Tag: Leisure

Posted in Fun & Humour

Two Liners & Some Pun…

Posted on by Anand Surana

Brevity is the Soul of Wit. Enjoy these fresh two-liners with some genuine observations –

The difference between in-laws and outlaws?
Outlaws are wanted.

Alcohol is a perfect solvent:
It dissolves marriages, families and careers.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong.
A tax is a fine for doing well.

Archaeologist:
Someone whose career lies in ruins.

There are two kinds of people who don’t say much:
Those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

They say that alcohol kills slowly.
So what? Who’s in a hurry?

Alcohol and calculus don’t mix.
Never drink and derive

One nice thing about egotists:
They don’t talk about other people.

And now for some Brilliant Puns…

A man who wants a pretty nurse, must be patient.

A man who leaps off a cliff, jumps to a conclusion.

A man running in front of a car, gets tyred; And a man running behind a car, gets exhausted.

War does not determine who is right. It determines who is left.

A man who drives like hell, is bound to get there.

A lion will not cheat on his wife, but a Tiger wood!

Toilets are a great place to think. No wonder they are called “Sochalayas”..

Posted in Fun & Humour

TANJOOBERRYMUTTS

Posted on by Anand Surana

By the time you read through this you will understand the meaning of “TANJOOBERRYMUTTS”. And only then will you be ready to take on China! Believe me…you WILL understand!!!

Here it goes…The following is a telephonic exchange between a Hotel guest & a room-service agent in China…

Room Service: “Morrin. Roon sirbees.”
Guest: “Sorry, I thought I dialled room-service.”
Room Service: “Rye, Roon sirbees… morrin! Joowish to oddor sunteen?”
Guest: “Uh… Yes, I’d like to order bacon & eggs.”
Room Service: “Ow ulai den?”
Guest: ” …….What?”
Room Service: “Ow ulai den?… Pryed, boyud, pochd?”
Guest: “Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry.. Scrambled, please.”
Room Service: “Ow ulai dee bayken? Creepse?”
Guest: “Crisp will be fine.”
Room Service: “Hokay. An sahn toes?”
Guest: “What?”
Room Service: “An toes. ulai sahn toes?”
Guest: “I…. Don’t think so..”
RoomService: “No? Udo wan sahn toes?”
Guest: “I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what ‘udo wan sahn toes’ means.”
RoomService: “Toes! Toes!… Why Uoo don wan toes?… Ow bow anglish moppin we botter?”
Guest: “Oh, English muffin!! I’ve got it! You were saying ‘toast’… Fine…Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”
RoomService: “We botter?”
Guest: “No, just put the botter on the side.”
RoomService: “Wad?”
Guest: “I mean butter… Just put the butter on the side.”
RoomService: “Copy?”
Guest: “Excuse me?”
Room Service: “Copy.. tea… meel?”
Guest: “Yes. Coffee, please… And that’s everything.”
Room Service: “One Minnie. Scramah egg, creepse bayken, Anglish moppin, we botter on sigh & copy… Rye?”
Guest: “Whatever you say.”
Room Service: “Tanjooberrymutts.”
Guest: “You’re welcome”

Remember I did say “By the time you read through this… YOU WILL UNDERSTAND ‘TANJOOBERRYMUTTS’ 

Posted in Books

Life’s Little Instructions

Posted on by Anand Surana

“Life’s Little Instructions”  –  This is the title of one of my favourite books. This book was originally written by H. Jackson Brown. The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book contains the 1,560 entries found in all three volumes of the New York Times Bestselling Life’s Little Instruction Book series.

This book like other books does not contain a story or a lot of text. It is a collection of one or two line sentences which originally were written as a gift from a father to a son, however its simplicity and practical advice is so appealing that it has been enjoyed by men and women of all ages. Even the lines on the cover page after the title reads…

Suggestions, Observations and Reminders on
How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life.

My Story

I love reading and I first read this book during my college days. I was so inspired by its simplicity and relevance that I decided to gift one copy of this book to each of my friends as a parting gift towards the end of college. Though you may agree that it was a good idea but I was in college and had limited resources. I did not have enough money to buy a copy each for my friends.

To say that inspite of this shortcoming I was still determined would be an understatement. I wanted to share this treasure with my near and dear ones so badly that I decided to reproduce the whole text…manually.

I realised that it was not possible to write so many copies with hand so the other option would be to get it done on a computer. I am taking about the year 1998 in India and not many people would own a computer like today. I did not have one too.

But to my good fortune, one of my close friends Suyog Hebbar, who was pursuing Computer Science Engineering, had a desktop. And the icing on the cake was that he shared the apartment with me. So I discussed this idea with him and used his computer to key in the contents patiently. Slowly over a period of few days I was able to complete the typing, designed the cover page and saved it to a floppy disk for printing.

In those days mostly everyone used the dot-matrix printers. However I wanted a better print quality. So I decided to get one printed from the printing shop. I knew that Inkjet printing was very costly those days and as students we had limited funds for our monthly expenses. So all I could afford was one copy. Using this as the master copy I got multiple other copies xeroxed (photostat) and got them spiral bound and then gifted a copy to many of my friends with the hope that the gift would be valued not for its cost or beauty but for the content and underlying effort and feelings.

One such copy I also gave to my sister and she recently shared the cover page of the same with me which I am reproducing below.

After reading all this with patience you might be wondering what really is inside the covers of the book. So let me share a few of my favourite “Life Little Instructions” below. As you read these, pause for a moment before you move on to the next one.

Compliment three people every day.

Watch a sunrise at least once a year.

Remember other people’s birthdays.

Have a firm handshake.

Life is short.
Eat more pancakes and fewer rice cakes.

Sing in the shower.

Use the good silver.

Buy great books, even if you never read them.

Say “thank you” a lot.

Say “please” a lot.

Plant flowers every spring.

Be the first to say “hello.

Live beneath your means.

Drive inexpensive cars,
but own the best house you can afford.

Be forgiving of  yourself and others.

Learn the rules.
Then Break Some.

Learn three clean jokes.

Wear polished shoes.

Ask for a raise when you feel you’ve earned it.

If in a fight,
hit first and hit hard.

Return all the things you borrow.

Teach some kind of class.

Be a student in some kind of class.

Plant a tree on your birthday.

Make new friends
but cherish the old ones.

Keep secrets.

Take lots of snapshots. 

Never give up on anyone.
Miracles happen everyday.

Don’t waste time learning the “tricks of the trade.”
Instead, learn the trade.

Surprise loved ones with little unexpected gifts.

Stop blaming others.
Take responsibility for every area of your life.

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you.

Use your wit to amuse, not abuse.

Be brave. Even if  you’re not, pretend to be.
No one can tell the difference.

Demand excellence and be willing to pay for it.

Don’t take good health for granted.

Someone will always be looking at you as an example of how to behave. Don’t disappoint.

Write “thank you” notes promptly.

If you haven’t read this book already, I strongly recommend you to try it. If you have read it long ago, you may gain some new insights by reviewing it again. Happy reading !

Posted in Art & Craft

Zentangle – What Is It?

Posted on by Anand Surana

I recently came across this form of meditative drawing which is called Zentangle. It is a fun way of creating beautiful images by drawing structured repetitive patterns. These patterns are called tangles. The “Zen” was added to it because the act of drawing zentangles is deliberate, pleasurable, meditative and you feel lighter after finishing one just like meditation. 

Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas are the founders of this form of art. As they describe on their website, www.zentangles.com, Maria would draw patterns on top of a manuscript that she was working on. In speaking to Rick, she described feelings of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness and a rich immersion in what she was doing – all classic aspects of a flow state. Rick who had earlier practiced meditation for many years identified this as meditation, and the two then created a system so that others could experience the same bliss. The Zentangle Method was born.

When I first came across it I felt a connection almost immediately as like many others I too had this habit of doodling on the sides of my notepad during a boring college lecture or a rather dull and uninteresting meeting at the workplace and sometime even during phone calls. I often felt that the patterns I drew were appealing (at least to me) but I never tried to pursue them as art or give them a larger space or structured form. However I do remember that when discarding old notebooks or diaries I used to fondly turn the pages and revisit the patterns I had drawn on those pages and take one more look at them.

Difference between a Zentangle and a Doodle
My first thought was that it is an extension of doodling but in a little organised manner. However once I started to explore this I realised that there are subtle differences between doodling and zentangling. Doodles are usually created during times when the person making them is having trouble paying attention to something else that’s going on, like a lecture or a phone call. However the creation of a Zentangle drawing is deliberate.

Unlike doodling, the person creating a Zentangle is giving it his or her full, undivided attention. A Zentangle cannot be created while on the phone or a boring meeting/lecture, because attention is an inherent part of this art form.The Zentangle Method helps you create a feeling of relaxed focus.

Creating a zentangle is a very liberating process and you will realise that once you start it it is so engrossing and soothing that it is hard to stop. Since this was my first attempt at it I used a reference drawing to create the drawing.

The reference drawing I used.

However zentangle in its original form is meant to be a form of expression of your thoughts and feelings and to me it a very good way of calming down your mind if your mind is distracted. Hence the act of creating the Zentangle is just as important as the final outcome. I think it helps the mind to sift thru information and organise it and provide the much needed mental peace.

So go-ahead explore it – there are hundreds of patterns available on the internet and Pinterest is a good place to look for them apart from Google search. Please do share your experiences of how you felt after creating your zentangle drawing.