A lazy Thursday afternoon

Its a Thursday afternoon and laziness has gripped me tightly. Planning to make a pre-mature exit from office today and dash off home, core working hours are over anyways and I am all set to enjoy a long weekend by taking Friday off...Planning to make a nice jaunt to Kolhapur this Sunday, and I hope that rains will not play spoilsport in this scheme of things. Its been a little over a year since we went there and the urge grew stronger after a couple of dreams I had last month envisioning the Goddess Shakti herself. As if to say, my son, do not worry, your mundane worries will be solved if you come to me.
Peace and a beatific state of mind have made longer stop-owers in my body and soul since the last few weeks; while I have traditionally had the pleasure of being stoic to circumstances, my 'sthitapradnya bhav' and cherubic demeanor have been supplemented by doses of spiritual reading. I was a bit surprised myself, when I heard people say some 'nice' things about me and experienced that I could relate better to nature and its tiny creatures. And all this transformation happening in a fortnight was truely unbelievable.
I was lucky to have the benediction of reading the English xlation of the Guru Charitra and my faith in the Lord has multiplied several times, as an outcome..
The weekend is not all fun, as it may sound though; there is a pile of exam papers waiting to be evaluated and it feels good, although scary at times, that I contribute to the future of the student populace and future software engineers. And then the holy scriptures and their teaching remind me that its not me who governs this, but the Supreme lord who uses me as a tool to get things done..
Did quite a bit of interviewing since last week and things are getting more fluent with time.It also has additional advantages of brushing up technical skills which tend to rust over a period of time like any good tool..
I decided to try my own miniature fear factor by donating blood. I wanted to get rid of the fear psychosis associated with injuries and blood in general and so I decided to overcome it by being in the midst of things. Was trying to use a thorn to draw a thorn :-) . I did go ahead with the blood donation, but the vasovagal shock which is the natural companion of the activity did make a short visit.I went blank for a couple of seconds and thankfully I was prostrate and this was followed by a streak of sweat, enough to stir a mild anxiety amongst the personnel there, but a couple of cans of mango juice and I was pretty normal then.
My blood group is O+ve but my attitude is B+ve. ;-)

This blog compiled @home

It is always essential to be occupied with some or the other activity. I don’t know that this is the best start to my blog, but today the domain, terrain and environment are all different and this causes me to try harder than usual. [To demystify this puzzle, I am blogging from home for a change and not the usual seat in my office cubicle]. The stream of thoughts is not as streamlined as usual but who cares..:-) .

The end of a release is strange in many ways. While I am happy that the job is done, there is a twilight zone in which ambivalent feelings tend to soak my soul. More important than anything else, it creates a sudden void in the daily bug bashing routine and it takes a while to steer the ship in a different direction.

One good thing during this gestation period is to concentrate on those P3 goals which are otherwise, nothing but ornamental in nature to the goal-setting exercise done every year or six months. I am trying to be a bit more organized and have set a few professional and personal milestones to help utilize time better.

This fortnight, I did manage to put my culinary skills to test on more than a couple of occasions and without letting my alter-ego getting a massage, it is worthwhile to admit that I have passed the exam with flying colors. I have seen that I tend to enjoy this activity and that makes the process enjoyable and has the additional advantage of satiating my palate, ensuring that gastric juices have some good company of mirch-masala. Chapattis are the next on my agenda and that will make me feel a mini Sanjeev Kapoor, I guess.

Today I was amused to ready that our solar system has lost Pluto to dwarf hood reducing the magical number 9 to 8.It is apt though, that in numerological terms, this should happen in the year 2006, which adds up to 8. Though any kind of reductions are welcome to the ever dwindling memory of mankind; generation Y or maybe Z will have one free cell in their grey matter. I was a bit skeptical when earlier in the month, they planned to augment the count from 9 --> 12 and I must say that good sense has finally prevailed.

I am planning to step up the gas on a different plane and see the results for myself. That requires a lot of courage and grit, though the resolve is much stronger in my heart. More on that as things fructify and the Harry Potter in me shapes up lumps of clay into a nice pot. I wish my pot becomes a pot pourri of good luck and has my coveted flower smiling happily in it. Touch-wood !!

Lord of the Rings.

I have been planning to leave office early for the past several weeks, but there’s a catch 22 situation at hand. Making an early egress means having to skip certain rituals, which now define my new persona; and my mind, has been conditioned into not making those compromises. And somewhere around 7 or 7:30 pm, when office chores and personal agendas are attended to, it is traffic jams which force me to wait in the secure confines of a security company rather than venture into the dark murky boulevards, with not tinges of water, but overflowing gargoyles of rain-water which have been pouring onto the city and the Deccan Plateau incessantly for the past few weeks.

After finishing the succinct version of the Bhagavad-Gita, I had the privilege to read more philosophical literature in the form of ‘The Monk who sold his Ferrari’ and followed it up with Deepak Chopra’s Seven Laws of Success. Some of the techniques in there are truly marvelous if applied in the right spirit and I am willing to make a gambit to get back what slipped thru my cuff last month. Oh, I get goose bumps when my thoughts travel back in time…

I did quite a bit of religious reading too last week and have been continuing this routine. The story of Shani (Saturn) sounded intriguing when my mom told it to me and I aptly chose a Saturday to read thru it; it was indeed absorbing, revering and gave a great sense of peace in the end… Its indeed the Lord of the rings i.e. Saturn who is lord of the planets!!

Another therapy that I am practicing is the one on Anger Management, and the crux is to not generate those anger impulses in the first place; aka prevention is better than cure. It’s an uphill task and I know that the going is tough, but not as tough as I thought it would be. It amazes me how you look for conventional and unconventional ways and means when the ride is a little bumpy and light at the end of the tunnel is usually a train rather than the bright sunlight in an azure sky. :-)