The Eagle and the Wolf

There is a great battle
that rages inside me.

One side is a soaring eagle
Everything the eagle stands for
is good and true and beautiful.

It soars above the clouds.
Even though it dips down into the valleys,
it lays its eggs on the mountain tops.

The other side of me is a howling wolf.
And that raging, howling wolf
represents the worst that is in me.

He eats upon my downfalls and
justifies himself by his presence
in the pack.

Who wins this great battle?...
The one I feed.

This is one of my favourite poems. Life is full of decisions, everyday we have to make decisions. We will make some good ones and some bad ones. The ability to choose is quite remarkable. Each of us must choose how to live and the quality of our lives depends greatly upon these individual decisions. When doubt and anxiety surround the choices, when you are wrestling with your decision, we can consider the above poem.

Welcome back Jon Lester!!

Jon Lester is the starting pitcher for Boston Redsox. He was 7-2 with a 4.76 ERA last season. Being a Redsox fan, I was very excited to see him in his sparkling rookie season, last year. I thought that he will be a great prospect. But, things changed. Lester was diagonsed with cancer last August. He underwent six rounds of chemotherapy over the next three months. But it’s a five-year process before he can be declared cancer-free, including a scan every three months during this first year. I have seen him do the press conference last year to announce this shocking news. He maintained great poise through out and his courage wass undeniable. It was definitely very hard for him. Being a cancer survior, you don't look at your life the same ever again.

Jon Lester made his first start following his cancer treatment and remission last night. Pitched well, all things considered, but just the story alone is really rather touching. Curt Schilling summed it up perfectly: Lester's start simply "wasn't about baseball." It’s no small task to return from cancer to one of the biggest stages in the sports world, starting pitcher for a major league team.

Amidst a host of negative sports stories-- from Michael vick's alleged dogfighting involvement to ongoing steroid investigation that has tainted Barry Bonds' chase of Henry Aaron's home run record to gambling scandal in NBA to Vinokurov doping in Tour de France-Lester's return to the majors is truly inspirtaional and a remarkable story. Welcome back, Jon Lester. You reminded hardcore sports fans like me, what's great about sports even with all the negativity around.

I am just really glad to see him happy and playing baseball again. What a comeback and what a story.

No..It's not writer's block

I can't believe that it's been 2 months since I blogged. It's not that I haven't had anything interesting to write at all. I took this forced break from blogging due to various reasons. Yeah, I was very busy .In these hectic 2 months, I finished one project at work, travelled to India, London, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Wow! When it rains, it pours. Well, things are normal now and on the upside, I have lot of interesting things to write after this break.

I managed to finish 2 books in the past 2 weeks: "Eat, Pray and Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert and "The Kite Runner"by Khaled Hosseini. As the book cover says, the first book is one Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. She is a very good writer and It's an interesting book. The book was basically divided into 3 parts. The Italy part was good, India part was boring and the Indonesia part was OK. "The Kite Runner" was an excellent read. It's an unforgettable story and I loved it. The beauty and violence of Afganistan comes into Life in this tale of Amir. I'd recommend this book to anyone.

I went to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" yesterday. It is a well crafted movie and the makers did a nice job of translating the colossal book into a movie of resonable length. The visual effects and performances are superb. I thought the final quote in the movie before the ending credits was kind of nice and deep: " You will always get back what you lose..Maybe, in a way you don't expect".