where the hell is matt

searched for a visa card commerical which often plays in movie halls featuring a guy dancing across the globe. and what i found was just amazing. the guy featured in the commercial is matt harding. amazing stuff hez doing, globe trotting with a cause...

further details

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/

Charge of the Light Brigade - Lord Alfred Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

`Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

`Forward, the Light Brigade!'

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldier knew

ome one had blunder'd:

Their's not to make reply,

Their's not to reason why,

Their's but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke

Shatter'd and sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder'd.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

Daffodils - Willaim Wordswoth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Solitray Reaper - William Wordsworth

BEHOLD her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listen'd, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

the serenity prayer

sunday, 16 august 2009

met AJ for lunch today. we were meeting after a span of over a year and a half. as usual, we had a long desultroy chat - ranging from going thru her civils prep notes to what next, how was ur trip back home, how is ur accommodation turning out to be, how was the wedding she attended at manali, what her friends were doing etc etc.

i too faced some conversations like howz my job going?, whats ur profile, howz ur family doing, discussion about my recent wall climbing experience et al.

some questions on spirituality as well poped up. one question that did give me a jolt was does God mean to me. dont remember what answer i had babbled, but the question did leave me thinking, what exactly does God mean to me. have i started taking him for granted that he is there n will always be there for us? dont knw. probably need some more time to figure it out.

she also gave me a writeup they had discussed in their church that morning. it had reflections on a verse form the prayer - our father in heaven "thy kingdom come, thy will be done". Also was this beautiful prayer, excerpts of which we all wud have come across, some point of time.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Guitar @ Church after long

turned out to be a good morning for the musician within me.

With our lead guitarists and other musicians of the choir off for Illuminate 2009, got a chance to play the guitar in the morning mass. played the second guitarist. was easy was just playing one chord thru out the hymn on low volume, tryin to get the strum pattern correct. but was a good confidence booster...

new resolution for me... 15 min guitar practice DAILY. no matter what crap i strum but need to strum.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Somehow had this flash of a poems i had studied during my school days. In restrospect, i think i did like them, though during school it wud have felt otherwise. Else how wud i still remember so vividly 'walling in and walling out', 'Elves', 'old stone savage' et al

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Artificial Rock Climbing

finally after a wait of over 2 years, yesterday i cud go to IMF n try my hands at sports climbing / wall climbing / artificial rock climbing as it is called.

standing at the base of the wall gives u a high.n then u utter the magical words 'climbing' n the ecstasy begins. it felt so good. but 3/4th way up the wall n my body seemed to be giving up. was becoming increasingly difficult to climb n inch further. told the instructor that i want to come down. but he insisted that i complete that leg, the top wasn't too far off n i cud do it. i decided to continue n in the end i did reach the top. phew..

then i came down with the rappling type descend. didn't have the courage to climb the way down the way it shud have been done.by the time i reached down, i was virtually trembling - more so out of excitement i suppose, i cud not even remove the carabiner n the harness properly. was so overjoyed. took me some time to get back to my normal sense.

others present did 2 sets of 2ascends and descends. was motivating. probably some day i'll also be able to do it..

for me its was not that important that i did it only once while others did it so easily... for me it was overcoming the inertia and pushing of the self set boundaries that was important.. also had waited for it for so long..over 2 years since in last year of MBE i came to know about it...

only sad part was that had to lie about it to my parents. i knw they wud not have agreed to it n even if they did, it wud have been a half hearted one. i dont want to hurt them u see, so its better to keep SHUT.

wud love to do it again, properly this time though. both ascend n descend. n multiple sets at that.

i have been quoted on orkut....WOW!!

sounds boastful but cud not belive that someone just quoted my statement somewhere on the web

"we learn more thing when we help others - expands ur horizon of problems, which u dont have but u might have some time later "

was this statement that interesting??

i wonder...

Friendship Day - 2 August

an eventful day

started off with church n the marathon Samanvaya Youth Group meeting. many promising proposal for passive people. Lets hope these work. need to change thing big time. the sports meet sounded interesting. looking forward to the badminton part 0f it.

that was followed by meeting up with 2 of my college friends and one more friend of theirs. was good fun, while we were waiting for them brought 2 LP shirts at 30% disc. what an ego booster it was. but it took some time. badi bheed thi. saari duniya shopping ke liye aaj hi CP aayi si lagti thi aur kyon na ho, voh bhi meri tarah end of season sale ka wait kar rahe honge + kal pehli tareekh thi. even the eating joints were overflowing. we then went to an archie's shop. i picked up 2 clipper lighters - one with marlboro and the other one with 555 insignia. the store had a decent looking black zippo for some 1500 bucks. too tempting it was. i also got 2 friendship bands form my friends there. how dumb of me i forgot to buy bands for them. n e way, they understand me i suppose and wud have been expecting this form me. we parted ways at 6.15.

was time to meet next set of friends from school - GA, MG n SS. it was sort of unexpected meeting, fixed up in a real short time but there lay the charm of the matter, cud it work out? i decided to give it a good shot. i wud be meeting MG after 2 years n SS after 7 years. i wondered how it had turned out to be. during school we were just acquaitences, cud probably count the number of times we intereacted on the fingers of my hand n my feet. but some how caught up with SS on gtalk and it didn't feel like we had not interacted during school or the 7 years that ensued. i wondered why did we not interact in school, or more so why did i interact with so few people at school (and fewer of them being girls... what was the whole point of being in co-ed school??). n e ways, the original plan was to meet at m2k pitampura but then GA cud not turn up there n it was decided that all 3 wud reach CP as i was there already n it had better options to eat out. this left me with some more time for window shopping + actual shopping. got hold of a blackberry shirt at 50% disc. it was a plain vanila shirt but what matters at that time was the 50% discount. so materialistic i have become - mujhe apni antar aatma ko tatolna hoga...maine bhi moh maya ke peeche bhagna shuru kar diya hai...aisa kyon ho raha hai... (sounds filmy, will think about it later, abhi toh visa power - go get it) also brought a small toy steam boat.had my eye on it since long. amazing piece of science it is. still have not been able to figure it out how it works. will paint it properly with the shark tooth design (akin the one on the zippo lighter used by pyro in xmen) in the front n a good name at the rear.

7.45 n MG n SS arrive, sans GA. GA had to be somewhere else n said he wud try to join us but in the end cud not make it. the 3 of us decided to have dinner ASAP n head back home for the desert - reprimand from our parents for being out, late through the evening. we explored some options but the regular eating joints where still overflowing with people. we decided to try tao at e-8 connaught place. fine place for oriental cuisine, nice ambience it had. it was more of experimental oriental experience. we ordered won ton (a derivative of dim sum or the more desi version - momo), noodles in mandarin sauce, n beverages (including cranberry juice - its sounded really exotic)

the food was good. we chatted through the dinner on a variety of topics - school days, present status of classmates, matrimony, expected family reaction when we wud reach home beyond our cutoff times etc. we finally left the place at 9.45 to take metro back to our homes.

the interesting part of it was that we 3 actually met. to my surprise it was quite comfortable talking to them and it never seemed that we didn't know each other that well during school or that so many years had passed by since we left schoool. i was feeling a bit funny initially - meeting three classmates (including 2 womenfolk), at such a short notice, with whom i had interacted so little when i had ample opportunity - 12 years at school but now for some strange reason i was looking forward to meet them - tried my best to wrap up my previous meeting in time so that i cud attend the intended meeting at m2k pitampura, waited till the time they arrived at CP. though it was sort of late n all but i thought it wud be worth the effort and actually turned out to be more. may be its never to late to start something good. n what a better day cud it be than friendship day!!