that 'Singham II' is a grand success, that one friend had 'Afgani chicken' for dinner yesterday night,that 'Bruce lee' could actually fight.

For the sake of sanity after accumulating such a huge amount of knowledge, I clicked on my notification to find out one friend had invited me to play "Farmville"(Virtual farming - He really respects the farmers, and for their sake he plays this); and another friend had liked my status update on my philosophies of life. I smiled; happy that he is learning life's philosophies at last.

Suddenly I realized the sun was out and my tryst with FB should stop now. My day have to start. What would life be without FB i thought! Bliss, my conscience replied.

 May be that is why they say "Ignorance is bliss!"

Ya, tomorrow morning the first thing i do is to log on in again! The art of social networking!

Potter's clay

When the best friend called to remind me to write on this, my mind started to wander. Where did it all start? Where is it going? What is it doing? Why is it doing all this? Questions as usual came in clusters and 'answers',  well they are after all 'answers', did not bother my mind. So i decided to dig deep in search of them.

Well, Im talking about potter's clay! For starters, potter's clay as the name indicates does not denote geologic clay, but a christian organisation started way back! 'Way back' is all that i could recollect how much ever i dig. I could not even recollect the year, leave alone the date. I got it! 2008 it is. or is it 2009? But much before that the seeds were sown some where else.

Me and the best friend always cherished Sunday evenings. A group of friends met over a cup of coffee and some biscuits and discussed God, Bible, Country and what not! It was always followed by a game of cricket. Always! There in that small town of Sivakasi were those seeds sown. Seeds as ideas. Idea to start one such group, many years after those glory days of sivakasi, when me and the best friend had no other work on a sunday evening in the crowded city of Chennai.

Like all Tamil Youngsters from small towns, Chennai attracted us too! We had jobs, we had money, we were independent and more importantly we had the time. Time to think, time to recollect and time to reminesce about all that was good in Sivakasi and all that we missed in Chennai. Well, as usual the best friend had an idea one fine day and we decided we will do it. The idea was to gather friends in Chennai and meet over a cup of coffee and bisucits on boring sunday evenings. We just had to find a person who will give us the snacks and the place to meet and of course, had to look for a cricket ground too.

Chitthi and Chitthapa were kind enough to allow us in and greater still, gave us the much needed snacks. We started as four(Two other close friends from hometown joined). We did this for many weeks, even when only the two of us met, we enjoyed it! There is joy in HIS presence.

Slowly the four of us started giving programmes in churches and were blessed! We loved being in that company and i truly treasure some of those memories. We travelled far and gave programmes, planned for that, prepared, prayed and found ourselves to be doing some thing meaningful in life; 

May be i dug too deep! am not able to control the flow of answers!

There were similar friends who were looking for worthy things to do. Through common friends and word of mouth, we all came together and slowly the numbers started to increase. We had to move to a bigger place and a church in Kodambakkam was kind enough to give us their place and also the snacks!

So we meet on Sunday evenings, take turns for bible studies, invite special speakers, attend special programmes and even now conduct programmes! People have moved on and newer guys have joined, the enthusiasm has ebbed and flowed but potter's clay canters on. Never for once it has stopped. HE has been gracious enough.

We really think friends can be life changers and that is exactly what we try to achieve. We want to be friends with people, especially youngsters who come to chennai wide eyed and suddenly find themselves lost! We want to be friends, who will be the shoulder to put your hands over and also the friends who will say, ' Not this way'. May be that is our mission, our vision! To be friends!

Where do we go from here? I personally don't know! and almost don't care! HE started this and HE leads us on. When he decides enough of friend making we will shut shop. Till then, we will walk in the direction which HE shows, which till now has been to "Live a christ centred life" and help people do that. 

The generation that left me by!

Read a quote and that got me thinking! It was a reply by an old woman to a reporter for his question on how the old lady had managed to stay with the same man for 65 years. And here is the reply,

            "We lived in a time when some thing was broken, we would fix it and not throw it away"

Coming from a generation which uses 'use and throw' pens, it was quite a difficult statement to understand. Why bother to fix it if there is a brand new one available? I mean, the new ones are always better than the old, is it not? and the new ones are such fun to have as well, what with the additional new features to it.

May be the older generation did not have the opportunity to buy a new one, or may be the older generation had the time to mend them all! May be that generation was plain lazy to redo it all over again!

After all this debating, my mind still refuses to accept that the modern generation, the generation X, yes, my generation lives a better life than my grandfather's.

There was an unmistakable contentment i had seen in my grandpa; A quiet happiness and a remarkable satisfaction of the life he lived; And sadly, I have to agree that Contentment, happiness and satisfaction are becoming alien words to me and to a lot of my friends.

Are we to learn something from them? Ah, how I miss my grandparents now.

The women I'm growing fond of by the day!!!

Yes! I love her. My love for her in fact has grown by the day. She epitomises what love is! Her voice radiates love when she calls me. And you know what, she calls me chellam every time! Every single time! When that mobile rings and shows her name I know what her first words would be. Not a somber 'hello' but an excited 'chellam'. 

Alright! I ill stop with this. No news to get excited. She is my mom. Wanted to write on her for a loooong time and what better day than on Mother's Day!

But, well, I don't want to write about a mother! But rather want to write on a woman whom I have 'awwwed' at. 

For starters, she is a doctor and an excellent one at that. If numbers are right, she would ve conducted more deliveries than 90% of the doctors of the state of Tamil Nadu. So I ve statistical backing for my claim. There have been days, when she would have worked from morning 9 to night 9, then would have done some emergency surgeries late night, come home early morning cook for both her mad eating children their breakfast and pack lunch for school and then will go back to work again. And believe me, she could do this for days and months without complaining. Inspite of such a hectic work schedule, I ve heard patients telling me that they come just to see her, as her smile can cure them. 

On top of being such a workaholic, she always had time for people! Always! You can often see her sit and talk to an old man from the church just because the old man wanted to talk. The number of old people who lived in our house during various periods is insane! We had my mom's parents, my mom's sister in law's parents, my dad's sister in law's parents, my mom's uncle and aunt, my dad's aunt, my day's friends mother and the list is too long to even recollect! And every single one of those oldies loved their stay at our house.

And together with this she had to bear with an eccentric husband who even refused to buy a medical seat to her son because he thought it is wrong, a mad son who thought working in a jungle in Assam is more fulfilling than an highly paid IT job in the heartland of chennai. Still, she stood with us in all our  idiosyncrasies and allowed us to do it our way.

Yes, she still cries for her patients, still is terribly nervous when a VIP comes along, still is afraid of talking in English and still cannot cross a road alone! Yet she soldiers on! Two oldies are there at home now and yesterday she tried beef cutlets for them and of course called me to tell that the next time I'm home she will make it for me.

So, I ve to stop some where! 

Few days ago when a friend asked me what kind of life partner I want, my mind just visualised her image! I think, that is the biggest compliment I can ever give her; much bigger than the two 'women of the year award' she had won in her life!

Of course tomorrow morning the phone will ring and show her picture! Now you know what her first word will be! " sam di chellam" it is!

Happy Mother's Day!

A proud brother, but a sad Indian;

My brother D works in a small hospital in an interior village of the north eastern state of Tripura. He told me this story today!

This man had not eaten for two days. He did not have money for food. He came to this hospital bringing his child, who has also not had food for god knows how many days. The baby was sick. Really sick, was how D put it. It would have been better had the baby been brought a few days earlier, said D to the man. But he knew the answer! He did not have money to bring the baby also. Today, some how he managed to bring the baby to the hospital, knowing well that it is now a matter of life and death!

When D called me today for our mandatory daily call, his voice reflected a sense of sadness and a feeling of helplessness! He said he gave money for the man to have his food and is hoping the baby gets well!

Even as i was listening to him, I had mixed feelings;

I sure am a proud brother; For he chose to feel the pain of the sick and the poor, opting out of the mad race which his world is up to; Yet feeling sad, that there are people in my very own country who can go to sleep with out food for days together.

May be Africa has some thing to say to the world!

In war-torn relationships of Northern Uganda, forgiveness is complicated. Betty was a teenager when her village was raided by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army known for its brutal tactics and widespread human rights violations. She was kidnapped as a sex slave for a commander and ordered to commit callous acts of violence as a child soldier, until gradually she was broken and became an active member of the LRA.

After six years of bloodshed, however, Betty managed to escape, running across the country to freedom. But coming home would not be a simple matter of returning. She had committed violence against the very people she hoped to rejoin. Her own guilt and shame was as palpable as the mistrust and anger of her village. In her absence, two of her own brothers had been killed by the same army Betty fought alongside.

In the midst of such loss, with so many permanent scars, forgiveness might seem hopeful, but naïve at best. Is reconciliation even to be desired when brokenness is so irreversible? Does forgiveness cease to be hopeful when neither party can ever be the same again? From where I stand, these are painful questions to even begin to answer.

But the people of Uganda are trying. For hundreds and hundreds of children like Betty, terrorized by crimes they were forced to commit and returning home to terrorized villages, tribal elders have adapted a ceremony to make it possible for both. In a ceremony that includes the act of breaking and stepping on an egg and an opobo branch, the returnee is cleansed from the things he or she has done while away. The egg symbolizes innocent life, and by breaking and placing themselves in its broken substance, returnees declare before their village their desire to be restored to the way they used to be. In a final step over a pole, the returnees step into new life. In many cases, women returnees come home with babies who were born in the bush, usually a result of rape. When they arrive at the broken egg, the child’s foot is placed in the substance, too.

May be, the spirit of reconciliation, is what the world needs!

This is what the cross symbolise and may be that is what the world needs to know from Africa.

Take a bow sir! You are godly

Kya bhaiya, 30 rs TK tho. 40 rs jaadha hain ( what brother, 30 rs is fine, 40 is a bit too much) argued my friend to the rickshaw wallah. I had just had a bad fall and was hurting in my ankle and so did not have any strength to stand. I immediately boarded that rickshaw without waiting for them to finish their negotiations. Further, we also had two full cylinders with us. My friend climbed on too; may be he realised he did not have any option though the rickshaw wallah did not agree for the bargain.

The journey was a difficult one for him, especially with two heavy weights on it and moreover an additional ten kilos of gas cylinder added to it. Every time he had to slow down, again to start it back it needed enormous effort from him. My friend asked about the pain in my ankle; though i did not want to show, I was a bit finicky.

As soon as we got down, I noticed the rickshaw man's foot was heavily bandaged. I asked him what it was. He said, he had a crash with a bike some time ago and had a bone fracture. I was stunned! He was driving with a fractured limb! And here I am complaining about a twisted ankle; why can't you take rest, I asked? Kaana peena katham hogaiya, kya karo ( no water and food, what to do) came the reply.

I had no answer! Took a 50 rs note from my wallet and asked him to keep it. He said, nahin sir! And gave back ten rupees.

I saw his face under the light. It was nearly 9.30 pm. Fully dark. He was sweating profusely. Yet, his face was bright. He had taught me one of life's toughest lessons in a second.

Honesty, is a rarity; that, in times of adversity is godly;

I may not meet you sir again! But you deserve a bow! Mankind will survive.