its about shape not size.....really???

Life is so unfair! You are happily skipping your way through it when one fine day, suddenly you notice yourself looking a little ‘healthy’!!! Us Indians know of course that ‘healthy’ when used to describe a person is really not the positive term you think it is. It is entirely negative!!! It is in fact the polite way for all the auntyjis to tell you that you are faaaat!!!Or else they will say ‘ab achhi lag rahi ho!!!’…..ohh boy that’s a killer for sure!!! It means you have put on at least ten kilos and need to take drastic measures like concealing yourself in the attic for the rest of your life!

It’s unfair and it has a nasty sense of humor too! It inflicts this curse on women desperately trying to hang on to their thirties…..their body suddenly starts to play mind games with them. First the weight creeps up like a stealthy stalker…you notice it when it first makes its appearance in your photos. Wait!! is that the beginning of a double chin??? No wayyyy!!!!Next the jeans become way too snug but no come on it doesn’t mean we are getting fat….the fit wasn’t too great anyway you think and are so happy when Levis says ‘it all about shape not size’!! Hats off to the creator of that one line, that guy knows more about women than they know about themselves. What a rip off! So we are clinging to straws but only just!

Still all is not lost. You haven’t ever had a problem losing extra weight so you put on a smug smile and cut your meals. You wait for the kilos to shed. And you wait some more……. All of a sudden the same diet that worked wonders for you refuses to come out of its hibernation. You add a couple of more exercises to your routine, play your gut out at badminton, pay up the membership fees at at least two gyms…you jog…you run…you wheeze and yet the weighing scale grins triumphant. Not an ounce is lost.

If that isn’t enough the only topic at dinners is weight loss and whether so and so is looking bottom heavy or stick thin. For heavens sake is it necessary to discuss things like this while you are reaching for a plate? Its little solace of course that the thin ones get flack too. They are alternatively too thin, looking haggard and have lost their glow. Fat lot of good the darned glow is doing me I say!! Aah it’s a cruel world out there….every morsel sticks in your throat as your inbuilt calorie meter ticks and whirs!!! Add to the fact that your buddy and gym partner is giving you a glare which would melt the arctic ice, as you reach for that piece of cake. So you try munching on carrot sticks that taste like sawdust instead and look on enviously at the lucky devils with magical metabolism which lets them eat what they will. I mean how unfair is it that there are women out there who eat like a horse, haven’t heard of exercise and are slim sylph-like??

You swing between I-don’t-care-I-love-my-shape to….. please-somebody-stop-me!! You collect all the diets possible…..the GM, the Atkins, the cabbage soup, the juice diet….you name it and you have it. You gulp down soups by the buckets, eat every completely tasteless health food on this earth, try to live on water and fresh air but to what end? You end up a crabby, ill-tempered version of your former self! You wage a losing battle against your appetite which seems determined to best you. And you are left wondering why is it that we have made massive leaps on all fronts, progressed technologically, invented gadgets which have made our lives better……yet there is nothing to help us get back in shape. And for all of you who want to pipe up at this point to mention the miracle drinks, shakes, sauna belts…..get a life people!. Is it too much to ask for better tasting food that doesn’t pile on the pounds. Imagine a negative calorie cheeseburger for example……it burns your calories while you eat it!!!Or a dieter’s chocolate fudge? Somebody just tell me why oh why can’t health food taste like chocolate cake??

VOYEURS AHOY!!!!

                                         

Hate it, love it but you just can’t ignore it. That juicy bit of gossip. That odd bit of scandal. You may put on your oh -so -superior look and try to walk past but it will linger on in your mind. What is it about other peoples business that is so tempting? Why have we become so addicted to minding other peoples business rather than our own?

Call it a boon or a bane but since the advent of the technologically enhanced era things are really looking up for the voyeur!!! Gone are the days when privacy was still an option and scandalous gossip was restricted to movie magazines. Today all and sundry are out in their Sunday best washing dirty laundry on national network! And do we love it .We are horrified by the lengths people go to on reality TV but yes ,we did watch it in order to be as horrified as we profess we are!!!! The most talked about reality shows are the ones which have the participants humiliating themselves by fighting with and abusing the other participants on the show. They make a public spectacle of themselves. The TRP’s go soaring. The producers are laughing all the way to the bank. The audience is glued to their tellies and lapping it all up. Everyone’s happy!

The net surfer has found a new vocation too. He can happily trash people and their views without ever coming out in to the open. He sends hate mails leaves rude comments and generally makes a nuisance of himself safe in the confines of his online name. He gives the term freedom of expression a whole new meaning.

 The new networking sites are a voyeur’s paradise. You can look into people’s lives from the comfort of your home. Relationship changes are advertised across the entire community. You can be ‘engaged’,’ married’, ‘in a relationship’ or stick to ‘it’s complicated’ when you don’t know where you stand!!! You want to break up and make sure everyone knows?? Well you just change your status to single and it’s flashed onto every one of your friends news feed. A single click is all that’s required. The voyeur’s never had it so good!

 Even as we raise our eyebrows every time a reality show degrades a participant further we have to admit we are part of this circus too. As spectators sitting on the sidelines and watching every bit of it with avid curiosity. Oh yes we will make all the appropriate noises, sympathise even. But we are guilty of enjoying a certain degree of malicious pleasure at someone’s misfortune. We are the voyeurs behind the mask.

light where all is dark

……and nobody cares about right instead of wrong and good instead of evil

and gentleness instead of wrath

and chances are a mistake was made somewhere ……Richard Bach

Just a few days back I had read of this incident that happened in china where a two year old girl lies injured on the road and people walk on all around her without helping. The clip is apparently floating on utube but I just don’t have the heart to watch it. As it is I’m still reeling from images of gaddafi as he is kicked and stomped on by a mob…..try as I might I just cannot get the image off my mind.  A pack of wild dogs would have looked gentler in comparison. I am no defender of gaddafi and he probably met his just deserts but it was the maniacal behavior of the mob which left an indelible impression on me.

It just made me think... whether all our talk of humanity is just that…talk. It’s rather like learning things at school and never using that knowledge later in our lives. It’s all right to talk about kindness but we are increasingly becoming more abrasive in our nature. We like to shut out the harsher realities of life and pretend they don’t exist. It is easier to turn away a person from our doorstep because he might be a fraud rather than spend a minute trying to hear him out. There are stories of break-ins and robberies so that takes care of whatever little trust we had in humanity to begin with. Tomorrow if I were to find an injured man on the road would I stop to help? Or would I convince myself that a). It would land me in trouble b). There will be others who can help him c). it isn’t really expected of me!!!!! Is this our future …a desensitized and dehumanized society where each person looks out solely for himself and shuts out everybody else?

 Sometimes I wonder whether it would be right to call myself part cynic and part idealist or maybe there is a different word altogether to describe people like me!!! I know there is a lot that is wrong with the world at large and our society in general today yet I cannot shake off the belief that things can get better….that there are people out there who still believe in values, who wouldn’t balk at helping an injured person on the road, who would stand up for what is right irrespective of what it got them.

All around me I observe festivities as the city gears up for deepawali….expensive gifts will be exchanged, there will be vulgar ostentatious show of wealth and I doubt if even a thought goes out to the values it is supposed to teach us. The victory of good over evil….the right path instead of the wrong……gentleness instead of wrath, humility instead of arrogance…..light where all is dark.

winter cometh!!

It’s getting dark earlier than usual and the air has a little nip to it. The thought crosses my mind as driving back home I turn a bend and see a cart with a mound of peanuts. Nestled precariously on the top is a smoking clay pot to keep the roasted nuts nice and warm. It is perhaps one of the more enduring images of the onset of winter.

 I love noticing the small changes that herald the coming season. Early mornings that are so much more beautiful. The warm sunshine breaks through overhead foliage into misty rays before becoming a dappled shade on the ground. Morning dew touches every little leaf, every blade of grass, every intricate cobweb so that they glisten and sparkle as if adorned with millions of tiny diamonds!

People out in the mornings will start wearing light sweaters or throw a muffler round their neck. Wood fire smoke will hang low over hutments in the evening giving a surreal feel to the atmosphere. As the temperature falls further out will come the heavy woolens. Schoolchildren will huddle on rickshaws bundled up in blazers and scarves. In the cold nights bonfires will appear on roadsides like beacons of hope to all the pavement dwellers lending the much needed warmth in their cold dreary lives. When we spend all of summer trying to duck into a shade to avoid the blistering sun it is such a relief to be able to wallow in it in winter. To be able to go for long walks without the heat and humidity bothering you. It’s the time for bonfires and barbeques!! A time for Christmas carols and New Year parties!

 Winter brings with it the unparalleled joy of curling up under a thick quilt with a book and waiting for your frozen toes to thaw……..Of holding your cup of hot tea with both your hands to feel the warmth seep in……of smelling the frost as it hits you square in the face…. Of soaking in the delicious warmth of the afternoon sun right to the bones and feel the fuzzy sleepy feeling that comes with it……aah winter cometh!!!!

morning walkers part deux

Following up on a previous post that I wrote here are a few more interesting characters.

Chief among them …..‘The militant aunty’ is really hard to miss. Stout, matronly, clad in a sari hitched up to reveal sneakers beneath…..she brooks no impediment in her path. Aggressive to the core she walks like a battle tank in action. You really don’t want to mess with her. She rounds up by personally checking out all the numerous ‘choorans’ and shady health drinks on offer outside the compound before heading home to a suitably domesticated and (I hope!!!) docile husband!!!

The ‘I’d be in bed if it weren’t for my wife’ walkers. These make up quite a lot of the people I encounter in the morning. They couldn’t care less about walking and amble quite listlessly around the walking track. Given half a chance they will park themselves in a shade and sip nariyal paani and watch the PYTs walking by. They are there to kill time until when they can safely return home with a suitably tired looking expression.

The ‘I need it but I can’t take it’ walkers. Completely out of shape this lot!! They

need far more than a couple of rounds on the walking track but just the effort of lugging that weight around is far too much for them. They look like they are in physical pain as they breathe heavily and sweat profusely yet they labor on in the hope of emerging from their chrysalis….as a younger, fitter, slimmer, version of themselves!!!!

 The ‘Help!!!….Im getting married in a month’s time’ walkers. All the chubby girls and boys who have suddenly woken up to the fact that they don’t even remotely resemble their avatar on matrimonial sites!!! These poor souls battle the bulge in an effort to look somewhat like their cleverly shot pictures. There’s also the added pressure of fitting into designer wedding clothes and looking good in the photos and videos. Wedding albums are to be proudly flaunted not hidden away in the back of a drawer for fear of someone recognizing you bursting out of your wedding finery!!!

So out you go now. Pull on your jogging shoes and take a round of the track…..and while you are at it keep a look out for all the interesting people you are sure to encounter!!!

the poet and the pretender

 “And so while the king was looking down

                        The jester stole his thorny crown

                        The courtroom was adjourned

                        No verdict was returned….”

The written word has always held a strange but intense fascination for me. Right from the time I was introduced to the magical world of Enid Blyton till now when certain well strung words can move me to tears like nothing else can. As an intensely introvert child my bottled up emotions usually took the form of verse. While writing one often finds oneself a little torn between the heart and the mind.  Sometimes we find that jumbled up words will express emotion like a perfectly well written verse wont. The iambic meter seems to make no sense when it’s your emotions in flow. The well written verse on the other hand is well written, doesn’t have to necessarily carry your emotional baggage and is easy to appreciate. Anyway the point here is that I like every other person who writes, do at times give in to convention and write what is expected. So it was with much trepidation that I shuffled with my two poems to my teacher. Young, unsure and brimming with unasked questions and the usual heartaches. The first poem was of course the one that I had written with absolutely no intention of getting it published. It was a jumble of words, shorn of any adornment. It was just truthful and bare. It was me without my mask.

The second was beautiful. It rhymed at just the right places. It talked of the glories of Mother Nature and the ungratefulness of man to the point of being clichéd. If I had it with me now I would have probably ripped it into tiny pieces and stomped on it for good measure!! I cringe in embarrassment when I think of it . Now it was indeed a shock to me when the second one was chosen to be published. It’s not real I wanted to cry out! I of course didn’t. What I did do apart from receding further into myself was read up a lot on this thing called existential loneliness. The theory proposes that man by the very virtue of his existence is a loner. He may walk awhile with friends but his thoughts are essentially his alone. No one can understand and share his inner most thoughts and fears.

Which of course led me to believe that I could get people to believe in everything but the real me if I wanted to. At fourteen that sort of a realization is life changing if nothing else.  This incident brought the fourteen year old me in direct contact with the till then barely acknowledged realities of the world -that you are two different people for most part of the day. There’s an image that is there for the world to see or rather what the world expects you to be. The other is the person inside- beautiful and flawed. One is a pretender and the other is a poet

the morning walkers

If you have not been a regular one for morning walks I suggest you do become one. It will open up a hitherto unknown perspective on all the people you know. Irrespective of how they behave in life otherwise morning walkers have pretty distinctive styles of behavior early in the morning. Just to help you have a better understanding I have classified them into different kinds and yes given them names too. Now you just have to go out there spot them and slot them!!!!

There is this breed of morning walkers who strut about in their latest jogging tracks. I call them 'the professionals'. The threads will be puma…. headband wristband in place. The shoes will be serious too especially designed for running jogging or whatever it is they are trying to do!!!…..i pod headphones stuck inside their ears, sometimes a timer strapped to their wrist and a sipper….sorry a branded sipper in the hand. They run, jog, walk in a world of their own, the other walkers are just mere hindrances to be suffered. They are there because they mean business.

Then there are 'the socialite walkers' they come to the tracks only to exchange hi’s and hello’s, a peck here and a hug there. They stroll about a bit and catch up on the latest gossip about last night's do. Their work done they saunter off at a leisurely pace.

 The most dangerous of the lot is 'the ambush walker'. His only purpose is to catch your eye, begin with a casual hello and completely take over your walk. He wants to walk with you, talk with you, even wants to know what music is playing on your ipod!!! He wants to take over and that’s his modus operandi!!! You may wear your shades and run in the opposite direction but it does not deter him for he my dear friend is made of sterner stuff

'The yoga fanatic walker' is only there to let the lesser enlightened mortals like you and me know what we are missing out on. He walks less, stretches out in various gravity defying postures more!!!! He sneers at your feeble attempt to lose weight by simply walking. Yoga is a way of life he says. Damned be the fact that you do not want that way or that life!!!

'The energetic arm swinger' is another. His concentration is not so much on walking as it is on swinging those arms. It’s best to walk at a safe distance from these ‘swingers’ because at times their arms threaten to swing right out of their sockets. They are ‘armed’ and dangerous believe me!!!!

While walking you will also come across the disembodied sound of laughter emanating from some shady corner of the tracks. It’s 'the comedy circus walkers'. They stand and laugh en masse. It’s a daunting sight to say the least. I secretly feel they idolize archana puran singh and try to see who can laugh as loud and as much as her and without a reason too!!! Pretty harmless lot this but there are mornings which you are feeling particularly grumpy and yes you do get the urge to strangle them.

That’s all for now. Will come up with a few more in my next post……happy walking folks!!!

The things i'd say if i could only say them

 It happens to me all the time. I find myself in a situation which requires me to raise my voice a few decibels and vent my anger (usually happens at retail chain stores or sometimes with obnoxious aggressive people I have the misfortune to meet). Raising the volume is not an issue and oh the anger is very much there all right….. simmering and seething. Sad bit is I am at a loss for words. Where are they???Where is the dictionary load of words I have spent my life reading and acquiring when I need them most??? Did they decide to go for a walk deserting me when I needed them most??? So I stand there opening and closing my mouth a couple of times looking like a human equivalent of a fish. But no words come to my rescue…no sir!

  Later is of course, a different story altogether. And that’s when my lost wits wander in hand in hand with all the things I could have said…and  I get thoughts like ….hey that’s what I should have said!!! I imagine the whole scenario again and in my imaginary world my vitriolic tongue lashes the opponents to pulp!!! They cower in fear and I am of course unstoppable!!! In the dream sequence the floor managers quake in fear when in reality I know that if I get really angry I would probably just embarrass myself by dissolving in tears!!! I don’t know if it’s only me but for all my creativity, the fountain of wisdom and words as well seems to dry up the moment I am faced with adversity. Intensely frustrated I come away feeling completely deflated. What’s the point of all the choicest words, I could have said, coming to mind much later?

It is one thing to put words down on paper and quite another to be able to say them face to face. Give me the written word any day I say….I feel so much better

Anytime you wish for an emotional outpouring hand me a sheet of paper. It will come spouting forth but no you can’t expect me to sit with someone across the table and do the same. No darned way!!! At times like these I like to portray myself as an empathic listener but the fact is I freeze up in the face of emotional outbursts. I juggle my facial muscles to bring about a semblance of a sympathetic expression but inside it’s like an ice floe! If someone wants to vent their grief, anger, frustration, does not want to be saddled with counter recriminations, advice and instead would prefer only a vaguely sympathetic silence in return….well then you have me!!!

Maybe one day I will be able to gather my courage and wits and say what’s on my mind but until then I live in hope!!! Hope that one day all that needs be said will be and God help anybody who’s around then!!!!

thank you ms.woolf

Well it’s been quite some days since my last post and as always I have an excuse. A brilliant one to say the least if I may say so myself!!! I am simultaneously writing on four different  streams of thoughts and yes very often I end up thinking about the warring ideas rather than putting them down on paper….or rather my computer screen!! In the process all four are half written and waiting rather morosely to see the light of the day. It’s quite frustrating to say the least. First having to deal with the ‘having-no-inclination- to-write’ phase and now having the ‘too-much-to–say-and-don’t-know-how’ phase!!! Patience is a virtue I very clearly seem to have missed out on.

I personally feel that the stream of consciousness theory, pioneered by ms Virginia Woolf amongst others, was basically just a smokescreen for dealing with this kind of a thought process!!! I mean why bother separating the different streams when you can just dump them all together and let the poor reader plod his way through trying to basically find the point!!! Imagine being able to write what you please as you want it without the completely unfair added pressure of it having to make sense!!!

Our politicians have after all mastered this art and it seems to be working for them too. Have you ever seen them hold forth on their accomplishments??? Its so much more interesting watching paint dry! On and on they go talking about this and that making absolutely no sense while the hastily herded together audience concentrates (and rightly so)on the paid-for puri aaloo and swats at  flies!!! Or our done to death saas bahu soaps for that matter. Stretched way beyond requirement repetitive and monotonous…..but yet they hold the nation in thrall! They make not an iota of sense even when they are all clubbed together!!! Definitely stream of consciousness at work there I say!

Wouldn’t life be wonderful if anything worth saying could be said as a long meandering monologue with no friendly voices telling you to kindly cap it and get to the DAMN POINT!!!! Ok ok I heard you guys….am going back to writing!!!

An Anna for your thoughts!!!

A seventy four year old man moves the masses to combat corruption. We do our bit by liking his fan page on face book, holding a candle light march and discussing it in drawing room debates. The media as always turns everything into a circus, headline grabbers like a certain swami jump into the fray and a serious issue becomes the latest weapon wielded by self serving politicians to promote their selfish interests. Somewhere in all the brouhaha the real purpose seems to have lost its shine.

 It is suddenly cool to be wielding the national flag and proclaiming ‘I am Anna’. Point is it doesn’t matter whether you are Anna, or a daily wages laborer who couldn’t care less or even a cynic who feels that war against corruption doesn’t stand a chance. Chances are that most of the people voicing their support are unaware of the implications of what they support. Lack of awareness about issues that govern our lives is unforgivable especially if you are taking a stand. It’s amazing how we have managed to turn an issue of such importance into merely a trend!!! Irrespective of whether we support Anna or not the one thing I feel everyone agrees on is that corruption needs to be weeded out. Secondly everyone has a right to their opinions and also the right to hold a peaceful protest in order to be heard. No doubt a start has been made and that’s a big reason why a lot of people find themselves behind the cause, for better or for worse. It’s better than sitting about waiting for things to right themselves. Fair enough!

Corruption however is a vice which has its tentacles firmly entrenched in the fabric of our nation. It’s not a monster created over night. We have fed it and raised it in our hurry to be better than the best. It’s been accepted and around for so long that a lot of us will not recognize it if it stares us in the face. I can bet my money on tainted people being part of these rallies too…..imagine asking them….given a bribe ever?? Of course they’ll say….there was no other way. Bribed the ticket collector on a train ever?? Of course!! Stopped for speeding and whipped out a hundred to cover it??? Yes! No act of corruption is too small. The same people agitating against corruption that runs in to crores are doing it in smaller ways in their everyday lives. I wonder how the passing of a certain bill is going to fix that!

Reminds me of a time in college when we had just given an exam. As we stood there discussing the questions the topic as usual turned to how a lot many had managed to cheat. They had written on desks (which by the way were sandpapered first to remove the notes already on it!!!!!), they had carried chits, written on walls next to their seats…. It was a lot of hard work! A friend’s cousin visiting from the US listened on to the conversation and then very calmly told us how at their college two batches give the same paper one after the other with a fifteen minute break in between. Same paper, same questions and yet not one student asks or gives out the questions. Unbelievable right??? You could have heard a pin drop. But as soon as he left he was labeled a fool and Americans too….imagine not cheating when the opportunity came to you on a platter???!!!!Cheating is not a form of corruption??? I believe it is. In fact it is where it first makes an appearance in our lives and then settles there under one pretext or another. No movement however big can weed out corruption if we don’t do it as individuals in our everyday lives. But amid all the din and mass hysteria arising from multitudes swarming the streets….who will hear the voice of reason coming from within?

mama everyone else is on face book!!!

When they talked about the joys of parenting they did forget to mention that the hours were long, the breaks negligible and the perks usually late in coming. As I race through each day it seems like a whirlwind of appointments that no one apart from me has any intention of keeping. So I rant and I rave, talk to myself to calm down, pin a smile in place when I’m dieing to scream and all in all walk a tightrope to avoid utter chaos.

In between running my girls to school and classes, birthday parties and such comes the onerous task of actual parenting….teaching them values and principles. Of what is acceptable and what is not. It’s hard to not let my world-weary cynicism and sometimes my over-the-top idealism seep into these conversations but I do try.

So every now and then certain issues creep up which will just not go away. The issue of a face book account being one such. My two daughters all of nine years and eleven want to have an account on face book. Well this isn’t something new….They have been wanting this for almost two years now and I am fast running out of arguments in the face of the never ending refrain…. ‘But mama everyone else is on face book’!!! Truth be told most of their friends and even some younger to them have face book accounts and they are unable to fathom how something that is ok for everybody else is not ok for them. I do not profess to be all righteous and claim that I haven’t given it a thought.  I have to admit that I have toyed with the idea myself, though briefly! Sometimes it’s just so much easier to say oh what does it matter…have it your way! Saves us a lot of anguish and the children a lot of whining and cribbing! I have perused the privacy policy but it is clear as to the legal age for joining. This of course makes it imperative for underage children to be untruthful about their age in order to make an account.

If I do allow them to do so how will I instill in them the sense of right and wrong?  We have become lax as to bending rules, cutting corners in our hurry to keep up with the rest of the world. All of us have done it as part of our growing up and even today when we feel life is just that much easier without staring uncomfortable truths in the face. Maybe it’s a small thing but I have not been able to bring myself to allow them…… just yet. I am of course being constantly badgered and to be honest my patience wears thin each day! I am hanging in there……but just!!!!

Finally I do not know whether it will even be worth all the effort. Will I really have achieved something by all the discussions I have with my girls regarding what’s acceptable and what’s not? Or will it ill-equip them to deal with a world which survives on a (to use a very Indian term)…. ‘chalta hai’ attitude???

But yes I can just hope that somewhere in the future they will understand why it was important for me to stick to certain rules (for however long I could!!!)and I hope they will have courage to do the same

my gang of girls

Its something to do with the age we find ourselves at I guess. Suddenly there is a need firstly for ‘my space’ an erstwhile unheard of notion and secondly your girlfriends have yet again become the much needed support system, your ‘sisters in arms’, your sounding board. Reminds of the time spent in school where every young unaccustomed new feeling was thrashed out, discussed and by the end of it usually our troubles had evaporated in a peal of laughter!!! Secret crushes, the angst of growing up, our dreams for tomorrow were all wrapped up in a blissful time spent breezing through life which on hindsight everyone agrees was the time of our lives’!!

Somewhere along the way we all moved away to careers, different cities and husbands and children…… yet the more we moved away the more we stayed together. Years down the line all it takes is one comment on facebook, one phone call or sms to make my day so much better. I hear of someone’s success and it’s as if I have achieved something, another one has a baby and I moon over the little ones pics as if it were my own child. In fact distances not withstanding even today those five friends continue to encourage me with words and sometimes a much needed kick on the derriere!!!

Since this is my very first post I dedicate it to all the friends I have had and the ones I have now. Life would really not be the same without our long talks, our smiles and our shared tears! My attempts at blogging are very much due to the unabashed and wholehearted trust that some of my friends have in my capabilities. They have had faith in me ….at times when I didn’t have any faith in myself!! What would I do without you!!:-)