madhouse musings!

This post is a personal experience – a rarity on my blog, but this one deserves it!

I’ve been re-living my childhood for sometime now. All those who are parents can relate to what i say – with a 15 month old at home (Sanaa) – looking at the world in her perspective is a whole new learning for me! (As adults, how we forget – we learnt most of our basics just like our kids are doing!)

So, with the little one around i’ve found that my perspectives on a few things have changed mildly and in some cases turned overtly sensitive. But, this incident just brought back memories of when i was a school kid.

A bird couple – Myna’s toiled hard the past weeks to build their haven in the open duct we have in our balcony (we just don’t use that kitchen, hence the exhaust duct is just a duct). Sometime last week, i heard chirps of baby birds and i was super excited. Tend to parallel incidents and life stories (thats the dramatist in me, i guess) & so, even here i paralleled it to the birds nurturing their lil ones to us & Sanaa. I kept showing Sanaa the Mama-Papa birds and she learnt to says ‘bird’ ‘coz of that.

This morning, i heard these birds cry in horror. Their chirps were strange, very harassed. I went out into the backyard to look up to a staring cat. I shooed him away and i assumed these birds were threatened by the cat hovering around. Later when i went up, i though i’d just check on if all is well in the balcony. To my horror, i saw a fledgling lying on the ground – almost suffering.

I went into flash-back of my childhood, when Sparrows had laid eggs in the attic of my bathroom and one morning, a little chick had fallen down. I remember my dad warning me not to touch it with my bare hand – we’d carefully slid the little one onto a cardboard sheet and placed it back near its nest. My sis & i were happy that the little one was accepted back and not killed.

Experience advised me and i got to action. But the only hitch was – the nest was too high in the wall. So, i picked the little one up, made a make-shift sleeping pad for it by converting a tray and lining it with soft cloth & placed the little one in there. I was hoping the parents will pick the guy up and back home. Sadly, a couple of hours later, i did not see it happening. The parents were still hassled & confused! And the fledgling was tired & losing energy. It was almost immobile and i for a second thought i’d lost the little one. (sigh!) I fed it some water and it seemed to gain energy, but that was just not good enough!

I took things in my hand, got Sameer and Sanaa to aide me in my cause. While they guarded me and my stool from attacks from the parents, i restored the little one back into its hole.

Now, all kids are united. Parents are happy. They dint push the little one out to die (thank goodness!) I was super satisfied that normalcy has been restored. Felt good that i settled the minds of the parent myna’s. I looked at Sanaa and thought to myself – Good deed done, eh?!

Season’s Season’s Greetings y’all!

The Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC), IIT Roorkee is organising a Startup Fair’09, in association with CSI, NSIT Delhi, to facilitate Startups to recruit.

Date:      Saturday, 25th April’09
Venue: Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi

The  Startup Fair will be a platform for established startups, looking  to expand their team, to hire interested talent from IIT Roorkee and NSIT Delhi as fresh recruits (final yr students) and internees (pre-final yr students).

An excellent opportunity for Startups to reach out to the active student community. 15 startups and 150 student candidates are expected to participate in the event.

Spread the word!

RSVP:
Sudhir Manchanda
Entrepreneurship Development Cell,
IIT Roorkee
startupfair@edciitr.com
+91-9719451595

I’ve finally got the wordpress app on my iPhone up & running!

As a communication student, I studied terminologies like media convergence, global village, blurring lines of communication, ‘news’ redefined, the medium is the message, etc. For someone who craved for hands-on & practical experience; I was left wanting for more when schools & college fed me outdated book info. Not complaining, it did play a role in defining me – but I only felt detached from reality.

Anyways, coming back – when I read about these redefining terms, I visualized them as some distant truth perhaps a time when we befriend Martians

Now as I sit in a Barista in Chandigarh with a few friends… & pen (sounds so old school) this post, I feel great – it’s a sense of pride, achievement, or a sense of power that I am living a life very near to what I had imagined life as while I read terms off communication books! Go Marshall McLuhan go!

A Poem by Harish Shanthikumar

When the road ends and mind unfolds,

The same tune echoes the stories untold,

You followed the Pied Piper blinded,

Wake up, you lost thy child in you

Convictions, prejudice and common sense

A claustrophobic black hole that you live in

Limiting your evolution

Wake up, its time to look within

Hallucination of reality

Deja vu of existence

Science defined by limitation of your senses

Wake up, look beyond thee.

An eye for an eye, yellow is yellow

You’ve been told

Is this the truth?

Wake up, nothing is what it seems

An expanding universe

With an abbreviating mind

In a state of cognitive dissonance

Wake up, to the higher dimension

In the quest for the absolute,

An eternal hunt for the truth

Resurrected cornerstone you need to comprehend

Wake up; it’s never too late to die

Shoes they come in shapes, sizes, costs and by the feet that wear them… here are some i clicked during the Valentine’s day part at Seventymm (www.seventymm.com) where i work.

The Crocodile skinned, the regular hardworking ones, the semi-formals

The writer types (Left), kurtapyjama-sandals kind (Top)

Mixed bag…err, shoes…pointed, beads, embroidery, stringed…

A full foot circle…round and round, around the world!

What’s your foot story?