Hand Writing

My tryst with writing started when I was a kid. To be politically correct, it was not writing, but more of scribbling on paper or book or walls or whatever-I-could-lay-my-hands-on. I was more than happy to draw a line or scribble some gibberish and admire my own creation. Then started school, and I had to be a bit disciplined in using a pencil for writing and a crayon for drawing (read scribbling). As I grew older and moved to higher classes (not because I grew older, but because I successfully passed from one standard to the next), the focus on pencil became more prominent. Crayons were strictly for drawing. However, the difference between my handwriting and the scribbling barely increased. Everyone was after me to improve my handwriting and that started the process of using cursive writing books to improve my hand-writing. When I moved from the primary section to the secondary section, I was advised to use an ink-pen and not a ball pen to prevent further deterioration to my handwriting. Cursive writing continued. When my handwriting became legible (or so I was told), I stopped cursive writing. And life went on smooth.

As soon as school got over, I moved to college and started using ball pen. Though ink pen was still the preferred option. My hand writing started deteriorating after using a ball pen. Atleast this is what everyone told me. So I tried to improve my hand writing again, but some things are never meant to be. My hand writing is one of them. In the mean time, I had also started using a computer. As time progressed, my typing improved as my computer usage improved. However, my hand writing showed no signs of improvement. After entering the professional world, which for me is the big world of IT, the usage of pen decrease and the usage of computer increased and along with it increased the deterioration in my hand writing. Today, things have come to such a stage that I totally avoid using a pen or a pencil and willingly use the keyboard. Typing is so easy, and it is also very legible. :-) Why get into the trouble of making other take the effort to understand my hand writing!!! On second thoughts, I feel I should have become a doctor. After all, my hand writing is fit to be that of a doctor; whether I am fit to be a doctor or not is a different story. :-Þ

Absoutely unexplainable

Yesterday, I had been to the Mahalakshmi temple in Kolhapur. I met a friend from my college days. We were both in the queue and saw each other. Though we both were not sure if we were right in thinking that we know the other person. I decided to wait in the temple after the darshan and talk to her. There could be only 2 possibilities - one that she was the same person who I though she was, and second that she wasn't that person. Had the second possibility been true, she would have told me that she didn't know me or that she wasn't the person whom I thought she was. I know this is nothing new. Quite a few people come across long lost buddies
or college mates. But what is surprising is the fact that though both of us are settled in Bombay we have never met in Bombay once we completed our graduation. And after that, we lost touch. We met after 8 years and that too in a distant place - Kolhapur. Had it been a train station or bus station it would be understandable. But meeting in a temple is something absolutely unexplainable. Call it divine intervention or whatever. But I am still amazed as to how we met in a temple. Another interesting thing is that yesterday was just the second time I met her mother. The first time when I had met her mother was also in a temple, though in Bombay. Does this hold any meaning? I surely need The Alchemists' help to figure this out.

Till then, enjoy...

Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return

There is a crematorium on my way to office. Whenever I pass by the crematorium, I offer a silent prayer for the departed souls. For quite some time, I never saw anyone cremating the dead there. However, for the last two months, on an average, I see people gathered there and one cremation taking place every 2 days. The reality dawned on me - even I will end up in a crematorium some day. Though no one knows when that day will arrive. This is the ultimate truth. No one can deny it. No one can escape from it.

Till the time you lvie, enjoy life and live life to the fullest.