Severed Branches

moved

2011-04-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

decided to restart the blog and shift it to a less anonymous location. www.sandeepsudhakaran.com

If I Can See Clearly

2008-04-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

If I can see clearly, it is not my vision that is special.

How strongly I had resisted and dug my heels into the ground.

Life was the one which gently held my hand and led me to a place where clear sight was possible.

Not Much Of A Stranger

2008-04-06T08:43:00.002-07:00

When Jamal was 15 years old he gave his 9^th standard school exam a second try. He failed to clear it again. That’s when he decided to give up his studies for good. He went to Banglore for a few years. Then he came to Mumbai. For 13 years now he has been selling coconut water on a street side make-shift store in Mumbai. He sleeps and works on the footpath by his store. He goes to the mosque five times a day to pray to his god. He works 12 hours a day selling coconut water, through the monsoons when customers are rare, and through the blazing summers where he has to stand in the tormenting heat.

His world bears no resemblance to mine. I find his life interesting because it is distinct from anything I have known. And even though we live in the same area, the Mumbai he lives in seems to be on a different planet from the Mumbai that I live in.

I spend a lot of time at his store gazing out at the world from a different perspective.

Sometimes he tells me his hopes and fears. He talks of what he expects from life. He tells me where he wants his life to be headed.

On the face of it, he and I have nothing in common.

Yet when I listen to him speak of his fears, even though they are based on a different world from mine, they aren’t all that different from my own fears. The strangest thing is that when he speaks of his hopes, even though they arise from his own unique history and expectations, they aren’t all that different from my own hopes.

Perhaps we all are more similar to each other than we imagine. In all these strangers that I meet, there is something that I recognize as myself.

Two Ways to be Unhappy

2008-04-06T08:43:00.001-07:00

I heard a wise man once remark that there are two ways to be unhappy. One way is to not get what you want. And the other is to get what you want.

I have had many firsthand experiences of that truth. For two weeks I was not happy because I failed to clear an audition at a radio station. Then last week I found out I was selected. And yesterday morning I was so unhappy with the station that I quit.

No matter how strong the illusion, happiness has very little to do with my external circumstances in life.

Running Away from Love

2008-03-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

It is easy to take some people for granted. They are undemanding. They are always by your side. In their eyes, you can do no wrong.

It is easy to become impatient with some people. They are slow. They forget. They get things wrongs.

It is easy to feel so much love for someone and yet never express it. The daily interaction somehow doesn’t seem conducive to an open confession of love. The slight embarrassment of opening yourself up like that stops you from telling them how much they mean to you.

I have taken her for granted all my life. She is old now and worn out from many battles she has fought. Her world revolves around me. And I find that suffocating. A part of my life story is an attempt to run away from her.

A dreadful phone call came this morning. I thought I had lost her forever. It turned out to be a false alarm but I can still sense the cold dread that ran through me as I held onto the telephone receiver. I thought of all the times I was not there for her, all the times I was curt with her, all the times I wanted to say how much I love her but I stopped.

I am not a bad person. I am considerate. I understand pain. I can empathise with people. And yet with her I am rarely any of these. Her neediness drives me away. Her clinginess makes want to take on an anonymous name and disappear into the world forever. Her leaning on me makes me want to be mean to her, to drive her away.

And yet she is the single most important person in my world. Though I have managed to put more than a 1000 miles between us, I know that she is the only person who gives a damn about what happens to me. She remembers me in her prayers every single day.

My mind still goes numb with fear when I think of the phone call this morning. Perhaps it’s time I stopped running. Maybe while she and I are still alive, I should tell her how much she means to me.

Trouble With Positive Thinking

2008-03-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

After years of implementing think-only-positive-thoughts, I am beginning to realize that the solution to negative thoughts is not positive ones. Positive thoughts are off course far better than negative ones, but they still carry the same seed of the problem - they are thoughts. When I am lost in my world of positive or negative thoughts, I no longer am aware of the present moment.

Planning is an activity we all engage in. A civilized society can exist only if its residents plan and provide for the future. In the absence of this, a society will degenerate into a mob ruled chaos where everyone seeks temporary hedonistic pleasure.

The trouble is not with planning. The trouble starts when we get into a habit of substituting the moment in front of us, with thoughts about a future event. When what we feel now, depends on what we think is going to happen to us in the future. In this state, the present moment has no significance, except that it helps us get to an imagined better future.

Future will bring what it will bring. This much is certain - we will loose some things that are dear to us, we will gain some things that we will grow to cherish. In some ways we will be worse off and in some other ways we will be better off. Both tragedy and ecstasy stand hand in hand around the corner awaiting our arrival.

Substituting a stream of negative thoughts with a positive one does not help me become aware of the only thing that I ever really have – this present moment in time. Being lost in my thoughts where I create an imaginary world where only good happy positive things happen, ill equips me to handle the present moment. And present moment is exactly what the future will be when it arrives.

A Mode of Expression

2008-03-17T02:35:00.000-07:00

I like writing. I like writing for the sake of writing. I like using words to photograph my inner landscape. Capturing a range of moments, thoughts and emotions.

I am not a painter or a sculptor. I can’t sing well. I haven’t learned to weave. I am not a musician. I cannot make beautiful vessels. I can’t dance. I haven’t taken the time out to learn photography. But writing I do. Writing is something I use to express myself.

I think we need to discover and develop our own methods of personal expression. Something that will allow us to give a physical form to what we think and feel.

Unsettling Events

2008-03-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

I had auditioned last week for a voiceover contract in an English news channel. It had taken four months of phone calls and personal visits before I got a chance to showcase my skills. The contract was practically mine for the taking. And yet, somehow, I managed to botch the audition.

Hope floats however. Each time the phone rings, I rush to pick it up, hoping that it is someone from the news channel.

I don’t like living in this state of anxiety. I haven’t managed to forgive myself for screwing up an irreplaceable deal that could have given a major boost to my yet-to-take-off voiceover career, not to mention my financial standing.

I have allowed myself to relapse into a state where I am resisting reality. A state where I am transposing what-I-want-to-happen on what-is-actually-happening.

It’s only when you encounter events which have the ability to disturb you, shake you up, push you to a corner and unhinge your balance that you realize how far away from the path of peace have you wandered. Any fool can sound wise and calm when external events haven’t shaken him up.

I am resisting reality and letting this profound moment slip away because my mind is caught up with the audition that happened a week ago and the imagined future repercussions. That is no way to live.

I really liked something I read by Dogen Zenji, a 13^th century Zen master. It goes:

“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”

Buddha's Smile

2008-03-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

The smile on Buddha’s face. To be able to smile like that. What profound truth does he understand that makes him smile so? Which shade of reality has he uncovered that gives him so much peace?

Centuries have gone by since he walked this earth. Not a shred of his body remains. Everything, except his message, has decomposed. And yet, through an artist’s hands, I see a glimpse of the serenity that must have enveloped him.

I distrust and dislike any organized religion. But I appreciate the powerful symbolism of the smile on Buddha’s face.

Buddha. The Awakened One.

Life In An Un-conspiring Universe

2008-03-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

Staya Narayan.

I was 23 when I first saw him. He was the first person I met who was truly wise. He was the first person I knew who was living a dream. He was the first person I looked up to and said to myself, “man I want to grow up to be like him”. He was also the first person who told me the concept of the universe conspiring to help us achieve what we desire.

Sometime later I encountered the same concept in The Alchemist and a conspiring universe came to form a core part of my belief system. Like any other fanatic who badly wants to believe in something, I started to look for signs to reaffirm my faith and, not surprisingly, found it. People it seemed were turning up at the right places. Things it seemed were unexpectedly going my way. Everything it appeared was falling into its right place. I used to label anyone who did not believe in the theory of a conspiring universe, a cynic.

I no longer believe in the concept of a conspiring universe. And I don’t consider myself a cynic either.

To explain, I am going to digress.

In the 80s in America, Parents Music Resource Center was a group of bored Washington wives that came very close to censoring all rock and rap music in that country. The PMRC objected to rock music because they believed that it contained violent lyrics, corrupted the minds of the children and made degenerates out of them. These ladies wanted to believe in their theory so much that they searched long and hard. Not surprisingly, they found lyrics to hold up as ‘evidence’ to support their theory. If one were to search for violence and sex in a Mohammad Rafi or a Kishore Kumar song, search for it hard enough and long enough, one would undoubtedly find lyrics that are ambiguous enough to be construed as hinting at sex and violence.

Things happen to us in every wakeful moment of our lives. Some we label as favorable and others as unfavorable, depending on where we think our life is headed.

In my life, every once in a while, something would come up that would score a 10/10 on the ‘favorable scale’. I used to carefully collect all these favorable events and ascribe their occurrence to a conspiring universe. This stash of ‘evidence’ that I kept in my mind helped me stay afloat when unfavorable events happened. I now no longer undertake such an exercise. Things still happen to me - things I can label as good or bad. My not believing in the conspiring universe theory has not decreased the number of ‘good’ things that happen to me.

If I meet 51 producers, the 51^st producer, it might turn out, was looking for someone with just my kind of voice. I can either ascribe this to plain old luck, or to a conspiring universe at work. Both approaches would be wrong.

The truth is that the Reality is continuously changing form in front of my eyes. Reality just is what it is. I need to learn to let it happen and unfold, without sitting on judgment on it. I have to stop cutting up Reality and ascribing pieces of it to a conspiring universe theory.

I no longer look to a conspiring universe to bring me ‘more’. There is no more which it can bring. And the universe doesn’t conspire to give me ‘more’, any more than it conspires to take the ‘more’ away from me. Reality just is. Things happen, just the way they happen. I can only be at peace if I cure myself of this illness which makes me classify pieces of this profound Reality into two neat categories of favorable and unfavorable events.

I now work hard to improve my life situation. But I don’t fight Reality anymore. One can resist Reality. But one cannot win against Reality.

Satya didn't get it right. The universe doesn’t conspire. The universe just unfolds.

What's In A Name?

2008-02-26T03:06:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t identify it at first. What name could I give it? I wasn’t even sure whether it was an emotion to be named. It was not sadness. It was not jealousy. It was not longing. It was something else. A feeling of slight discomfort. Something that made me turn my eyes away.

I first noticed it when I was gazing into the wealthy stranger’s house from the street below.

I noticed it again when a spectacular woman walked by me.

Again it resurfaced when I was at a red light and heard the humming of the silver luxury on wheels parked next to me.

I have now finally figured out what is creating the discomfort in me. Yes, I now know what it is.

It’s a question - why isn’t it mine?

No, not even that. It is not entirely the question alone. It is the realisation that I ask myself such a question. That is what troubles me and makes me look away.

Marriage

2008-02-26T02:16:00.000-08:00

So when are you getting married? That is a bad conversation opener. And also, of late, a question I frequently get assaulted with.

That opening line has been a precursor to many ridiculous conversations I have had with family and friends. When arguments are illogical and bordering on paranoid, there is little one can contribute.

The newly weds, I have noticed, are the biggest proponents of marriage, closely followed by parents of the newly weds. Strangely enough people who are stuck in abusive marriages are more vehement in their arguments in favour of me getting married.

Here are some sample arguments I have heard this year on why I should get married now :–

“Why not?”

“Everyone else your age has got married. Niki is your age and he even has a 6 month old child”

“Soon you will be too old and no one will marry you”

“Your mother is getting old and she wants to see you married. Why are you troubling her like this in her oldage?”

“Marry now so you can get a young woman who will be more fertile. Women after 28 cannot have healthy babies”

“What are you waiting for?”

“If you don’t marry now when you get old there will be no one to look after you. You will die alone.”

I am not against marriage, but I am against the mindless follow-the-herd-mentality which doesn’t question the NEED to get married. I am against the automatic knee-jerk response towards marriage that late 20s bring in many of us Indians.

I spent my early 20s thinking I was in love. I am older now and looking back I realize what I felt for her was not love. It was just a physical attraction that got combined with my strong need to be with someone. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin and wanted a woman to make me feel complete.

I now know that a woman won't make me feel complete. Money won't make me feel complete. Drugs won't. A great career won't. Comforts won't. Friends won't. Nothing can ever make me feel complete, except myself.

So the only reason I will ever marry is because I found someone whom I can grow with and want to be with that person for the rest of my life. I haven’t found someone like that in nearly 30 years on this planet. Perhaps the next 30 might prove more propitious. Then again, perhaps it may not.

I think a lot of people get married for the wrong reasons. Speaking for myself, I know I will not marry because I am afraid to grow alone. I will not marry because I feel I have to. I will not marry out fear of not finding anyone later on in life. I will not marry because the rest of my friends are. I will not marry for the sake of getting married.

I think society conditions us to feel that we HAVE to get married. I suspect the truth to be otherwise.

Advice

2007-11-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

"Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise."

-J.R.R.Tolkien

Getting advice from someone is like getting a blood transfusion. Unless the blood group matches, the transfusion is going to do more harm than good.

Second Chances

2007-10-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

The baby grabs onto the leg of a table. In unsteady unsure movements, he manages to pull himself up to a standing position. He cannot hold his own weight and falls. He expresses his shock and anger by crying. And then a little later, he grabs onto the table leg again.

A dear friend of mine realizes that she is not happy with the cards she’s been dealt with and the way she has played the game so far. She aspires for better things in life. A break from the shackles of the past. A move towards a future that holds more for her. “I deserve a second chance”, she says. A second chance at a game that is mostly governed by the rules of actions and consequences.

I too am not fully satisfied with my actions and the consequences of the past few years either. They have brought me far but not entirely in the direction I wanted to go in. It’s time for a change. It’s time for my second chance. It is difficult to break away from the past, isn't it? It is difficult to throw away the consequences of your actions in one bold gesture.

It is difficult but possible.

We all learned to walk, one step at a time. We fell, we cried and we tried again. The mechanism that makes us cling to our past failures, had not set in. So no matter how many times we fell, we never gave up. We all have done this and done it successfully enough to now be able to walk.

So why is it that when we grow up to be adults we forget the two basic facts of life that seemed so obvious to us when we were babies. Life always pushes us forward. And we all get as many chances as we want, to play this game in as many different ways as our imagination allows us.

Train of Thought

2007-10-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here’s an exercise:

Think of a train.

Done? Okay, now imagine that you are given the power to change anything in it. You can modify the shape, size and color of it. You can do the interiors the way you want it. You can put in the fastest, most efficient engines for it. You can add extra wheels to it if you want. You can even choose the driver for your train.

But no matter what you do, this perfect train that you have designed will not be of much use to you unless you can also control the tracks it runs on. In fact the direction of the tracks deserve at least as much attention as the train itself. Traveling in the lap of luxury on a dead end track won’t be much fun.

However, it’s also true that you cannot enjoy the experience of traveling through a beautiful countryside if you haven’t given your train enough thought. A journey on a rickety train will be more stressful than fun.

Here’s a question:

How much of your day is spent in beautifying your train and how much is spent on defining the direction of the tracks it runs on?

Advertising Morons

2007-10-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

So how many credit cards do you think they managed to sell with this ad? Shopping for happiness. A credit card that translates into happiness in our hands. I wonder who is the shameless moron who came up with these lines.

Whoever that person is, he can’t be a bigger moron than the one who came with the idea for the billboard below. I guess he figured that a photo of someone sticking a middle finger at me will somehow shock me into being interested in what they have to sell.

Whose Festival Is It Anyways?

2007-09-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thank you for inviting me to yet another random festival. I am honored to be a part of your celebration. What this country needs is more festivals after all.

I can see the signs of celebration too.

The screaming hooligans on the street. The exacerbated traffic situation in a city with narrow roads. The loud speakers that spew out a cacophony of plagiarized dribble that can be, with some imagination, classified as music. The Rs.5 mini explosion devices that are casually tossed around by kids, who were unfortunate enough to be born to irresponsible parents. The colors that are thrown at passersby, irrespective of whether they share similar religious sentiments or not. Big fucking celebration this.

Oh, look at all the big beautiful banners that you have put up felicitating the people who are responsible for organizing the festival in each area. Forgive me for asking but why is it that in these posters I see the faces of the local thugs who eat everyday at the nearby restaurants and walk out without ever paying the bill? The men who smile at me from the posters are the same men who collect ‘hafta’ from the local vendors. I don’t understand this.

However, I do understand the ego trip you are on. You need to build bigger statues. Revel in the delusion of people watching you explode noisier, longer lasting firecrackers. Demonstrate your devotion with bigger and more powerful loud speakers. However is it possible that you deal with your issues of inadequacy in your own free time and not step into my world for it?

Sorry man. I regret to say that I must decline the offer to join you in your celebration this year.

What?

Oh!

You say that’s not possible? I have to play along?

But festivals for me are about people coming closer and sharing their joy with their loved ones. For you it is rowdiness, noise and chaos. So please, don’t let your celebrating a festival breach my right to choose not to celebrate it with you. I know that your life needs more spark but do you really need to set your surrounding on fire?

Stickman's List of Hardest Lines to Say

2007-09-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

Laziness

2007-09-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

We are walking and the conversation turns to my career. Experience has taught me not to take that road. However, he is a friend. So I indulge him. His questions are mildly accusatory. He soon hints at my being lazy.

It’s not that I wasn’t warned.

What is laziness? Giving in to the natural inertia. Always erring on the side of inactivity. Never enough action. Never enough thought.

So is the opposite of ‘lazy’ being ‘busy’? No. Not always. Working for the sake of working is also laziness. A laziness that prevents us from thinking through issues.

My friend is a type of a person whom I call a Runner. He’s always busy. He is engaged in ‘work’ all day long. The harder/longer he works, the more productive he feels. He can never pause long enough to discover his passion, much less take a risk on it. He doesn’t know where he is headed. It doesn’t bother him that he is engaged 8/10/12 hours in an activity that doesn’t nourish his soul. He doesn’t consider himself lazy.

For him, my life is incomprehensible. I frequently pause between the race. My energy is never focused on running as fast as I can. I wander off the track very often. I am rarely busy. Perhaps he is right. I am lazy.

I turn to him and tell him, “You know you should pause more often”. He turns to me and replies, “You know you should run harder”.

Universal Constant

2007-09-12T02:34:00.000-07:00

An ancient Chinese story tells us that a disciple once asked Lao Tzu, “Master, what is real?” Lao Tzu replied, “That is real, which never changes”.

First time I heard it, I found this a rather strange answer. And then I saw the wisdom in it.

What is it that never changes?

Silence. Silence never changes.

When find yourself lost in the perfection of nature, the very silence that makes you speechless is the same silence sleeping in an empty room. The silence that hangs heavy in a funeral hall is the same silence that uplifts your spirit when you are fully immersed in the work you love.

Silence never changes.

The silence in the external world is the same silence we find when we look in ourselves. We carry this silence with us, wherever we go, even if we are unaware of it. We can’t escape it. Providence can’t improve it, bad luck can’t change it, scorn can’t destroy it and neglect can’t ruin it. Silence doesn’t care whether we are happy, successful, rich, powerful or any of the opposite extremes. It precedes our birth, the birth of our fellow humans, the birth of this planet and perhaps even this universe.

I am learning to anchor my life to this one universal constant.

A Journey To Awareness

2007-09-05T12:19:00.002-07:00

I am sitting on the upper deck of a double decker bus that is crisscrossing through an expected flow of heavy evening traffic. I have my eyes closed and am trying to meditate.

The 5 year old boy sitting next to me, however, is ecstatic. Every sight seems to elicit some response from him. He’s laughing and naming things at random. He probably is traveling with one of the passengers.

Suddenly he screams out, “tiger”. I unwillingly open my eyes and look out the window. Yes, like I thought. He is pointing to the sticker of a tiger pasted on the back of a Qualis in front of us.

Just as I am about to close my eyes and go back to my meditation, I am struck by a thought; the difference between this child and me.

For me this bus journey is just a means to an end. This journey for me has no significance beyond that it takes me to my destination. Hence the time I spend on this bus is the time I utilize to do more 'productive' things, like reading, meditating, listening to a tape etc.

And then there is this child. For him, this journey has as much meaning as the destination. He is so lost in the present moment that he isn’t even thinking about the destination.

I read that monks spend years practicing how to be present, be aware, be in the now.

And here on this bus, next to me sits a Zen master.

A Moment of Perfection

2007-08-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was walking through a crowded noisy street. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just walking.

I was intensely conscious of my body moving through that street. I was listening to my breath, feeling my muscles work, being aware of the life force that was coursing through my veins. And as I was walking like this, I suddenly stepped into silence.

It lasted for a while. But the moment I tried to grab it, label it, it disappeared. And once again I found myself on that crowded noisy street, headed nowhere in particular.

Nowhere Special

2007-08-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

Walking in the rain.

To the rhythm of my breath.

The movement of my body.

Droplets dance down my exposed skin.

I see brighter.

I hear sharper.

My legs take me higher.

The air I breathe

Is alive with energy.

Eckhart Tolle

2007-08-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

In the most unexpected of ways, Eckhart Tolle has come into my life to deliver a message.

I was searching. And that universal force that connects the answer to the seeker, Eckhart connected to my life.

His message is simple. Being present. Being in the now. Being here - fully, completely.

For the first time in my life I consciously immersed myself in the splendor of the moment. I came back to this world, having glimpsed a divinity that we all carry within us but I wasn’t conscious of.

The peace. The power. The silence.

No. Words won’t work here. It can’t be described.

It can only be sensed. It can only be experienced.

Wayne Dyer

2007-07-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

The stolen loot turned out to be more than you could ever imagine. It soothed you, it calmed you. And then the question: how do you thank the friend from whom you have stolen?

Wayne Dyer’s a friend I have never met. At different stages in my life his work has helped the traverse my chosen path. He has helped me see and believe.

Long ago I had bought a pirated version of what I thought was a how-to-get-better-at-sex book, written by someone called Dr.Wayne Dyer. Three chapters into the book and there was no mention of any of the sex techniques. Re-reading the title, I realized what I had with me was a book called ‘Your Erroneous Zones’ and not ‘Your Erogenous Zones’. And that’s how I first come to know of Wayne Dyer!

A book that so accidentally came to me, changed me.

And over the years I have downloaded pirated versions of his audio books. And every time his message helped me see more clearly.

I have come to see him as a friend. And so the question: how do I thank a friend from whom I have stolen?

I am going to answer that question with this: a life well lived. :)

Highway Signs

2007-06-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a conversation between two babus working in the National Highway Safety Department.

Babu1: It was a great tea break we just had. Now lets work on how we can improve the safety of people traveling on the National Highway.

Babu2: We can put up motivating signs.

Babu1: Areey, great idea. I am tiered. Let's go on a tea break.

As a result of the above conversation, if one were traveling on a National Highway these days, chances are one would see moronic safety rhymes (that are very high on drama) scattered across the road. These gems, I photographed on NH-3.

Trucks

2007-05-31T00:19:00.000-07:00

I find trucks very beautiful. The amazing shapes and varieties these machines come in; and in so many different colors. They all have a "Blow Horn" warning or some other variant ("Awaaz Do" or "Horn Please") painted at the back. A creative few have a message of hope and peace. Here are a few trucks I managed to photograph on the highway.

Here's my version of what happened - this trucker guy parked his truck in an area that he thought was "safe". Next morning, he sees that some rascal (yes, rascal) has made off with his wheels and the engine. "Now wtf am I supposed to do" screams the trucker.

My version of what happened - this guy also parked in the same place the next day. And there was this rascal who had wheels and an engine but no truck body. The rest, as they say, is history.

Let's say you are driving a truck and your truck breaks down. Who are you going to call? That's right. This is the guy you want.

If your truck breaks down, you can call this guy too, but he is going to charge you more because of the pretty yellow color.

These trucks looked like a loaf of bread. I wanted to grab them, cut them into slices and eat them. (No I wasn't on a diet)

More of the evil Temptation Loaves.

Some dude decided to make his truck more aerodynamic by putting up a slope-like thing on top of the truck. Wonder if he saves any fuel because of it?

Tankers. Do you realise that water is one of the few things that can't be adulterated with anything. I mean you can have dirty water, but you can't adulterate it with anything else. The best you can do is pee in it but then you need a lot of pee to add up to any savings at all.

Fancy trucks.

These 10 wheelers are the most common variety. Always very carefully covered by a thick brown sheet of some sort. I wonder what's inside those things.

6 wheelers. Possibly outdated versions. .

Remember these types? I only see them in cities now, not on highways. What happened to these trucks man? Did they mess with the wrong guy or something?

This huge trailer has got 96 wheels.

The trailer is so long that the whole thing wouldn't fit into one frame. I have parked my bike there so that so you can get an idea of how big it really is.

Now look at the puny little thing that's pulling the trailer. It's a Volvo.

Near Adventures

2007-05-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

A solo bike trip from Mumbia to Dewas and back. Total distance of about 1300kms covered in 4 days. I stuck to NH 3 and rarely ventured off of it.

Here are some moments I managed to capture on my camera. I know nothing of photography or its theory. I used a very low quality 2 mega pixel camera in my mobile phone and almost all the shots were taken with me holding the camera with hand and trying to control the moving bike with the other. I would not recommend this procedure to anyone though!

Anyways, coming back to the story.

The View

The landscape along the way ranges from the spectacular view of the Western Ghats, to the slightly repetitive hilly dry land waiting for the monsoons, to the boring flat uninhabited lands with not even a single tree one could take shade under.

(Western Ghats)

(The last of the hills before miles of lifeless land followed)

(The highway and the sky always seemed more ‘balanced’ and ‘content’ than the semi-wild land around)

(No mechanic for miles in a stretch like this. It’s always a pain if the bike breaks down here. Twice it did. Fortunately I had the spare parts and knew how to replace them.)

(Some of the houses along the road, though bred of poverty, looked awfully romantic)

The Road

Most of NH3 is a two lane affair. To reduce the monotony, it is sprinkled with excellent four-lane roads and littered with horrendous more-potholes-than-road kind of surfaces.

(A great stretch that runs between Mahu and Dewas. You can see my shadow.)

(One of the few four lane roads. They make driving so much easier and fun. This one was between Nashik and Dhule. Shadowman makes an appearance again.)

(I couldn’t photograph any of the bad roads because controlling the bike with one hand and taking the photograph with the other was not possible on such surface. This shot is of the end of a particularly nasty road. What you can’t see in the photo is the unevenness of the road. But even this was heaven compared to some of the other roads in this stretch.)

(Four laning was in process in a lot of places. The unfinished part stretched out like sandy beach on one side of the road. In another year or so, NH3 should become a great highway to drive on)

Highway Co-travelers

After Nashik the highway was mostly filled with trucks, motorcycles, cycles and bullock carts. I saw relatively few cars/jeeps.

(A more common sight is three people sitting on a bike. This one looked like an exception, so I clicked.)

(Since I shot them from a moving bike, I could never stop to ask for permission to take the photograph. This accounts for the expression my photograph subjects have. A combination of curiosity and shock I think.)

(I had to slow down to first gear, follow them for 100 meters or so and take some 10 shots before I managed to get this one.)

(Bullock carts loaded with sugar cane. Common enough sight in Maharastra.)

People

I met interesting people on the way. There was a man who had been shot at close range by a robber but escaped with only a scar. He showed me the scar on his forehead. Another old man claimed that he was awarded a medal of honor somewhere in the 1970s by the Maharastra Government for killing an armed dacoit, barehanded. I don't know how true these stories are but the fact that they would share them with a stranger says quite a lot. A combination of awkwardness and my desire to not look like a 'city-boy' prevented me from photographing most of them. Here are some who did get captured through the lens.

(Squatting in the middle of nowhere. Possibly waiting for a bus. From a distance they looked like penguins. What this photograph doesn't give away is the fact that these guys were an absolutely hilarious sight.)

(Fuel conservation? This was in Dhule city)

(Muna. The owner of a small barber shop in a village I stopped at. He nicked me twice when giving me a shave. He is a big fan of Virendra Shewag and considers him a great batsman. And he doesn't like to hear anything to the contrary!)

(Muna’s audience. They seemed to be there to watch the TV Muna had installed in the shop. There was an India-Bangladesh cricket match that day and Shewag was batting. I guess the cost of watching free TV was having to agree to whatever Muna said.)

(I had stopped at Shivpuri to buy a replacement cable. That’s where I met this kid who had a thousand questions on who I was, where I was coming from, where was my destination, why wasn’t I taking a train, why was I traveling alone etc. etc. etc. He proceeded to fire these questions at me in rapid succession. In the end he didn’t seem happy with any of my answers. He is definitely growing up to be a cop.)

(The women I saw were dressed in such colorful pretty clothes. You don’t get to see people wearing such bold colors in the city. I couldn’t photograph them properly because I was scared I would get into trouble. This was a shot of 5 women walking in a row and each wearing a different and colorful dress. By the time I got the camera out and tried to photograph only three of them were in the view.)

(Look at the rich colors on her dress.)

(Two unlikely looking friends. The one to the left, Sham, is from Nepal. The other one, Ravinder, from Dhule. They saw me taking photographs and wanted to know why. They warmed up to me when I told them that I was a reporter from The Times of India. :-) )

Animals

Why leave them out? :)

(This cow was cooling it on a ledge next to a busy highway, just begging to be photographed. Its orange painted horn looked like a carrot. Or maybe a witch’s long finger nails. And like most cows, it also had perfected the cool-as-a-cucumber look. Is there a cow school these guys go to? :) )

(I waited for 10 minutes before this menacing ox decided to clear the road and let me drive on.)

(More trouble with cattle. This time a goat. He wouldn’t let me pass. He kept charging at me (aren’t goats supposed to be gentle creatures?). I tried to bribe him with leaves but that didn’t work too well. He also didn’t like the fact that I took his photograph.)

Sunrise and Sunsets

Early morning is the time to drive in summers. Highway is less crowded, weather is amazing and the view is spellbinding.

(Driving into the sunrise)

(Cloud photos generally come out well during this time of the day)

(This one’s a sunset, equally spectacular)

(Sunset in a town (no different from a sunset in a city actually!))

(This is what a train driver gets to see every evening if he were to drive through Dhule)

Night

With the right kind of lighting even ordinary sights at night can seem extraordinarily beautiful.

(I tried my hand at night driving, but that wasn’t much fun.)

(Dhule city from a distance)

The Destination

(My friend Rohit, with his wife Antim and their super cute daughter (with her one-sided smile), Pari.)

(Rohit took me this awesome mall in Indore called Treasure Island. It’s the best mall I have seen. This photo I took inside Barista.)

(Here she is with her father. This is one of fav photograph of her's)

Me!

You didn't think that I was going to rob you of a chance to see me!

(Helmet really works like a hair straightener for me)

(At a restaurant in Dewas)

(Looking out into the sun at Panchwatti, Dewas)

An Idea

2007-04-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

I am possessed by an Idea. I want to write about it. But she glides away the moment I pick up a pen. I want to speak of her but my lips betray me. She skips and dances - always out of my reach.

She comes to me only when she wants and always without warning. She allows me to glance at her. She comes close enough for me to savor her fragrance. She unabashedly reveals glimpses of the promise she holds. She lets me admire her delicate structure. She leaves me with tantalizing, yet imperfect, memories. She is a tease.

She makes me smile. She keeps hope in me alive. She adds wings to my dreams. But she won’t let me imprison her in words.

I have this beautiful Idea in my mind and I don’t know what to do with it.

Truth about Emotions and Success (Version 1.1)

2007-04-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

-Two women attempting to cry at a funeral

Part I

Thoughts are not always reflections of what we are thinking. They are more reflective of what we think we need to think.

Emotions, on the other hand, never lie. Emotions reach out to the core of us and show us for what we really are. We can tell ourselves a thousand lies and eventually be convinced of their veracity. But we can’t ever get better of our emotions.

I am teaching myself to watch out for my emotions. I find observing my immediate emotional reactions very educative. Catching my genuine internal first reaction before it gets processed to fit what I think I am thinking.

Part II

A few months back I had met someone who was very successful (according to my standards). I have held this person in high regard and have been looking forward to a chance to meet her again. Around two weeks back, I accidentally bumped into her and we had a nice long conversation. I was overjoyed.

What shocked me was this - my very first split second reaction at meeting this person was not one of happiness but of aversion. You have to understand this is a person I have been meaning to talk to for a long while. So a sense of aversion is the last thing I expected myself to feel.

After much reflection, it dawned on me that my reaction had nothing at all to do with that one particular person. The issue was something larger – every time I meet someone successful my first immediate reaction is to withdraw.

Every successful person holds out a mirror to me. And in that mirror I find myself asking, what AM I doing to maximize my potential?

Compromise

2007-04-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

- A scene from The Office

Did you ever do something that you knew in your heart was wrong but the circumstances were such that you decided to compromise?

Armed with artillery of notions such as ‘being-practical’, ‘there-is-no-alternative’, ‘everyone-else-does-it’, I have waged wars against my own beliefs.

I am not afraid of doing what needs to be done. That I can deal with. What scares me is that whenever in the past I have made similar compromises, these decisions have changed me. It wasn’t an overnight phenomenon. Bit by bit; one day of compromise rolls into another. And soon it doesn’t seem like a compromise anymore. I get so inured to the insult of having made temporary peace with whatever demon I am fighting against that it stops hurting.

Life decisions I took years ago have made me poor - money-wise. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. But I have so accepted the fact of my relative poverty that it doesn’t hurt anymore. I am so used to not having money that the fact that I have not used my god given talents to create material prosperity doesn’t bother me at all. I have begun to see myself as a poor person.

At times I encounter situations that required me to commit myself to things that go against what I believe in. Compromises are necessary and even advisable, as long as they are temporary stop-gap arrangements. The moment I allow myself to forget this, the compromise becomes permanent. And that will never do.

Learning

2007-04-07T17:11:00.001-07:00

- Mahboubian

I sit here with a guitar in my hand. My first guitar. I am learning to play my first three chords. In the few hours I have been at it, my stubby fingers feel like they are going to be cut in two. And Clapton makes it look so easy!

Leaning is never easy. I find with most skills, the speed of acquisition of that skill is frustratingly slow. And it’s filled with so many potential wrong turns and dead ends. But I start most of my learning escapades with a cocky I-will-learn-it-in-a-jiffy attitude. Not surprisingly, the first few attempts at doing the act always come as a shock to me. The shock of realizing what all is really involved.

In that shock it’s easy to forget that from the moment I wakeup till the time that I go to sleep, even the most basic activities that I do are things that I have learned to do. It’s easy to forget that at some time in the past each of these acts too must have seemed horrendously difficult.

I sit here with a guitar in my hand. I can see the years of practice and patience it’s gonna take before I would be able to play like I want to. I will have to constantly remind myself the reason for doing this. I would need to constantly reaffirm my love for the art.

Learning is never easy.

And that in itself is a lesson that I am learning.

Life Skills

2007-03-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

- Killer Spoons

Life has its own set of rules. And just like any other game, if one takes out the time to carefully study it, understand what skills are required to master it and continuously practise these skills till they become second nature, one can get better at this game.

Just as not everyone in the world is a natural born football player, the distribution of life skills among a given population too is uneven. Some people are born with the right skills sets to succeed in this game right away. The rest of us need to learn these skills the hard way.

Whatever be the level of skills I am born with, I can significantly improve the quality of my life if I take the time out to understand what are the skills I need to imbibe. I need to know what tools I can use to become more effective as a human being. These are not lessons that formal education arms me with. These are lessons that I am learning on my own, stumbling through life.

Attitude

2007-03-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

- 'Exhibit A' from Boreme.com

Check out Exhibit A above. His truck seems to be caught in some kind of grimy/muddy water. But this guy isn't spending his time worrying about how to get out of the vehicle. This dude is spending, what might be, his last few breaths on puffing a cigarette. Say what you will but you really have to admire this act.

Okay, sarcasm aside, there is something positive in the photograph above: Hope was the last thing to escape from the Pandora's box and was supposed to come to our aid when we are troubled. But the with Hope I find is that it doesn't self-generate. Hope is something I need to consciously create. And the tool I need to create Hope with is a Positive Mental Attitude.

Attitude determines the direction my life takes. I have stood long in the by lanes of life where hope starts packing and making its way towards the door. Keeping a positive attitude is the only way to survive these phases successfully. I find few things more energizing, or more important, than having a positive attitude

Anger

2007-03-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

- Matt Damon on Jimmy Kimmel Live

What is anger? And how can I control it?

Eventually we all come to realize that anger is a defense mechanism. Anger, at its core, is the emotion I express when I feel that I am being attacked and need to defend myself. Anger always comes out of insecurities and fears. I see myself loosing my temper faster when I am in situations where either my insecurity or my fear gets exposed.

I find that anger management, consequently, cannot happen until I take steps to address my perceived inadequacies. Counting to 10, taking deep breaths, saying catchwords and phrases and other such tools can be only as effective as they can temporarily reduce the hurt I feel in having my insecurities and fears exposed.

You tell me what you get angry over and I will tell you what you are insecure about.

The Force

2007-03-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

There is a force in the universe that wants us to grow. Its ways are as mysterious as they are fascinating.

I can't see it but I feel its presence. I can see the results - the life affirming changes that it helps me make.

Myth of Romantic Love

2007-03-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

- Deevista

Why do movies propagate the myth of romantic love?

Market forces decide what kind of movies get made. And assuming profit motive among producers, it stands to reason that movies propagate the myth of romantic love, because people who watch these movies, want such a myth presented to them.

So, who IS the audience?

A survey done in Honk Kong (a post industrialized city) looked at the movie watching audience and divided the survey respondents into three age groups - '12-19', '20-29' and '30 & above'. The results showed, and not surprisingly, that people in the age group of '12-19' watch the maximum number of movies.

Early in life starts the quest to search for The Perfect One, to fall in love at first sight, to have that first golden kiss, and to live happily ever after in that highly excited hormonally imbalanced state of existence.

Experiences come calling, till one day you begin to wonder - hey, why do movies propagate the myth of romantic love?

Outsider

2007-03-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

- Language and Popular Culture

Ever feel like an outsider? Someone who doesn't belong to this world and yet plays along? The rules, the activities, the thought process just do not make any sense at all?

Do they see something that I can't see? Or am I seeing something that they won't see?

The Unexpected

2007-03-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

- 10 Worst Drivers Ever Caught on Video

Such amazing things happen when things don't go the way we planned them. And when I say amazing, I don't always mean it in a good sense. The passport that got stolen in a foreign land, the tire that burst in the middle of nowhere, the wallet that wasn't in my pocket when I reached to pay for the scrumptious meal I just had, the passionate letter I wrote that was received by an unintended recipient. I used to hate them - the unexpected turn of events. But you know what, these twists of fate create such memorable experiences. Events, trips, visits which I otherwise would have forgotten, because of the unexpected moments I encountered in them, left beautiful imprints in my mind. These imprints became like old friends to me, the ones I could call on at any hour. When I look back at life, these are the memories that string together my story.

I still say a silent curse when I step off the train to encounter the ticket checker...and find that I have misplaced my ticket. But I know, come what may, I sill would come out richer. I would be able to glean off it a story that I might be narrating many summers later. And without these experiences, the memories that these experiences create, it would be a dull, drab life.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't trade the unexpected for the world.

Eternal Question

2007-03-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

- A video from the Question of the Week

There really is no getting around it, is there? The inevitable question: What should I do with my life?

I am not sure how does one go about answering this question. I have seen psychometric tests that one can use to find an answer. Books have been written on it. There is the recourse to childhood fantasies that could help. Then there is the zen way of letting the answer come to you when it wants to.

I have wrestled with the question myself. I am no closer to finding this answer now than I was at the beginning of my quest. Maybe I am searching too hard. Or perhaps I have already found it but I am so busy looking for a more perfect answer that I ignore the one I already have.

Freedom

2007-02-28T16:23:00.000-08:00

- Wowfunny

What does it mean to be free? And how can I attain freedom?

I am not talking about political freedom - equality, justice, freedom of speech, freedom to vote, - these are definable and are attainable for most. I am not talking about freedom from one's responsibilities, an escapist fantasy, either.

The freedom that I am talking about is the freeing of one's mind. A mind that is not shackled by fears and insecurities. A mind that can think for itself without resorting to the safety of 'established' truths. A mind that is not trammeled by what has been proved possible before.

It's one of the most desirable things to have, a free mind. However, I find overcoming fears easier said than done. I find insecurities abound when faced with a difficult task. There is relief in not having to think all the time and rely on someone else's opinion.

Freedom of mind is the only kind of freedom that gets better with practice.

Unknown Rebel

2007-02-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

- The Unknown Rebel in Tiananmen Square.

Standing up for what you believe in. Alone. At great personal risk. And against an intimidating foe. I have been bred in a culture of they-lived-happily-ever-after endings. Where the good always triumphs over evil. Where courage and bravery are always rewarded with wealth and finding of the perfect life partner.

The hero of this story, the Unknown Rebel. Where do you suppose he is now? Dead? Incarcerated?

If he still is alive some place and knowing what he does now, would he do it again if he got a chance? Would that brave man once more say, to hell with the consequences, today I am going to do what feels right to me.

The Believers

2007-02-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

Suddenly another agent begins to clap, then reluctantly, another. Soon, the ovation rocks the lobby. Jerry motions for them all to stop, but clearly he could listen forever. It is a watershed moment in his life.

Jerry's Voice: I was 35. I had started my life.

Camera swings off Jerry to find two agents standing clapping enthusiastically near the elevator.

Agent #1: How long you give him?

Agent #2: Mmmm. A week.

- A scene from the movie, Jerry Maguire

The Believers versus the Cynics. The Dreamers versus the Realists. I would rather be a believer and be wrong than be a cynic and be right. There is no magic in being a cynic. And what's life without the magic.

So fire away. I have got my Reality Shields on.

Change of Perception

2007-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

This from the television series, The Wonder Years. Wayne Arnold's friend Wart has returned shell-shocked from Vietnam and is sitting on a bench in just boxers and dog tags

Wayne: What's wrong, buddy?

Wart: Nothing seems to fit any more.

Wayne: (Wayne takes off his shirt and offers it to his friend) Try this.

A change of perception.

I woke up one day and nothing seemed to 'fit' anymore. The old rules that I had lived my life by, seemed so flawed and inadequate. The value systems I had come to adopt turned out to be meaningless. Where there once had been carefree color, there was a void. Three years ago I had a change of perception.

It took a lot of time and thought to make sense of things again. It still mostly is work in progress. And that is probably the way it should always be too.

I wonder if you ever had a change of perception?

Power of Choices

2007-02-24T03:21:00.000-08:00

"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them"

-Brandi B.

I find accepting my power to choose to be one of the harder things to do. And it's so inconvenient. The responsibility that it entails seems like a burden.

But this I now know:

What I see in my life today is the sum total of all the small everyday choices that I have made in the past. What has entered my life is what I, knowingly or unknowingly, invited. I may or may not like what came in, but invite I did. My life is the way it is because I chose it be that way. And it will not change till I am ready to make a different set of choices.

Years Instruct

2007-02-23T03:18:00.000-08:00

"The years teach much which the days never knew."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's been a few years since I have been trying to break into my chosen line of work. And I have made little headway. Sometimes I think that I now have learned nothing. I have spent so much time, expended so much energy. And have nothing to show for it.

But in quieter moments I am beginning to realize that I have picked up skills along the way. Perhaps at a snails pace but I have learned, progressed and grown. The cumulative effect of the small failures and triumphs, experiences of the days I have no recollection of, is astounding.

Each drop in my ocean, made me richer.

Severed Branches

2007-02-22T02:29:00.000-08:00

"Even the severed branch grows again, and the sunken moon returns: wise men who ponder this are not troubled in adversity."

-Bhartrihari

I have lost more battles than I have won. I have had my share of disappointments. The framework of my life crumbled not just once. I know all this is not unique to me. It's a part of the experience of being human. You could call it a part of our collective curse.

Or you could call it a boon. Because troubles don't visit us to stay. Pain recedes, eventually. And the sorrow that now gnaws at our hearts, will loose its sharpness. And then, having lived through the pain, we find in ourselves something truly amazing. We find in ourselves a hidden inner strength. And we look at the world as if we are seeing it for very first time.

Poems

2007-02-21T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

-Jelaluddin Rumi

Hope abides; therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.

-Sri Chinmoy

Princess Peppy’s Pretty Powers

2007-02-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

In a magical land of words and voices, not too far away, there once lived a princess called Princess Peppy. This princess could write like Moses atop Mount Sinai and when she was happy she almost sounded like Norah Jones in that Don’t Know Why number. But the princess had an evil twin sister who was so jealous of Princess Peppy that one night she, using a Windows 98 based system, hacked into the princess' power database, stole her powers and hid them inside a cave. The evil twin, to ensure that no one would ever rescue Princess Peppy's Pretty Powers, summoned a huge dragon called Mood-monster and ordered it to guard the entrance to the cave. But the evil twin sister's evilness knew no bounds. Not happy with all the destruction she cause, she further stole all the photographs of Princess Peppy, and after editing them in Adobe Photoshop, converted them into slightly out of focus snaps.

Many brave souls tried to rescue Princess Peppy's Pretty Powers but the Mood-monster killed them all. Gallant men came riding on horses but the Mood-monster breathed fire on them, turning them into crunchy knight-kababs. Wise men came dressed in designer fire-resistant clothes with matching shoes. But the Mood-monster stomped on them till they became a meaningless pulp of bones and muscles and colorful fire-resistant clothes with matching shoes.

And then there came a lad called Our Young Hero. Our Young Hero was from a different land. And he desired all things mysterious and beautiful. It was but natural then that he came to hear of the sad fate of Princess Peppy’s Pretty Powers. He resolved to rescue them from the Mood-monster and restore them to their rightful owner.

After a few days of procrastination, he finally did a Google search and found the exact location of the cave where Princess Peppy’s Pretty Powers were hidden. He realized that the cave was practically next door to where he lived. After a few more days of procrastination, he walked up to the cave.

The Mood-monster was completely taken aback by the sight of Our Young Hero who came to battle neither riding a horse nor wearing any colorful fire-resistant clothes with matching shoes.

The Mood-monster rose to its full height, spread its wings and roared, “You! You come to fight me and yet you neither have a horse nor fire-resistant clothes. How do you plan to defeat me?”

Our Young Hero didn’t reply immediately. Instead he reached into his satchel and brought out a Sony Handycam. After pressing the record button and aiming it at the Mood-monster, Our Young Hero said “Sir, I come not to battle with you, I come only to understand you.”

Seeing the camcorder the Mood-monster reflexively changed its facial expression from overall-menacing look to a more camera friendly one. (Also, the reader here must understand that the Mood-monster was feeling unappreciated and underemployed. The novelty of frying people with your breath and stomping on them quickly wears off.)

Our Young Hero continued, “Well I want to ask you some quick questions, if that’s okay with you”

The Mood-monster shifted awkwardly, very self-conscious all of a sudden. It was unsure of where all this was headed but was beginning to get troubled by a strange feeling that all of this would somehow end horribly for it. The sight of the camcorder, however, prodded it on. “Um…it’s ok I guess” he mumbled.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said, it is okay…I guess”

“Oh that’s great. All right then sir, my first question is this: who are you?”

Knowing the answer the Mood-monster brightened up visibly and said in a confident tone “Well, why, I am the Mood-monster offcourse. I kill people by breathing fire on them. Um…sometimes I also stomp on them” he added, not without a trace of pride in his voice “but personally I prefer breathing fire, ‘cause stomping makes my feet dirty and all and then I have to wash them and stuff, you know how it is.”

Our Young Hero nodded. “I understand” he said understandingly. “My next question to you is this: what is that you love to do? What is your passion?”

The Mood-monster fell silent for a bit. It suddenly realized that all its life it had been frying and stomping on people without ever stopping to find out what its passion in life was. Feeling very embarrassed, and not wanting to admit that it didn’t know what its passion was, the Mood-monster pretended that it was having a heart attack and fell to the ground.

Our Young Hero put the handycam on the tripod so that it continued to film the Mood-monster who after a few minutes of faking the heart attack had decided to play dead instead. Our Young Hero boldly walked into the cave, and rescued Princess Peppy’s Pretty Powers. With the Pretty Powers in his hand, he rushed back to his house.

After a few days of procrastination, he did yet another Google search and found the exact location of Princess Peppy’s palace. One fine Sunday, he rode to the Princess Peppy's palace, and without any prelude produced the Pretty Powers from his pocket, placidly placing them on Princess Peppy's perfect palms.

But alas in his excitement he didn’t realize that it was not Princess Peppy that he was returning the powers to but it was to her evil twin sister. Not realizing his mistake, Our Young Hero went away rejoicing that soon the world would once again resound with the words that escaped from Princess Peppy’s fingers and lips. But nothing of that sort happened.

Back at the cave, the Mood-monster waited till the battery ran out of the Handycam and then, feeling a bit foolish, slowly lumbered to his feet. The next day, the evil twin sister gave the Mood-monster a verbal warning and hid the powers in the same cave which was guarded by the same monster, thereby perpetuating the cycle of injustice.

The End.