I am Ck...

I am the steam, wafting from rice bowl
I am the cofee, brewing in the mug,
I am the salad, sauted in olive oil,

I am the feel, in food and in music,

_Ck.,

Lip stick ? or lip gloss ?

"Hey, you coming to Trichy this weekend?", asked my mom.
I thought a bit and said ok.

"Can you get me this shade of lipstick from Chambor? (some two shades: I forgot those numbers). Its for my friend whom I am gonna meet this weekend in Trichy."
Reluctantly, I said ok and comfortably forgot it. Five more days were there for my travel anyways.

Two days down the line, bored to the core by lack of work, I set out to Garuda mall. Entering shopper-stop store first, suddenly I felt a little bit odd for it was the first time in cosmetic section.

I spotted two sales girl idly chatting and walked towards them.
" Can you help me with Chambor brand products?"

" Its over there sir:
Hey customer for you",
she was not heard for the first sentence, I understood them. she was heard by every others sales girl for the latter sentence, and all gave a quick glance.

I crossed all the maze and reached the counter only for this answer
" Sorry sir, the shade is not in stock"

" Will any new stock come in the next two days"

" No sir, I think its old shades and got phased out"

I could not ask any more questions and was about to leave...
"Sir, would you like to buy some other shades? "

With a polite NO, I thanked her and left the store.



Ten minutes I wandered the mall before entering westside-shop. This time I was a bit confident and the same procedures ... finally standing there at the Chambor desk, I was asking those shades to a lady who seemed to be the boss of the cosmetic section.

" Are you looking for lip-stick or lip-gloss sir?"

what!!!!?, I gave her a blank look

"I dont know, look in both"

She got a bit surprised, but continued her search

" Hey, by the way what is the difference between both? ", I asked.

She gave that ONE puzzled and annoyed look. A look that gauged me.
Suddenly a sales girl interrupted and explained the difference. " The difference is with the moisture and alcohol content, and the retaining time on the lips"

I gave the satisfied look muttering "thank you".
Meanwhile the shade was fished out and immediately processed for billing.

"Sir, would you like to buy some compacts, .... ,...., ...." asked the lady who billed the purchase

"Errr, No" (Actually, I could not follow what she told after 'compacts')

Collecting the pack from them, I bid good bye. It was returned by a wide grinned smile by the four girls.

By the way, what they were wearing ??
lip-stick or lip-gloss?? :)

A listening ear...

While working in my previous company, I was posted in Chennai for three months. The office was located sixty kilometers south of Chennai city. I was staying in the company’s guest house nearby office forcing my schedule to guest house-office-guest house and nothing else. The day of diwali was approaching and I had got reservation only in a sitting coach in a train departing late afternoon, after all diwali is one such occasion when members of the family get-together.

My journey to the railway station would take little less than two hours and as planned, I left the office at 1pm. I had to postpone my lunch and board a bus to Tambaram. It was hot afternoon and I managed to get a seat in a few minutes next to a man in his late forties. He started talking…the way he grew-up in a family of sculptors, the reasons that forced him to come to Chennai, his two year life in Bangalore, the way he entered the welding practice, the way his college going son was sucking money to pay his mobile-phone expenses, the way everyone in their family rejoices during diwali, the importance of real work and so on. Slowly the conversation was heading towards rail-wagon and steel industry perspectives and opportunities/risks for the SMEs in this industry.

After fifteen-twenty minutes of this talk he became silent. He was looking into my eyes, smiling. A minute of pause and then he sadly expressed the way his pay-hike was hurt by crooked middle management politics and the way the word ‘recession’ has ate their bonus money paid before diwali. I smiled and I said him that this was the case everywhere, be it a big IT company or be it a small foundry and also said some few words that seemed to spread warmth inside his soul. Ten minutes later, his place came and before parting he thanked me for hearing to him and also a special thanks for my smile!

Meeting this man with no name and the conversation left me questioning myself. What people need from relations is a listening ear and a soul, and most of them think different. In the past paced lifestyle people have been drawn into a maze of unknown and fear that causes them to shrug off whatever is not them. Many hide their faces from their personal responsibilities as a friend or brother-sister or spouse or a parent as all these do not pay off in pecuniary terms or does not satisfy their dirty-ego. They consider this act of theirs as correct and thrust them unknowingly into their next generation as well.

Prayer...

Prayer...robs your ego and drives you into meditation, a conscious state of existence. Put in other words, when you are experiencing latter, you are in a silent prayer. In this conscious state, your performance is at its fullest potential and tiredness is at bay and it benefits your surroundings as well. For many cooking is a daily prayer. Be it performing arts, or designing, or nurturing your pastime hobby. Such prayers bring in clarity of thought in the long-run.





I was stupefied seeing a middle-aged woman at the temple today drawing a 5mx5m kolam (paintings on sand using rice powder widely performed in Tamil Nadu). The way she deftly drew the kolam left me dazzled: she finished the whole drawing in less than twenty minutes. She was in fact praying...a silent prayer coordinating the mind and hand movement with the maths involved. She spread the virus of joy through this silent prayer.


If this is the case, then why have separate religious houses to pray? What I feel is that any religious-house is a congregation of the masses: we are bought-up in such a way that we pray when we enter such places thereby attaining the benefits of prayer.


There need not be any particular rules to pray and no one has the right to force people to pray in a specific manner. We pray for our own selves and not because people are watching us.

...of tapes, reels and spools...and of zeroes and ones...

Twenty years ago, having a tape-player / recorder at home was very rare. I still remember my early childhood days when we had a JVC player and a dozen cassettes. We still have 5-6 of those tapes (26th Grammy, 30th Grammy, two 90-min selectively recorded collection in Tamil and Hindi, Michael Jackson's thriller and one English rock) and hearing to them is a classical experience which any digital surround system cannot provide.

Anything materialistic in this world should wear off with time and so is our aging process and anything that is opposite to this rule is not relished to its core. Had we been youth all sixty-seventy years, life would be boring isn't it? Those that do not wear with time cannot have an emotional quotient attached to them: we all say 'sweet sixteen' as those days cannot be re-lived.

We are experience the digital-wave which empowers us to store huge chunks of data and provide easy and efficient access to them. In this era, we are surrounded by a wild stream of information that forces us to ignore and not to appreciate the real content. In fact, this wild data is hazardous. The computer monitor is ever bright, the FM stations are vibe with energy round the clock, the internet lines are buzzing with data streams but we should not forget that it is hazardous if we enslave ourselves to these.

There is a mouse on my desk!

What is a mouse?…ask this question and I am sure that many will refer to the computer mouse. Today for a common man, whatever resembles a real mouse is a small rat and if it is a little bigger it is a rat The fact is that even taxonomists find it difficult to differentiate between the genus rattus and the genus mus just by its morphology; the reason being that both are from the same family of muroid / muridae which is very large and complex. (1)

The situation is worse if your workplace is inhabited by rats. A colleague of mine called upon the admin facility and told them that there is a mouse on her desk for which the janitor darted back saying that if there is an extra mouse, call the computer stores department. Disgusted by this response, she called upon the receptionist and told the situation; the receptionist added a bit of humor to the response claiming that there is a mouse in every other desk-space in the office. Hearing this, the real cause of confusion dawned and my colleague corrected the ‘mouse’ with a ‘rat’…

We have been using the word mouse over and over again in the computer’s context that the real ‘mouse’ has lost its real meaning. This is not only for ‘mouse’…we have been using certain phrases or doing certain actions so many times that the real part of the word/action has lost its purpose.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat

I hold the camera, I am wrapped by joy and a paradox...

I have been playing and experimenting with my camera for quite sometime, more precisely a little over two years. Viewing the world through the lenses for the first time was a different experience, I started clicking on frames just because I was enthralled by the way nature has composed itself so mathematically organized. Nature's quality is innate, the only change is the way I am experiencing it. Some more experimentation drove me mad to shoot macros (close-up shots). Be it flowers, beetles, jewelery or be it whatever, I started seeing the miniature world in them.

The same camera lenses evoked the paradox in me when I shot a portrait of a girl whom I then knew for more than six months. With whatever lighting was at hand, I shot my first portrait and I learned that each and everyone of us express intricate gestures that go unnoticed amidst our other businesses. I also experienced that a concentrated eye behind those camera lenses will never miss those intricacies. I started exhibiting the prophecy of a stock broker as to what will be her gesture next and I fell in love for her expressions noticed behind the lenses. Did I love her? Certainly not...but I loved her expressions behind the lenses.

The way I entertain myself watching a cinema has also changed in the past two years. Sitting in the theater hall, I carefully observe the lighting, costumes, colors and the background music. I would say that camera taught me to adore nature. It also taught me the fact that people are so varied in themselves. Now whenever I hold the camera in my hand, I am wrapped with joy...so immense that can be only felt.

from Denmark Christmas seals TO color symbolism TO album cover designs TO philately...A letter

From Denmark Christmas seals to color symbolism to album covers to philately...what was thought to be a mail sharing some good links ended up as a letter to my sis :)

http://grainedit.com/2009/12/22/denmark-christmas-seals-1962
I found the English terms for many skilled jobs :)

• Milliner – maker of hats
• Chandler – maker of candles / specific products
• Glazier – fitter of glass panes
• Cooper – repairer of wood barrel
• Wainwright – maker of Wagons

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2009/12/29/color-in-film-m-night-shyamalan/
This describes Color symbolism in films: Manoj.N.Shyamalan

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/04/09/grammy-award-winning-album-colors-2007
I loved the third cover among the listed ones.

http://grainedit.com/2007/12/20/israel-electronic-computer-stamp-1964/
We have evolved in length and breadth since 1964. But taking the next foot forward, what have we left behind and what we are leaving behind us??

http://grainedit.com/2008/05/20/modern-design-and-the-stamp-iain-folletts-stamp-collection/
Stamps teach different things for different people...role of colors for the graphic designer, marks the events for the historian, evoke the relevant thoughts of those interested, value of relation for the heart writing the letter and much more...

God created our eyes to perceive, our soul to feel and the whole human to adapt and live the life to the fullest.
Let's live it to our creator's wish :)

With lots of colors still unexplored...in us!!!
...Ck

It rained...

A sudden drop in the temperature this morning, I woke up at 4.00 am to a mild breathlessness in me. I thought of those two people whom I knew only by their names. My friend also woke up around that time hearing to my wheeze. He had the same thought running in his mind too. Surrounded by a pod of grave silence, our minds were wide awake with a cacophony of thoughts.

Suddenly the clouds rained with a roar, drenching the dew damp roads…no thunder, no lightning, it just rained its soul onto the earth. It rained its way into the gravity of the silence, roaring into our thoughts, shattering them and created a void within.

The rain not only penetrated the soil, it penetrated into me and restructured my priorities, my view of life and my love for it. Like a tap closing, the rains stopped in twenty minutes. An hour later the sun rays pierced and made itself felt through the fog. I know for sure that the Sun will shine…shine for me, my friend, and those two never met acquaintances.

Love...

You do not love someone...you share the love of YOUR life with them...

(Felt and penned during my recent holiday vacation in Penang)

I am 24.60232717 yrs old !!!

Hey CK…this is not the right thing you have done…exclaimed my junior colleague during morning tea break. I was really amused by the tone he said those words. He was referring to my age I have put in the company networking portal.

Born in 1984-May, I am 24.60232717 years old as of today (This is what my computer calculated!). Now should I mention my age as 24yrs or 25yrs? Here started the debate…
Should I say my age is or 24.xxxxxx years then?

Whatever is, can’t we mention that I am always 16 + rest yrs as experience?