People have no time anymore!

Life is time...

Resolutions

Better Late than never...

Make less objectives

Spend as little time at home as possible doing office work.

Spend more time with family than with computers.

Breath in and out deep breaths every morning.

Run in open air places.

Go out of Colombo at least once in three months

Throw away the handwork and paintings

Start cooking

Drink less coffee

...Oops I think I just broke that one!

The Sky Beneath Me!

Images from a plane going from Hyderabad to Chennai!

Discovering the Banana leaf

There are many advantages of the green leaf over plates; a few of which are listed below

It saves water... just imagine washing all the plates after your guests leave.

It is hygienic... imagine the number of people who may have eaten on a plate at the restaurant

It is healthy

It uses up the banana tree

It is disposable without any damage to the environment

Go for Green!

The Journey of a thousand miles

From the city of Pearls to Tamil Nadu – Chennai

In Golkonda we were able to see a sound and light show as they call it where the history of all the empires that reigned were outlined. The city of pearls looked nothing like pearls. It was so dusty that I had to have my face covered most of the time. Hyderabad is also said to be famous for its buriyani. Ironically for us fried rice seemed to be much tastier. The pearls were splendid.

Chennai

In January 2004 I visited big brother India’s capital new Delhi. Today, almost three years later I have had the opportunity of getting a taste of the south of India for the first time.

There is so much of variety and differences that it is sometimes so hard to believe that all this is one country. Everything was so different from place to. From the colour of their skin to the language they spoke. Their attitudes and culture however did not vary very much. They were friendly and helpful people; sometimes waiting to get as much money out of you as possible. They take comparatively much less salt and sugar which was not very palatable for us. In tamil Nadu they speak tamil so we didn’t feel all that alien. However the tamil they speak drastically differs from what we speak.

Banglore, Myslre and Ooty

The difference between traveling in Sri Lanka and traveling in India is that a journey in Sri Lanka has a beginning, middle and an end. In India, the journey has a beginning, beginning and beginning. As you can see most of the pics are from a moving vehicle.

Char Mina - view from underneath

Intelligent Word Processes

Since of late I have been documenting content because I know that my head is not the safest mode of transport and storage of information. For this purpose, I have employed the good old Ms Office - MS word processor which is a fairly reasonable tool to support my needs. However, I find that Word is still not adequate in many ways. Comparing it with Open office does have huge short comings. Nope – no one from Sun Microsystems is paying me to say this. (I wish). And I’m not promoting FOSS, I have no reason to do that.

Well though word comes with a dictionary and thesaurus and the very good features like spell checker for the weak spellers like me I am not impressed to find that simple typing errors are easily ignored by most word applications that lack a more intelligent solution. What I would like to see may be in the next version is - the word processor making sense out of the content that I am typing and figure out that a word such as Ass could be a mistype of the word ‘as’. Typing ‘god’ instead of ‘good’ could be a slip of the finger. Of course the popping up of an annoying paperclip will be out of the question but the document can be checked when I exit it and such mistakes can be prompted to the user. May be this is something that open source developers can consider contributing if it is not already on the cards. Other features could be to make summaries of documents or research articles and white papers to save the researcher’s reading time.

I am expecting to see some of it in the future versions and I hope I will not be let down!

WEDNESDAY!

The only lucky day to be the end and the beginning at the same time.
The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end!

Oronym

A term that describes words like "I scream" and "ice cream"? "Some others" and "some mothers"?(Definitions)

Oronym. "...In the case of Toyota and toy Yoda, our brains are faced with "oronyms" – virtually identical speech that can be interpreted in different ways. English is full of these devilish duos. For example, I scream versus ice cream, a notion versus an ocean, and some others versus some mothers..." (extract from the CBC's Words, Woe and Wonder site)

Now is all I have to live

Married one year and two months – a year that went unbelievably fast. Still feels like just a couple of months. Makes me think that I will be looking at my whole life backwards one day and thinking “Oh My god it’s over”

There is only one chance to live… to pick up the pieces and stop wasting my time. I have written a hundred million things, started off at least 20 different projects that I intend completing within my life time, I have dreamt and I am still dreaming of the future realities. I know it’s up to me to start rebuilding and ending things I have started before my life ends…

In many ways it is better to be underestimated than overestimated

Attitude affects it all

One morning I woke up and thought today I will be happy no matter what happens. Did it work? Well… the answer I will leave for you to find out!

There are positives in being negative

In the highlights of life... there is more bad news than good!

Negotiation and conflict management tips

Again this is one of those inventions that I haven’t really bothered to pick up at the book stores. It is not really like you have to be a born good or bad negotiator. You can choose to improve. My father for example is an excellent negotiator and very a very diplomatic person. For him it comes naturally. I, on the other hand say it straight and often the results are not very fruitful. Here are some of the tips from my own invention that I am learning to adapt myself to.

- Never say “You are wrong” If you have to say it at all say “It seems there is a small mistake in this”. Ask yourself which of the two sentences you prefer hearing.

- The best approach is the direct approach and that’s what I would generally agree with but given a scenario that has to work in favour of you, it is better that you don’t get to the point all at once when you have to give a negative message. The inductive approach may be a better choice. Read between the lines in the structure of the above sentence.

- Argue about the subject not about or with the person. It is easier said than done but most conversations turn into bitter arguments because people end up being subjective and defensive rather than objective.

- Forget arguments once they are over. DO NOT bring it up at future conversations.

- Make it seem funny. Humour is always good. But could be a dangerous area for those who don’t have humour coming to them naturally

- Finally and most importantly – admit you made a mistake if you have. People will value you as a person who knows yourself and doesn’t hesitate about admitting mistakes. After all everyone makes mistakes.

100 Reasons why I may not smile at you sometimes

A smile is the cheapest way to improve your looks. A smile is curve that sets things straight. It takes barely a second from our busy schedules. Yeah yeah, been there – heard it all. But there are times that no matter how nice it is to smile you just don’t do it. Nobody thinks much about smiling at a funeral. So like all theories it is only applicable to certain scenarios. Yesterday, it was like I got stabbed right there in the heart when someone asked me straight why I don’t smile. Well, on the positive side it leaves me some subject for blogging. So I stayed back typing this up if it has any worth at all.

1. When I’m walking about I am usually thinking about something too hard to concentrate on anyone around or to notice even things around – I know this is kind of selfish.
2. Sometimes I’m thinking that I’m smiling when I actually am not – I know this kind of weird to imagine.
3. Sometimes I think that people are smiling at someone behind m and I don’t smile in return to avoid getting embarrassed
4. Sometimes I’m smiling all the time so there is no need to improve it when someone actually smiles at me.
5. Sometimes I’m afraid to smile at people I don’t know - this is especially on the streets.
6. I’m too stressed at times to smile.

I can’t think of 94 other reasons except for the fact that I know it is wrong and to those who are strong and kind enough to understand, I am very grateful. I will try my best to smile more often rather than waiting for it to come naturally.

Beyond the tears is the bravery

Last Saturday we were at dinner at queens when I received a call on my mobile phone. The urgency of the voice of my brother-in-law – a rather rare and unexpected caller startled me. It was one of those days when bru hadn’t charged his phone and when I had decided to take a different mobile number in order to be not disturbed for official purposes on weekends. That night a terrible road accident caused my biological mother-in-law to be admitted at the accident ward – something that we still can’t come to terms with. She was always cheerful and full of smiles. She was always so witty and would never complain of the immense troubles that she had to go through in her life.

Deeply shocked we rushed to the hospital disappointed by the regulation that we will not be allowed inside without passes. With great difficulty our efforts got us in.

It was perhaps the first time that I was able to see her without her usual smile on. She had a badly fractured tibia and femur, shoulder bone, a small head injury and some fingers that were beyond rescue. Traumatized by the event no one seemed to be in the right mind to do anything. Adding to the pressure were strict regulations. Underneath it all we kept wondering - why her? Is it because she had the strength to take it…? Is it because it was some kind of test? The answers may never be clear. While the pain for her was unbearable, we had to put up with the regulations and leave her there alone for an emergency operation. At home that night, we were challenged by our own minds to accept something that we thought could never happen to a person like her.

When we visited her at the hospital the next day she was once again her cheerful self and smiling through all the pain. We were impressed by her bravery. She assures us now that she is getting better everyday. Every visit is painful and what the future holds at this point of time is a mystery for us as much as it is for her.

Praying for your speedy recovery…

…our darling mummy!

Jambo - East Africa

It took me time to get used the features of their faces, the very dark skin and the very exotic hair dos to their very unmanageable and extremely curly hair. The city had many posters warning people about a city that has the highest crime rate in entire Africa. Animals were free to explore the suburbs. The weather was always too cold to go out without warm clothing. The people were always so friendly and full of smiles. The days past too fast and in Africa enough is never enough. Many people worked for a living while a few chose to beg or rob. The cost of living was as high as Nairobi is above sea level. Infrastructure and buildings had very little shortcoming in the heart of the city. Food was as excellent as it is here. The roads out of the city were a lot worse. Hardly any children walk alone in the streets… almost no bicycles. Nobody wore any gold. Water melon was as expensive as gold.

It was far too dangerous to take a walk outside. It was fun to cook in the apartment with stuff you barely knew about. Giraffe centre gave you a touch and feel of the long necked beasts that were already going down on their numbers. Pics here

The Travel List

Bru and I sat down together and put down a travel list that we have to complete before the end of our lives (assuming we’d have rather long lives to live). Among the list are the following:

Skiing in the Alps – yet to be done

African Safari – done

Niagra Falls – yet to be done

White water rafting – done

Santhosa Island - done

Great Wall of China – yet to be done

World’s End – Somewhat done.

Taj Mahal – Somewhat done

Pyramids - yet to be done

Holy city of Makkah – Somewhat done

Disney world - yet to be done

Eiffel Tower - yet to be done

Jaffna – may be someday

How many jumps does it take to marry a masai woman?

As we entered the village which exhibited a lifestyle of freedom I couldn’t help noticing the variations that created what almost seemed to be a different planet altogether. A place of aliens... fertile soil that was deprived of growing anything in the fear that animals may harm the people to eat them, homes made of the same fertile matter, children with fly smothered faces and dripping noses, women carrying them wearing a dozen pieces of jewellery… lions less than 300 meters away… life that needs to be seen to be explained.

While we are transported by a block of metal that runs on a polluting gas emitting fuel, they either chose to walk or ride on donkey carts. While we ate processed food and pesticide controlled vegetables they choose to rear their own cattle to eat and drink from it. While we lived in homes that needed constant maintenance and repairs they live in thatched huts that have no electricity or water yet had the warmth of a family and the smiles of the children and plenty of “time” together in a timeless world.

The welcoming dance by the females and the good bye dance by the males was entertainment to us but to them the dance marked special occasions like like weddings, circumcision and the birth of a child. In addition the dance was a moment where men had to demonstrate their masculinity and how high they could jump to reach a beautiful woman they wanted to marry. Women in anklets denote that they are married. Their husbands are allowed as many as 7 wives and the number is usually directly prpotional to the amount of cattle they own. Women of the same village are forbidden for marriage because of blood ties. Therefore women have to be found from other nearby villages. Holidays and working days are planned by each individual at their own convenience. Enough space to live and sleep and play… enough logs and twigs to make a fence to protect the sheep from being eaten by predators… enough cattle to feed a village. No evidence of pain or poverty… Enough freedom to smile…!

(pics on Hi5!)