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!

Been nice knowing you, 2008

Well, it wouldnt have come a moment sooner- the end of this year. I wont be too unhappy to see it go, and I'm sure that sentiment will be shared by many.
I think the economic slowdown and the terror strikes have created an overall uncertainty about things. So today's small joy is to say an official goodbye to 2008 and heave a sigh of relief.

But wait. Who says 2009 will be any better? I do think its totally upto us to make ourselves happier. I feel that identifying small joys over the past few months has helped me tremendously, and for those of you who have been reading my posts, I hope I have shared some of the joy with you.

I know I havent been very active blog wise in the past few weeks, work was too hectic.. but I promise to share more small joys with everyone in the coming year.

See you around soon!

Simply Sachin

What a game we had - three cheers to England for coming back, playing out of their skins and actually dominating us for three whole days. Three cheers to Chennai's public, supporting the Indian team in a time of terror.
And a loud whoop of joy for Sachin. For being who he is, and winning the game for us. And then for saying that this was for Mumbai, and cricket is just a game.

But what a game, especially when your hero makes a century, wins the match from an improbable situation. Faith and Joy have been restored somewhat. Now for some peace.

Monkey Business

I'd gone for a long walk on the weekend on my favourite route- the "upgraded" canal between Prabhat and Bhandarkar road. To the uninitiated, this is the very heart of the city.

Imagine my surprise when I saw a really huge monkey bounding about and scaring the poor watchman out of his wits! And no, it wasn't the usual escaped pet-type coming from a "madari". It was a genuine wild beast. God knows where it came from, but seeing a wild animal in the heart of Pune does make your heart skip a beat or two.

But then I stopped and saw the monkey again, and the way it leaped across. The sheer speed and grace with which the animal moved was totally amazing. Something primal about this surprise packet!

An Ordinary Moment

I'd forgotten the joy of an ordinary moment for quite some time. After terror struck Mumbai, it seemed to me that all of my desires and wants were suddenly quite irrelevant.

Sometimes, it takes a tragedy to realise where we are going in life. It may not be a tragedy that impacts you, but something like what happened does make you freeze. I have just been frozen like this for the past few days, contemplating the meaninglessness of it all. I didn't write too much because small joys are also rare to notice when something like this happens. We have a curious fascination for reading bad news in the papers.

But today, when I was driving to work, I saw the city around me, and realised that I was appreciating the sheer ordinariness of it all- the buses, shops opening up, the rain washed trees, kids going to school, the usual scenes that we take for granted.

And I thanked the one above for giving me an ordinary moment, something that many do not have the luxury of. If you are anyone like me, I'd say that you are very lucky.