Help at Hand

At a traffic signal, today, I was helped out by a couple of good samaritans, who told me that my car's boot was open, and needed to be closed- and then closed it for me! One guy told me, and the other guy(who was watching the guy who was telling me) kindly closed it down for me. Both guys were extremely polite- and they didnt even know each other, let alone me. It was also a hot time of the day- snarling traffic, shimmering heat, and pollution. It was all done very quickly and efficiently.

I felt damn good about this whole incident. It was kindness, awareness and plain good intentions at work. I wish I inculcate some of these qualities, especially when I'm stressed out and feeling that I have a lot to achieve for the day.

I remembered the old chestnut- its very nice to be important, but its more important to be nice. Truer words weren't spoken.

God's pallette

I wish I could show you what I saw in the sky when I'd gone to Mahabaleshwar for a holiday. Two kinds of views. The first one was a rush of colours that only a hillstation can provide at sunset. The second one was the night sky, unpolluted by city lights, awesome and beautiful.

God, I guess, is an artist. These creations of His were within the space of a couple of hours, and the transformation was so complete, that both pictures seemed like they were drawn by different hands. I'm going to upload some photos soon to show you what I mean. Mere words can only take you so far.

It made me feel insignificant and significant at the same time!

True Professional

If I have been writing lesser on this blog of mine, you have to blame my writing coach Bonnie Granat for it. As far as I am concerned, she is the single biggest reason why the book that I have written is seeing the light of day and has been accepted for publication. So let me tell you a little bit about my experience with her.

Bonnie came into my life and my book when I desperately needed someone to coach me and help critique my work. She has given me insights that not only helped me make my understanding of my own book better, but also helped me write the book in such a fashion that will connect with readers in the most compelling fashion. Bonnie calls it restructuring and redesign, I call it my saving grace!

Not only did she work her magic on my book, she has also been a very fair person when she was going to charge me. I think that she understood my situation( I earn in rupees and have to spend on her services in dollars) and she tried her level best to help me get maximum value from her services. I really appreciated that, as well as her general bonhomie and sense of humor. She has been a true pleasure to work with. As a well wisher and friend, I did wish she got some sleep at times, but her response time was fantastic. I'd like to think that it was due to pure passion for her work.

She does all kinds of writing and editing work, by the way. You can know more about her at http://www.granatedit.com/ . I recommend her to anyone who is serious about writing, be it books or website content.

Bonnie, it has been a pleasure. May you never lose your passion and may your tribe increase!

Beautiful story

Here is a wonderful story that's doing the email rounds. I'm sharing this because this is what my blog is all about. So here it is:

An ear to the ground ?

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and startedto play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He playedsix Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time,since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand ofpeople went through the station, most of them on their wayto work.Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed therewas musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for afew seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.A minute later, the violinist received his first dollartip: a woman threw the money in the till and withoutstopping continued to walk.A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall tolisten to him, but the man looked at his watch and startedto walk again. Clearly he was late for work.The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy.His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped tolook at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard andthe child continued to walk turning his head all the time.This action was repeated by several other children. All theparents, without exception, forced them to move on.In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 peoplestopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money butcontinued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. Whenhe finished playing and silence took over, no one noticedit. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one ofthe best musicians in the world. He played one of the mostintricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5million dollars.Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell soldout at a theatre in Boston and the seats average $100.This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty?Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent inan unexpected context?One of the possible conclusions from this experience couldbe:If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of thebest musicians in the world playing the best music everwritten, how many other things are we missing?

A new ear

Here's an interesting resolution I have for the new year: have a new ear for 2009! A new ear that listens more. A new ear that is not deaf to things that I need to hear but don't want to. A new ear that does filter away things that sap my energy and soul. A new ear that can understand the difference between the things that I should be listening to and the things I shouldnt be!

Well, enough talking in riddles- I just thought I'd share this resolution with you. I hope it leads me to discovering a lot of small joys and big love and share them all with you!