Wondering, Wandering, Pondering

One of the best books I've read to date is "Ice Station Zebra" by Alistair MacLean. The book is of a war drama genre and is based in the Cold War era. It details the operation to rescue the survivors of a meteorological station named Ice Station Zebra located in the Arctic Circle. The Plot: The USS Dolphin, a nuclear submarine of the American fleet is pressed into the rescue of people at Zebra. With the winter coming in fast, the survivors of the station have only days before they too follow their dead teammates. With the narrow time frame, an American nuclear submarine, the "USS Dolphin" is given the task of going under the ice in an effort to reach station Zebra. The commander of the ship Captain, Swanson is surprised when he is informed that a British civilian will be joining the rescue mission. The civilian, Dr. Carpenter introduces himself an expert in dealing with frostbite and other medical conditions caused by extreme cold. Suspicious of Carpen...

EXPENSES! I doubt there's a more terrifying word in the English language. To many, spending equals happiness (shopaholics), to me spending is something which is necessary evil. There are very few things which I don't mind spending money on: Treks Trips Good food Essentials A good cellphone (very infrequently), and so on. Statistically speaking, around 90% of my monthly expenses are on food. Like I said, essentials! Occasionally, I may spend my money on a few electronics. Though, even this is dependent on the need of that appliance, than actually wanting to buy it. I won't say that I have never bought something for the heck of it, but I prefer to keep those instances to a minimum. For instance, once I had bought a leather jacket just because I thought it looked good. Well, if I had thought about it, I would have realised that Pune's weather provides little to no opportunities to actually wear a leather jacket! They say that expenses actually increase once you st...

It's too hot to be doing anything! I don't get Summer vacation. It's wedding season. My teeth can no longer tolerate sour delicacies like आवळा (Amla), चिंच (Tamrind) and कैरी (Raw Mango). The number of treks I can go to reduces drastically. MSEDCL decides that Summer is the best time for power cuts. It seems that the whole country has migrated to hill stations like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala, etc. The rain gods, in all their wisdom decide to re-enact the Ghanan Ghanan song scene from the movie Lagaan . Any free time you get is mostly likely to be spent recovering from the Summer heat. The only advertisements that the TV seems to host are of ACs, Cooler and refrigerators. This blog post is part of the  52 Weeks Blogging Challenge.

What are we inspired by? Is it because of a certain situation? Or is it through a particular person's deeds/virtues? Is it a particular place that inspires us, or is it a story of the place? There are many things that inspire us. Some are people who have influenced people around them, some are situations, events which occurred and changed the course of history or it may be something as mundane as watching an ant carry many times its body weight. Thus, inspiration comes in many different forms. The main purpose of inspiration, the reason why we go searching for it is that inspiration pushes us to do/act upon something that we would be reluctant to do otherwise. Personally, I believe that inspiration comes from within. While I may be influenced by people or events, the final inspiration comes from within. The situations that inspire me are many, from something simple as watching the sun rise, to something great and complex such as the life stories of people who have achieve...