In Vacant or in Pensive Mood

Every morning, we wake up and do things in a hurry. We might find time to spend a while in prayer, where we quickly make a to-do list of things for God. Then we promptly proceed with our day because there is so much of living to do. I don't know about you, but sometimes I worry. I worry that I don't exactly feel a connection with God like I used to when I was a child. I worry that I am not able to hear His voice when I pray. Today, though, He spoke to me loud and clear as I was travelling to work and singing to myself a song that seemed to pop into my head out of the blue. The song goes like this: "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord..." "Do you allow me to speak?", God asked. "How do you expect to hear my voice when you are so busy doling out tasks for me to do, soon after which you are rushing to other unimportant things? It’s very simple, I speak if you listen! Spend time with me, wait upon me."

ALWAYS 26/03/16 -  Saturday One weekend, I was riding up to a nearby restaurant to meet a few friends. While crossing a bus stop, where a bus halted right in front of my two-wheeler, I swerved the bike right and overtook it. What I did not expect at that point was for a large cow to emerge from the other side, jumping in front of my bike. Taken completely by shock and surprise, my conscious mind froze for a split second! Luckily, the adrenaline rush to my brain alerted my reflexes and I hit the brakes with all my might. The speed at which the vehicle was moving made the brakes ineffective, and I quickly planted both my feet on the road, firmly pulling back the handlebars to avoid ramming right into the cow. The vehicle stopped just in time, about half an inch away from the now confused cow. She was considering turning around and going back to wherever she had come from! I let out a sigh of relief, but my heart didn’t stop pounding at my rib cage for the next 20 minutes. My eyes

(Written when locked up at home, during the Vardah cyclone in Chennai) Every once in a while, God sends a reminder to mankind about the might of the Earth, which He controls. So often we take the elements of Nature for granted, trampling her underfoot as we make selfish decisions and take inconsiderate action in the name of development. We seem to forget that one gust of wind can leave us helpless - our expensive cars can take us nowhere, our HD flatscreen TVs can give us no entertainment, our 50k iPhones or our 5k Nokia mobiles are the same and good for nothing, the Internet (which proudly claims to shrink the world into a village) is nowhere near available. When we sit down in the darkness that envelops our city, all we can do is surrender. When the cyclone Vardah hit Chennai, we watched on as trees were uprooted and crashed to the ground. When we mindlessly cut down trees to build taller apartments or bigger bridges, we saw Nature giving in silently. Is it because she can

Have you tried taking a share auto on your way to work in the morning? In the mad rush, when the entire population is in motion, each one travelling from his/her end of the city to the other, share autos are among the coolest - untouched by the frantic pace at which the rest of the world is rushing by. Although they are a fairly slow mode of transport, a lot of middle class people choose the share auto for regular travel. When compared to the public buses, these are convenient because they are less crowded - at least one can be assured of some butt space, if not a comfortable seat. They are also more frequent than buses and also more flexible - allowing passengers to hop on and off anywhere along the fixed route. If you ask me, the share auto is for people who start early - especially in the mornings. From experience, share autos are not for me in the mornings! I don't mind share autos in the evenings, or when I am going somewhere in no hurry. Why? Not only because they

Since the time I remember, I've always been one of those persons who lived far away. When I was a kid, my home was only about 5 kms from school, but when compared to the other kids who could just walk up to school in a matter of 5 minutes, I lived far away. As I grew up over the years, the distance I've had to travel on a regular basis has also progressively grown. I did my Bachelor's degree in a place about 10 kms from my home, my first job was a little farther, and the college where I did my Master's degree a bit more. Well, you get the picture! It has never been far enough to stay in a hostel, but it has always been quite a time-consuming commute. Now, I travel roughly about 45 kilometres every day in my commute between home and work. Sometimes, I choose to ride my two-wheeler, sometimes I choose to travel by public transport. Either way, my journey is long enough for my mind to sink in and get lost in a world of thoughts. I have found that these journ