Its been a year since Iv been on a holiday. I am a dentist who works in the evenings so I have half the day all for me. Now I wish I had a job that kept me on my feet till I forget I exist and I hope I could come back home exhausted, so I can slip into a deep dreamless sleep the minute my head lands on the pillow. I also wish to have a job that does not involve bad breath and putrefied chewed food between teeth.

It feels like I am in a huge bubble that keeps me frozen, but keeps me aware of the world that is rushing by, almost like a coma. Oh I dislike Sundays so much.. to have a holiday when your already on a holiday drives you nuts.. trust me!

All you guys who work all day and have nothing else to do but work. I am jealous o you guys. I never thought I would say that.
I RESOLVE TO GET A LIFE!!

‘The Secret‘ deals with positive thinking.To me it did not sound very preachy, although I was a little skeptical about the concept of law of attraction at the beginning.But, by the time I was done with the book,I must admit that I was in love with the concept.

The law of attraction talks about how you can attract an object, a situation or a person into your life.As a student of Vedanta I realize how powerful a human mind is.It can make you or break you.My belief in the law of attraction was strengthened, because it is a concept that is very closely related to our Hindu Philosophy.

In the section ‘The Secret To You‘ the authors talk about how the universe and the conscious principle(our soul) are not different from one another.

We’re all connected.We just don’t see it.There isn’t an “out there” and an “in here”.Everything in the universe is connected.It is just one energy field.

- John Assaraf ‘The secret’

Our Vedantic philosophy believes in the same… Mahavakya’s are the great declarations of the supreme truth.Tat Tvam Asi‘ is one of the four Mahavakya’s . Tat Tvam Asi declares that, the human core(ie. the true nature of a man or the soul) is the same as the supreme consciousness (called ‘the universe’ in the secret)

The secret makes this complex concept sound magical.Everybody has their own way of dealing with life’s situations.No matter which way, we all know how important it is to be positive.If you believe that there are powers in this world that exist, even if not visible to the naked eye.You believe that there is magic/supreme power out there that is the cause of our existence.You will understand what ‘the secret‘ is about.

Read it and believe in it and it might just turn your life around.

Akka is the happiest person Iv ever been around.She lights up a room the minute she walks in and when she is teaching us, there is so much energy among us… everybody’s feet stamp harder to the rhythm and its a beautiful combination of music without instruments and dance. She watches us with an eagles eye, correcting every minuscule flaw that a student makes even if we are in large numbers. She makes our learning experience an absolute joy. There is so much to learn from her apart from dance.

She calls herself the conqueror of cancer… any other person would have been shattered if they knew they had cancer. But akka did not let cancer take her over.. she fought it and she danced her way through therapy. Makes me wonder if dance has healing powers and gives me hope that nothing in life is impossible.

She works her way through any predicament with such elan and poise. Even if her schedule is packed (which would drive anybody else insane) she still has time for perfection and everything is planned and well organized.Shes a true example of the power woman. She’s an employee and a professional dancer and the worlds best teacher.

I am one of the many lucky students who was blessed with the opportunity to dance with akka in her troupe. Dancing tales… Panchatantra was premiered in Hyderabad at Shilpakala Vedika in 2006. When I watched the show, I fell in love with the production and my love for dance was rekindled. Little did I know that four years later I would be performing in the same production. I was overjoyed when akka told me I could be part of this humongous production.

Dancing tales… Panchatantra was one of the many productions of akka’s which appeals to a wide range of audience. A dance theater production… with a blend of many dance forms. Its amazing how a human body can be used to express and tell a story. With brilliant music composition, beautiful movements and costumes.. the five famous stories of Panchatantra unravel on the stage mesmerizing the viewers.

It took 37 dancers to make this production this year. It was like a huge party. Akka made sure that none of us missed a beat and taught us to move with the rhythm and let the music play through us.

We were all too excited to have a stage fright. It was the adrenaline rush that kept us going. Personally it was a true spiritual experience for me. Once you step on to that stage your mind is so calm and bereft of million thoughts that always run through your head and all you see are the lights on the stage and the pitch dark auditorium behind the lights. It felt like as if I was looking into eternal space. All you hear and feel is the music and your body swing and sway to it. I am so thankful to akka for this awesome experience.

I grew up celebrating my Birthdays on a big scale.There would be 2 sets of new clothes,lot o chocolates to take to school,a party in the evening with lots o people,balloons,cake,candles,gift wrapped gifts and wide spread of desserts and return gifts. Then, I turned 13 and suddenly I am all grown up for a celebration(sigh!) I am gonna have all of that, no matter how old I am at least once in my life time(even if that makes me look like a self absorbed narcissist)

Have you ever felt like the world around you is zipping by and you are a spectator, watching time rush by. It always feels like that around this time of the year. Ive had 25 years of experience in this world and I don’t know if I am wise enough for a 25 year old. Some part of me refuses to grow up. I wake up everyday and fall in love with so many things and I’m scared I will stop loving them someday.In simpler words… I’m perpetually scared I will turn into an old granny too early.

I was never sure what I wanted to be as a grown up. Kids usually would say ‘I wanna be a doctor’ or ‘I wanna be a scientist’ or ‘a pirate’ or something. All I knew was that ‘I did not wanna be a doctor’ but I wanted to be famous..(it was my lil secret) …just simply famous. Ah! its so much easier in my dreams.But today… I don’t even know if people would notice if I disappear one day. Oh my! I sound so morbid … K it might not be that bad, but yeah.. I’m not famous ‘YET’

I’m certainly not a big fan of growing up.. well who is. I wake up everyday telling myself, that I’m going to be a cheerful and loving person today, and some days it is easy to be that person, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to be like that… its almost a challenge. Well,life’s never easy I guess, if anything it keeps getting tough.But the point is… here I am dealing with problems in life as gracefully as I can. I have survived all the tough patches and made it this far.. unimpaired. and its cause o the love and support I get from every single person I know in my life.
Love you all tons!!!

Day 1
Finally reached my destination and I was sooo looking forward to spending time with my girl friend. My dear darling friend said we were going to have awesome fun but before that, we need to go visit a skin doc… so she calls the doc and makes her appointment and then we rush out and travel across Mumbai, searching for this one doc who stays in some neverland.. anyways, we finally find him and go in to meet him.So the tiny doc(thats what my frnd calls him by the way..)asks us which one of us is dying of skin disease, after that was confirmed, he asks my friend the med history and my friend rattles on for ever and gives him a huge list of products that was part of her regime… and for some strange reason she couldn stop giggling… and the doc was quiet amazed at all the giggling but the poor soul laughed along and kept his cool The cause of all the giggling… my friend kept chanting : ‘what a tiny tiny tiny guy’ in her head all the time. After the doc convinced her that she wasn goin to die of the skin disease we headed to her office. She said ‘oh its goin to be a few mins thats all… ‘ which meant a lowely half hour social visit. We come out of her office and my darling friend’s skin catches fire, so we decided the sun was not good for her disease so we cancel our movie plans and get back home…after a lazy afternoon my friend gets a call from a company she recently interviewed for and realizes that they were ready to pay her bags of money…. she is thrilled and informs half her family about it in record time…oh!! jij and ravi.. shubha is goin to be really rich after today so you know who to call if you need some greens
So we finally head out to watch a movie… we reach the theater and decided to watch ‘My Name Is Khan’. Since its a Yash Chopra’s film I mentally prepared myself for all the emotional drama that we were goin to be subjected to, and even before I stepped into the theater I knew I was goin to hate the movie. We settle down in the half empty theater and laugh our hearts out at Yash Chopra’s trailers for “Koochi Koochi Hota Hai” ( a remake of kuch kuch hota hai but its an animation.. I dont know what made Karan Johar think that people would enjoy watching puppy dog versions of SRK, Kajol and Rani huh …) Anyways, the movie starts and 2 scenes into the movie and I here sniffing… My friend with her super active tear glands was weeping even before kajol’s histrionics.
I actually liked watching the movie and only because,my friend was sniffing at all the right scenes and laughing at all the right ones keeping up the spirit of the movie.Suddenly I realized that every Karan Johar movie I watched and enjoyed was because I watched it with her.
Anyways, about the movie… well, it was a good first half and I almost felt nostalgic watching Kajol and SRK together once again.. and I was also amazed by SRK’s acting skills.. but the second half just kept dragging on for ever… Karan Johars’s emotional diarrhea totally kills the movie… by the end of it, SRK starts sounding like a robot and Kajol gets a wee bit annoying… way to go KJ you like end up sucking out all the joy out o the movie…
It was not one o those movies that messes with my head and ruins my day… so overall I had a decent first day in Mumbai n was even better cause I get to spend quality time with my girl friend

Day 2 & 3
We were being clowns the whole day and all we did was talk and walk like SRK in MNIK… Sat down and discussed life and men and it took awhile to convince my friend that ‘birds aren conspiring and plotting against her’.. for some strange reason she is eternally scared that she will be attacked by birds some day and thats how she will die!!
Watched ‘Up In The Air’ and totally wuved the movie… guys its worth watching this one beliemme…
Even after 4 visits to this city I never once saw an actor..I kept complaining and cursing at my luck and faaaainallly, I see Mona Vasu and Vidya Malvade, although they didn make my day… I finally did see ppl who were on the screen… went shopping hoping to buy loads o new clothes and ended up with just 2 kurthi’s… Damn these malls… we walk out all upset and find the crowd in the mall goin absolutely crazy… my sharp eyed friend scans the crowd and spots Vivek Oberoi..

I couldn believe my luck… 3 famous ppl in 2 days.. Damn!! I should ave wished for somethin else..
After that we go to Bandra to sit by the sea and watch the sun set… We saw more then a sun set… we went searching for a shitless, crowless place for us to sit and finally found a bench… and so we settle down to watch the sun go down and we notice this guy sitting right in front o us… with his girlfriend, completely oblivious to the entire world… (o boy the disadvantages of low waist jeans).. so me and my friend sit and laugh our heads off and it was fun watching the Janta walk by… some ignored the skin show, some smiled and every time a family walked by, the husbands would call out to their wives and point to this poor man and they would laugh out loud… while the poor soul sat there completely in love and unaware of the whole world laughing at him… (I’am sooo going to end up in hell…)

Photo by : Shubha Viraraghavan

As always it was 3 days of absolute bliss, joy and madness…

I watched living with Michael Jackson when I was 18 and the  only memory of the documentary I had was about Michael’s plastic surgery.  I watched the documentary again recently and was angered beyond wits.

Few minutes into the movie  you realize how callous and insensitive Martin Bashir’s comments are when Michael talks about Neverland and how he loves going on the rides alone.  It broke my heart to watch Martin grill Michael about his personal life.  I cringed every time Martin scoffed at Michael.

“don’t you prefer making love or goin to a concert” .. really .. lol!!, so the only pleasures in life, that seem normal, sadly, are carnal pleasures.

Michael seemed much like a child through out  the movie and here was a man (bashir) expecting all men of 44 years to be macho and insensitive.  By this time I was wondering if Martin had a traumatic childhood too, on the account of his emotional handicap.  So what if a man loves being a child and loves water balloon fights and rides.  To be a child by heart is not a crime, is it?

I was in tears when Martin fails to comprehend Michael’s love for children and his simple gesture of sharing a room with kids.  Makes me wonder if there is any place at all in this world for love in its pure form..Watch how shocked Martin is to Michael’s idea of sharing a bed with children…. Why does sharing a bed with children have to be sexual?  Are we so clouded that we fail to see that his love for kids is genuine and not sexual?

Life as we know it  is extremely complicated …  every situation needs to be analyzed and scrutinized and everything has to be filtered down into acts that are socially accepted.. hence acts of a man that are innocent in nature are turned into sexual acts.

We realize how important it is to be loved and to be cared for, only when we are denied of it. Why is it so hard to accept that a man who has been through so much as a child, wants to give the children of this world all the love he can.

This part of the movie was quiet disturbing… Michael probably should not have held his baby out of the window but i am sure he did not mean to kill the kid in front of the whole world. That issue was blown out proportion.Haven we heard of parents accidentally dislocating their child’s shoulder cause they tugged them the wrong way.Parents are not perfect human beings, they make mistakes and so did Michael.It was sickening to watch the media have a field trip over this one.In this part of the movie Michael is waving to his fans and you see how happy he is… Martin says “when I got up to his room I was worried, there was a manic quality about him that I’d never seen before”… He’s happy you fool… That’s how you feel when you are loved.

F***  the press! Michael you’re the best!  People should learn to avoid the media hubbub and understand the issue on their own and form an opinion for themselves.

We love him for his music and his dance.  He’s an inspiration and an idol for millions.  His music speaks for him…

I hope he has found peace and happiness where ever he is… We Love You Michael!