Quotes from The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes

"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation"

"It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

"We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thougt we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--- it's not useful--- to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.”

"What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed."

"How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but - mainly - to ourselves.” "

- Julian Barnes

Chanthana manivaathil

Never been a big Venugopal fan but the song Chanthana manivaathil is probably his best. The music and the lyrics are just awesome and the rendering is spot on. Kudos also to Raveendran who had this knack to get the best out of every singer. Its a pity that these two got associated for just this one number.

Humility by T.S. Eliot

There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

~ T. S. Eliot (Excerpt from East Coker, Four Quartets)

Tennis my saviour

If there is a panacea for every ailment, for me it has to be tennis, playing or watching the game, there isnt a bigger or better relaxation for me. I am glad that i will be resuming tennis today after a lull of more than a month. I am just waiting to grind on the clay courts here and clear off my head and get ready for the weeks ahead. Tennis,thou art my saviour at all times.

Equations

As I begin to write this I need to put in one quote that I always have loved "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page". If you can replace "travel" with a more plausible "staying away from home", I think this quote is exactly what I am feeling at this moment. Life has many equations I never realized and I am trying to get a hang of it. I am now in Germany for the past 3 months with a small 2 week break in between when I went back home. I havent stayed away from India for this long my entire life. This period has helped me to get down to brass tacks about people. I am all consumed in various thoughts and feelings, I never knew i had so much emotions in me, maybe an undercurrent somewhere that was lurking in deep waters but never rising to the surface, all it needed was a trigger and the ripple effect began, each wave more intense than the one before bringing with it a cornucopia of dormant thoughts and when these thoughts faded away, leaving behind an emptiness, as if my mind is holding me in sardonic contempt and asking me to swim in this lacuna. Those who know me would vouch me to be insensitive and a complete loner. I am happy to realize i am anything but that, I am not as selfish as what people perceive me to be. In these 3 months, I have realized at various moments that I have always cared and thought first about other people and only then about myself. I have interacted with a lot of people in this period, with a few I have felt a bond that could last a lifetime while some others have left me with a strong sense of detachment. This has pained me beyond measure. I have no idea why some of them have left this indelible imprint in me. I dont believe that I wont be able to get through this trying phase, I know I will and I will emphatically, but I also know that these equations would change me forever, make me a better person, but somewhere in the future I will also look back to these days and treat it with disdain, even have the ability to trivialize this period as an afterthought. Speaking of afterthoughts, one more quote before I sign off from this post. Robert Frost: "In three words, I can sum up everything I have learnt about life: it goes on".

Tunes

While on music, there are some songs I cant get enough of:

Losing My Religion - REM
She keeps the home fires burning - Ronnie Milsap - thanks RR for introducing me to this great voice
Broken Arrow - Rod Stewart
500 Miles - Hooters
Turn That Radio On - Ronnie again
Mrs Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel

To name a few, of course there are a lot more, but these are the first that comes to mind.

Solo humming

Its fascinating with the mind, isnt it? Suddenly out of the blue I am humming Sprinsgsteen's Dancing in the Dark. It just came to my mind suddenly, no clue when, and since then i have been humming portions of the song. A song, I havent heard in ages. What was the trigger then for it to come to me.

Even as I write, I am listening to it. Its an awesome number, a very moodie solo, but I am just amazed at how this particular song came into my mind all of a sudden, beats me.