Improvising versatility

Summer Penguin

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 12:35:00 +0000

I delve into the black and whites,

Flipping and flapping, my wings like kites.

Oh dear! The flight is not my ability,

I compensate with my love and agility.

I love the warmth of Summer,

Rolling on the liquid ice, my skin turns umber.

My desires fulfilled and I am happy;

Flooded by the Sun, I am energetic and snappy.

I jump and hump, bray and honk,

Looking for a mate and a bonk.

My happiness, my excitement, my life,

In summer, I seek my spiritual wife.

You ask, a Penguin likes the Sun?

Not many but I do.

I live free, not underground;

The melody of freedom has a soothing sound.

-Anand Bora

Tired | Müde

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:14:00 +0000

The variable in our life called Time,
Makes us wise, more mortal and prime.

I am vulnerable, sensual but strong;

But can I hold the fort for long?

I always see the Plus in life,

I live with normalcy away from any strife.

Minding my business with my box of memories;

My experiences are my stories.

I am TIRED but not in the mind,

My camaraderie keeps my life in a bind.

The vice, the deception and the 'Paap';

I wish, happiness and society made a swap.

My art is my guiding light,

Keeps me upbeat and bright.

I adore my people and their love;

Aiming for stars, I fly like a dove.

Anand Bora

Pride - The feeling of Being

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 19:25:00 +0000

Image generated by ChatGPT

PRIDE

You know, the predators move in a pride-

Holding their heads high, the "HEAD" being the guide.

We are high in the chain with a bigger brain;

Do we know what pride is? Is it to dominate with disdain?

We built societies, civilizations and countries in time-

Didn't educate enough. Probably, the worst crime.

Our pride works as a veil to our EGO;

Misinformed, misguided and maligned - we never forego.

Enlightened we should be, mutual growth is the goal -

In the vastness of the universe, humanity is a single soul.

She rises, they rise and everyone grows to a prestige;

Pride should be a feeling of existence, we are a speck at ease.

Anand Bora

Obituary - A Goddess merged into another

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 11:15:00 +0000

Fig: "Ailing Lungs, Drooping Heart" - I made this piece when my mother was bedridden because of the disease of the lungs

We live in a cyclic world with the cycles of birth and death around us all the time. It always seems like the process of life is moving towards infinity, only to end up in a zero. Funny but realistic, this is how life is. It is a number line which starts at one point and ends in another, only to be a starting point for another number line. Quite an analogy to the “Jeevan Maran” chakra of Hindu philosophy.

My mother had a life full of enormous struggle and hardships. She had a life where she had to prove belongingness to society every day. She had to prove her identity and her existence in her social circle by being available all the time. But even after this, she was largely the architect of her number line of life.

Born in Rangoon in a Marwadi novelty, her family had to forgo all their wealth and immigrate to India during the 1962 Myanmar coup. The family having their roots in Rajasthan had a lot of connections all over India and they moved to different parts of India. With a gradual decline in financial status, her family moved from Kolkata to Ranchi for business where she spent most of her life.

She was an ardent movie fan and made it a point to watch as many during her teenage years and later until she was bedridden. Probably, I got that movie “keeda” from her which still runs deep. Oh! I remember one of her episodes of Delirium, when she was not able to recognize anyone at home and had a temporary memory loss. I showed her clips from a few old Hindi movies which she was able to recognize immediately. Her love for movies was fascinating. She could recognize any old movie just by their clips.

She was an immaculate cook, a soulful Bhajan singer and a hardworking woman. She always taught me that a man should learn everything which a woman can do. I learnt those too during the course of my life with her. A social personality with a lot of connections, she spread happiness with her smile.

Like all beings, she also made choices which defined the course of her life which made large troughs in her number line of life. That being said, it was her life and she took the responsibility for it. The good part is that before leaving this realm, she did closure on all her qualms and made peace with her past.

She left us after more than a year of suffering because of prolonged lung disease leaving a subtle void in our lives which will always be etched in my mind as long as we see the shape of Rabbit on the moon. She was my Goddess, I could sacrifice my life for her. But I guess she bargained better with the Gods.

Now her suffering has ended and she is at peace. She is with “Ma Kali” and I hope her number line doesn’t have another starting point. Thank you Ma for teaching me throughout my life, taking care of me and being what you were. I will always celebrate your life and have learnt from it in ways which made me a better person.

Anand Bora

DivyaDrishti - The eyes of the future

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 04:37:00 +0000

I was toying with this idea of glasses from the future and how the world would change in say 100 years and hopefully time travel and assessment would be possible. The device is named as "Divyadrishti" which is the Sanskrit word for "Divine vision".

So I imagined this pair of glasses which might be possible in the future. I would like to enumerate my idea in the following way for understanding purposes -

Lens - Complete Hybrid lens with composite display to show realtime anything and everything the user has requested for verbally.

Time Slider - Focus on a particular scene/place and trace back and mention events at a particular time in the history for that particular place. The slider has a range from 0-infinity with respect to the place / thing / person.

Power - A manual power button to keep the control in Human Hands.

Finger Authentication - To make sure that the authorized user is using the spectacles. Additionally the device has Iris authentication and neural authentication.

Side Cameras - Three cameras are part of the glasses which autonomously monitor the surroundings of the user and update the user on any events.

Weather Forecaster - A dedicated module to track future weather in the vicinity of customized time by the user. Necessary for the user to plan his time.

Zoom - Zooming a particular view which the user is looking at.

Volume / Mic Control - A hybrid module to control volume and mic. This will also be controlled by voice commands and other interactions.

Light - A Light focusing module for night vision and contigencies.

All the functionalities will have automated controls by AI if the user chooses to do so. Manual controls have been provided to override underlying functionalities.

Anand Bora

Painting of Sachin Tendulkar

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 17:01:00 +0000

I painted this small piece (4x4) in Water Colors for my cousin, Amit

Clumsy

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:09:00 +0000

Image Source : Created by Bing AI [ Prompt: create an image on digital dependency of humans in the city of Benaras ]

Time is a dynamic component,
It walks, races and paces in seconds.
The facilitator of 'change' is constant;
It's only LIFE, that bends.

I walk beside the Ghats of Benaras,

With Reels making populace.

I judge them but they judge backwards;

I wonder if I am clumsy or graceless.

I eat with hands and tools alike,

But they say, hands are for the device.

The new norm makes me yike,

Soon, machines will feed me the rice.

The behavior of humans evolve with time,

But in future, machines will call the shots.

The good, the bad and the clumsy are in their prime;

I wish, time doesn't become slave of the bots.

Anand Bora

The Persistence of Memory by Dali - A modern take

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:45:00 +0000

I have always been a huge fan of Dali and surprisingly, never reproduced any of his works even for a hobby. This Sunday I thought of giving it a shot and re-imagined Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" with a more modern approach. With just a simple change of replacing the wavy clocks by mobile phones, it correlates both the title of the piece with the modern style of living. The Mobile phone is something we are keeping in our daily lives and involuntarily has become our "persistence of memory" our lives.

The size of the piece is 8"x8" and has been made in water colors (Camel + Ladoga)

पुरुष - A Hindi poem on Men for International Men's Day

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 19:06:00 +0000

Image created by Bing AI

मेहनत जिसकी रीड की हड्डी, धैर्य जिसका बल,

कर्म की पथ पर चलता वो है पुरुष अचल ।

अपने लक्ष्य को भेदना, अर्जुन से है सीखा,

पर उसके मन की वेदना का सार किसी ने न देखा ।।

एक तुला के कांटे के सामान,

करता है वो परिवार का संतुलन।

अपनी आशा, आकांशा और सपने का त्याग कर,

करता है वो समाज की तपिश का आलिंगन ।।

एक बेटा, एक पुत्र, एक भाई,

यही नहीं, वो है एक आज्ञाकारी जमाई ।

दिन, रात, महीने और साल गुजर गए,

पुरुष खड़ा रहा, और समय के दूत चुपके से निकल गए ।।

वो सोचता रहा की उसकी अर्धांगिनी कभी तो पारवती बनेगी,

पर आधुनिक काल में केवल काली की छवि रहेगी ।

ऐ पुरुष, तू शिव की तरह हलाहल का पान कर,

संघर्ष क्षणिक है, अपने कर्म से मानवता को प्रणाम कर ।।

आनंद बोड़ा

Surrender

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:16:00 +0000

This poem is written on the context that Lord Shiva gets impressed by the incessant focus and hard work of a very knowledgeable and scientific man and gives him Darshan in his dream.

Fig: Meditating Shiva created by Bing AI (Prompt: create a meditating image of Hindu god Shiva on mount kailash. His disciples are saints, monsters, bulls and common people. They are in a worshipping pose towards him. Shiva is in a meditating state.)

My curiosity and the will to know,
Made me question, reason and question the flow.
Driven by logic, I debate with the divine;
He answers patiently just before 03:59.

Oh! I find him calm, serene and yogic,

His aura is beyond human logic,

I have my doubts and knowledge clouts my mind;

I ask him, where do you live and how do I find?

Giving me a look of aplomb;

While his devotees prop out of a catacomb,

He tells me gently, "I will answer your questions."

Suddenly, my heart is filled with mixed emotions.

He returns to a meditating state -

I don't know, why it feels he has no date.

He opened his eyes and spoke, "OM" -

My mind got inundated with pathway to freedom.

The voice trickled down my spine;

Healing my nerves, blood vessels and the dynastic line.

The answers have come, I don't need to ask;

I surrender, Sensei - unto you, I bask and task.

Anand Bora

5 easy ways to shed weight | Bi(e)tter Health tip

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 07:09:00 +0000

The big con about working in software is that this is a ‘s(h)itting’ job and we attract fats very quickly into our bodies. I fell to the gluttony trap and sedentary lifestyle and started feeling very heavy and dull. I was consuming lots of sugar which made me more inactive and lazy. Once I was not able to get down and touch my feet which triggered that I needed to do something about my body. Following is my before / after photo in which I had lost 16 kgs in 6 months. I talk about my process and tips I followed to be where I was in 5 steps.

Me Before / After

QUIT SUGAR

I quit Sugar for more than a year completely. I didn’t take an iota of sugar in my body in any way. No chocolate, no sweets, no cakes and not even home-made sweets. If I really got a craving, I would eat organic jaggery in my tea or anything else.

WORKOUT

I started to workout daily for at least 20 minutes. This automatically increased and I started doing more and more exercises on my own. Probably this is a mental thing and the body becomes accustomed to it as the time goes by. By the 5th month, I was doing 150 crunches a day which was uncalled for at my age of 38. We need to do reasonable exercises daily to feel good in some way. You can follow this app which is great in terms of giving balanced exercise experience.

DAILY CONSUMPTION OF HEALTH DRINK

Drinking a homemade health drink in the morning in an empty stomach eases out the metabolism. I didn’t believe this much before I started. I prepared this drink based on this Youtube tutorial and was consuming it everyday without fail. It really did wonders and I started to see the effect as time went by.

Preparation - Grind some fennel seeds, carom seeds, cumin seeds, flax seeds and some cinnamon and create a rough textured powder.

Consumption - Mix one teaspoon of powder in hot water and a little bit of lemon juice. Drink on an empty stomach to see the difference in a few days.

INTERMITTENT FASTING & DIET

I completely stopped eating at night. My schedule was to eat between 10am - 7pm. I stopped munching unnecessarily and resorted to eating less. Although my diet didn’t change much, I had completely stopped eating RICE. I was eating a lot of pulses, millets and fruits to compensate.

IMPROVED SLEEP SCHEDULE

For us software folks, it is very difficult to manage sleep. We work with people in different time zones and it becomes really difficult to avoid work at night. But when you have to lose weight, you need to tune your body for enough sleep. My sleep schedule changed to 11pm - 5am. I had never done this ever during my working career and it was a drastic change but I started feeling so much better. Although the change was disruptive, it helped me a lot.

So, those were the tips I used to shed my fat. I hope this helps people who are trying to do so and achieve results in due course.

Review of "Hereditary"

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 18:34:00 +0000

Hereditary comes across a movie which should be on your list if you are a Horror movie lover. I am writing this piece so you know already that I love horror movies a lot. To put into perspective, I have already watched 55 from Top 100 horror movies list from IMDB which would be close to 5500 hours of my life. 😀

Getting back to the movie, I watched this 2018 movie on Prime Video recently and it was really good in terms of concealing the antagonist or the demon in this case. Just after finishing the movie, I felt that I had watched an amalgamation of the “Wicker Man”, The Holy Mountain and a tincture of “The Shining”. If you read about those movies or watch them, you will realise what I am talking about.

I want to talk about the BEST parts in the movie which are really good and worth mentioning.

The SOUND DESIGN - Oh! I love the Sound Design in this movie. Very few horror movies bring out the right music to compliment the scenes of the movies. Lewis Goldstein and Tom Ryan have done a splendid job on this project. The sound design is eerie, contemporary, tribal and creepy, all at the same time. I really enjoyed it on the IEMs I used to watch the movie.

The SCRIPT - A very novel approach to horror movie making by mixing a lot of ingredients like paganism, slasher effects, brute force and dreams/nightmares. The unpredictability of people being killed is an icing on the cake and adds a modern and novel approach. There are occasions where the script brings out the emotional part of the characters within a family in a brutal way which is justified by the actors with all its merit. Bonus points on the miniature art concept and connecting it to real life. A scene which shows how the mother laments the death of her child by re-creating the miniature version of her accident, must be a brain child of a genius and vastly experienced writer. The suspense of hiding the main antagonist is also brilliant and the scriptwriter has done a tremendous job here.

The ACTING - All the Actors are Fantabulous. I think this is the first movie of Toni Collette which I have seen and I am already a Fan. She delivers emotions on the screen like a rainbow formed with mercury, transitioning effortlessly from one emotion to the other. Gabriel Brianne and Alex Wolf have been tremendous. This movie must have re-defined Alex’s career and he is on his way to do much larger projects. But one actor whose name I don’t know creates an impact in just one scene with his gaze (pictured below). Although, he comes for another single scene later in the movie too.

The EDITING, COLOR GRADING, SFX and all major aspects of filmmaking are top notch. They keep the audience hooked with the streamlined storytelling.

Needless to say, there are blips which they should have looked at. The VFX at places seems very outdated. For example, the scene when Annie’s jacket catches fire, the fire seems fake to normal eyes. Some decapitation scenes and bodies look glaringly artificial. Color grading at some places during the climax is too dark. They show a lot of symbols in the movie but there is almost no explanation of them. They seem purely referential which in a way shows that the director wants people to make assumptions. They don’t mention how the actual possession happened, only the means are shown. Probably, that can be an inspiration for another movie 😀

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and it is definitely part of my all time horror movies to watch out for. After the movie, I tried to recall which movie might have been the creepiest I saw and the immediate answer was “Rosemary’s Baby”. Again, that is purely a personal choice and it won’t be fair to limit my answer to just one movie.

"Killer Soup" Review

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:11:00 +0000

Image Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Soup

"It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sounds and fury, signifying nothing." That's how the whole series ends.

How many times has a director been honest in summing up a story in one line at the end of the story. This is one such instance with the director feeding up a coagulated plot to the audience and summarizing the pain to the audience at the culmination of the story.

This review will be short and would save you the pain of dangling between ill placed cuss words and predictable sub plots which have been given the shape of accidents rather than intended homicide.

I was really disappointed with the plot and probably the writing. I have huge respect for people who write screenplay and stories and this in no way demeans the effort of writers of this one too. But I felt, that there has been a lot of patchwork in this story. Good editing has been able to streamline the story and bring some sense but overall the audience feels like they have landed in no man's land.

The performance of all the actors is really good (of course they are very good professionals) but the real let down happens on the writing part.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

I mean one of the protagonists, Prabhakar, died in the initial part of the story and is replaced by an impostor and none of his near and dear ones have an inkling that he is not the same guy. NOT EVEN ONE. Really? Although I am not a professional writer but I feel that for a thriller to work well, the sense of doubt and confusion is the biggest weapon. One of the old Hindi movies, Baazigar, camouflaged it very well and had that tincture of confusion all the time. Although the audience knew the culprit but the story still kept the audience engaged and hooked.

The role of Arvind Shetty played by Sayaji Shinde looked all the over the place. I really couldn't make any sense of it. A dominant businessman in whole of Tamil Nadu doesn't seems dominating enough. There are not enough extras around him to show his power and his appearances felt very weak. His last words while dying is a WTF moment and is a testimony of the weak writing. Probably, this character is the weakest character and should have been used more aptly.

This series feels like it belongs to Konkana Sen. Heavily dominated by her presence and the story revolves around her character in many ways. But her character is confusing as well. She has a dream of getting her own restaurant and to get that she involves herself in multiple murders and insane situations. Her character is really mean and bitchy and reminds me of Lena Headley's performance in GoT. Sometimes I felt she is like the shrewd Mom in Law from yester years who would go to any length to torture the daughter in laws. A completely non-compromising selfish antagonist vouching for a dream and cooking "Paya killer soup" for all and sundry.

I dunno what to say about Inspector Hassan's character played by Nasser. An investigation officer who is laid back to start with but becomes curious in a case after the loss of a bright officer in the case. He hallucinates all the time about the officer giving him clues every now and then. A great addition to the plot would have been that Hassan was always high on mushrooms. Would have been logical and creatively connected to the plot too.

There are many many bloopers and everything doesn't add up to be a cohesive plot. I am sure the writing would have been reviewed by so many people and many stalwarts but I don't know how people were convinced on the same.

But I really liked the technicalities and performances. Almost everyone has justified their part and nothing more can be asked from the BTS team as well.

Two standout creative approaches in the series has been -

1. Intermingling of Tamil and Hindi languages and trying to bridge the divide. Perhaps, a series gives more opportunities to do the same and cater to larger audience. But this is important and really helps in improving and tailoring the minds of people watching the series.

2. The hallucinating character of Inspector Thuppali with a raincoat and persistent rainfall on him. A very creative approach to show how manifestations stick to people's mind in a particular way.

All in all, I really wanted to SOUP to play a more dominant role. Soup seems more notional and points to the "RAITA" in the family and of course the PLOT. The main character, SOUP, should have had more part to play but keeps begging for its place. As per the series, it is definitely DARK but not sure about COMEDY.

PS: This is just a small review of this series I saw. This is completely my independent opinion and outpour on the series. I really respect the effort people put in creating their vision into reality. I apologize if anything in this review causes concern or demeans anyone.

I wrote this small comment on Manoj Bajpayee sir's instagram as a very short review to bring out the comedy in the soup.

The evergreen 'Dear Father'

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sun, 15 May 2022 05:37:00 +0000

I remember those days of the 90s when I was a teen and I developed interest in watching multilingual movies. During those days, Doordarshan used to run a regional language movie every Sunday from 2-5PM and this was available pan India. I have been watching movies in different languages since that time. This context is important as in today’s India language is no more relevant and with Internet and OTT available everywhere, the viewer can choose to watch what he wants.

Back to the point. I watched a Gujarati movie recently called ‘Dear Father’. I became a fan of Chetan Dhanani after watching the movie ‘Reva’ and I was looking forward to watching this movie. I was deeply impressed by his acting in Reva and I knew his performance would be impeccable in this one too.

The movie is about a small household of three people - father, son and daughter-in-law. A family where all the three members have different priorities in life and have a different perspective. The movie starts with a scene where the father has fallen from the flat in the apartment and has been seriously injured and admitted to the hospital. Subsequently, a police investigation starts into the incident and Paresh Rawal sir (who is playing dual roles of the father and the investigating officer) takes over the investigation of the incident.

I am not going to spill over the beans on how the movie moves forward but I would definitely like to mention a few aspects about the movie. The performances of all the actors are fabulous and top notch. I couldn’t stop myself getting flashbacks to Paresh sir’s many more previous movies like Hera Pheri but he has excelled in the role of this typical Gujarati dad. There were a few scenes in the movie which are hilarious and thought provoking as well. The father-son banter over the 25 years of nagging with the females of the family is so indigenously Indian. The dialogues seem to come directly from the Indian homes. When I say Indian, I mean all parts of India. I have seen these kinds of similar issues in a Kannada family, a Telugu family, a Marwadi family and so on and so forth.

Chetan has been impeccable yet again with his performance. I think his strength is depicting emotions with versatility and owning the character. The character in Reva and the character in Dear Father are very different but you will realise that he fits right in. In the movie, he is the average husband who is getting pulled between his parents and his wife. Needless to say, this is the story of almost every husband in India. Trying to appease the parents and the wife is a mundane attempt all husbands make and fail. Chetan has clearly justified the role and fits right in.

The actress Manasi reminded me of so many Marwadi ladies in my family. The dichotomy of their lives to match the expectations of the family and also try to achieve their dreams. Manasi has nailed the role and the way she has portrayed the frustration of a contemporary Indian woman leaves an indelible mark on the audience.

I would like to appreciate the script and dialogue writers (Vivek Bele, Uttam Gada) of this movie. They have great insights into how Indian families run in today’s world. They have been able to bring out the originality of life in the script. How a major incident in the family connects the family back again. How a frustrated police officer relates himself to a case which he is investigating. The whole story has been intertwined in a lovely braid.

I had a couple of qualms from the movie which I would like to highlight. Since this was a traditional homely setup, I was quite surprised that the husband and wife scenes visiting their injured father was not shown quite often if it didn’t feel like they were too much concerned. The police officer role of Paresh sir approached very casually to the husband and wife, anytime and everytime. For example, in one scene, he entered their home without the permission of the family. But I guess, the writers can take the liberty of some creative freedom to connect the dots.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. I kept that one minute scene between the father and son as my whatsapp status and I got so many replies from people asking for the name of the movie. So, do you see, language is not a barrier anymore. This movie took me back to the Malayalam movie “Android Kunjappan 2.0”, I watched last year. Funny how they are connected in subtle ways. They both evoke the right chords of connecting with your father and all the actors in both movies have done so much justice.

Thanks to OTT platforms, I think we will see a future envisioned by Chanakya of a unified Bharatvarsh.

Anand Bora

सफेद

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 17:22:00 +0000

एक सफेद कंबल, एक सफेद चादर,

एक सफेद दरख़्त,

एक सफेद "चस्मा"

और एक सफेद हम |

एक सिसक थी मेरी,

जो इसके दीदार से निकल गई |

एक अश्क मेरा कहीं ज़मीन पर होगा,

वो भी सफेद |

जाने कौन सा मौसम है ये,

मेरे दिल को कपड़े मे लपेट कर सो गया है,

वक़्त मे से ये लम्हा निकल दो,

तो ये ज़िंदगी भी सफेद |

एक अधूरी रात की सुबह हो तुम,

एक उदास गज़ल का मुखड़ा हो तुम,

ए सुर्ख बर्फ तू सोना मत,

क्यूंकी मेरे जज़्बात है सफेद |

आनंद बोड़ा

Amit's 10th

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 17:16:00 +0000

Gifted to Amit on his 10th wedding anniversary.

Visionary Dream

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 05:56:00 +0000

Sounds as it may,
The dream makes a noise;
The grey matter and the signals-
The manifestation is far from advice.

The layers of my dream;
Is it a vision or a hallucination?
Or a 'deja vu' from life.
It's a world of emancipation.

Time is perplexed in the dream,
Space unwinds to infinity.
The dimensions converge and diverge concurrently,
A platform of happiness and adversity.

The 'focused' dream with open eyes;
The vision of a 'logical' life.
The fog between the real and the imaginary -
Your mind is caught in a strife.

Semantics flow in the river of imagination;
The iteration in a dream is a 'fractal'.
My friend, your physical self is your Karma -
Create a dream and you are immortal.

-Anand Bora

The B Positive 2020!

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 07:06:00 +0000

Such an anomaly 2020 has been that I have had more positives in my life than negatives. It’s not about what was/is happening in the world but it is about what is happening in my world. It is about how I approached my life during the testing times. I know that 2020 will be marked as a dark year in human history similar to the previous years when pandemics happened and history remembers them. So many stories might have been cut short during those years and this year too but many more stories are created.

We stick to the concept of dividing our life into years and we forget that it is just a complete revolution which the earth made around the sun. We are beings of the universe and we are not aware of millions of entities out there. Taking 2020 as an opportunity to transform our lives was what nature hinted us to do. She wants humanity to look at the positives of life closely so that humanity understands the bigger picture and re-prioritise on areas where it should grow.

In this piece, I am not going to talk about the things which were not so good (One of the authors I met many years back told me not to use the word ‘bad’), but I want to focus on the positives of life which 2020 has brought forward for everyone. Of course, I have sympathy with so many hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives and the irreplaceable pain they experienced this year. But- life has to move on. Humanity has to move on. Time has to move on.

Before March 2020, none of the governments nor corporations or businesses would have dreamt of shutting down operations for months. But it happened, isn’t it? They accepted, isn’t it? Acceptance was the reality. Even for the most arrogant or most ambitious, acceptance was the reality in true sense. Things can be out of control and we need to accept the situation and fight it in the best possible way. We need to understand that we can’t abuse the freely available resources given by mother nature as we wish. We need to give nature and natural resources their space and we need to make sure they are preserved.

Suddenly, healthcare became the highest priority of every possible administrative entity in the world. We have been ignoring our health in the rat race and a microbe has triggered an alarm signal which has shaken the neural system of hundreds of governments. It is so encouraging to see the astronomical rise in healthcare during this year and how they have managed to break barriers and fortify defense against diseases. A vaccine in less than a year must have been a dream in the past but the dream came true. Even at the granular level, so many people became aware of having good health. Personally, I made a target to transform myself which I was able to achieve.

Communities came together during this pandemic. So many people came together to help the needy. The feeling of philanthropy and service was at an all time high. So many social heroes came to the forefront. So many social heroes became part of viral videos and messages. It was so heartening to see that the community was giving recognition to the people who have been doing things for the community for a long time. These heroes are the real heroes and have been working selflessly and this ‘PAUSE’ helped the community realise what the social healers have been playing all these years.

Families unite! A close friend of mine who is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army said that this is the best time of your lifetime when you need to give enough time to your family. That’s what most people did. So many expats went back to their homes only to revisit their childhood, families, parents, friends, lost love, lost skill, lost toys, lost memories and lost feelings. Isn’t it beautiful, nature wanted you to go back to your roots. Nature wanted you to slow down and made you realise that your past is the foundation of your present. People with bigger families opened chapters of their lives in nostalgia and discussions went on for days. Also, the situation redefined how people conducted family celebrations and occasions. This broke the age old conventions and people accepted the change. This is important because breaking a convention in society can happen only when it happens society wide. All the big fat weddings and funerals will soon become things of the past and this era is a precedent for what is important and what is not.

I think the biggest discovery of this year has been self discovery. We lost things we loved to do as a child or as a teenager. But we couldn’t get a chance to discover the skill we had because we got busy with our daily lives and the tryst for survival. When the ‘semi-colon’ of life called 2020 happened, we got back to our homes and started re-discovering what we had lost. We got inspired from the online content of friends and family and started looking at what we can do. We found things in our closet which took us back to our childhood. We took up baking, cooking, painting, music or any other skill which was lost in the drive of life. We shared what we did on social platforms and realised that we still have something worthwhile. Essentially, we became more confident in our lives. We forget that all the ‘Art’ happened in 2020 might be more than ever did in humanity as a whole.

Entertainment had a different definition this year. Many social media heroes cracked up people with their stunts on Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram and various other platforms. Gaming industry bloomed as many people started playing games on smartphones. People made social connections on entertainment platforms only to challenge themselves on their abilities. I wonder how many celebrities would be playing games with pseudo names on different platforms.

Virtual is here to stay. So many movies talk about virtual presence and communication. We just watch from the entertainment aspect and we don’t realise that people are working to bridge this gap. The world became an even more smaller place confined to your home. You can work, study, make friends, date, party and so much more just virtually.I know this is an abnormal feeling considering a ‘normal’ situation since the last 100 years. Everything started to happen at home and people started to spend more time at home. Psychologically this can be denting because humans are naturally nomads and want to connect with nature in some way. This transformation is a disruption to make you realise that there are things which can be done at home. Companies should realise that a person with disability or a pregnant lady is as productive as any other employee. Again, hardliners would have realised that there are means by which any person can be productive in life and they should give them those means. All the companies who helped build this virtual ecosystem over the last many years have to be thanked immensely for what they helped people with in trying times.

New connections, new relationships and new avenues in life. Did you realise that you can easily connect with your favourite celebrities on social platforms. You know about their lives, their homes and how they conduct themselves. I think it was never this easy as this pandemic made it. With all the streaming services, so many new actors and performers made it to the forefront. People started taking note of the new performers and a new dimension was opened up to them. The whole concept of good stories and storytelling has become the norm with all the quality content fed to the Janta. This is such a welcome change as the stereotypes are broken and the myths are shattered. Quality content is the key and will always be the key.

Difficult times create opportunities which have higher value and vast reach. So many novel ideas are propping up everyday and many startups are working towards solving problems in life with a newer approach. This means that we will be moving ahead in warp speed to achieve things which were unthinkable in the past. You would have seen changes in how we travel, how we work, how we party over the fag end of the year. All of this might get into a mould which might be acceptable by humanity and nature together.

It is noteworthy that we should give credit to the IT industry which has been working to build a process where people can work remotely. If this kind of ecosystem was unavailable, it would have resulted in chaos. Many other companies are adapting to the workflow and management cues from the IT industry and redefining their processes. This means that more and more people are realising the value of flexibility in a working ecosystem.

Lastly, I would like to thank Tim Bernes Lee from the depths of my heart for inventing the internet. Incredible contribution of all the scientists in building the Internet and building an ecosystem which has helped keep the sanity of humanity.

Wonder why I kept the title of the article as ‘B Positive’? Research says that B Positive is the most resilient blood group against the virus. So humanity has to be resilient to whatever comes and being positive is the only way.

Anand Bora

My fantasy with Rain

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 14:19:00 +0000

The silence and moisture in the air,

Indication of her arrival.

I look at the sky and I see you;

May be my romance is in the medieval.

She eases onto my face,

the drop of life shines on me.

My breath is one with my eyes;

I chuckle as I see.

In few moments, she increases her tempo;

The bells in her anklet, sings in earthen flavor.

She permeates through my body in style-

Her onset is a divine's favor.

Her jaded locks of clouds,

And the nosering of partial sun.

Her touch cleanses my heart and soul,

The dance of the water goddess has just begun.

Anand Bora

Vibhishan kaun?

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 18:27:00 +0000

विभीषण कौन?

यहां की स्वास में हवा है,

यहां के जीवन में पानी है,

पर ये कौन धूर्त है, तुनीर में टूटा हुआ तीर है,

ये मेरा घर है, और घर में विभीषण कौन?

वो चुपके से आ गया है,

किसी की जेब में, किसी के हाथों मेें, किसी के सांसों में,

पर उसे किसी द्वारपाल ने नहीं रोका है,

फिर भी पूछते हो घर का विभीषण कौन?

मेरे गांव का चौराहा खाली पड़ा है,

ग्रामदेवी ने बताया कि साहूकार का लड़का विदेश से आया है,

अपने साथ वो यम के भैंसे को साथ लाया है,

उसे नहीं रोकने वाला विभीषण कौन?

असम्भव को किसने बांधा है,

मुनिया और उसके बाउजी ने लाखो डग दूरी तय की है,

ऐसी संभावना तो कल्पना से भी परे है,

अद्वितीय समाज में ये विभीषण कौन?

आक्रमण से जम्बूद्वीप का इतिहास भरा है,

परन्तु इस बार तो वो आंशिक कल्कि रूप में आया है,

शुद्धि और सुधार, दोनो का पाठ पढ़ाया है,

स्वयं से पूछो, इस विकराल विभीषण का रचाइया कौन?

आनंद

Zindagi

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:46:00 +0000

Random creation while evening walk..

ज़िन्दगी कैसी है, तेरे मेरे जैसी है

बारिश की बूंदों की तरह नाज़ुक,

एक अल्फ़ाज़ में पूरे आयत के जैसी है;

मेरे सांस में तेरी हवा के जैसी है,

ये कुछ नहीं पर एक छोटी पहेली जैसी है।

ज़िन्दगी कैसी है, तेरे मेरे जैसी है

ग़म और खुशी के अश्क,

इसके वजूद में इंटो के जैसी है;

इनका बंधन एक नवरंग है,

ये तुम्हारे काले और सफेद जुड़े जैसी है।

ज़िन्दगी कैसी है, तेरे मेरे जैसी है

हर मौसम के हम है आशिक,

मेरा हुनर, मेरी रचना के जैसी है;

ये इन्कलाब मेरा मेरी ज़िन्दगी से चलता रहेगा,

कैसी भी हो, ये सच्चाई के जैसी है।

You Happened!

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 18:48:00 +0000

You know what happened; I closed my eyes and magic happened.
She was there bathed in the sun, holding my hand-
Connected to my soul unto abyss;
And you know the spark happened.

She was deep into my eyes;
I am trying to find myself-
Only to realise my soul is not mine;
The inseparable had already happened.

The depth of our love isn't divine;
It transcends words and worlds.
She is melting in my arms-
Is this an illusion OR reality happened?

A breath, a kiss or a hug-
Ephemeral units to measure love;
You are the beat of my heart-
Neither I nor you, but the 'one' happened.

You know what happened; I closed my eyes and magic happened.

Translation of Sharab Cheez hi Aisi Hai by Pankaj Udhas & Dr Anjum

noreply@blogger.com (anandi) — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 19:24:00 +0000

Just wanted to pen this down today. There are two versions on Youtube. I have translated both of them.

-------------

Ale, you are such a thing;

You are such a thing - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!