Watch the Fight!

Today, I read the story of how God delivered Israel from the Egyptians at the Red Sea.

After many confrontations with Pharaoh, some stiff resistance from the Israelites and ten deadly plagues; Moses managed to get the Israelites out of Egypt to sacrifice to God. But Pharaoh instantly regretted his decision to 'let the people go' and decided to pursue them with his army and catch up with them in the wilderness.

The Israelites were in an unimaginably scary predicament with the advancing Egyptian army drawing close to them on one end and the Red Sea on the other. It was a dead end. Literally. No escape. Only two things could happen logically—one, they drown in the sea or two, they face the sword of the enemy. Either way, death seemed certain.

Exodus 14: 11 & 12 records how they complained to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!" Their fears were warranted and their concerns were justified.

Here's when I read Moses' most incredible reply to the Israelites. He didn't give them a solution. He didn't give them an exhortation. He didn't arm them for battle. He didn't even prepare them to face death. He simply said: "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14)

He asked them to be still. But how??? What an unreasonable thing to ask them to do? If I was one of those Israelites, I would have wanted to push Moses into the Red Sea! The armies are closing in on one side and the tide is rising on the other, and you want me to be still? What I need now is a "how to swim in sea water" lesson. Or a "basics of sword fighting" talk. I need quick rescue, an instant rapture from this moment of certain death. But you are telling me, I "need" to be still and that the Lord will fight for me?

Most of us don't know a thing about being still. It's easy to be still when the sun is out, when everything is good and when people are smiling and saying nice things about us. But what is the reward in that? The Lord wants us to be still when everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is falling apart. When you can't trust your closest friends anymore. When people are talking behind your back. When you're drowning in debt and are in the middle of a financial crisis. When hopelessness and misery is all you can see around you. When nothing seems to work out in your favour. YOU NEED ONLY TO BE STILL.

The Lord will fight for you. He will heal the disease. He will provide the finance that you so badly need. He will fix your marriage. He will silence the lying tongues. He will bring deliverance. He will FIGHT for you. You don't need to help Him. You need only to be still. That is what He requires of you. And me.

For the Israelites, 'being still' meant waiting by the Red Sea for an entire excruciating night. But as they were still, they witnessed the Lord blow a strong wind on the Red Sea and part the waters for them. They might have expected something else...maybe Pharaoh would change his mind and go back, maybe a desert wind would stop the Egyptian armies, maybe Moses would call on God for an eleventh plague! But God did the unexpected. He parted the waters.

I believe that this word is for me as much as it is for each of you reading this. God will do the "unexpected" for you, if you just be still and wait. We need to shift our focus from the things around us to just waiting on Him. It may be frustrating, painful and stressful to simply be still and do nothing. But, when we least expect it and when we need it the most, His deliverance will come like a wind and make a way where there seems to be absolutely none!

Hey, what is it that you need most today? Is it a job or a raise? Is it marriage? Is it a new house? Is it deliverance from a bad habit? Is it hope for a broken relationship? Whatever our need of the hour is, let's put it aside and focus on what God needs. He needs us to be still. He will fight for us.

All we have to do is watch the fight.

St.Valentine...

St. Valentine,

I know you are dead but I thought it would be fun to write to you.

FYI, you've caused quite the riot on earth since you've been gone. I thought you should know what's been happening....it's utter chaos every February 14th, thanks to you! Here's a list of things I think you should know:

• People aren't telling how much they love each other throughout the year and then using your birthday, or death anniversary or whatever February 14th is, as an excuse to say the three words that would mean so much if said once in a while otherwise also.
• Every year on this day, the planet is infested with red hearts! It's like the 11th plague of Egypt, just that it's all over the world! They're in all forms - greeting cards, pillows, plastic frames, t-shirts.....arghhhh.....what a waste! Human hearts look nothing like that even!
  
• And so many cupids around! OMG....what are cupids anyway? Did you invent them, Valo??? If so, that was a sad and sorry concept. What a wrong and violent image of love to portray to our children....little flying fluffy angels that will hit you with an arrow and you will then fall in love? Ouch! No wonder they say love hurts! Cupids are stupid.
  
• Also, you will be glad to know that the Shiv Sena, this politicial party that believes it's the "moral police" in my city, have made a big deal of the day! They catch romancing couples and give them a tough time! Yeah! Couples in love roam around arm in arm every day of the year but they only see them today! On Feb 14th! How lame, na? Like seriously crippled!
• Then, to top it all, the big brands are making a stack-load of rokda out of the whole affair. They're selling everything they normally sell in pink or red pairs today and foolish couples are buying the maal at ridiculous prices....all in the name of love! If they just wanted to waste money, they could've burnt them in bundles, na?
• And finally, just have to add that there are still some of us left who know that true love doesn't need a particular day to be expressed. We value people around us everyday and tell those whom we care about how much they mean to us more often than once a year!
  

I'm sure this is not what you intended but it's the way it is. I hope you're not rolling in your grave!

After thoughts:
Who uses a heart-shaped pillow, anyway? HOW UNCOMFORTABLE IS THAT? Where am I to place my head? On the left bulge or the right? Or on the pointy end?

I think those pillows are designed to destroy relationships! You're bound to not sleep well and then take the rage out on your partner! No wonder divorces are on the rise! OMG!

No Sleep...No Love! Simple! In the name of love, please let's protest heart-shaped pillows! They're evil! Please join my campaign to ban these evil romance killers forever!

Get a "real" life....

Okay, I've OFFICIALLY had enough! Everytime I visit my Facebook homepage, I want a brown paper bag to barf in because all I can see are random "ZOO WORLD" and "FISHVILLE" updates!

Today was the height! I saw a Zoo World update on my home page that said:
*Sandra* is away and their new baby Brushtail Possum needs food. Oh my!
Sandra's Brushtail Possum was born just 3 hours ago. She is cold, lonely, and will get sick soon without any food. Baby wants to grow up big and strong some day and just needs a little help getting started.

What? A virtual animal was virtually born on a virtual zoo and it is virtually cold and hungry? And I am supposed to know this and do what? Virtually feed it? Virtually pet it? And do all this, not knowing for sure (and caring) what a Brushtail Possum is?

This update made me so sick, I instantly blocked the Zoo World, Cafe World, Fishville applications from EVER showing on my home page again. I also blocked my friend "Sandra" (That's not her real name. I changed it to protect her identity but i'm not sure she has one!)

So, for those of you who plan to continue on sending me any similar virtual world application requests and updates, here's the scoop: I HAVE A LIFE! A life that I love and I would rather pet a dirty parrier on the road than virtually pet a virtual animal on your virtual zoo! Wake up and smell the coffee...you're missing out on some good stuff in life! And if you're okay with that, then be okay with it...but please don't send me any more requests!

Here's a list of things that I'm more interested in than your virtual world application requests:

• Football (I don't care about football at all, so go figure!)
• Any other sport for that matter
• Dark chocolate (I hate it!)
• Ekta Kapoor's sob soaps
• Rakhi Sawant's faff
• Raj Thackeray's political agenda
• What's happening in Herzegovina (I really don't know now...but i'm sure it's more interesting than Zoo World)
• India TV and their "breaking news"
• Rajat Sharma's hairstyle
• Usha Uthup's music
• MTV's rehearsed "reality" shows
• Catching a Virar Fast train at peak time
• Orkut

The above list of things make me want to jump off a plane...but if you ever send me another virtual world request or update, rest assured that I will push you off that plane first! WITHOUT A PARACHUTE! Really I will! Argghhhhhhhh!

Phrase them out!

I've been hearing too many people use clichéd phrases recently...and, quite honestly, it's the reason I've been sick! I thought about seeing a doctor, but I'm certain this kinda sickness has no cure! Anyway, I thought I'd write about it and I'm sure that getting it off my chest will help heal the pain.

1. No big deal

I asked someone today to help me with something at work. They replied, "No big deal." What on earth? What am I to understand by that? They wanted me to know that they would do it but also pointed out that it wasn't a 'big deal' for them. Of course it isn't, you dimwit! That's why I asked YOU to do it! If it was a 'big deal' for you, I wouldn't have asked you in the first place. Arghhhhh! And what's the deal with this phrase, anyway? No big deal? Not a big deal? If it isn't a big deal, then just say 'small deal'! Don't say 'No'! So much negativity, it's driving me crazy! Humph!

2. Not my cup of tea

This phrase is just a lame cover up for laziness and lack of ability. How many people have you asked to do something and they've replied that it's 'not their cup of tea'? What they want to say is 'we don't know how to do it' or rather 'we can't'. But being the cover-ups that they are...they will opt for escape using this phrase. Not my cup of tea.

I wonder who invented this phrase? Must be a grumpy old English man, who sat in his arm chair one fine day, wondering what his purpose in life was after all...as he slowly sipped a cup of tea. That's when he had an 'Aha' moment and realised his calling was to invent boring phrases that would soon become famous. Everything else wasn't his 'cup of tea'! Turns out this wasn't his cup of tea after all—given how lame the phrase is and how heavily misused it is.

3. Raining cats and dogs

This phrase makes no sense. It's nonsense. Raining cats and dogs is supposed to mean it's raining heavily! But HOW??? I tried thinking of it from every angle but it still makes no sense. Sounds disturbing and worrying. I like cats and dogs and hearing this phrase always makes me think of little puppies and kittens falling from the sky and dying when they hit the ground. Why promote such violent thoughts? Children should be banned from being taught this phrase! It sounds sadistic and brutal. Hello, PETA! Where are you? You have PETA protesting against animal skin being used to make handbags...when people are freely suggesting that it's okay to see animals being thrown to their death from the sky! OMG!

4. You can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink.

Duh! Of course, you can't! I hate phrases and sayings like this that state the obvious. Of course you can't make someone else do something that they don't want to do or something that they can't do! Isn't that common sense, or am I unaware of how uncommon sense is? And why did they choose a horse to be the animal in this phrase? How horsist! Wouldn't the other animals feel bad and left out? Uff! (I would've selected the sloth to be in a phrase like this, not a horse!)

5. Feather in one's cap

If someone suggests to me that something is, or will be, a feather in my cap...I'm going to have to remind them that I'm not Peter Pan. I don't wear caps and even if I did, I sure wouldn't wear feathers in mine! I understand it's a metaphor to suggest 'something that I will be proud of'. But, if you really want to use a metaphor to suggest that what I'm doing will be something I will be proud of, then please make it personal na? Please suggest something that I can identify with. 'This project will be a piercing in your ear!'

'This deal will be a new eyeshadow shade in your make up kit!'

'This piece of writing is a beautiful dress in your wardrobe!'

....you get the point!

I would love to go on but the other phrases that irritate me are not worth writing about.

They're as meaningless as Rahul Mahajan's Swayamvar. They're as unimportant as Ricky Martin's music. And they're sure as pointless as any point made by Rakhi Sawant.

Spam Bam....No thank you, Ma'am...

I just checked my e-mail to see if I got some mail that mattered and this is what I read—a forwarded e-mail titled "The Truth".

I usually give such humbug a pass, but for some weird reason I opened it and now I think I’d rather have gulped an entire bottle of caster oil mixed with raw egg yolk!

This is what the mail said:

THE TRUTH

Find a guy…who calls you beautiful instead of hot...who calls you back when you hang up on him…who will stay awake just to watch you sleep

Wait for the guy who ... kisses your forehead…who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats…who holds your hand in front of his friends…who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you…who turns to his friends and says, “That's her!!”

If you have a lot of love for someone, copy and send this to your whole list. In 5 minutes your true love will call or message you. Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they like you. Something good will happen to you at approx. 1:42pm tomorrow, it could be anywhere.

Send this to 15 people in 15 minutes to carry on the chain...and spare yourself the emotional stress.

OMG!!!! I can't believe that people still forward spam like this. I think the guys at MSN, Yahoo and Google should get together and send out a search party to find such humbug-forwarding loners and confiscate all their computers.

Anyway, the e-mail didn’t bug me as much as what it said did! So, here it is again…my two pence worth coming at 140kmph:

1. Who wants a guy “who calls you back when you hang up on him”! I mean the whole hanging up happened because you didn’t want to talk to him anymore. Imagine being nagged by someone you are mad enough to hang up on! Blah.
2. And a guy who will “say awake just to watch you sleep”? That’s just plain creepy. You wake up at night and two eyes are staring at you in the dark! I’m okay with just the All-seeing Eye looking at me for now. Thank you very much.
3. Whoever wrote this e-mail knows zilch about women. Which woman wants to be “shown off” to the world when in her sweats? That’s as far from romantic as the east is from the west!
4. Then…a guy who “holds your hand in front of his friends”??? How uncomfortable is that? It’s like being on a leash.

“I can take you to meet my friends, honey, but you can’t stray away!”

“Sit!”

“Roll over!”

“Good girl! Here’s a bone!”

5. This next one really kills me! A guy who turns to his friends and says, “That's her!!”??? What? What if you’re a petty thief and his friend happens to be the cop looking for you? He’d just give you away like that? “That’s her! That’s her, officer! She’s the one you’re looking for!” Who wants a give-away like that? Not me!
6. The last bit of this mail amazed me. It’s what I call a prophetic paradox: “Something good will happen to you at approx. 1:42pm tomorrow, it could be anywhere.”

It promises that something good will happen to you, but then it also says that it could be anywhere! What!!!?

Then, it specifies an exact time…1:42pm…but also tells you that it is approximate. An approximate precision! Wah!

After reading this e-mail, I don’t really know what to fear more — that something bad might happen to me given that I didn’t bother forwarding this e-mail or that the kind of guy mentioned in this e-mail might actually exist!

Weight a minute!

I was at Santacruz Station this evening and spotted one of those old-fashioned weighing machines with the flashing lights and the rotating circle in the middle. Since, I was just with my brother and a close friend, I thought it was safe to check how much I weighed.

I stood on the metal platform, waited for the rotating red and white circle to stop rotating, popped in a one rupee coin, and a few seconds later, I had a little brown rectangular card telling me my weight - 58 kgs.

I know I've broken the age old feminine code of not sharing your real weight in public — but, quite honestly, I really don't care. I hope I won't be ostracized for this act, but ladies...it's time we're honest with ourselves and the world!

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I wanted to note how much the little brown card with my weight on it amused me! It displayed my weight on one side and on the other side, this was written in small black characters: "YOU WILL FIND HAPPINESS IN LOVE MATTER AND MARRIAGE RELATION."

What? The machine was trying to tell me what will happen to me! Weight and "fortune" telling machine. I didn't buy a word of it, but still, it amused me.

Whoever invented that machine thought, "Women are going to be the ones using this the most, and let's face it — they're not going to be happy with their weight — even if it's negligible! So, let's have a random fortune message print out on the other side of this card, so that they don't feel so bad about themselves. A little solace. Some random statement that's a positive assumption to make them believe that good can happen despite how heavy they are!"

Hmmm... They decided to pass on using an editor for their little fortune statements, too! I will find happiness in "love matter" and "marriage relation"??????? OMG! Reading that sentence made me want to put out all those flashing lights one by one with a little rock hammer!

What's the whole point of fortune telling anyway??? Why, why, why??? Not just this machine, every one is trying to tell you what will happen to you...the newspapers have columns for fortune telling money-makers, the TV channels have slots for them...the list is never-ending...why????

Me...I'm just glad knowing that I weigh two kilos lesser than last month and I don't really want to think about tomorrow or next month. God holds my future in His hands...that's all I need to know for now! :)

Indo-Pak Peace Project...Ahem!

I've never written anything in my blog this early in the morning, so you can imagine how badly I want to let this out.

So, there I was this morning...going about the mundane, getting ready to go to work, while dad was watching the news on TV. Just then, there was a commercial break and I happened to watch this "Aman ki Asha" Indo-Pak Peace Project advertisement. I'm sure you've watched it.

There's this old Pakistani man who, quite honestly, looks like Dumbledore from the Potter series...and he's across the LOC in Pakistan. He, somehow, has a radio with him and is alone on that side of the border.

On the other side i.e. the Indian side of the LOC, there are loads of Indians who are also mostly OLD people. I never knew they only had old people live by the border!!! Anyway, Dumbledore wants Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayengey played on the radio and for some reason there is no phone in the Pak side or he doesn't know the phone number to the radio station or something like that, and so he decides to play Dumd Charades with the Indians.

He enacts the phrase Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayengey and Indians figure it out. They call AIR and tell them to play that song. Needless to say, the RJ stops everything else she is doing and plays the song for Dumbledore. He hears the song over the radio (and believe it or not..the reception was perfect). He dances in a quirky way and all the Indians are happy, hug each other and dance. All are happy and the ad ends with these words on screen: "Aman Ki Asha" - An Indo-Pak Peace Project.

BLAH! That's what it is. How is that ad a "peace project"???? OMG. I wanted crawl up my window and jump off the building. That's what they call a "peace project"??? They're trying to tell me that an AIR RJ playing requests for an old Pakistani is going to bring peace across the border. HOW?? I pray, please tell me...HOW??? Is the old man going to listen to a Karan Johar movie song and then suddenly think, "We don't need all of Kashmir! Let's come to an agreement! Let's compromise! I must pass the word around!"

OMG!!!! And the height of unbelievable-ness (I made this word up just now!), is that after the ad, we were back to listening to the news where a very plain looking news reporter whose face was amply packed with foundation was ranting about the IPL auctions where Pak players were given the silent treatment!

HERE IT COMES NOW - My two pence worth...

I'll tell you what AMAN KI ASHA can do if they really want to start an Indo-Pak Peace Project — They can make a fuss about the IPL auctions that have gone so wrong and make sure the Pak players are given a shot! I know this sounds like humbug, coming from someone who knows zilch about cricket, but it's really what I think. SOMEONE TAKE THE GOOD PAK PLAYERS...whoever they are! Pay for them! Take 'em! They're good, I'm sure.

And then, even when this Ekta Kapoor soap drama that they call the IPL is over, there'll still be some good feelings left across the border. Humph!

Okay, I'm done....going to work now! What a start to a day! :D