silence (countable and uncountable, plural: silences)

1. The lack of any sound. (When the motor stopped, the silence was almost deafening.)
2. Form of meditative worship practiced by the Society of Friends (Quakers). "Meeting for worship." (During silence a message came to me that there was that of God in every person.)
3. The action of refraining from speaking.
"You have the right to silence" said the police officer.

(courtesy www.wiktionary.org)

funny...it can be comforting one time and intimidating the next.
it can be the loudest thing you hear one moment, no trace of it the next.
Iv always found a mystery associated with it's effects. Sometimes its depressing and sometimes u can derive extraordinary peace of mind from it. And it can be awkward between two people, while being perfectly normal between two others. It could mean a no to someone, or a yes to someone else. Or it could be just filled with guilt.
The interpretations are so many....yet its true meaning remains elusive.
Even after looking it up in the dictionary, im still not satisfied with what i got...the search continues....

Dilemma :(

This is something that i think only bloggers would relate to and its gotta do with deciding what ur next post is gonna be on!!!
yes...iv been thinking for a while on the topic of a post and so far nothing's struck me yet...i thought id go through a few blogs here and there for some inspiration but alas..i got none!!!so, for the lack of having anything else to write about, i thought id share my blog surfing experiences.


type1: There are those bloggers who've made their lives an open diary. They write about useless and mundane things (both to them and the outside world) from why their milkman didnt turn up in the morning to how their underwears all turned pink (seriously!!) Ms. LisaAnne Toe-mi is one such blogger. She claims that writing is therapeutic. I beg to differ. One look at her blog and u feel ther-a-puke-it.


type2: Then there are those who draw inspiration from the most unlikely things in this world. iv read posts with topics ranging from ten different ways of eating dosas to the ambiguity of the temperature of water in hot and cold taps. A few of them are really hilarious (Mr.Dee Day) whilst the rest simply fall flat (Mr. Pee Day).


type3: Mr. O. Pin Yen's blog was of a different kind from the rest. He had a say on every issue he could lay his eyes on in the newspaper. Some of them did seem relevant and justified. The rest seemed to be views on topics he forced himself to think about. (Eg: Latest studies suggest chickens meaowed in the eighth century).


type4: Mr. Sigh Yen's (brother of Mr. O. Pin Yen) blog was filled with entries on discoveries and new technologies. His toothy smile and large black framed glasses adorned the top of every page lending a geeky aura to what he thought was his charming persona. His profile too didnt seem connected to the theme of his blog. Had some thing like "please male if u female...."..whatever...


type5: Some people's blog are full of poems and stories. Some stories too long to stay awake through, And lots of poems meaning absolutely nothing. The funniest thing i notice in people's poems are lines that are used only to achieve rhythm and rhyme and which do not relate to the context of the poem itself. Classic Example #108763547:

"i look to the sun, setting in the west
in it's full glory, in it's sunday best"
- an excerpt from Ms. I. Kahn Tright's blog


type6: These contain jus one line "Testing Testing: This is my first post."duh!


These are just a few examples from the millions that are lurking out there. And im sure if i snoop around long enough ill have more to add, which brings me to the last (for now) type:


type7: These blogs have varied content. No central theme as such. And the authors seem a bit mentally unbalanced. They have harsh words for other people's blogs not knowing that their own could be a victim of somebody else's wrath!! They are ruthless with people who leave behind comments that are not full of praise or admiration or appreciation for their posts. Infact they are known to hunt these people down erasing all traces of their victim's existence. You ought to be cautious while trudging on their territory. So be warned. There was one such blog that looked extremely sinister. Dont remember the name of it clearly. I think it had to something with a far (mumble mumble)...milky...(mumble mumble)..no..no..far..away...far away galaxy.....(mumble mumble)...

What would you do?

Have u ever come across a situation when uv had to unwillingly hurt someone. When you know that what u were gonna say or already did would cause pain but there was no other alternative but to come clean???
You find urself in a state of confusion. You think back and regret your act even though u were so sure u had to do it. And in that moment u probably feel smaller than never before. Low self-esteem, self-blame, depression, anxiety...the whole i-hate-myself-for-what-i-did wheel sets in. And u feel scared to talk to or face your 'victim' ever again?

There's a reason why iv put 'victim' in quotes. And that's cos in such cases, the idea is to protect the other person from becoming one in the first place. Sadly, in the gamut of emotions that ensue, that isnt understood. The only justification for knowingly hurting someone is so that it doesnt get worse later.
Its a tricky situation. One in which, neither party can be blamed. One feels used, the other gets abused....
Life aint jus a bed of roses, they come with the thorns as well. But its better to get pricked and heal faster than to get cut and suffer in wut seems eternal pain.

&%^$#^% would like to invite you to #$^%$&%

'To join or not to join?'

Over the past month, I have had to bear with that inconspicuous subject line staring at me from within the deep confines of my naive and unsuspecting inbox. And then starts the mundane exercise of sorting out the rubbish into spam and trash. And these emails are invariably condemned to trash. Why not spam??? Because they are sent by people who are near and dear to me but have fallen prey to the social birdie sites!!!

It all started with hi5. Initially i thought it was a waste of time (why did that thought ever change?!!??). But the fever spread far and wide. So far and wide that I found myself connected to my aunt's husband's niece's father-in-law's dog's ex-owner's nanny!(talk about six degrees of seperation..!)Surfing the net found itself a new dimension. Every where i looked my friends were logged on to these newly found hotspots. Your popularity was measured by the number of hi-fives u got and by the number of friends you boasted about. If your profile was not filled by lines and lines of self-praising-crap and reasons as to why everyone shud add u as a friend, u were looked down upon. Guys and girls gauging eachother's hot-meter was the next best thing!!!

So i took the plunge and decided to create a profile for myself and I must admit that initially it was very addicting. So much so, that i was writing testimonials for my friends a night before my exam. I hadnt even started getting accustomed to the wonders (which may not necessarily be pleasant) of this community site that my inbox was inundated with requests to join another. And after much hesitation and coaxing, i ended up joining a site that shared its name with the founder called 'orkut' (how on earth cud parents name their child ORKUT!!??). Now ur coolness quotient was redefined in terms of the number of scraps that ur scrapbook had or the number of fans that u had...or how wacky and interesting the testimonials on your page were. I ended up meeting long lost friends and the number of people on my friends list gave me a rough indication of the number of people i knew courtesy school and college. I also ended up getting friend requests from unknown people and weird scraps like 'would u like to make friendship with me?'. As of now, the orkut mania still exists. Its a nice way of knowing who is doing what whenever the curiosity bug bites me.

The point of writing this article is not to take the credit away from these and scores of other social community sites. They are brilliant ideas and im sure whoever thought of them now sit on pots of gold (pun intended). The reason of writing this is because i find myself in a dilemma yet again. The latest culpirt is something called 'gazzag'. The number of invites I get exponentially rises everyday. Wuts ironical, is that they are from the very same people who grace my friend's list on orkut. From how many places do you wanna keep in touch??Add to that, the pain it takes to remember the user-names and passwords to all the sites that we've registered to. Would i lose my identity and my friends if one day i had to suddenly suffer from amnesia ( and hence forget my passwords)? Would my 'profile' find itself lurking in the deep dark corners of the web as a result of that. For all u know i might just become a victim again and register with the site or i might jus resist and use my friend's description of the site as my only familiarity with it.

But as all this runs through my mind, I cant help but think, that no scraps and no messages can replace the joy of hearing that familiar voice over the phone, or better still, a warm evening spent with the friends we've left behind.