C'est La Vie;That's life

A piquant Paris - Really old....around 14th century. But, preserved and refurbished, remodeled to appease a contemporary traveller. This  is the first impression one gets stepping into the city. The serene beauty of the Seine river, the solemn Notre-Dame cathedral, the sprawling, garangatous old Louvre museum which holds most of the Renaissance paintings and sculptures in the world, a more modern Musee d'Orsay which boasts the numerous Impressionists paintings of Monet, Renoir etc, the beautiful Champs d'Elysees ending at the Arc of Triumph, the cute Parisian streets, of course the famous views from the Eiffel Tower - all look like they have been carefully fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. Blue print for how a city architecture ought to be. If you're a Dan Brown fan like me, you can soak it all up - the Pantheon, the androgynous Mona Lisa (or ' La Joconde' as the French call it), and the ugly, but significant Pyramid...

We all have given, received and returned or exchanged gifts throughout our lives. It's one of those inevitable, endless, at times dull social etiquettes that has been going on for many centuries, right? In an idealistic Utopian world, gifts should be given without any 'quid pro quo' or any expectations in return, but in this real, greedy world......who are we kidding? Yeah, yeah, we've all heard the worn-out and cliched, "its the thought that matters" kind of saintly statements, but you better have high monetary standards for your thoughts, folks. Else, be ready to incur the wrath of some very hostile hosts for the rest of your social life. Also, i've a honest confession to make. The people who have mastered this gifting technique have my full-blown, unabashed greenest envy. The way they enter a party or a house with a neatly, glossy-wrapped, present that looks like it's taken them years of thoughtful planning, makes me feel like a Neathandral woma...

In a recent newspaper article, a British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has proposed that there is a theoretical cognitive limit imposed by our brain's neocortex, to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. This is called 'Dunbar number' and approximated closely to 150. Interestingly, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themselves if they met again. This theory is now being extensively used for research into Internet social networking sites. Makes sense, right? We might be tempted to greedily keep adding those "friend requests" on our social networking sites to long-lost people whom we haven't heard in zillion years and even to passers-by on the road, but please hold back those instincts, curb your enthusiuasm, or put a damp sock in it - at least if the list is getting out of hand. It's time to take a closer look at who's truly a friend or a...

The following content is purely a figment of my observation, and hopefully an unbiased, sort of warfront reporting of what's happening in the homeland. So, if someone is offended, well....don't take it personal, relax, take a chill pill... On a heavier note..... - If you love diversity, variety or sugar and spice in your life, this is the place to be. More so, if you choose to stop and savor every minute of it, you start noticing the subtle yet rapid changes that are happening in a dynamically changing society, of today's India. - The role of media has undergone huge transformation, atleast from what it was a decade back. Open debates and political discussions, exposing scandals and trying to get the truth out of "shady" matters are welcoming changes, but in this process a lot of focus is given on sensationalism and the media getting into a "witch-hunt" mode. My take is, we're in the process of refining the 'fourth estate' and taking ...

"That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." These are the words of Juliet, in Shakespeare's drama "Romeo and Juliet". I'm no huge fan of the Bard (the "thees" and the "thous" are huge put offs for "mees"), but relish the depth in some of his messages which strike a chord and makes you think about life on an elevated level. Anyways, this quote means we should not be bothered about how people address or call us because no one can change who we are internally. Names are mere ornaments to our existence (if you have the time to think metaphors) or plainly, like name tags in an office meeting (if you would rather sky-dive off a steep cliff than think about such wordy stuff) To interpret this more in present day terms - Juliet says (be very clear, it's not me) that you shouldn't take things seriously, when someone verbally assaults you. Be a Rock of Gibraltar or a stand like a statue of Buddha, til...

Pssst... If you have travelled around in the US or have an elementary school kid, go ahead. Else, stop....brush up on US states and its geography a little bit, then proceed - at your own risk. There's a reason why slogans exist in the first place - To promote the United States tourism and attract gullible visitors whose sole aim, is to do the foll: A. Blow up their hard-earned, life savings on expensive entrance tickets to garangatous amusement parks, to watch grown adults dressed in ridiculous costumes; B. Buy trinkets which always look so classy in the shop, but seem dull and ugly when you plant them in your curio shelf, and eventually lands its way in the trash; C. Indulge in fragile, but good and expensive memorablia that somehow manages to break down into small, tiny, unglueable pieces of glass particles the minute you come out of the souvenir shop. Yawn...whatever....ok, we agree on the need, on some pathetic level. But, why come up wit...

These are a few of my favorite things that I do when I'm feeling sad. No, it doesn't involve the rain or the roses. Why? Because those kind of happy endings happen only in movies. In real life, if you decide to mess with Mother Nature, what are the odds of singing while getting drenched in a downpour - without sneezing even once or smelling the roses - without getting stung on the nose by an angry bee who was just minding his own pollinating business? Trust me, pretty high. So, without much further ado, here are ten tips that could help spruce up your dull days.  Sorting through old photographs and trying to remember the events that took place at that moment and place, recalling the tender moments or hilarious ones. I love to dig out treasures from my mothers' pile of photos, every time I visit my home. Walking down the "nostalgic" lane, if you're lucky enough that your neighborhood stays the same and not been knocked down by newer construction....