Experiences tell...

The Happy Traveler is a blog that records the travels of a family all over the world. Nicely written personal experiences that help in understanding this huge, complex structure that we live in. She recounts experiences that range from the happy to the frustrating and the terrifying.
I read the latest post in which she narrated her family's harassment at the hands of unscrupulous people who deliberately put their lives at stake merely to extort money from those that they see as wealthy.
It was also very interesting to read the comments that were posted. However it isn't just in India that such incidents are known to happen. Unhappily, human nature is one that doesn't change with time-zones and geo-political boundaries. Haven't Americans in Britain been sold the London Bridge? Haven't the gullible in New York been sold the Brooklyn Bridge?
While we sit here and pontificate, isn't it also human greed that leads to such incidents? There must be an effective action for such a reaction. In the case of the Happy Traveler, I am reasonably sure that some wealthy person, on the way to the temple, may have flung a large sum of money at a very real victim. This would have led to an enterprise being created on the spot and the entire village full of people may have got together to scheme on a new means of livelihood. I can imagine that one of the village is elected to fulfil the duties of the victim each time. I cannot for even one moment think of anyone volunteering for the job. But, I digress, the greed of the village is what has led to this scheme of extortion. I can simmer in rage over such an incident but feel completely impotent in the knowledge that nothing can be done.
It's also heart-warming to note that there are good samaritans too, as an earlier post on the Happy Traveler recounts.
I'm now looking forward to reading Alaskan Adventures from Travelin' Tracy. As a couch potato it is imperative that I derive vicarious pleasure from those who take the trouble to travel.

It's been a while...

It seems to me that it's been a long, long time since I wrote my meaningless meanderings. Of course, there's no one looking but on the off chance that someone is, I keep putting in my two bits here.
Flying out of Boston and heading towards a rising sun over an erstwhile empire was hair-raising. That was because the plane I was supposed to be on "was hit by lightning a dozen times" or so the manager of the airlines said. Of course there was this collective gasp and in the middle of all the yelling voices, someone was heard to ask, was anyone hurt? That could have been a caring query or a hopeful statement. I like to think it was the former. Someone should have mentioned that scientifically, the so-called bolt of lightning is really several bolts of lightning so, in reality, it must have been one lightning strike that the plane suffered. Suffered it did, since we were told that the undercarriage had a hole in it, one that the technical expert dismissed as too insignificant to stop the plane. The manager thought otherwise and had the plane grounded till the next day.
Sure, one day late but the destination within reach was the philosophical shrug of the shoulders among many.
Flying into to Heathrow was beautiful. The golden dawn lit up the aircraft's wings and engines so beautifully that it could only be the work of the higher power to give us such a beautiful sight. Alas, what He gives, he also takes away and as the plane descended through the clouds we realized that there is such a thing as being unfair. London was under a thick cloud and the sun barely managed to get the light through.
Dawn gone but the dusk of America remains one of my most loved sights. Remember my last? The picture of the bridge over the freeway to New Jersey? This is another one I got out there. Nature was kind enough to help me with a thick cover along the way but left me a vista of blue mountains - the Adirondacks - looming in the distance. A thing of beauty, a joy for ever.
London was dull but that was because I was stuck in the terminal. I did meet up with a former marine who was going home to Indiana and a lovely woman who was going on to India to meet her husband. We wined and dined together, and exchanged little dos and don'ts of how to cope with things and then she slept all the way.

...Where I am...

I'm lazy. That's what's wrong with me. I'm so lazy that I'd rather sit back with my feet up and dream of all the things I could do than get out and do them.
I was pushed to travel and New Jersey it was. My boss was driving and I loved just sitting back getting snap happy with my camera stopping occasionally to look at the rolling Adirondacks and the sprawling countryside. Crossing little brooks and the large Hudson, I began to quieten down and just drink in the scenic sunset that had just begun putting out its golden wings as the sun sank lower and lower behind the trees.
There is something to be said about the shock and awe capabilities that Mother Nature has at her beck and call. She beckons and we respond with our inner animal, changing our human natures to respond in an animal sort of a way to quiet, intense silence that allows no thought of future, past or present to invade. Just the smell of flowers, the song of the bees and the hum of the tires on the road beneath.
Bruce Springsteen soul sang out on the car's audio system but it's magic too was worked over and chased out of my conscious hearing by the beauty of the world around me.
I reflected on absolutely nothing and heard almost nothing. Pausing the moment in the fast-forward world of business and pleasure -- this was bliss. I was just living the moment, travelling forward only physically and remaining abosultely still in a very zen manner.
That was when the bridge came to sight and I lost the zen. My stilled mind was filled with a furore that only in conjunction with the ubiquitous one could such a view of sheer magic be built. And then, the unthinkable happened.
I fell asleep.

The first...

This is my introduction. I prefer to stay safely tucked away in my couch, travelling vicariously and living a life of absolute abandon. Sure, it's unhealthy and I'm not defending it. In fact, I don't defend myself, usually.

Amateur photographer pretending to be great, writer of sorts, and philosopher in waiting, is how I could describe myself.

People who know me, and many don't, think I have a sense of humor and suggest that I could do with a little make-over. Me, if I've a sense of humor, I'm yet to find it. It's probably tucked away somewhere in some closet that I've forgotten.

I believe there's more to life than rushing about trying to make money and derive pleasure from painful escapedes like driving, golfing, running away to the seaside or a jungle resort, exercising....
This is not a satirical blog. I haven't even started. In fact, I don't even know where it will go from here. Go with the flow, I always say. The more you fight it, the more it will tire you.

I started this blog to put down my thoughts. Perhaps, one day they'll trash it all and say, "he was a great blogger. He wrote nonsense." If you think I'm cynical, you're probably right. If you think I'm not, you're probably right again. Besides, I haven't decided what kind of a personality I should take on and here I am rambling away like a rose without a thorn to its name.

Future posts, I promise will be more meaningful and I shall attempt to discuss various topics of general interest.