I just read through some of Geetanjali's writing (typolis.net/bambi).....wow. She is mature beyond her age...but sometimes i wonder if that's a good thing.

Growing up too soon i.e. .....

I know of guys and girls who get into drugs, sex, dating, clubbing - from the age of 14. Fouteen-years-of-age. By the time they're 22-23 - they've lived an entire lifetime....and there's such cynicism....such negativity.....such bitterness towards the world....you'll know what i mean when you meet someone like this - you can feel the 'energy'...or the lack of it....

On the other hand - you have kids reading Ayn Rand and Kahlil Gibran at 15. Plagiarising Gibran's poems and passing them off as their own.

I'm talking about me.

I always wanted to 'appear' as the 'intelligent one'. The one who 'carried the light' lol

:)

Such a fake....i was....i think....am i still fake? Probably....but i'm 'peeling the onion'.

Learning something new about yourself....or acknowledge something about yourself is like peeling an onion. Sometimes it smells....sometimes it makes you cry...sometimes its tasty when you cook it with something....gives it flavor...........ok, the onion logic kinda didn't work there :)

There's no point trying to grow up too soon. Realization dawns on you when it has to - it's taken me about 10years extra to realize this.

Imagine what i might've been like...if i'd just let myself be...

Trying to be someone else is almost like messing with nature. You're not allowing for your natural growth to happen....take place - you're stifling it by the should and should nots of life. I know i'm making sense at some level.

But its a journey each one has to take on his/her own.

Went to the 'Russell Peters' show last night. Overall, i think i was a bit let down; especially cuz you build him up so much in ur head.

Before i got to the show, a friend of mine told me about how he has 'gone green' the Oscar way! i.e. he's basically recycling his jokes...and if you've seen the shows on the internet, you'll know what i mean.

Standard formula - he made fun of George Bush; made fun of the chinese and Indians and how both can never work together. Generally made fun of a few people in the audience...brought up the story about how hairy he was and how hairy Indians are in general - which led to some hairbrained wisecracks.

Overall, a bit disappointing. That's not to say i didn't laugh - its still quite a skill to crack the same jokes and make people laugh everytime. But you could tell that he was trying really hard - cuz there were atleast a coupl've times when there was this deathly silence......more than a coupl've 'pregnant pauses'.

Felt a little sorry for him :) by the end of it - it almost seemed like he wanted to go off stage. ...entertaining overall....but i've had better. lol

Then went out to dinner with a friend of mine to this really nice restaurant called '3 Storys'. The name is quite literal - it's a 3 storeyed place; serving the most yummy coastal food.

They have a cross section of mangalorean, goan..what else...arrey....'coastal' food, you get what i mean. The piri piri prawns were yummmyy....and the fried fish was just divine. That was the starters. Goes really well with a fresh lime soda.

Then for main course we had aapams (which were cold - having the kitchen on the ground floor and being served on the 3rd floor is a bit impractical at times), iddiappams, some egg parotha, mutton stew and chicken xacuti. The Xacuti was a bit salty and the stew a bit sweet...i didn't mind the stew but didn't much care for the xacuti and appams.

So bottomline being - great place for starters and the terrace is the ideal place for a party for about 25 - 30 ppl. For those familiar with bangalore - this is where the old sunny's used to be. They have a really nice non-veg (lunch) fish thali for about 120 bucks; served in a white thali and white katoris...nice place to have a business lunch. Overall a 3 out've 5.

What made the dinner nicer, was the company ;) Was catching up with an old friend after a while....she was busy telling me about her friends and this major dinner she went to recently. Somewhere along the way we got talking about marriage and she started telling me about how she knew exactly what her life was going to be, given her background.

She knew the kind of family she would get married into, what kind of a lifestyle she would have - and if things were messed up by the time she hit 40 and her parents were 60 - they really wouldn't be able to do much. And then she told me something a friend of her's said to her recently.

"Why would you chose a path if you knew how the story ends? Why would you not do something different?"

..........and that made soo much sense......

So often - we know exactly how something is going to be, how things will work out....and even if we know that it isn't a rosy picture - we resign ourselves to 'fate'. When it isn't about fate. It's about 'choice'. And 'choices' that you make.

Ok, simple example - there must've been some reason why someone went beyond a 'x' and 'y' axis - to create or discover or come up with the idea of a 'z' axis?

Maybe he wasn't getting what he wanted. Maybe he needed to innovate to get a different answer....and innovating to get that answer meant - looking in a different direction.

Sometimes it's just that simple. Sometimes it isn't. But everytime - there's a 'choice' to be made. A 'choice' that might lead to 'knowing' - or getting to a point of 'knowing'....but first traversing the 'unknown'. And so often we make choices that keep us in the realm of the 'knowing' and the 'comfortable'...just to avoid discomfort....or being in a space of vulnerability. I know all this is so general....but maybe we generalize too much in our lives.

Maybe this 'generalization' of things is what stops us from getting 'specific' about what we want out of life. 'Herd-Mentality'.

.....I enjoyed dinner....nice evening overall; dropped her home and headed back myself. Got into a good discipline (atleast over the last 2 days), since writing that speech on Insomnia :) I make sure i'm in bed by 12 and up by 6 - 6:30. You really don't need more sleep - and i get to spend a little time with the folks before heading off to work.

If there's anything that isn't working in your life - i've found that the reason for that not working is invariably a distance or tension or problem at home. So spending even 5 or 10mins with mum or dad in the morning can make a huuuuugee difference - to them, even if you don't see it for yourself.

:)