"Beauty" by Anacreon

BEAUTY
by: Anacreon (c.572-488 BC)

Horns to bulls wise Nature lends;
Horses she with hoofs defends;
Hares with nimble feet relieves;
Dreadful teeth to lions gives;
Fishes learn through streams to slide;
Birds through yielding air to glide;
Men with courage she supplies;
But to women these denies.
What then gives she?
Beauty, this Both their arms and armor is:
She, that can this weapon use, Fire and sword with ease subdues.

TRANSLATED BY THOMAS STANLEY, 1651

Black Tuesday

May 23,2006:
- The day democracy was sacrificed for votebank politics.
- The day the Government fell on deaf years and did not care about the
doctors,lawyers, engineers who are the ones responsible for putting India
on the world map.
- The day the proposal of 27% reservation for OBCs was passed.
- The day when I thought what makes a country,general people
(pun fully intended) or politicians?
- The day my patriotism wavered for the first time.
- The day when many like me would have questioned their importance in
the country.
- The day when reverse discrimination reared it's ugly head.

Fußball

In a cricket crazy country like India,football comes like a whiff of fresh air on a hot summer afternoon. In India,we have all other sports losing out to cricket.Whether it's the glamour associated with the game,or the moolah that the national players rake in, that makes this game a religion in India,I do not know.But more on football.
I am far away from the crazy football fans in the European nations,even distant from the few parts like Goa and Bengal where there is a sizeable following of football,but the EPL and UEFA championships have made me sit up(literally) at nights and follow The Game.Barcelona's heroics,Theirry Henry's disappointment with the Arsenal fans,Rooney's injury scare for England,Lionel Messi's rise as the player to watch out,veteran icons like Zidane and Paolo Maldini,Spain the biggest under-achievers in world football,Cryuff being the epitome of "total football" begun by Holland(my favourites),Brazil with their charisma,the list just goes on............
What makes football so special is that it is truly a global sport(unlike cricket which is played only among the common wealth nations).Also the beauty lies in it being a pristine sport.I have never like sports like golf.To me a sport is one that involves physical exertion,where you can feel the heat,see the sweat,experience first hand joy or pain.Also we have characters in football.Cricket and tennis are constantly being bobbed down by the issue that takes away the sport from the game-unrelenting discipline.So we don't have many John McEnroes in tennis,and Saurav Gangulys face the brunt for showing passion on the cricket field.
Hope football remains what it is,pure and passionate.A game which every boy loves,because it involves what a boy loves doing-run with abandon.
Bring on the World Cup,I am ready to live life in a 8" diameter and bring out the boy in me.

Shit happens.

It is the annual appraisal time. And mine is the only company where you stand a chance of reducing the already insignificant salary after having worked for another year.
So I had a discussion(that's what my PM calls it) with my PM last week.But it wasn't much of a discussion when you look at it.It was ,as usual, a one way volley of words. Words that came charging at me relentlessly. If there was anything that I said(this itself was rare),it was called a debate.And in my organization we encourage discussions and not debates. Much is made about the words that we utter.Not much other than endless jabber and meetings happen in my project,so I think my PM definitely had a point when he termed my views as debates.He started with my accomplishments and obviously there wasn't much I had achieved in his eyes.When it came to my deficiencies(which we call areas of improvement here) there was no end.And to top it all,after so much,I didn't even know how I was rated.I was given a floating point number and assigned to one of the Inetger point someones(Thank you Chetan Bhagat) category. And the rest as they say is history.Nothing can change this rating,no matter how I cry.
By the way, the adjacent picture aptly depicts how people at the bottom have to bear with all they shit upon them,courtesy the people at the top.