Happy New Year

Looking back at New Years long gone and seeing a trend following. Namely, either I’ve gone to sleep before the ‘t’ time or wished the folks and then hit the sack.

For that matter, birthdays are a different issue ‘coz that’s your day and what with reminders on every social networking site, someone or the other does make the effort. Wonder if the formality was done away with, would solitude be all I would be left with. The kind of solitude which I experience when everyone is busy in his or her celebrations and every forwarded sms just irks you a little more.

Not to say that the solitude isn’t comforting. There’s something about it that comforts the self, boosts the ego and strengthens the existential quest. Practising transcendence, I smile, make jokes to myself and laugh silently. It is something that I rather take pride in, the manner in which I have cut myself off and have learnt to love myself.

At times, doubt does creep in and these are those little twitches which try to depress me but my faith in myself, my goodness, my sincerity (my vanity?) shakes them off and here I am.

So Happy New Year dear reader (20 times out of 29, it was me!) and here’s to a brighter odyssey!

Happiness

The other day a friend of mine asked me if I’m happy. Wasn’t sure what to say. The fact is contentment is one thing. I’m as settled in my life as … an anvil in a bucket of water (I’m terrible at similes) and love my job and life but then as Maslow predicted, one’s never satisfied, the whole ‘self-actualisation’ deal suddenly comes up and now the “best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men” have started “gang aft agley”ing on me.

Okay so happiness is:

• Feeling the wind on your face on a warm, sunny day biking on a rural, though smooth, road.
• Listening to music and the sweet sounds of nature on a warm day, reading by a secluded lake.
• Flying at 3 kms, looking at the sun play its kaleidoscopic tricks on the Himalayan peaks, clouds, lakes and rivers.
• Sitting at the balcony back home (on leave) with a soft breeze blowing, chatting with the family.
• A weekend get-away with the family, with long drives in the day and long Pictionary filled evenings.
• Reading a Wodehouse (anytime, anyplace).
• Candle-lit session of guitaring with friends singing along.
• Getting dead tired at the end of a basketball (badminton/squash) game where one has managed to bother the scorekeeper.
• Wild robust dance sessions (DancingUI, obviously).
• The clink of the driver when the ball soars straight and far.
• Zooming by tourists at the beach watching them imitate the sea (ref. waves).
• etc. etc.

Bird Watching

IS FLYING FOR THE BIRDS?

Contrary to the expected lexicon of a Fg Offr, the article does refer to the avian variety! Here are the ramblings of an observant aviator.

It’s fascinating how we’ve taken over the skies with birds being the aerial pedestrians, which must stick to their footpaths, the lower levels, to avoid ‘hit-and-fly’s’ (which we refer to as bird-strikes).

Our runways are peppered with bird scarers, shooters and such like ensuring flight safety (for us lucky evolved ‘not meant to fly or we’d have wings’ homo sapiens). It does sound cynical and contrarian but being a hypocrite, in such matters, is understandable.

However, we heartless souls too have our own bond with birds. My unit has a whole flock of geese (or are they plain old ugly ducks – don’t really know the difference for sure) cackling away in the premises. The irony is not totally lost on me, a unit that flies with birds that don’t.

Our stations too house a whole menagerie which includes peacocks and jays in addition to the run-of-the-mill cranes, pigeons, crows and sparrows.

While flying, though, the eagles do try their best to exact revenge, scaring us with their kamikaze attacks on our windscreens, fortunately ducking (no pun intended) at the last moment, gleefully revelling at having seen our scared pale faces. But, at times, one may happen to glance at some lake or a field and see a whole slew of cranes flying in formation looking like scattered specks of powdered sugar.

Having save for the last, is the sorry tale of this kingfisher which had fallen in love with (or appeared to) with our behemoth of a helicopter. Maybe it had a thing for big tails, but anyway, all it resulted in was a repeated attempt to come closer to our whirlybird, sit next to it and then fly away. We, on the other hand, had no love lost for the pitiful creature, worried that it’d damage our blades if it came too close. Love would’ve claimed another casualty.

- AOA (An Observant Aviator)

Limerick central

There was a girl from Leipzig,

In the mud she’d squelch and dig,

She had a cute nose,

The tip of which rose,

I always thought her more of a pig.