Henry Newbolt - musings for slow and lazy days

Vitai Lampada

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—
Ten to make and the match to win
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red,—
Red with the wreck of a square that broke;—
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind—
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Charles Villiers Stanford : Songs of the Sea

Thank you Sir Henry John Newbolt - such a motivation!

Let me devour

Woods are lovely, over the grass green

Tiny yet jumpy legs, with full of dream!

The worldly musings are way too far

Lulli you, and 

Window of the whole lot is slightly ajar

How therapeutic, misery melts like an ice cream

Oh Dear! come to me like a sweet dream!!

Let me caress- devour with my eyes, O dainty!

Times' fleeting,

Dear, Let my palms be the moulding green.

Jumping around, ready to take on the joyful world

Everything is Waiting for You!

Everything is Waiting for You

(After Derek Mahon) - by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

OneRace SuperSikhRun Gurgaon 5th Feb

First run (half marathon) of the year 2023 - One Race Super Sikh Run. Plan was to complete race within 2:45 hrs, however app strava and the official timing didn't match. Some improvement from Nov '22 run though.

Keeping timing aside, initial phase of run felt easy. Thanks to the flat course & overall vibes around. After mid race (from the U turn), it was run walk run. Last 4 kms were pretty hard.

Official timing https://www.runizen.com/p/3b7c258420828e0a6ee0

not too many pics, just a few-

WNC Navy Half Marathon - Mumbai 2022

After a really long break, the run is back. 20th Nov was the day of IndianOil WNC Navy Half Marathon 2022 - 21K Aircraft Carrier Run Category.

The pain got worse due to Ankylosing spondylitis over the years and finally after some medication got some courage to participate in one long run. The original plan of a week long trip got shortened to a weekend trip. Stayed in a dorm room at Empire Royale hotel, it is just opposite to CSMT train station. The to and fro journey was via railways rajdhani train.

With a goal of 2:45 timing bus, completed the run in 3 hours, not a great timing. But it did boost the confidence after so many days of severe pain. When I was certain that I'm gonna get bound to a wheelchair, this run did bring back some hope.

Coming months are going to be hopeful, planning to enrol for more races- one half marathon a month is the goal of year 2023.

not a proud timing, but a good starting point

Next registration done for- New Delhi Marathon on 26 Feb, 2023 with a target of 2:30 💪

Lets hold hands

Let this be a still frame,

Let mountain of worries play their game,

see them grow;

way higher than us and we,

Smile under their shadow, unaffected!!

This path may not be the hall of fame,

May not transpire us into a single frame,

with you and I -

may not be able to hold hands, see us grow;

together forever to our graves, contented!!

Let us hold hands anyway; and lock our eyes; smiling!

Say; cheers to this beautiful thing we have together now!

No mountain of worries can defeat;

The way our hearts beats in a single rhythmic beat!!

Snow or not, rain or hot - the Mountain teaches us to be strong - to keep our head high
always!
when nature is so brave - we must! we are just small cog in this mighty nature!

Good things Never Lasts

You carved out the best of yours

Put some lovely wings -

and fly to you like dark cloud pours!

With head high, gazing curls of yours

Put on some lovely legs - 

and gleaming to you like drizzling rains!!

And then deep down in heart of yours

The doomed dubiety of love that,

good things never lasts!

The prelude of that moment, my dear!!

freshly picked from beautiful nature- and
turned into a lovely hen, my hen!

Curly way to your heart

From the greenery to the barren lands
to the snowy mountains!
wrapping together so many emotions!!

The curly way to your heart,

the entwined road like your hairs-

hiding the beautiful mind inside the curls!

caressing, allow me dear! in your worlds!!

While you welcome some souls in your lap,

let me hide in your curls and whisper songs!

let me adorn your world, let me linger till eternity!!

The pleasure of riding curly roads - holding so much inside one frame - looking back from the top is like hope I had stayed longer in there, if not forever.

Solitude

A little corner of joy,

of solitude!

Wonder, when do you allow aliens to knock that door,

of your solitude!

And wonder even, how come you welcome 'em whole heartedly,

in your solitude!!

#littleJoys #solitude

odd one out

the struggle,
of being the odd-one out!
of the fear of acceptance
is real!!!

yet the joy-
of craziness!
of the sense of kinship
is exhilarating my ferried!!!!

#insomnia #kafal #newseason

of New Season!

Like the new blossoms,
of new times, of new season -

The freshness of you - the gentle breeze!

how can I not find you by my side,
in such solitude
my dear!!

 

Fighting back

It's always there, a loop

constantly silent at our backyard!

And my dear, the time has come,

to reset... to return back to the base!

to basics!

Lets accept the vulnerability and be brave

And lets build and welcome the new regime!!

#fightingCorona, #socialDistancing

Throwback from the past. on the road

Dear Nature

From boulder to build~er / up

Dear Nature,

are we beautifying you or f-(beep)-d you up?

#insomnia, #andThen #morningRun

Somewhere in HYD hitech city. saw this on my early morning run

You, just you; are my world

In search of peace and tranquility
We the wanderers;
Go on places on some lonelier path
To witness life, magic along the way

The magic: a symphony of music, of misty joys, of wet path, of mystic nature
And heart craves to cuddle that magic-
In love; -says, stay right here, a bit more

Stretching my arms, I look up the invisible sky, listen the passing of misty fog by my face, that closes the chilly eyelids, blurring the vision!

I see nothing!

But I feel something, rather someone
Walking slowly towards me, smiling, and those big eyes, You!!
You come closer, kissing my eyes and whisper something beautiful

Suddenly my senses go numb
All I hear 'get off the railing'
I open my eyes
Just to see some curious eyes peeping out of the camera frame!!

#past, #throwback, #insomnia,

misty morning and this sound and you!

New Galaxy

Another milky way galaxy in a parallel world

Dera, i bought you some stars!!

#void, #stars

Finding my galaxy somewhere

'His' control

so high in the sky

hanging with a singly light thread

with the flow flow of air, sometimes against

so vulnerable yet full of spirit-

we are, in this universe; under His control!!

#noFeelGoodFeeling

Such a joy... and my rush to catch something else...

Articles from web: 01 January, 2020

Good article across Internet today -

The change of India's unicorn brigade - The-Ken

Nirmala Sitharaman unveils Rs 102 lakh crore of infra projects for next 5 years - ET

Turmoil in the banking landscape: Year of reckoning for PSU Banks - ET

Any major sneaky catch in these no-cost EMI schemes? charges and EMI x tenure = cost. So where’s the catch, if any? - Twitter @deepakshenoy

India needs very serious reforms: IMF's Gita Gopinath - DC

Session on “India Policy and Market Outlook 2020” - CFA

What Happened In The 2010s - AVC

National Infrastructure Pipeline - PIB (pdf)

True owners of Tourism Finance Corporation of India - Linkedin

MDR waiver to hit fintechs, payments companies' business model - BS

Understanding of business and market cycles - AC

Presentation on Investing for MBA Students Abhishek Basumallick

This is where teachers are paid the most - WEF

David Attenborough’s worried about this ocean threat - and it’s not plastic - WEF

How India's Water Ends Up Everywhere But India - Bloomberg

For my R/Python learning:-

Web Scraping 101 with Python - Greg Reda blog

Intro to Web Scraping with Python and Beautiful Soup - You Tube

Year 2019 it was..

Year 2018 ended with a trip to Udaipur and Mount Abu, a perfect start of 2019. However, not much trips after that.

Then work wise, said good-bye to lovely chaotic aamchi Mumbai and moved to Amma Bengaluru, first impression: lovely weather, then did trip to Medikeri Coorg in April, and weekend trip to Wayanad in July, then a all nighter trip to Nandi Hills in October. and couple of home calling trips, a big decision and rest of year went quietly.

Merry christmas. St. Patrick's church mg road BLR

Got a new phone in September, yes iPhone again- 8. Ecosystem syndrome I guess. :)

While entire nation was busy with Article 370,-  a good thing for J&K? I'm not so sure. Lok Sabha election,- Modi wave did put him on the throne once again NRC and Citizen Amendment Bill,- Assam people faced a lot on it at the beginning of the year then at the end of year it was like across the nation, Blame the elephants - this beautiful Quora answer gave the history around it;

Here I was sitting quietly in my single room with ultra speed wifi- trying to see if I could do anything about the chaos across the nation due to NRC or attack on CRPF or banning triple talaq or verdict on Ram mandir Ayodhya or Hyderabad gang rape, and then ISROs partial successful launch of Chandrayaan-2 to the moon BUT I did some progress learning to code with Python and R language, seems like I have still a long way to explore projects or building automation tools.

Health-wise, not so good. Back pain & neck pain was so intense, had to visit a doctor. He told me I have some form of Arthritis- called Spondyo-arthritis due to HLA B27 Positive. Means I am on medication right now, at least for couple of months. Doctor says be more active. Pain? still the same after a month.

Now that the year went by just fine, added just 9 blogs here. I know not much, I plan to write a blog a week but as they say plans are plan right? without execution they are nothing but hope. Also someone said 'hope is a good thing' so let's welcome the new year 2020 with open heart and with open minds.

peace.. 

no fight, yes harmony

Dear, we have come a long way,
into an arduous journey with the nature;
co-existing together in peace without a harm..

put things into perspective I recon;
we have won our surroundings trust
then why fight with your own descent?

I say open your arms;
not to fight but to hold for a path for your own..

#chaos, #protests #nrc #insomnia

such a simple life... somewhere in Nepal, off national highway build by Japanese... from my cycling trips...

void

the dark web of my existence
scattered petals in thin air of my dream
cold my heart, misty eyes scream
can I ask for a hand to fill the void?

sleepless nightmare, drifting in unknown
how can I live outside your love, my dear?

#insomnia #void

somewhere at the top - Nandi Hills Bangalore