Chasing the Unexplained

Certain things in life can not be explained.
We try and reason out everything in our life but do we really get the answers? The World still continues to spin and nothing really changes if we don't find answers.
But, that certainly doesn't mean that we just let go and leave a pursuit.
Maybe that is life and that is what we live for.

Combination of Factors!

Most of the things in life occur as a result of combination of factors.

Our birth for instance, is the most amazing example of how the factors work. Starting from the fastest sperm piercing the egg to reaching the zone under optimum conditions for further growth and development to deciding whether it will be a combination of X or Y chromosomes to changes in the zygote for a single or a multiple creation, its all about combination of factors.

Now as we emerge into the World of reality, we realise that every step of our life is pre-decided, destineed. And what decides that, is again some more combination of factors. Our parents sort out and filter out the best of education they can provide us, the best of food, the best of clothing they can afford and overall the best of life that they can share with us. Starting from quality to financial feasability, they really do a series of complex mathematics to decide all that.

Once we grow old enough, a combination of factors decide whether we can sustain our own living or not. Are we financially independent? Can we face the cruel, ruthless World? Ok, lets say, we can overcome those factors and can pretty much manage our living, then will come the next question, Are we good enough? Are we better than our competitors? And what do we do to be the best?. These questions will take us back to the start and more questions will pop up. So our parents gave us the best they could afford, so that means we had the best since childhood, but does that mean we will be outstanding? Not necessarily.Are we intelligent - Again the same combination of factors: Depends..1 Genetics - If our parents were intelligent, chances are we will inherit a part of it. 2. Practical - Have we done enough learning in life to make ourselves intelligent. We may have or may not have. So, end result is till we meet someone better, we can call ourselves the best.

Thus over a period of time, knowingly or unknowingly we realise how much our life and existence is governed by various combination of factors and those will stay till our last breath which too depends heavily on these combinations.

I don't know if it is a good or a bad thing to be governed by a set of factors but I certainly believe there is no escape from it, maybe even an escape will require certain perfect combinations!

Of Togetherness!!

Togetherness...
Its a special feeling when you realise that the person you love the most is always there with you, in good times and in bad.
Its more than 4 years of togetherness for us but I am still charmed by him.What is it that makes him so irrestible, I don't know, maybe its the warmth in his signature style or the kindness that he exudes... the truth is whatever it is, I am completely swooned and floored by him.
I know people think I am crazy to still think the way I think about him after all these years but maybe those people do not know that love increases as we grow old.
Ours certainly has.I still can not think of a single day without him.
He is more than an addiction.
He is someone who makes me laugh and cry at the same time, someone who pesters me till I burst out with irritation, someone who knows what it takes to calm me when I am disturbed, someone who enjoys life as much as I do.
He is the perfect for me.
I have been told by many that there is no 'perfect' relationship. I love to prove it wrong each day.
Many a times I am asked if I am possessive about him, well I am possessive but certainly not over-possessive and we both know why. We give each other the space needed to make ours a 'perfect' relationship.
I may not know a lot about everything but I certainly know what togetherness means and
my life with him means the world to me..

Bangalore - 5 Years....

When I first moved to Bangalore, little did I know that this will be my future home. Today its a little more than 5 years of my existence in this city and the overall experience has been outstanding. This city has given me so much and there is nothing that I can complain about.I came to this city in pursuit of love and a career and I got both... Bangalore may not be as bold as Delhi or as glitzy as Mumbai but it does have a charm of its own. There isn't much to the city but the warmth of the people and the awesome climate fill in the gaps. A lot of people ask me why I don't want to return to Kolkata which they think is my hometown considering I am a Bengali, but to be honest, I never knew where I really belonged till I moved to Bangalore. The moment I landed here, I was in love and truth is, each day the bond continues to strengthen. Maybe I wasn't born here and maybe I never decided till my early twenties to move in here, but now that I am here, I will stay!

Realising Dreams!

Sometimes I just think.

I think of the time I have wasted doing nothing at all.

Sitting here in my comfy office, when I look back at those critical years of my life which played an important role in deciding where I am today, I sometimes do regret the fact that things could have been better if I had put that little extra effort.Maybe I could have studied in a better institute, maybe I could have been a little less of a dreamer, maybe I could have been more career focussed like the kids of today, maybe I could have forseen the future a bit, but then again, this also makes me think that maybe its good that I didn't think much that time and let myself flow, maybe I would have become an old hag too soon if I had let those thoughts overshadow my wanderer life.

Its not that i was completely out of focus, like I mentioned earlier, I used to be quite a dreamer then. i would dream of living an extremely luxurious life, complete with a huge villa and a fancy car, a huge pool to dip in and unlimited food and wine in the cellar. I don't remember if I dreamt of being a movie star or something to dream of a life like that, but never I thought about what it takes to realise that dream.

Again I guess old age has made me a wee bit wiser and made me realise that behind every successful dream is a lot of hardwork and patience or maybe a rich dad. I have decided to take the hardwork and patience route. So far i have been successful in achieving a portion of the pie but determined to get the bigger chunk. Soon!

Dreamweaver!

The other day, a very good friend of mine called up. Apparently owing to various reasons/circumstances, we didn't have chance to catch up with each other in months.Just five minutes into the conversation, of which four minutes were spent on ' How are you's? and Where have you been ? etc..' and the fifth minute she said, "You both have had enough share of fun now, and its time to become serious, when are you going to have a baby ?"
I swear I was bewildered but maybe her question was not un-natural. I am sure many want me to ask the question but they can't and she only spoke it out.
So anyways I started thinking of top 3 things we have to do before a baby is born:-
1. A trip to Goa - The number one on the list. Should have gone there before but well, its never too late, have to plan out something this year.
2. An international holiday trip - We never went anywhere outside India together, its always been either him or me and that too for work. Maybe this can be postponed for a while and can be achieved even after we have a baby. But neverthless, its good to keep it on my To-do list.
3. I have always dreamt of sky diving, though Mr. Hubby is not keen on the idea of getting killed via free-fall. Wish he can agree on Bungee-Jumping at least or White water rafting in Rishikesh... Ok, I don't intend to get myself killed but really want to live life.
I just re-read my To-do list. My expectations are realistic but may take more than a year to fulfill so I guess I maynot have time to live all my dreams but someone once rightly said,'We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing'.
So I will Keep Believing!! and Keep Dreaming!!

A Day for Love!

I am not a Valentine Day person. I find it pretty cliche to wish my love on this day in particular. I don't see a reason to mark a day especially to celebrate love. Why can't we love everyday? The overall concept is business focused.

Anyways,my hubby thinks otherwise. He, sort of enjoys the idea of a day called the 'Valentine Day' and loves to celebrate. So last evening I went to a supermart and we were buying some stuff for home and saw that they were selling everything that can mush up love, in one corner of the store. They had chocolates, cards, watches etc on display and young teens had surrounded the counter and were buying things which they never would have if there wasn't a day marked to make you go crazy.

I know I sound old, but I am old, certainly not as young as I was 15 years ago! Ok, so old age has made me sober, possibly an idiot and definitely stripped me of a major emotion called love. I was forced to believe my last statement when I did something really stupid this morning.

I was running late for work and was at least 5 minutes behind schedule to leave the house. I jumped out of the bed and went straight to the shower, no time for morning cuddle and kisses. By the time I came out of my 3 minute bath, the bed was neatly arranged and the house looked perfect. I said a goodbye to hubby and took my bag. He said," Please wait for a couple of minutes" and my reply was, "Why? I really can't, I am in an extreme hurry". He said, "I wanted to hug you, but guess you should go". God, I was shattered. The sadness in his eyes cut me from inside. I felt so guilty and stupid. Could I not spare just two minutes of my life for the love of my life? I resented the thought of turning into a self centered moron. I kept my bag down and rushed to hold and be held in his arms and yes I have to admit, I did feel good.

Maybe we don't really need a day to celebrate love, maybe its just the moments that we need, maybe it doesn't take words to tell it all, maybe its just the embrace that we can keep...maybe that feeling is called Love!

Even though it might sound cliche, it doesn't hurt to wish everyone you love a Happy Valentine Day!

Someone showed us GOD!

Yesterday while photographing the moon I was reminded of an incident which happened a few months back. It was a full moon night and scientists had predicted something about it being the largest and brightest of the decade (or was it century??)Sudipto and I were aiming for a healthier lifestyle then and used to take evening walks near the park area. So as we were briskly walking and talking, a man came from the opposite direction and suddenly stopped right in front of us and asked , "Do you believe in God?, now I clearly believed he was drunk or maybe a guy from some shoddy marketing company trying to trap us to join some chain business, so anyways my 6th sense advised me to be ready for some hard hitting action. Sudipto calmly replied, "No". The man was determined to put the faith in us and he asked again, "Have you seen God?", to which Sudipto firmly replied, "No". The man was unfazed. By this time I was pretty sure that this guy is upto something, something unpleasant when suddenly he pointed at the sky behind us and said, "There he is".... and WOW.... simply WOW....what a sight...The moon in full bloom, an orangish yellow beauty. I was completely spellbound. I could understand what that guy must have felt like. He must have seen it for quite a while when walking in our direction and had to share the feeling with someone. Couldn't blame him! After a few frozen moments of cherishing the beauty we returned to reality and thanked the man for showing us the wonderful sight.We resumed our evening walk but didn't speak. Maybe we were still overwhelmed by the beauty of the moon.This also made me think that in our fast paced life if we just stop for a moment and look at the World around us, there is so much to cherish, so many things to captivate our thoughts, so much beauty to appreciate but only if we Stop , See and Think!

Click Story!

Well just a couple of photos from my new lens

The giant orb

Kiwi

Green

A gift of love from My Love!

It so happened that after years of coaxing and cajoling my husband into gifting me a telephoto lens for my SLR, he finally surrendered and gifted me a super cool lens and a tripod and a book...wowww!! that was a lot more than expected...
It does feel good when you get more than what you ask for..
So here I am, happily clicking pictures and hence been away for a few days from my blog...
I plan to improvise my photography skills and hence I will be visiting some exotic places nearby in the weekends to come to take some great pictures and satisfy my soul!
I am not posting the pictures I have taken so far but will definitely post them soon..
But right now, I am a proud owner of a great photography kit and I can't express the happy feeling I am surrounded with :)

Oh I didn't know that you are a Bong!!!

A few days back I met someone who was quite pleasantly surprised, shocked will be a better expression when he realised that I was a Bong.
Ok I dont look like one for sure and my Bengali language skills are passable but his comment did make me think on how a Bong should be.
I did some research on my own, tried to read my family members, relatives, who don't shock people, and I realised that I am still far from being a pure Bong.
Its true that my parents are Bongs too but they were both born and brought up in other parts of the country where Hindi language influence is more strong. With that, even the culture is different. The same goes for me, I was born outside West Bengal and spent my childhood in different cities and towns across Bihar and by the time I reached Kolkata I was possibly too old to fully imbibe the Bangali in me. I may not look like an authentic Bong, I maynot behave or speak like one, I may have problems understanding certain words, I may not be a fluent reader and writer of the language, but that certainly doesn't reduce my fondness for the rich culture, tradition and my existence.
And yes, please drop that shocked look on your face cause I Am A Bong!

Yercaud!

So I am back from a mind refreshing trip to Yercaud.

Honestly, there isn't much to boast about the place or the hotel or the food there and anyways my intent was just to relax and do absolutely nothing.

Yercaud is a quaint place atop the Shevaroys mountain range. There is a small lake, some nice gardens, and certainly a lot of peace around. People who havent visited any hillside towns ever may love it but I have seen it all and seen some better places than this.

The only thing I really loved is the small heritage restaurant in Lake Forest Resort where we had our lunch and dinner. This place is beautiful with all antique artifacts from the British era. Just Lovely. It takes you back in time of the era gone by and reminds you of a heritage that was there once. The food they prepare is typically European and Indian cuisine which can cater to all palates. This was the most satisfactory part of the trip!

Off to Yercaud!

I am taking a short vacation to Yercaud... Checked out the reviews and heard its a beautiful place..Hope to have loads of fun starting now :)...Will post details once I am back from the trip...till then I wish you all a very happy New Year!!

Why aren't you planning for a baby yet??

Once you are married, guess the next steps is to think about having babies.
Guess thats a normal thought....
But if you are married for nearly 4 years and still haven't thought that as a normal thought then there is a concern.....
Ok, it maynot be much of a worry to you but your peers, your colleagues, your old school friends (married and having at least a kid!)and most importantly, your family will take enough worries for you to make you think that you are not young anymore, the clock is ticking, you are not taking care of your health and why aren't you planning for a baby yet.......
I won't hide, but yeah I am getting those questions thrown at me by someone or the other at least once a day. My usual reaction is to smile and say that yeah by end of 2011 we are thinking of going through the process. Well that at least stops further questioning but that also makes me think that yeah, I am not as young as I was ten years back and yes my biological clock is possibly ticking and maybe the alarm will set off anyday now and maybe I should give enough thought to the process.
Well, I am thinking now..... maybe will come up with more thoughts in next posts....

Curd Rice for lunch!

Today I did the inevitable, or shall I call inedible...
Anyways, the whole thought behind writing this post is about a food which many people relish and they call it 'Curd Rice'.
It is a very common sight to see people really enjoying their share of Curd Rice in office cafeteria, restaurants, roadside eateries etc.
As the name suggests, this is a meal made out of rice, curd and some spices added to it. Honestly, I never quite fascinated it, maybe coz it looks so white and all mixed up. I like my food to look beautiful at least...
Over the last few days I had been contemplating with the idea of trying this food at my office cafeteria, but never could I bring myself to the section in the cafeteria where they serve it, so today I decided and pushed myself to buy myself a plate of Curd Rice.
When I was heading towards the counter I was looking around hoping not to see anyone familiar and be a joke for trying out Curd Rice after staying in this part of India for nearly five years. To my relief there was no familiar face in sight.
So there is goes, my first plate of Curd Rice and possibly my last. The first dig at the plate nearly left me nauseating. Well, to be honest, the food is not bad tasting at all, but certainly not for my palette. Two spoons of the dish and I was done.
Well, today, possibly for the first time I could be counted amongst the 'Food Wasters' in the cafeteria.
I don't wish to cause any offence to people who love this food because maybe this calls for an acquired taste just like 'Beer' or 'Wine' but then again I still haven't quite acquired the taste for 'Beer', guess that doesn't offend Beer-lovers!

Remembering a Christmas!

A few years back a Christmas vacation was spent on a remote location in Coorg.
Coorg is approximately 260 Kms from Bangalore and is sometimes referred to as the Scotland of India, primarily because of its lush green forests, the beautiful coffee estates and the perfectly manicured tea plantations.
We stayed in a homestay which is inside a 36 acres coffee estate. The cottage was surrounded by misty mountains and dense forests where apart from our voices, all we could hear was the chirping of forest birds, the sound of the rocky river as it moved in crests and troughs, the symphony of crickets as the night darkened the evening sky.
We reached the homestay towards late afternoon and all our tiredness disappeared when we saw the estate manager approaching towards our cottage with freshly brewed coffee and fried snacks. Sitting on our verandah, sipping the hot coffee and enjoying the breathtaking surrounding are one of the best moments of my life. The time stood still for me. I closed my eyes to savour the forest sounds when I was jolted to my senses by a sudden laughter of my husband and our usual group of friends who accompanied us on the trip. They were in conversation about how mechanical life in Bangalore was and if given a choice, would anyone want to stay in an idyllic place like Coorg. There were mixed opinions about spending one's life there and leaving the comforts of the city. While a place like Coorg does give one all that nature can offer, the fresh air, natural springs, and the beautiful surroundings. It’s a place where people are content with what they have. The requirements are basic and they are happy with that. A city like Bangalore is well polluted, so much that sometimes one has difficulty in breathing, the eyes burn when the exhaust of the cars pump out more and more smoke to choke the life out of a living being but then again its my city, its us who have the power to change and bring back its old glory, turn back the time when Bangalore used to be tourist destination due to its lovely weather and the beautiful gardens. Remember, it is still known as the Garden City of India. Maybe I am too protective about this city although I have been staying here for just about four years, but somehow this feels like home to me. Maybe I will visit Coorg again in future and would enjoy and be a part of nature during my stay, but my heart will always lie in Bangalore. Like they say, home is where the heart is.
Sitting in the balcony of my apartment I sipped the piping hot coffee I bought from a local shop in Coorg. It reminded me of that beautiful cottage, the misty mountains, the dense forest and the lush green coffee plantations. I smiled and promised myself a visit again sometime soon...

Abhayaranyam

Again I am writing this one after a long long gap, maybe I have incorporated the habit of not writing enough...not a good sign
But here is something that touched my heart and compelled me to write. This year, sometime during the end of November we decided that its quite a while since we travelled somewhere so we decided to search...
Our search took us to check the forest guest houses in and around Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Our friend Nilanjan came up with an idea to visit Abhayaranyam which is a forest guest house in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. The idea to stay in a tiger reserve was exciting so we searched all over the internet for more details about the guest house. To our despair there was nothing that could be called as 'detailed' description of the place, barely any pictures, no posts.. but we didnt lose hope, our intense search provided us with the contact numbers of the forest officer whom we could call to book the place.
So we made the booking for the cottage that they had there. Then started the endless wait for the day of our trip. We had planned everything, the places we would visit on our stay there, the food that we will carry etc.
Finally the day arrived. We had decided to leave early in the morning to reach the place as early as possible. We had checked with the concerned person there about the check-in time, fortunately there was no strictness around it! So we left at sharp 4 am, calculating the possibility of reaching that place at 9 am. The night drive was awesome, the road had a few cars zipping around. After a drive of about an hour and a half we decided to take a short break. In another 10 minutes we were back in top gear. After an hour or so, we could see the dawn breaking in front of our eyes, the sun peeking through the horizon...
We crossed Mysore at 6:45 am and our new GPS navigator guided us well through the city roads into the forest trail.
We reached Bandipur forest at about 8am and decided to make a small halt once twe crossed the forest zone. Mudumalai was not too far from there but reaching at 9 am sounded a bit embarrasing now. Anyways, we decided to drive at a very slow speed and reached the destination at 9:30 am.
The view was unlike anything we had ever seen. This bunglow can not be seen from the road, one has to climb a short uphill road to reach there. It is surounded by dense forest on all sides with a view of the Nilgiri hills on two sides.
Right in front of the bunglow there is an overgrowth of elephant grasses where we did see some elephant and bison dung. Oh, I forgot to mention the numerous herds of deer we saw while crossing the forest zone.
On reaching the bunglow , we were warmly greeted by the caretaker who confirmed our booking and requested us to wait for a while while the rooms were being cleaned up.
There were about 3-4 people who took care of the bunglow there and they stayed in a couple of cottages right behind ours, where they had a kitchen and their rooms.
The Abhayaranyam bunglow is quite a large one with two huge bedrooms, two bathrooms with western toilet, a balcony that connects the two bedrooms and a dining hall in between the bedrooms. the best part is, this has a watchtower with glass windows on all sides where you can spend the daytime birdwatching. (We were advised not to climb up to the watchtower at night)
Our day was spent taking rest, and catching glimpse of shy deer, watching a few peacocks on the grassy area, seeing some wild boar and mongoose and sighting a couple of malabar squirrels on the trees nearby. We also visited the elephant feeding camp in the evening and saw how forest elephants were getting their daily diet served by their mahouts.
The lunch and dinner at Abhayaranyam were prepared on request and the food was very much edible and quite beyond our expectation considering we were in the middle of the forest with the nearest village at least 5km away.
Honestly we weren't disappointed at all with our first day experience there. Towards late evening, the four of us started a quiet conversation sitting on the chairs and sofa on the balcony. We didnt have anything to do. Outside it was completely dark with lights from occassional cars passing through that road. Suddenly there was a power cut and we were in the midst of complete darkness. Then I realised it wasn't actually a power cut but a low voltage situation and only the filaments of the bulbs were illuminated. The caretaker gave us some candles though. We decided to finish dinner too and play a little boardgame of Ludo. After dinner, we took some chairs and sat outside the bunglow main door listening to the silence and occassionally talking.
After about 15 minutes we came inside and were playing a game of Ludo when we thought what we heard was an elephant's trumpet. But then we realised that since it was too quiet outside even the sound of a truck horn could sound like that so we continued playing. At about quarter to 11 we decided to call it a night and went to our rooms. We slept barely for 10 minutes when i heard someone brooming outside the cottage. The sound continued so Sudipto and I decided to knock Nilanjan's room and find out if they were hearing what we did. It was dark and scary when we went to their room. They had heard it too. Nilanjan quickly grabbed his torch and we came to our room and opened the window a little to find out the source of the sound.
What we saw outside startled us. It was a cloudy night, so in the bleak light of the moon we saw couple of wild elephants grazing at the grass in front of the cottage. We decided to check the balcony windows and at every window we saw there were 2-3 elephants. We realised that there were about 10 or 12 elephants surrounding the cottage, who came there from the forest for a midnight snack. Among them there were 3 tuskers will gigantic tusks. We were frozen in fear and were talking in whispers. Finally they left after an hour or so, but we couldnt sleep in fear.
But sleep did come eventually and the next morning we woke up with a fresh joy.
We decided to go to Gopalaswamy Betta which is a hill about 40 km from the guest house. This place gives a panaromic view of the forest below. We saw some elephants in the forest as we climbed the hill.
It had started raining on our way back and while crossing the forest area we saw an elephant on the side of the road, munching on leaves from a tree.
We decided to spend our night in the watchtower without telling the caretaker. He had warned us of leopards in the jungle too, well that was scary but we decided to give it a try anyways. As fate would have it, on the second night, the elephants came much earlier than expected and the caretaker and his crew were still awake so we couldnt risk going up and staying in the watch tower.
We saw a family of elephants and two tuskers who left early.
We decided to chat for a while before calling it a day. We were travelling back the next day.
Our stay at Abhayaranyam was short but has left a deep impact in our souls. Never ever have we come so close to nature and wildlife. It was a perfect blend of wild India at its best.

Mistake of distancing!

I have realised that people will talk to you when you listen to them, if you don't show you are in a hurry to wrap up the conversation, if you lend a sympathetic ear, if you are willing to keep the conversation going by adding your inputs. In the last few weeks I had been crazy busy with my new work, trying to learn new things, willing to innovate, but never did I realise that I was distancing myself from people with whom I would stay in touch constantly. I didn't talk to them, because I was too busy to listen to what they had to say.Why is it, that when you move to a new role, you tend to leave the past where it was. It was a shameful thing I did, how could I not stay in touch with people I have known all throughout just because I was loaded with an extra bit of work?Maybe this is where management skills come into play. How to balance your work and life?I have decided that I will work on a thing only till the time I think I can work on it. The more one tries to push beyond the limits, more errors crop up, adding up to the workload.I will take a break and speak with my friends and people I am close with, people who can make me forget the worries of worklife.

Big J.. Forever

I thought of posting this nearly a month ago, but somehow I still haven't been able to face the bitter reality of Jerry's death. It was on the wee hours of 9th February. Ma telephoned me and even before I pressed the call acceptance button on my mobile phone, I somehow knew the news I was going to hear. Its true that he was not keeping well for almost one week prior to his death. He was old. Rather too old...but how old is too old? Can we ever overcome the grief of losing someone close to our heart.Its a terrible feeling to know that the next time when I will go to meet my parents, he wouldn't be around. I wouldn't relish his crazy antics, now no one will ever get so furious enough to bite me.. This may sound a bit crazy but I have been bitten a lot many times by Jerry. My palms still have the marks, but then its natural for a dog to bite when provoked. I never hit him back when bitten. It was his natural self defense technique.I still remember the day he came to our life, just 27 days old, who would get tired after walking a few centimetres on the carpet, ma used to feed him a semisolid baby food, which he soon found distasteful and found delight in raw vegetables which he used to swiftly steal when vegetables for lunch were being chopped.He grew up fast. Each birthday of his that we celebrated, traumatised me. I knew he was a year closer to the inevitable. I last met him about a year and a half ago. He was getting old, did not like human presence much, was somewhat distracted, later ma told me that he had cataract and was going deaf. Honestly, I can never imagine my Jerry as anything else than the rough one, who would get angry at the slightest provocation, but at the same time would be the mischivieous of the lot, someone who was a brother to me, someone who I will miss forever. Yes, that's my Jerry..Forever!

A Big Blunder!

We all make blunders and I have an expertise in that. Yesterday at a meeting with a Senior Executive, I was asked if I did any creative writing ever and guess what my blog came into the picture. I, being a moron,completely, idiotically, forgot that my last post, written almost 2 years ago, was about the DDSS syndrome, which is definitely not a worth read, more importantly, not something you will like to show to a senior colleague of yours. A blunder. But I did it, the moment the page opened I realised it but it was too late. Now I am just crossing my fingers and hoping he didn't read it. Well, high hopes as we call it!