Ithaca-the most beautiful poem ever

As you set out for Ithaca
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you' ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours, you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become,
so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean

The Kopa King meets the Gypsy Queen!

Its amazing how technology can change your life- for good or bad. Its helping us flash news, read online books, launch an effective communication campaign and its also connecting people- people you have never met, people you thought you will ever meet! The world is growing smaller- thanks to all the chat rooms, the blogs, the emails, the pod castings and the rest.

For a technologically challenged person like me, blogging was a big challenge. I started with a few comments here and there. But the greed to create a space for myself continued.

It was one of those days when you sit at your workstation asking yourself if its time for you to quit...quit everything that is mundane...quit everything that has become a routine. But the devil within, reminded me that I get paid for it. So there I was, staring at my computer with the cursor blinking back at me.

As I spent some time wading through my mails, I located an invitation to join Orkut by an old pal of mine. And before I knew it, I was caught in a quagmire. The opportunity to meet thousands of people, in far away places with similar interest as mine, was tempting. I joined communities after communities until one fine day I found a space dedicated to Paulo Coelho. There were comments, questions, answers, suggestions and advices. I thought I would contribute something for the benefit of all the mortals and let them be grateful to me for having given them some valuable insight.

I wrote the golden words and decided to exit a world I felt I could never become a part of. However, the thought that my comments might have stirred controversy, chaos, a revolution or at least a dozen ‘thank yous’ or ‘bravos’ by some of the mortals, forced me to log in again. This time one particular mortal’s comment caught my attention. A few more posts later, my brain scanned his comments and his invite to become an Orkut friend.

The chap sounded interesting and to some extent challenging. Hmm…has the war begun? Will this be one of those pacts that change the world and create history? Or will it be one of those chat room escapades where people exchange vague, meaningless comments and their mobile numbers? These questions haunted me for a while but then I have always failed to resist any temptation (or shall I say I have always succeeded in grabbing an opportunity!!).

This is how the Kopa King met the Gypsy Queen.

We both are still getting to know each other and often share our thoughts on politics, books, travel, relationships and much more.

Do they happily blog-talk-travel-together ever after? Well the journey has just begun…

Welcome to the Kopa Club!!

My first post ever

Well….this is my first blog…ever…really don’t know how to write here…I have never written in public…guess there is a first time for everything…was just thinking of a good topic to write…but there is just one single thought that is at present consuming me…I am going to TIBET…gosh…I am actually going to Tibet…I still have trouble coming to terms with this fact…don’t know how long it has been…but from whenever I could remember I have always wanted to go to this place…it is more like a pilgrimage than a journey for me…I have one person to thank big time for making this happen for me…you know, you kind of get this thought or idea in your mind…but you need a catalyst to actually make you transform your idea into action…and for this I have Shalini to thank…I mean the whole thing was so weird, I still have some difficulty coming to terms with it…there I was one Friday afternoon…feeling really bored not knowing what to do…I come across this community about Paulo Coelho on orkut…had joined that community ages ago but had never posted anything significant on it…I was just going through some of the posts over there and came across this rather intriguing post by someone named Shalini…went to her profile and kind of had a pretty close look at it…it was not much, but I kind of had this feeling or intuition about her…so I wrote on her scrap book…received a pretty frosty response from her…but then, the very next day I received a rather nice message from her…we then graduated on to yahoo chat and made like this awesome instant connection…chemistry over warped digital highways…intriguing thought…probably would write a poem about it someday…anyways we had a really lovely conversation and a part of it was about traveling…the very next day she says if you are free we could go backpacking to Tibet…that shook me up quite a bit…but I instantaneously said yes…in my heart I really wanted to make this journey, but the only thing that was holding me back was permission from my parents…I mean I was just wondering what my dad would say if I told him that I want to go backpacking to Tibet with this stranger girl whom I haven’t even met…it has been just 5 days since I first spoke to her…I had kind of made up in my mind that he would definitely say no…but I would never have forgiven myself if I had not asked him…so there I was having breakfast at the table and talking to my dad…he was telling me about his boss going on a second honeymoon and all the plans that they had made to rent a houseboat on the backwaters of kerala and spend a couple of days there…I decided I have to drop my bombshell at just that moment…I nervously tell him “Dad I want to go to Tibet”…that’s all…nothing more nothing less…was too nervous to even think straight…he says “TIBET?”…so then I mention that I want to go backpacking all the way, that this is not a journey but a pilgrimage and I just poured my heart out and I guess the genuineness of my outburst touched him…he just stared at me for a moment and said…”you look just like a monk, you are even wearing a maroon tee shirt…hmmm, you probably were a monk in your previous life and your roots are now calling out to you”…my only response was “So…can I go?”…and he said “Yes…this is the only time you can actually go on such adventures, I guess your time is running out, do it before it is too late”…I am stunned stunned stunned …I was numb to any emotion at that point of time…then the thing struck me and slowly started sinking in…I actually got the permission I was dreading I would never get…could not help this HUGE smile creep onto my face…and I was filled with this immense joy…nothing could have gotten me down on that day…I immediately called shalini and gave her the news…gosh, she knows how excited I was, she was literally yelling at me come down from this euphoric high…there was just no looking back from there on…WOW!!!!!!! Tibet here I come…want to tell you guys exactly what I feel about going to Tibet and the exact purpose of my visit…probably will do that on a later day…am late for dinner already…