ChirpyQuill

Some of you may have read my previous article on Aesthetically Astute Athleticism.    Please see here for reference  Aesthetically Astute Athleticism (AAA) by Atul Singh  if you have not.  The article generated a variety of responses and reactions. The most polarizing word in the article seemed to have been “vanity”. Some people did not relate to it, some found it downright offensive and others quietly accepted the import of it in the context in which it was served. For assuaging those concerns let’s modulate the drivers to be internal and external. External being the yearning to count for something in the peer group that one respects. As a follow up to that article I present another case study in similar realm, that of Ryan Hall. I just reference it here for people to read since this article speaks to it more eloquently than I ever could.  https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/marathoner-ryan-hall-transformation I also think that the definition of a perfect body regularly gets re

Aesthetically Astute  Athleticism ( AAA)   Through the last ten years or so when I have been actively engaged with endurance sports like running, triathlons and even hiking, I have come across two types of athletes. One  is  the gym rat. They are well built, buffed up, but look  generally stiff , bulky and out of range in appeal and possibility for average folks. Then there are the endurance athletes,  mainly runners .  Some  are slim, even stick legs and arms, if they are the serious ones who train all year round. Then there are others, who are in majority, who expand and contract based on whether they are in off season or training season. Bigger, smaller, bigger, smaller, year after year they go, with bodies not really changing in any significant way, appearance wise and constitution wise.  Many  a times, performance wise also, they stay within 10-20 percent of the first plateau they reach after the first couple of races they run and shift their label from a normal person to being a

Top 6 Folks, all of us are at an age, when, even though we are aware, we still need friendly reminders regarding our health and well-being. So here goes : Age brings lots of joys, like Seeing our kids come into their own Finally having paid off our homes and cars or getting close to it Friendships and intimate relationships maturing and providing us the feeling of security and warmth thereof Professional rewards both positional and financial Starting to build a real Spiritual walk and starting to get an understanding of the world that way.  All these, needless to say, need time and energy to enjoy. There-in lies one of life’s biggest contradiction. When we have all these things, our energy and mental faculties seem to start losing the edge. Clearly they wane with time and it accelerates between the ages of 50 and 60. But we all know that there are ways to keep the proverbial “Wolf” at bay. Hence this reminder.  My top six ways on keeping our elan’-vital from depleting over the next 10

  A thousand colours   Dappled sunlight filters through and makes her glow, As you feel her , breathe her in, she urges you to go slow,  She’s a riot of colours and yet, so placid is her charm She’s cold and yet ,her embrace so comforting, so warm, The crispness of her days and the nip in her air, Lambent glow Of the candles and a piano playing somewhere, Ephemeral are moments with her but till eternity will last this affair,  Then she lets go all her colours and finally lay bare, She’s a thousand colours tucked under winter’s veil,  She’s autumn, she’s fall, she’s a never ending tale. 

Last weekend I was in the Hamptons with friends. For the uninitiated, the Hamptons is where the rich people of New York City (both nouveau and old school) live and / or go to spend their weekends, especially during the summers. It is a fountain of privilege, class, rich taste and obnoxious display of wealth. Most New York based senior finance professionals worth their salt either have a second home there or aspire to - it comes with serious bragging rights and it is a powerful statement to start a Monday morning meeting by complaining about the commute from the Hamptons back into the City. OK, so an explanation is in order since none of the sentences after the first sentence in this paragraph apply to me - so what was I doing there? I was attending the wedding celebration of close friends - but this was no ordinary wedding, in fact it is one of the most unique events that I have attended and made me ponder about a number of things primarily related to the subject of this write up. My f

Pakistan broke up into two nations in 1971, owing to their policies of dis-enfranchisement of the East Pakistanis and forcing a language and culture on them thay they did not want or need. Pakistani army inflicted unheard of brutality on their East Pakistani citizens including rapes and murders of 3 million of their own citizens over 8 months. A large majority of the victims happened to be Hindus also. There has been no known incidents of rapes in such massive numbers in modern history.   Indian Army intervened and Pakistani army immediately dropped their weapons and surrendered. Indian army took 93,000 Pakistani soldiers as POW, whom they later released as an act of goodwill. This again has no precedence in modern history. Bangladesh became a free nation. It is now more prosperous than Pakistan, although the disease of oppressing minorities such as Hindus and Christians is just as intact in Bangladesh as it is in Pakistan. (owing to which a 15 percent population of Hindus has dwindled

  A Daughter, A Wife, A Mother…. And the Guilt  by Leena Kundnani   Of the countless roles that I play, some of the most prominent ones are that of a wife, a mother, and a daughter. Not to mention that of a working professional. All these roles get intertwined with each other, each of them vying for time and attention. Often, I feel I am not doing justice to a particular role I am supposed to play, when another needs to be given more priority. This is more so when some of the roles are miles away from each other and physical distance makes it more difficult to maintain a balance. Somehow, I am never content playing whatever role I am playing. I still remember so vividly one day in August 2017 when I got to know my dad had a fall and fractured his back. But questions of should I leave my then 7-year-old alone here in the USA to visit my dad as well as be a support to my mom tormented me. Or few years before that, when my dad had to undergo a pacemaker surgery, my options were to t

Just like that, it happens! It takes just that one moment, one loss to bring you to a watershed moment  when the whole chemistry of your brain changes. The imbalance of the  neurotransmitters, the altered state of your mind, your thought process, your emotions; all of it get a name - Depression! The event which brought you to that state, seizes to matter after a while but you are left with a heart with all its layers, bare open. The brain, starts to loose its rationale thinking and heart starts to rule the mind. The line between what is real and what is your reality starts to blur. The Science :  Brain (which always had my reverential respect - I once wanted to be a neurosurgeon), as we all know, is a complex organ with myriad neural pathways built over a lifetime of experiences, learnings, emotions, actions and some aspects of us which we are born with. Three major neurotransmitters- Serotonin, Dopamine and Oxytocin play a major role in our emotional well-being, how we feel and how ou

  Last evening, was feeling desolate so, decided to go to a star gazing event. And like it does always, space didn't fail to amaze me; it never fails to make my mind go numb trying to fathom the scale of the distances and sizes of the cosmic objects which are so abstruse. I laugh when I think of mankind and how solipsistic are it's beliefs and how desultory it is to the fact that we all are , we all combined along with earth are, not even a tiny speck of dust in the whole scale of universe.  Not that our earth is devoid of things which leave you completely flabbergasted. Monarch butterflies - they migrate every year from Canada to Mexico. They have this path, which otherwise would have taken three of their generations to learn, is hardcoded in their DNA. Salmon - Every year( if it survives the hungry bears on the way), swims thousands of miles to lay eggs on the same spot where it was born. How does she know her path to get to the exact same spot thousands of miles away ? Isn&#

Me and Laundry...... There are invisible people who live in my home People who I’ve never met or seen But I know they exist And that they can’t just be dismissed They don’t drink or eat with me   But all they seem to do is add to my load of laundry I say this because I seem to do way too much for a family of three Sometimes I get so tired Trudging loads of laundry And then what cheers me up Is a cup of my favorite Starbucks coffee And then again my friends I’m ready to tackle the next load of laundry Left by these invisible people who I cannot see                                                      .......................Leena