Santa Claus, the True Story

I got this story from KS the other day and found it wonderful... Read on and do read the follow up discussion at the end...

I remember my first Christmas party with Grandma. I was
just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to
visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There
is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled
to her that day because I knew she would be straight with
me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that
the truth always went down a whole lot easier when
swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between
bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

"No Santa Claus!" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it.
That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes
me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished
my second cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store
in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we
walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars.
That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money and buy
something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the
car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my
mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself.
The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling
to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just
stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering
what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my
neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my
church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought
of Bobbie Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair,
and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.

Bobbie Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never
went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote
a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids
knew that Bobbie Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have
a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I
would buy Bobbie Decker a coat. I settled on a red corduroy one
that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the
counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes," I replied shyly. "It's ... For Bobbie."

The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put
the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas
paper and ribbons, and write, "To Bobbie, From Santa Claus"
on it -- Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.
Then she drove me over to Bobbie Decker's house, explaining
as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's
helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobbie's house, and
she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front
walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus,"
she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the
present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back
to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited
breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally
it did, and there stood Bobbie.

Forty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent
shivering, beside my grandma, in Bobbie Decker's bushes. That
night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus
were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous.

Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

The story has multiple layers... Once in a while I am confused thinking about how best to bring up kids... I am not sure how ... but this was definitely one of the best ways to do so... the Granny in one go taught the kid a lots and lots of things which would definitely help him in the life ahead.....

What KS liked most about this idea was that the Granny did the teaching while keeping the innocent faith of the boy intact... In modern times, we often tend to be too factual and in the process destroy such beliefs, as that of the boy in Santa.. We should surely not be superstitious but KS thinks we should have at least some bit of faith in things beyond what meets the eye.. Such a belief has the power to give a lot of meaning to life, as it did in the case of the boy in the story.. :-)

A trip to remember

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With Dusshera holiday on Thursday, people were taking off on Friday to make the last weekend a long one. A recent vacation and an impending delivery at work precluded my further vacationing, however when AS4, AS2 & RD approached me with a plan to go biking to Jaipur I simply found it irresistible, more so because the plan was to leave Delhi Friday evening and be back on Monday for work!!

This was to be my first long distance biking experience so I was obviously excited. Beside the few "glitches" the trip was very smooth and not half as painful as T had said it would be. I have a small logging of major events that happened en-route (recorded on AS4s mobile;)).

Oct 10 2008 9:51 PM - Leave Ghaziabad after fuelling up
Oct 11 2008 1:15 AM - Have Dinner
Oct 11 2008 2:53 AM - Long tea break Baniyala Mod
Oct 11 2008 5:23 AM - Bakar Break @ Shiv villas
Oct 11 2008 7:45 AM - Check in Hotel Sarfaraz
Oct 11 2008 1:25 PM - Lunch @ Bombay Mishtan Bhandar
Oct 11 2008 7:50 PM - Visit Choki Dhani
Oct 11 2008 9:15 PM - Dinner @ Choki Dhani

Choki Dhani deserves a special mention, the place is a complete mockery of indian villages, other than the fact that guys wear ethnic clothes and there are camels and bullock carts roaming around [which, by the way are used to conduct guided 3 mins rides; And.. If you are thinking it sucks :) it does {We did take the camel ride though ;)} ] there is a guy selling popcorn, there's icecream and there is HUGE HUGE HUGE queue for meals. The experience had almost turned out to be the low-point of the trip, seeing the super long Q we had almost decided to turn around and eat at some common restaurant, when we decide that now that we had spent this much time & money to be there, might as well make the most of it. And Boy, we turned it around to make it the high-point of the trip. Random jokes about Tea being served in plastic cups and the resolution to do the Train around the organized folk dance and to get more people involved to make it look like a college disco party and the meticulously ridiculous ideas on how to make sure that we are kicked out of the place not only brought our spirits back but proved a source of entertainment to all around. When we finally managed to get our dinners served, and we did our best in amusing everyone around us, the server poured in extra ghee in my plate saying that I need to be strong like Salman Khan. And in no time, we were back to our cheerful selves [though we didnt do the Train neither did we get kicked out]

Oct 12 2008 3:51 AM - Sleep after a LOTS of senti talks
Oct 12 2008 1:30 PM - Checkout from Sarfaraz Hotel
Oct 12 2008 1:40 PM - Juice & Lunch
Oct 12 2008 2:30 PM - Photo @ Very cool hill
Oct 12 2008 3:30 PM - Fined. (I was not carrying bike papers, and yeah... I didnt have a license :) [we were not fined for that though... Lucky chance.. AS2 had JUST taken over the bike from me]
Oct 12 2008 6:30 PM - Boating @ Sili Said Lake
Oct 12 2008 7:30 PM - Reached Alwar
Oct 12 2008 9:30 PM - Dinner @ Bivadi
Oct 12 2008 11:10 PM - Reach Dhaula Kuan @ Delhi
Oct 13 2008 12:09 AM - Reach AS4s home
Oct 13 2008 12:50 AM - Back @ my home.yo yo yo

And there it was, a wonderful trip....

Well, the trip would be incomplete if I did not mention the little "glitches" we had. After a night long ride we were pretty tired and sleepy. Now those who know me would know that one thing I CANNOT resist is sleep. So when we reached Jaipur, it was almost 5 in the morning, we were on a hilly road with quite a few steep turns. I was riding, RD is behind me when suddenly RD shouts at me for not being careful, I was almost ready to ram into the railing. I am quite shocked, not knowing that I was careless but knowing that I hadnt seen the railing AT ALL... I had dozed off :) [well its not something to be happy about.. But... in retrospect it really looks funny :)] we changed seats but boy I was in such a bad shape I just couldnt keep my eyes open, I drank all the water that was there, kept sprinkling myself with water but I just couldnt manage to keep sitting straight till we reached this hotel and I dozed off at the reception and was hauled to the room :)

But as they say.. Alls well that ends well... and it did for us...

True love...

They say that true love is eternal and that it is beyond life and death... There are innumerous stories on how true lovers brought back their loved ones from the very grasp of death... I experienced something like this recently....

When I met her four years back, I knew I had fallen in love with her on first sight.. There was no mistaking it for infatuation or a crush... It was love... in the purest form... Her voice sounded like the clearest note of a ringing bell to my ears... I remember the first time I heard her... I could not stop smiling... I must have looked so stupid then.. But thus is true love.. you are happy to look stupid...

Four years went by, in the blink of an eye... I wished time were less cruel... a little slower... but that was how it was to be... Last month as I fondly saw her rest... recharging herself for the day to come... to my horror and shock she just collapsed... over a period of a few weeks the frequency of the collapses increased... It was stupid of me... but I was scared to show her to a doctor least it turned out to be something serious... knowing that she could have been treated on a timely consultation... I resisted the doctor on some pretext or the other... Deep down I knew that she would not be able to be with me for long.. She had a heart problem...

My world was almost shattered... But as true love would have it... this Diwali I got my gift... I was at KG's place when to my utter surprise I notice that Miss MG had long killed an innocent soul and left the unused heart to rot.... it was almost like the universe conspiring to make sure my love prevails... it was a perfect match for her... most eagerly and earnestly KG donated... A heart replacement.. and my phone is now as good as new... True love prevails.....

PS: If you are wondering what the heart was... well.. it was "her" battery

Highest goal of life

Recently PG forwarded an article to me. It was as if I was reading my own thoughts about life. Everybody has a simple choice to make, being happy or being sad; this choice I strongly feel can be made independently of the events happening around us. This might sound difficult and high philosophy, but I have often found this natural and I really hope that in future we never so bogged down with the events happening that we are unable to make this choice for us.

Read on.

+Fasih

The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have to realize that you really only have one choice in this life, and it's not about your career, whom you want to marry, or whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It's really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear.

Most people don't dare give themselves that choice because they think it's not under their control. Someone might say, "Well, of course I want to be happy, but my wife left me." In other words, they want to be happy, but not if their wife leaves them. But that wasn't the question. The question was, very simply, "Do you want to be happy or not?" If you keep it that simple, you will see that it really is under your control. It's just that you have a deep-seated set of preferences that gets in the way. […]

It's not a question of whether your happiness is under your control. Of course it's under your control. It's just that you don't really mean it when you say you're willing to stay happy. You want to qualify it. You want to say that as long as this doesn't happen, or as long as that does happen, then you're willing to be happy. That's why it seems like it is out of your control. Any condition you create will limit your happiness. You simply aren't going to be able to control things and keep them the way you want them.

You have to give an unconditional answer. If you decide that you're going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there is. You don't have to learn Sanskrit or read any scriptures. You don't have to renounce the world. You just have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be happy. And you have to mean it regardless of what happens. This is truly a spiritual path, and it is as direct and sure a path to Awakening as could possibly exist.

--Michael Singer from "The Untethered Soul"

The old Cherokee

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 wolves.

"One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is God. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."