The same old blue skies, the same sun, same city, same people around .. then why does everything look different and new to my eyes? I don’t know why.. but today i felt so different… nah nah! not ‘coz it’s friday! … It was just another working day.. Today at 11:00 a.m, I had to drop my car at the service center for a 30,000 mile service. After finishing the paper work, we got a ride back to our home.. had lunch and uday was off to work.

I cleaned up my room.. and was back to my laptop checking e-mails and reading my friends’ blogs. After reading a couple of blogs, I decided to watch a movie..a hindi movie - Deewane Huye Paagal..the comedy is fine.. you can watch it once. Time passed by and I got a call at 4:30 p.m from the service center that my car is ready and that the shuttle is on its way to pick me up.

So I rushed, got ready and was waiting outside. I was walking around the hillock that we live on.. and suddenly my attention turned to the trees. You must be wondering what’s with the trees.. you see them daily…big deal! … Yeah! that’s right. I was wondering too!

..what really caught my eye was that these trees were looking beautiful at dusk in golden colour… I started to enjoy the view, the hills, the horses running, the birds chirping .. I felt very refreshing and energized! And that changed me in some subtle, unkown way !

So the driver comes on time.. picks me up. On the way to the showroom, we kept talking about the traffic jams, different routes in the city( as I was new) and how the day was to both of us etc etc., so while dropping me off at the service center, I waved a bye along with a “have a nice weekend”.. and he said ‘thanx.. take it easy!’

I didn’t quite understand why he said that.. n before I could turn back n ask him he left.. so I went to the cashier n gave my autograph [had to sign some papers ;)]

Finally my car arrived and while I was driving back home, I realised why the driver said take it easy… ‘coz for the very first time I was looking very confused and was constanlty thinking about why I was feeling different! I never looked that confused and out of place…and then it dawned on me!

I realised that in life we are surrounded with different kinds of obstacles which keep us away from reaching our goals and the challenge is to overcome the obstacles… and the best way to get over it is accept it with a smile! ..

I used to give an example to all my friends who were in distress.. simple but I guess it makes sense: ‘think that your goal is like Mt.Everest..when you see it from far .. it looks beautiful and the path looks easy.. but when you start walking towards it, the path becomes difficult and you will face many obstacles..You can make it to the peak of Everest/goal only if you have a challenge in life..’

I know it sounds silly, but that’s my policy. Here’s my favourite quote by Swami Vevekananda : “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

India..and golf? That sounded so much out of context to me when I first heard it.

But did you know that the first golf club (club as in organization) outside Britain was formed in Bangalore, India (1820)? India, under colonial rule, had the honor of being the first country outside Britain to help develop golf as a sport. Turns out we did not leave even this stone unturned (cricket being the biggest) to mimic the royal empire !

The year-round warm climate and the vast stretches of lush green grasslands probably contributed their bit to this royal choice of creating a number of golf courses during the 19th century in India. Soon enough, we witnessed the Royal Calcutta (1829), Royal Bombay (1842) sprout up in no time.

Niagara Falls

I was going through an interesting piece of research work on coding guidelines by an avid slashdoter here when I bumped into the original pictures of the “Thatcher effect” (he used this as an illustration to build his argument on software coding guidelines).

The ever rolling wagon that I was, my curiosity turned to optical illusions and I came across some interesting compilation work by Michael Bach, who has done a fabulous job in putting together around 60 of the popular illusions, along with their origins in some cases.

I began developing an interest in illusions that are simple and drive the point home easily, without requiring that the viewer break his head to decode it.

Here are my favorites. :
* Jesus on a blank wheel



Stare at the 3 dots for 30 seconds.
Then, look at a light colored wall and start blinking your eyes. If it is too vague, try blinking your eyes a little bit faster. What do you see ?

* Thatcher effect



Reverse the picture and see .

* Straight line effect



Which line lines up with line C - A or B?

*inequality effect

Directed by- Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath

Ben Stiller …. Alex (voice)
Chris Rock …. Marty (voice)
David Schwimmer …. Melman (voice)
Jada Pinkett Smith …. Gloria (voice)

The Dvd was out last week…
Fabulous Film! Is all I can say. I watched a lot of animation movies and there are times when I really got bored while watching the movie. I thought this movie too would be the same but to my surprise it was very funny right from the begining till the end with witty scripts.

At the begining of the movie where Marty is running in an open field jumping around, birds chripping and suddenly Alex comes in front of him and says ‘Surprise!’ Marty falls back and says :’ Alex don’t you ever disturb me when I’m day dreaming!’ That line just cracked me up.

imdb says …
Housed in the Central Park Zoo, star performing lion Alex , neurotic giraffe Melman and sensible hippo Gloria, are all content with the adoration they get from the crowds and their pampered lifestyle. However, depressed zebra Marty desires to be free in the wild, much to the disbelief of his friends. Sneaking out one night into the big city, Marty gets a taste of freedom, but it’s cut short when his friends come to “rescue” him, and they all are caught. Then they are all packed in boxes and kicked out of the zoo, the group is sent on a journey overseas, which quickly goes awry, sending them to a new foreign land where they attempt to survive outside of Central Park.

Every conversation in this movie is just hillariuos!! and I have to admit it that I liked the song ” I like to Move it .” Believe it or not I’ve been singing this song the whole day and now my husband too sings this song!!

Chris rock lights up the movie with his non-sensical crack-a-jackers like ..”wow! grand central station! its grand and its central!” but the penguins get to steal the limelight in the movie with lines like “just smile-n-wave boys!! smile-n-wave!!” and “cute-n-cuddly boys! cute-n-cuddly!!” ..I liked the part of the movie where the protagonists end up in madagascar (instead of Congo basin, to where they are originally being “ship”ped) …and meet the inmates of the island!

A highlight of the movie is the penguins finally reaching Antarctica to see what it really feels like first hand! After a few seconds of on-screen silence and non-stop gazes at a snow storm, one of them goes “this sucks”! what really adds to the moment is that these penguins have been planning an escape to Antarctica (from the new york zoo) all along !!

Its hillarious …and its about travel & immigration!! now thats a topic which gets more than a few laughs!!

There is a sequel coming up in 2008! gotta see whats next in this story!