Friendship....

One of my friends in Ashford (England) sent me a home made video of how beautiful a thing friendship is. I have taken the message embedded in the video and put it in words for everyone to read and enjoy the true meaning of friendship.

This post is dedicated to all my friends around the world. I am so grateful to God for giving me a lot of beautiful and very special friends. In my life, I have met a lot of people - some became friends others best friends. This post is to all my friends. Thank you Nicole for the video.

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.

Friendship is one mind in two bodies

If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t jump with them, I would be at the bottom to catch them

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart

Promise you won’t forget me, because if I thought you would, I’d never leave

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad

My personal favourite is....
If you should die before me, ask if you can bring a friend

Damn It!

I hate the way I feel right now. It has been approximately 2 months and I have been feeling the same. Work is not as good as it used to be. My creativity has diminished for my music - I have always been the creative and adventurous one in the band. I almost lost many friends - and these are good friends by the way. I am leaving for Beijing for the Olympics in 4 days time and I am not even slightly excited about it.

I have been keeping myself busy with whatever I can think of doing, but honestly, I feel like shit. I don't know why? I don't know what is the reason, but I know there are so many contributing factors to this feeling. I have never felt this way before.

I do hope I come out of this.

@#$%^&*!

Showcase Performance @ The Attic....

I know... I know it has been a while since I posted about Vessel of Worship ;) - so here goes!

We (V of W) were invited by the Organising Committee of the Attic's Got Talent competition to perform on the 23rd of July 2008 (Tue). It was a unique experience because we were given a 45 mins slot for the night. Now, V of W have never done any show for 45mins - anywhere. To make matters worse, we did not even have the time to practise. But we took everything in a stride. I suggested that we'd do an acoustic performance. Since we did not have the full band with us (Mark is away on work and Dharmin is away on performances), we invited 2 other musicians to session with us. Edwin (leads) and Jeff (bass). Unfortunately, Jeff could not make it for the night and I only knew about it on the night before the show. Anyway, by God's grace we made do with whatever we had. I got Ruf to play the rhythm, Risberg to play the bass and Winston to play the congas. Edwin did the lead work for the songs and I sang - but I played the piano for a song as well.

We (all the patrons @ the Attic) were blessed to have Nick Davies perform a line-up of his own songs for us. He had his violinist back him up. He has got a very soulful voice - I'd like to call him the new generation of India Arie / Corrs. He gives every song a Corrs feel to it. Very nice. Anyway, it was very nice of him to invite me to jam alongside him on his last song. It was a freestyle number, but we jammed and we got the mood started for the night - thank you Nick.

Anyway, there was a 30 mins break and then Vessel of Worship got ourselves ready and started performing. We did a good set of 45mins. If I remember correctly, we did take a break in between the entire set - but that was the band. While they took a break, I sang 'Chariot' and played the piano. And then we came back for our final 20 mins of the entire set. During the last 20 mins of the set, I invited Hari (beatboxer cum sangeetham specialist) to come up and join us in our rendition of Psalm 23. It was a song I wrote with Rufus sometime last year. I still feel that was still our best song that night.

I am very grateful to all the people below who made the performance at the Attic on the 23rd of July 2008, very special to us (V of W):-

1. Juliet, Ann and Luna (Attic)
2. Vikhram & Aylia (who rushed right after work)
3. Vick (who came for the entire performance and then rushed to work)
4. Gopi & Kogilah (who have never missed any of our performances)
5. Sherril Louisa Jeanne' Netto (a dear friend)
6. Sheila, Noel, Rajan, Antho & Serene for the support and cheering :)
7. Edwin for helping the band with the leads at the last minute of asking
8. Sir Surin and Ms. Brenda for their never ending support
9. Last but not least, all those who came and supported us..

THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!

We do not know when our next performance will be. But I will keep everyone updated on fb and on the blog as well. Tentatively, the finals for the Attic's Got Talent competition is on the 30th of Sept 2008 - however, I will let you all know if there are any changes.

Here are some of the pictures that were taken that night:-

MISTAKE....

More often than not, for some of us, we make mistakes. Now, whether or not the mistakes made turn out to be absolute moments of brilliance or otherwise - it is very truly conceived as a mistake nonetheless. I have made many mistakes in life - some of which I am proud of and of course some of which ... well, lets not get there shall we. I honestly believe that whenever we make a mistake and we accept the mistake and learn from it, we are better human beings. I know, it is very crude to say something like that, but lets ponder that for a moment.

For example, I used to be a smoker. I consider that a mistake I had made when I was much younger. Unfortunately, I got addicted to it for a while, but I am glad that I am totally out of it now. It is not only the fact that I realised my mistake, but the fact that I know how much more I can reap by correcting myself.

I got in to work today and met up with Devika (hereafter referred to as Akka) for lunch. Upon doing so, I had to rush in to work as it was getting late for me. Akka sent me an email which was rather brilliant. Well, I consider it a creation by someone who is very articulate. The title of the email was Mistakes. So, enjoy:-

If a barber makes a mistake,

It is a NEW STYLE

If a driver makes a mistake,

It is a NEW PATH

If a engineer makes a mistake,

It is a NEW VENTURE

If parents makes a mistake,

It is a NEW GENERATION

If a politician makes a mistake,

It is a NEW LAW

If a scientist makes a mistake,

It is a NEW INVENTION

If a tailor makes a mistake,

It is a NEW FASHION

If a teacher makes a mistake,

It is a NEW THEORY

If our boss makes a mistake,

It is a NEW IDEA

If an employee makes a mistake,

It is a MISTAKE!

WHY! WHY! WHY! (My humble contribution to the article)

Vessel of Worship....

V of W will be performing again. Yup! We have been invited to perform at a Charity Carnival at SeGi College in Kota Damansara. We've never done anything like this before, so I jumped at the very idea of performing for a good cause. However, we will not be having all the guys with us on Saturday, but the basic 3 will be there. Ruf Ruf on the guitars & back-up vocals, Risberg on the drums & congas and Winston on the percussions. We hope to be able to find a bassist by today as our bassist (Mark) is away in England on work assignment. For all those reading this, please pray for us. We're short of practices and we want to put on our best show.

We hope with the final practice today, we will be able to finalise 2 solid songs for the evening. The details of the event is seen below:-

Event: Charity Carnival
Venue: SeGi College, Kota Damansara
Date: 18th July 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 12.00noon - 5.00pm

Hope to see all of you there!

God bless.

TAMIL-ians....

I am huge fan of Russell Peters (The Stand-Up Comedian). For those of you, who have not heard of him, where have you been all this while? He is one of the most respected comedians of our time. I rank him along the names of Eddie Murphy, Cedric The Entertainer, DL Hughley and Kat Williams. Watching him for the 40th time (Russell Peters Live In LA), and then reading an email that Rohan Annan sent me, made me write this post. It is about TAMILIANS - well, I would bravely say, every Indian in Malaysia, India, Singapore, England and in any part of the world will concur in the habit and attitudes below. Enjoy:

You arrive one hour late to a party and findout you are the first one to arrive

You think it's perfectly normal to call someone who's 30 years younger than you 'Annan' just because he's behind a counter

You wear a suit to a wedding... and you are only 3 years old

The wedding takes an hour and the group pictures take five hours

Your mom and sister together own more jewellery than a Chinese jewellery store

Your parents' idea of a vacation is to go down to the temples in India

You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house

The second your guests leave the house, your parents start talking about them

You rent a cassette from the grocery store, it's been dubbed 6 times... & you return it 3 months later

You go to a Tamil Cultural program only to find one barathanatyam and six hip hop shows

You are somehow related to every new friend you meet

Your remote control is still in its plastic packet

You get a 95% on a test and your parents ask, ‘what happened to the other 5%?!'

You stare at Tamil people when they walk by

You see married couples kissing on TV but have never seen your Mom & Dad get within 3 feet of each another

Your parents never address each other by name

When you get your first part-time job, your parents expect you to give them half

Your mother has a minor dispute with her sister-in law and doesn't talk to her for 10 years

Your parents say Swiss instead of Switzerland, Germany is German and England is London

You go to a party and your aunt comments on how your skin color has changed

You watch a Tamil wedding tape and all the songs from Roja are dubbed in it

When the teacher took attendance and there was a sudden pause, you put your hand up and said 'here'

You shortened your name to make it sound Anglo

You have dinner at 10pm

It's normal for all the relatives to bathe the groom on his wedding day

You KNOW that your promiscuous second cousin on your father's side is pregnant even before she does

Your aunties tease you about a particularly eligible cousin... & you like it!!!

You serve all your guests tea with milk and 5 spoons of sugar

You only stop putting more rice on your guest's dinner plate 7 times after they tell you to stop

Anytime you speak back to your parents, you get: 'I toiled my life for you, and this is how you repay me?!' - 'Naanga eppadi khasta pattathukku nee ithuvum solluvae ithukku melayumsolluvae!'

If you are a girl, you are expected to come home before dark - however if it's a son, 'OK rasa, jaakirathaa poitu vaa...'

Halfway through your shower you realize that your Head & Shoulders shampoo is gone and has been replaced by Siyakkai shampoo

You walk in to another Tamil family's house and they have the same furniture and dining set as yours

Customer Service....

Working in an IT support environment, at times I do come across some really difficult users. However, we are contracted to be as nice and courteous as possible. One of my colleagues sent me the article below. I just wished I could use some of the sarcasm in the story below to deal with some of the users I face. Interesting - check it out:-

For all who work with rude customers, shame we can't actually do this! An award should go to the Virgin Airlines desk attendant in Sydney some months ago for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.

A crowded Virgin flight was canceled after Virgin's 767s had been withdrawn from service. A single attendant was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, 'I HAVE to be on this flight and it HAS to be FIRST CLASS'. The attendant replied, 'I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these people first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.' The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, 'DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?'

Without hesitating, the attendant smiled and grabbed her public address microphone: 'May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please,' she began - her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. 'We have a passenger here at Desk 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Desk 14.' With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the Virgin attendant, gritted his teeth and said, 'F... You!' Without flinching, she smiled and said....

(I love this bit)

'I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that too.'

Rainforest Music Festival....

Rainforest Music Festival - Kuching, SARAWAK

I have been planning to do this for a while now. I missed the last few years due to work commitments, studies and other functions. But I did not want to miss it this time. Last year Jam & I went for the Miri International Jazz Festival - which was so awesome. This time for the RMF, I will be going with Vick (a long time friend). Of course Jam will be there too, he leaves today with 3 of his other friends.

I will be leaving for Kuching on the 10th (Thurs) and I will be back on the 14th (Mon). The event is from the 11th till the 13th of July. I will be updating the blog with all the pictures and stories once I get back. There will be so much to do in Kuching. I thought of getting my 2nd tatt as well. we'll see how it goes - reason being the artists in Borneo are way more artistic and talented compared to the ones you find here. They are natural artists' - I hope to get my 2nd one there.

Will update soon. Take care and wish you all a blessed week ahead.