Brain-easers

The Pleasurable Dilemma

2012-02-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

The rare moments when you vie for that one kind of dilemma that lurches under lots of cosy blankets of the usual worrisome vexing dilemmas – you could call it a sweetener to your coffee – something that you wouldn’t hesitate to take because you know it isn’t the ‘bad sugar’. Dilemma is usually the bad sugar you wouldn’t want. Pleasurable dilemma, *pause*, is the sweetener that has zero calories (I always wondered how you say ‘One Calorie’ (without an ‘s’) and ‘Zero CalorieS’ (with an ‘s’) even though zero < one. Nevertheless.)

So, this comes up at several times in life. Think of it – you go to a Cinnabon or a Barista and look at a Chocolate Mousse on the third shelf and a Butterscotch Pastry on the second shelf and love both equally and they cost the same! Ha! Pleasurable Dilemma, eh? This is the base level that pleasurable dilemma slithers into. At other times, it’s rather funny. Like when you have to choose between one really good movie and a really bad one only because you have a free ticket with you; assuming that you wouldn’t waste your own money on a bad movie. But now that you have a free ticket you might as well watch one for future reference or something.. Well, but, you also have a good movie on another hand..

So, you’re happy that you have something, but you have no idea what to do with it! It’s just one of the many manifestations of Pleasurable Dilemma. There are so many more!

It’s just too short a time that we have. So, it’s best to snap ourselves off of the dilemmas that we’ve chosen to be in and crave for those really warm pleasurable dilemmas that seek us to seek them.. It just takes two leaps to get two good things, one in each hand, toss them around, juggle ‘em a li’l and then say hey! It’s time I drop one for another!

That’s the end we want to see. A Happy Ending, like in everything else..

While..

2011-12-23T09:08:00.000-08:00

While shadows speak like they never did,

While sawdust hands wait for the wind,

While far away seems nearer than ever,

While the music plays from nowhere,

While the fire isn’t fierce anymore,

While eyes shut to actually see,

While footsteps are smaller, fewer,

While the sea side is now the companion,

While the train foot-board brings back that one image,

While the walls are empty,

While the doors are shut from the outside,

While the story is unsaid,

While the two worlds stay,

While this side of the moon isn’t the one,

While our world is somewhere,

Still Alive,

I am, Yet, I am.

Surreal

2011-10-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

Heading towards another road, I stop by to see what looks like a colour that I had kept away for a while now. It says grey with mild shades of blue. There’s music that’s singing its way through the glazing breeze that’s blowing over these sprawling fields of grey and blue..

The breeze is a glistening white, like it’s been flapped over the lawn just now, before I stopped by. There’s dew, on something that looks like a giant leaf.. velvety in texture, soothing green to stay in rhythm with the grey-blue. The dew has a slight shimmer on its corner. As I move my eyes over it, the shimmer moves on the surface.. away from me every time.. like I’m chasing it or something.. I smile and walk away.

*How *

I had kept it away for a while. This was a calling back to a place I never thought I’d be part of. Grey and Blue. The colours I had kept at the background of life’s slate. The colours at the foreground are, what everyone call, black and white.

*When *

The breeze came on my face to leave a glow I had never felt before. A whitewash, it left. I walked back with it, willing to tread till where it chose to take me. The music is singing, now, closer to me. I stepped on a pebble that giggled like I tickled it or something..

*What *

I sat on the stone I fell on. The music is still singing; a song that boasts of being able to make my existence, here, surreal. The stone did not hurt. The breeze danced to the song..

*Why *

Black and white speak of the old. I walk back to the leaf. I felt it. It smells nice, of something that promises to touch the soul and stay.. Grey and blue are here to stay. They speak of my future. This place. This time. Of nothingness. Of intrigue. Of pride. Of surreal existence. Of something I want anyway.

*Where *

.. Yea, it’s 8.00am. Lecture in half an hour. A new day has come..

The Canopy Effect

2011-10-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

Call it the canopy effect to jargonize the phenomenon I wish to talk about today (the day I bounced back to blogging – (and there’s a tinge of alliteration (freak! I’m so glad I remember figures of speech! (ok, this is an annoying number of brackets)))) or whatever else you want to call it.

Canopy. How would you define it in a way that tells you what it is just by looking at its definition? Here’s how I would make a quiz definition for canopy. ‘One thing that encompasses everything’. And the G for Genius kid in the Parle-G shoots up his hand, opens his mouth before I ask him to and shouts ‘The SKY!!!’ And, swoosh. I need to change the definition of canopy. Well, sky is but a variant of canopy, or so I guess.

Whatever be the definition of canopy, I know that what makes sense here is what I want to do with this word now. The story of ‘Canopy in my head’ goes like this..
I just thought of writing a blog post today, after a while (within which my curls have started sprouting yet again (a deliberate attempt to notify those who do not know that I straighten my hair that I straighten my hair beyond all the miseries that come along the way of straightening the hair)). The minute I thought of writing a blog post, I thought about what different could I write from whatever I have written in the past. So, the thought flow went like this..

‘Something different – what’s different now – everything – everything is different – can I write about everything? – no, so let’s write about one thing that encompasses everything – canopy? – is that what you call it? – oh, so it so happens that when there is one change that happens in one’s life, it tends to change everything else gradually – a change that encompasses everything -- what would you call this phenomenon? – The Canopy Effect – So, here I go..’
I really am not sure what I am talking about right now but I know deep down inside that there is some sense in what I write because I usually make sense when I am random.

The Canopy Effect is hence, the phenomenon by which, one change in your life can cause a series of changes in different forms, within your life. So, it is, but, a canopy of change encompassing multitude of changes.

In my life, the most recent change was when I stepped out of an engineering college and entered into an MBA ‘college’. So, this was the first change (the canopy). The changes that followed:

- The meaning of ‘college’ changed.
- The meaning of ‘friends’ changed
- Time, that was once my leisure companion, began whipping me hard
- Hostel became home
- Day became the night; Night became the day
- Books became bigger
- The meaning of ‘I live everyday as it comes’ changed
- Social life was spent in post-post-meeting meetings
- Deadlines became life lines
- One cup of coffee meant a lot more than what it meant before
- PPT enjoyed the new-found attention I started giving it
- Excel was overjoyed that I’d end up using it one day and everyday ever since
- Life went from Wordsworth to (MS) Word’s Worth
- SmartArt never felt smarter
- I started witnessing competitions compete
- The one haunted question changed from ‘What will I become after growing up?' to ‘What will I become; a manager or a leader? (What’s the difference, anyway? )’
- The map just got snatched away.. The road became narrower..
- The meaning of ‘Life’ changed..

There’s more to say and more to come with time. This is just a glimpse of how one change encompasses so many other changes. It’s fascinating to see how you step into a different world and you see everything differently..

Nevertheless, as the cliché goes, the only thing constant is change. And we ought to embrace it along with the multitude of changes it brings with it..

Stop time now.

2011-07-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

I have officially entered into a world of madness and a lifetime of randomness.. With the advent of crazy people SPJAIN has chosen after two plausibly rigorous, grueling group interview rounds, my life has begun to turn around. Seldom do I get to enter a place that isn't hyped at all and is still so amazingly great.. or random, may I say..

An unwrapped gift it was to me. I opened it with a somewhat ho-hum excitement, and today I see what I got! What I loved is what I got. The realization came now and I know not, for how long this will go..

A matter of two years, NOT only for the big buck, NOT only for a social value growth, NOT only to keep your head up and walk on the lobby of your residential building.. But for all that's there now.. this moment, when I know I can't get enough of anyone and everyone I talk to.

So, there was this session on 'Business Communication' wherein groups of three were asked to choose ANY topic and present it in front of a bunch of insane, sleepy, lazy creatures. What we thought it would be was a 3 lecture long (140 * 3 minutes) of boring, insightful (in the other world), enlightening (in the MBA world) presentations.. What was in store was abundantly random topics like 'Randomness', 'Somnolence', 'Death by Presentations', 'Cartoon Network' (our topic :D), ALL of which, ALL of us related to! What I realized is what a 'heaven' of a place I am in.. where 420 minutes cant get any better..

The day I pass out of here, is going to be officially the day I'd call the saddest day of my life because I want to be here, with these people around me, with this madness, with this craze, with this passion to learn and endure myself through every quiz that comes my way, with these bunch of idiots I am living with, with this urge to stay here as much as I want to go back home..

Cheers to a LIFETIME within a life.. :)

Why bother? (An insight into the mind of someone who bothers just as much as the plausible triviality of this question.)

2011-04-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

I was here yesterday, or was I? Is this me, or not at all, why bother?
I am here now and happy I am.. So what happened when, why bother?
Today I live, yesterday I had died. Who gave me life, why bother?
I think I had this moment before; With whom and when, why bother?
It’s blue today. Yesterday, it was black, but why bother?
The surface is neat, I walk on it. What’s beneath, why bother?
I have two feet and two more by my side, what more I need, why bother?
Is this choice I make out of discretion, I know not; but why bother?
Is my heart thinking for my mind like it was yesterday, why bother?
I am sane, happy, contented.. all from the outside; inside of me.. why bother?
I can feel a hand holding me, crushing it or is it, why bother?
I owe a lot to whom, when, why and how; why bother?
I treaded on the other path, is it the one I should be on now, why bother?
This seems different from what I need or want, but why bother?
I picked the wrong arrow from the quiver, or did I, why bother?
Why bother? Why bother, when I am happy or something like it..
When I am living a life or something like it..
When there is that friend or someone like one..
Is it all true? Am I true? Is this a sham? Am I a… Why bother?

The perfect birth

2011-03-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

Let’s be born yet again,
To hold new senses..
To meet new people..
To have no mind that judges so much..
To make no rules..
To live boundless..
To love the other soul..
To make one friend..
To mend and bend ourselves..
To not have a foe..
To not have anyone even close to being a foe..
To not hate anything..
To not hate anyone..
To not pull others down to grow..
To be loyal to our values..
To be good to all..
To believe in goodness..
To believe in an impeccable world..
To feel every touch..
To sense every sorrow..
To help every struggler..
To not be indifferent..
To not be less caring..
To not play with lives..

But, who is ready to die to be born yet again?
None, for no soul believes one can be born this way..

Elita Asks..

2010-12-31T19:32:00.001-08:00

‘Mother, while I grow year by year, will my brain grow with me,
So I can fit everything in the world inside it?
Will my heart be so generous that I can help every soul
That suffers from sorrow and pain, O Mother?
Will my hands become big enough to hold the whole of the universe?
Will I have feet large enough to jump across wide streams and cascades?’

‘No, Elita. What happens with time, knows nobody.
Nevertheless, you will feel your mind growing along with the world..
And every moment, it will gather not only the good, but all the ill around..
Your heart will grow but only to endure all the pain the world gives it..
Only to know how people change, laugh and betray..
Your hands will grow so it can hold more prayers
While you fold them and kneel in front of the Almighty
Asking for strength, patience and joy, that you have now,
That shall be replaced by the demands of this unkind world.
Your feet will grow, not in size but in rhythm so you can tap them
When joy embraces you once in a blue moon to bring that smile
Onto your face alone and tell you, ‘It’s time for you to dance!’

‘Why talk of pain when life has shown me only joy, Mother?
Why do you say people change, laugh and betray?
You are one of them, have you also changed to harm those
Who live a life as alike as you do, O mother?’

‘My innocent little pie, the change I talk about has but one cause
And that is to satisfy the needs of the bunch of bad boys
That we call Greed, Jealousy, Insecurity, Dissatisfaction,
Rivalry, Competition, Anger and Ego,
All of which is new to you, Elita, but know it now
So you can live by your own, by all the good
Those which have your family and your true friends,
your passion and your dream,
For Life has no rulebook, nor does it follow law,
All that it follows is your voice which has to be only as loud
to be heard by your life alone, not by those of others, Elita.
That one thing that has to grow is your voice,
Which is yours and yours alone,
Which is an entity that can’t be felt, seen but heard
By only one other entity, your heart..’

Respect

2010-12-07T03:28:00.000-08:00

Respect your mother who brought you to this world...

Respect your father who saw you grow from his fairy to an angel...

Respect your brother who made you cry and wiped your tears...

Respect your friend who stood listening to you even when you were wrong...

Respect your teacher who stayed back to make you know a bit more about the world...

Respect your neighbour who invited you to a family get-together...

Respect your college mate who took the blame when you were caught in class...

Respect your auto-driver who dropped you home at 11 at night...

Respect your best friend who made you laugh when you cried...

Respect your college that gave you so many memories in such little time...

Respect the one who went out of his or her way to make your birthday special for you...

Respect your classmate who didn’t know you well yet adored you more than anybody else...

Respect the beggar who showed you the way to your destination even when you refused to lend him money...

Respect time that is never in a hurry and makes everything worth a wait...

Respect space that gives you all the freedom you never asked for...

Respect criticism only when it comes from those whose words are worth being heard...

Respect failure because it paves your way to success...

Respect your tears even if others don’t...

Respect the past because it has made you grow...

Respect today because you and only you own it...

Respect tomorrow because anything can happen...

Respect life because that’s all you have with you.. nothing more, nothing less..

The Status Quotient

2010-11-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

‘Owning a Gucci makes me feel good about myself’. It probably holds some weight if it’s something you say out of the pride that after sweating it out and toiling hard, you earned yourself a really costly bag, in this case, a Gucci. Nevertheless, if you’ve bought one with your dad’s card swiped then you ought to pull it off with something called shame rather than pride.

More often than not, such tentacles of the so-called pseudo-pride look extremely attractive. Why I call it pseudo-pride is because things like smoking, drinking, watching a popular sitcom just because the world talks about it, pretending to be a voracious reader, etc fall under something called status. We have been giving status more importance than it deserves. And sometimes, I find it unbelievably unnerving when some of the people I know do or say some things just because it adds up to the status quotient.

Citing clichés in the order of our mental growth..

At the age of 10, owning a Ladybird is a status symbol among girls obviously.

At the age of 15, being best friends with the most popular girl or boy in school is a status symbol.

At the age of 16, being an integral part of the most good-looking group is a status symbol.

At the age of 18, rash-driving is a status symbol.

At the age of 19, smoking, drinking and partying hard is a status symbol.

At the age of 20, having the best-looking and the most sought-after people giving you attention is a status symbol (even if those people don’t really give a damn about you.)

At the age of 21, owning a Blackberry is a status symbol.

At the age of 22, bragging about your dad’s new BMW is a status symbol.

At the age of 25, talking about ‘independence’ is a status symbol.

At the age of 35, having lot of hair on your head is a status symbol :P

Well, I haven’t really thought about the status-ian needs beyond the age of 35 but I presume it’d have something to do with aging, kids and home for some reason.

Whatever be it, it's sad that sometimes we feel the need to satisfy our urge to be acknowledged in other people’s eyes so much that in the process we forget whether what we do is actually genuine or put on. Even if it is genuine, we tend to brush aside the question of whether it was something we really wanted or was it only to bring in that feel-good factor.

I do not intend to say that bragging about your dad’s car or your beautiful home is a bad thing but beyond a point it seems obvious why you crave to let other people know about it. All that a high status-quotient brings with it is attention is what you believe. Sadly, it happens to be just the opposite. The more you put on, the more you brag, the more you call yourself popular because you are the most popular person’s best friend, the lesser and lesser people care about you. It’s just like a bunch of hay fully covered with an aluminium foil that shines way too bright. You tear it off with your own hands and in the process unleash the ‘nothing’ that lies beneath.

There is fine line between status and pride..

If you do what you do for yourself then you won’t talk about it as much as you do.

A bag from the road-side, if self-earned looks much more beautiful to you than a Gucci bag earned with your dad’s money.

A friend who happens to be the least noticed in college but yet trusts you more than herself is the most popular friend for you.

Self-restraint that you exercise when you enter your teens, refraining from smoking or drinking while your gang does it, is the pride that will make everyone look up to you.

If you care about the life that you have rather than about how much your car can take, then you have won your heart yet again.

If you can tread along with equanimity and face hardships without anyone, then you need no ‘group’, however popular, to support you.

If you can take your own decisions by yourself at the age of 25 and yet believe that it is your mom and dad who know it better than you then call yourself independent.

Be proud to be yourself, by yourself..

Beyond Myself.

2010-11-06T21:33:00.001-07:00

Beyond myself, beyond this time,
Beyond the sound of music and chime,
Beyond the ocean, vast enough,
Beyond this path, hard and rough,

Beyond all that’s called love,
Beyond the beauty of dove,
Beyond the might of flame,
Beyond the dirty games,

Beyond the height of the sky,
Beyond the mourning cry,
Beyond the money of the rich,
Beyond the hardest pitch,

Beyond everything I say,
I love you, mother, I may
Wish to take you with me,
Up the mightiest tree,

To sleep the sleep of peace,
With my hands on your knees,
With my head on your lap,
Away from the Fake unholy trap.

To be fed with your food that forever
Beats even the best fruit flavor
And smile with inexplicable joy
When you give me the sweetest toy

And tell me to forget every pain
To want the sunshine and rain
To tread on and on with lot of care
To be kind to all, To give, To share

Then you ask me to look at God
And ask not for glory to the Lord,
But for the strength to live and endure
Every ailment without a cure,

Then you pray for me alone,
To thank Him for the good he has shown,
To ask Him to hold me through the ugly and the bad,
To wish that true love to this world, I add.

O mother, you’re so beautifully true,
I know not how when I am blue,
You tear apart every sorrow and agony,
And make my life as sweet as honey

You’re just the best mother I say,
I know that my life is a play,
But it’s you, who has been holding it with care,
Since I first lay on your hand, my fingers, little, bare.

You are the one that I shall die for,
Even if there should be a war,
Of Fate and Choice, I will stand by you,
Wherever you go, I will follow you.

We shall fight every peril together,
For we are one, now and forever,
O mother, let me bow down to thee,
For everything you have done for me.

Hey-Day! :)

2010-10-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

I have a tomorrow that is bigger than ever,

But it surely isn't a Now or Never..

It will be a bright new promising day

When I’d be blessed with the best anyway..

Because I have endured the hardest of time,

So, tomorrow shall be a flawless chime..

It will come and go like every other

But the moments will stay forever and ever..

And I have it in me to make them the best,

So why should I worry about the rest,

When I have shone bright all along,

Even through struggle, deep and long..

When I have believed in the best in me,

For there is nothing else I can see,

When every second is a gift I’ll treasure,

That holds the value I cannot measure,

When the last second will be blissful,

And I will love the world so beautiful,

When God will be by me to make me face,

Every challenge, leaving no trace

Of defeat or sorrow because I know

That all that is, is that one glow

Of faith, joy, success, ambition, dream,

That will join and become the best team,

To fight against the enormous boulders,

That seem like they’d kill my shoulders,

And when they approach, then I will see,

How little they are in front of me..

They never claimed to be so big,

I’d made a saucer of a fig..

They have come to tell me I’m good,

To tell me that I always should

Know that I am bigger than them and all

Of the other that seem so tall

That I have the glory that belongs to me

that they have come to make me see

and give it in my hands and go away

leaving me waiting for another lovely day..

Random Resilience

2010-10-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

The heart has forgotten to cry,
Because it is forbidden,
This soul doesn’t wish to try,
You say good riddance.

The eyes have lost their might,
Never meant to speak,
They can say dark from bright,
Though they remain bleak.

The mind had won battles before,
But the world has come,
To win wars, more and more,
And declare it dumb.

The hands that lived a life together,
Now point away.
They are too dead to let you bother
Come what may

The one thing that is left is me,
To rise up to it
But this is all I am forced to see
This tiny bit

That is better left ignored, neglected,
It is gone too.
Is it worth feeling dejected,
To feel blue?

Not if it were up to you, society,
You say, ‘It’s preposterous’,
You say with all the feigned beauty,
‘O my, it’s inglorious!’

While life ends with death alone,
You defy,
You end it with life itself, forlorn,
I can’t try,

To get my life back because
It never was here
So right now, I take a pause,
to go near

my destiny that seems so far,
away and unreachable,
Yet, I strive to jump and get par,
Society, so insatiable.

But I need God by me all along,
To bless, to guard
Me through this lovely song,
Through every yard..

Watching over me..

2010-10-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

A day in hand, the night away,
Forever and ever, I shall pray,
Because I look at the sky and see,
You, O God, watching over me..

A glow now, the gloom tomorrow,
The vicious cycle of joy and sorrow,
I fall and rise up with glee,
Because You, O God are watching over me..

A fit of fury now, a prayer a while ago,
However I emote, whatever I show,
From every worry you set me free,
It’s just You, Almighty, watching over me..

A thank you now, the greed for more,
You give me one, I ask for four,
You don’t mind because it’s me,
I can see you there, watching over me..

The Fake Truth

2010-10-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

The glow invades every other thing,
When she enters with the diamond ring,
The hair shines, like silver, it glistens,
While she speaks, you ought to listen.
Why, she is pretty, a glance is enough,
To know her beauty is, indeed, not tough,
Because that is her gift that binds her
With you and me, and all forever,
Question not her beauty, my friend,
That is what it takes to have no fiend,
A smile, so flawless and mighty, o my,
To grab another soul toward her, so shy
They say beauty is not enough, but you defy,
Because your heart is glad, she can mystify
Every other trait is nothing today
A second you spent with her and now you say,
‘Her fair skin is because she is fair indeed,
Her beauty is because of her beautiful deed,
Her hair shines because she has shone’
Then why not make every woman her clone?
If the hair, the eyes and the glow on her face,
Make up for the true beauty and grace,
Then make her, her and her so beautiful,
That depth shall die and nothing is truthful,
That beauty shall win over every other,
That you and me shall worry, o, never,
About the good, bad and ugly in us,
The glow shall win over everyone, thus.

Day After Day..

2010-10-01T10:07:00.001-07:00

A great day, should I call you,

When you were pale and I was blue,

In Day and Night, does it all manifest,

No, try not, you rather forever rest.

Never was it easy to get over this,

Every minute in you I’d never miss,

Right and wrong did play a game,

And who won is just as lame.

Where were you during the joy galore?

A second of success, love and more,

In you, I’d seen this one good hope,

Till you, dear bad day, got me a rope

So I can worry and hang someone to death,

Never was this yearning for that little wreath,

Out here and now, you smirk at me,

Gracefully you shall depart and see

Love and peace make a new tomorrow,

O day, take away all this sorrow,

Ring your bell in the ears of the weak,

You have gone away to let tomorrow speak..

CWG

2010-09-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

I got this mail from a friend, Nikita Patharkar, about Chetan Bhagat’s views on the Commonwealth Games. I chose to reply to her stating my opinion on the same. She replied and I replied again. :)
Here is his article. Our opinions on it follow right after..

Please don’t cheer the 2010 loot-fest - The Times of India

I am not going to harp on about how messed up the Commonwealth Games are.
Enough has been written. The CWG 2010 is, by far, the biggest and most blatant, exercise in corruption in independent India’s history. Not only have they stolen public money, they’ve made a mess of the job at hand.
Delhi is dug up and the official anthem (and ringtone) of the Games should be the never ending sound of drilling. If you worry about whether or not the work will finish on time, imagine the plight of Delhi’s residents after the Games. The dug-up roads will never be repaired; the potholes will remain as souvenirs, symbolic of the great daylight robbery of 2010. Posturing, something this government has a PhD in, is in full progress.
Enquiry reports, vague statements, tossing responsibility from one person to the other will continue, until the Games are over. After that, fingers crossed, people will forget. Bollywood stars will do the closing ceremony and the entertainment provided will somewhat compensate for the loot-fest.
In the middle of all this, there will be propaganda campaigns to ‘save India’s image’ and get the Games done somehow. People will be expected to support the event - after all, the pride of India is at stake. The great Indian youth will be called upon to fill stadiums and add energy to the event. However, if we, the Indian people, support these Games, it will be a big mistake. This is a golden chance for citizens to put this corrupt and insensitive government to shame. Usually corruption issues are local in nature and they never really get the national traction or resonance that these Games have offered.
The CWG is an amazing opportunity because all Indians have been robbed at the same time. Add to that the fact that the government is desperate to save face. Now is when we can get them. And the way to do it is simply what the father of our nation pioneered in his time — noncooperation. Yes, and i’ve deliberated long before saying this — do not watch these Games. Do not go to the venues. Do not watch them on TV. You cannot become a cheerleader to an exercise in cheating. The Indian people have been exploited enough, but to expect us to smile through it is a bit much. If they can walk out of Parliament, we can walk out of stadiums.
Some might say, shouldn’t we support the Games on account of our country’s pride? The word ‘pride’ reminds me of a little story. When i was a child, our neighbors were a violent man and his battered wife. The woman would cover her bruise marks with make-up, suffering silently. Whenever we visited them, the couple presented the perfect picture of a happy couple.
She even praised her husband. I asked my mother why the woman behaved in that way and didn’t expose her husband to show him in his true colors. My mother told me it doesn’t look nice to portray an unhappy home. She has to save the family pride. Over time, the bruises turned to fractures, and the fractures became near-fatal injuries. Until one day, police cars and ambulances came in and took both husband and wife away respectively.
Yes, such is Indian culture. We are ready to cover up injustice on account of a fake sense of honor that needs to show everything is in order. In the case of the CWG, the organizers are the oppressive husband, the Indian people the battered wife. But modern Indian wives do not stay silent and suffering anymore.
College unions, schools and individuals should take a stand and make clear — we do not support these Games. Just as Gandhiji figured, the oppressor can oppress us; it cannot make us cooperate. Brand ambassadors lending their names to these Games should think twice before lending their image to cover up corruption. The foreign media could present the full picture, namely that it is not the Indian people’s fault, it is a bunch of losers who didn’t think twice before looting the coffers of a poor country. The foreign media could use the situation to explain why India doesn’t win Olympic medals — not because we don’t have the talent but because people who run sports would rather stuff their pockets with stolen gold than help their country win a gold medal.
This government came to power just a little more than a year ago. They had a clear majority and enjoyed stability. They could have, if they wanted, shown exemplary governance for the next five years. Instead, they’ve given the Indian people nothing but extreme inflation and extreme corruption. Way to go, leaders. You guys are really great role models for our youth.
The opposition parties have a big chance to capitalize on all this. But first they need to get along, not mix religion with politics and get aspirational leaders who are clean and work hard. They would be back before you know it.
And if the ruling party wants to get out of this mess, there is only one way. No, it isn’t to execute the Games well — nobody cares about the silly Commonwealth club anyway. The only way to get out of this is to punish the people who did it, irrespective of their stature, and punish them hard. Use this as an opportunity to kill corruption, not to put on a grand, fake show. Otherwise, those holes you are digging in Delhi will be nothing but your political graves. People in India tolerate a lot, but when they get upset, they cause upset. Fix the mess, or the Indian people will soon be telling you — game over.

My opinion:

Yea, right. Like it's going to really matter to any of those who are responsible for this mess whether we support Commonwealth or not. They have been corrupt all the way and will still be irrespective of anything.

Nevertheless, it's strange how he hasn't really thought about how everything has conveniently gone wrong at the same time, just one after another. Bad hotel rooms, followed by the bridge collapse, followed by the discovery of a snake et al could be (in my opinion) a well-strategised way to attract attention and prove to the world that India could turn around in just 15 days to host the biggest event in the best way. Doesn't good look its best when a worst precedes it? (Think about it :) ) Anyway, my point is outright boycotting is not the solution or an appropriate way of reacting to a situation like this. It's best to prove that we still support our country irrespective of the unwanted elements, if any, proving to be corrupt at every point in time.

If boycott would make a difference, we should boycott everything that's going wrong. But since, the control still lies with them, it's hardly a reason to worry or hope for an improvement in the long run. The best solution is to curb corruption at the levels that are within our reach, and that can be curbed by us and us alone, and that can be curbed at all times, irrespective of the advent of a big event like Commonwealth.

While IPL2 made us keep our heads high, CWG seems to make us put them down.. But remember, we still have our feet on the land of India.

So, it's more of a duty and less of a choice.

I still believe CWG will be awesome despite all of the pre-event mishaps. If it doesn't, it's still fine. At least, we know what not to do in future.

Nikita Patharkar's opinion:

See.. The point is that this is the only place where we can do something against them.. This is something in our hands.. If the stadiums are empty , not full obviously it's embarrasing . They'll at least do stuff to keep themselves in power then have to and this is the right time to take advantage o it! See there has to be a revolution.. If everyone follows it the politicians will at least face something rough. Because, this time it's not about facing India but the world. They want to keep up to their reputation in front o the world, because the world won't take their bullshit, the way the common man needs to! Are you getting it? There has to be a revolution.. Pride is not applicable there. Because to gain something, you have to lose something, there has to be a start , a start to protest..
And you seriously want to wait for the future? So that some more people die with bomb blasts being a casual thing.. U think our politicians are not funded by the underworld? U can't keep waiting.. N did u know some teams n some of the last years champions have retreated..?? U think they improving in 5 days is going to overshadow the disaster that took place? No.. Because this time they are facing people elsewhere who are not the Indians:) :)

One more thing.. Let me repeat. There has to be a revolution. You think our country would have gained independence if there were no Lokmanya tilak, Savarkar Bhagat Singh , Subhashchandra Bose etc? No... There has to be a revotuion. Someone has to go ahead n break the attitude.. CWG is a good enough reason. Yes it is.. N if there is no revolutionary people like us, educated have to revolt. We have to do wich wil bring us pride in the true sense! Dude suppose cwg is a pride what about the constant attacks? Where does your pride go then? Is it your pride to keep mum? No.. This time we have an opportunity.. It's not bout pride. After 9 11 not a single attack in America but look at our country! .. If the politicians don't do anything we have to! For the lives of the people. You're saying stuff so easily because 26 11 dint affect us .. We have to start. It's high time.

My opinion:

Well, I'm not saying we must keep mum. I'm just saying people up there, including the much more educated Manmohan Singh is not dumb enough to book a place as bad as that for the stay of elite guys who come in. I'm just saying we've been trying hard every time to boycott, but in vain because they do not care! It's shameful they don't. It's true nevertheless.

About bomb blasts, it's not a matter of shame but a matter of disappointment that humanity has lost its might. Terrorist attacks are something that, beyond a point, are beyond our control. And if you have been following the number of bombs that have been defused along with the number of those that have managed to escape the surveillance, you'll know how desperately this entire world is trying to beat it.

Terrorists, politicians (corrupt ones, I mean) belong to a category of unwanted people, who need to be taught a lesson according to you. But don't you think such guys have grown with the mentality of corruption and violence in their heads? It's shameful, I agree. But boycott is not a solution. We need to spread out something amongst ourselves and foment more people like you and me to have the courage to get into the system ourselves to change it. Since everybody has to die, these (#@!@# will die too, and with them, their @#@#$ mentality. And after that will there be an era, where corruption, though not completely wiped out, will be at its least because it'll be you and me in the system.

A slap will matter to someone who isn't used to one. These guys are used to slaps and embarrassments. A revolution might live for some time now, but they'll again make sure it dies out with time. You might argue that a revolution by our great freedom fighters worked wonders, but there is a part of each of those great guys in each of us. But following just what they did isn't going to work now since the circumstances are different and the people we are dealing with are different. So, if we take things in our own hands, it will make sense.

I might be wrong. It's just an opinion I state. So, do not take it to heart. Afterall, we are Indians and we love India and I am also not comfortable with reading front page news that makes me shudder.

Anyway, to each his own. What you say makes perfect sense too. It is high time we rise up to all of it but the feasibility is what I worry about.

Live.

2010-09-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, love doesn’t come with a price tag and yet you end up paying a heavy price for it. (If this were my facebook update, by now, a million faceless people would ‘unlike’ this and post a comment regretting my opinion although they ought to know an opinion is never regretted, especially by someone who doesn’t own it!) It’s rather intriguing to hear a lot about this bit of life from those who haven’t seen life at all. They say (funny that ‘they’ refers to teenagers nowadays unlike a few years back when ‘they’ referred to our ancestors or elders), Life has no meaning without love, which is absolutely true.

A skewed approach to an argument such as this one propagates a notion, usually philosophical. Let’s say A tells B, after he was dismally defeated by C in a game of table tennis, “Dude, he is from Pluto. He plays like he owns the game. Don’t ever try defeating him. You just can’t!” It seems pretty cogent an argument for those who are inexperienced in the field of Radical Thinking. (It’s a phenomenal concept not followed by many, especially those who fall prey to emotions at every point in life.)So, B never tries a game against C because he is unbeatable. (Who said he is unbeatable doesn’t count anymore, although that is the most important bit). A simple logic that says A and B are different entities and that they differ by leaps and bounds and that everything is circumstantial is something that doesn’t usually pop up in the head when another head (here, A’s) tries to force something into yours(here B’s)through a back gate.

So, everything is circumstantial and so is love. If it works for one, it does not become a universal truth. While there are many who propagate the ‘all-encompassing power’ that love beholds, there are others who feel it IS indeed, a waste of precious time. (Truly, for those who know it’s a waste of precious time and still are into it, it probably is a ‘precious waste of time’.) To counter that, the former group argues relentlessly for the might of love citing a number of examples where it worked like magic. In defense, the latter cites an equal number of examples where it was an evil force that took over the lives of innocent ones for a short period.

Nevertheless, the fundamental problem that refuses to be acknowledged by either of the parties is the unrecognizable ambiguity between intimacy and love. The ambiguity has evolved over only the past few generations. This is precisely the age when adolescence is the most dreaded phase of life when drastic incidents could swallow a thousand lives at once. The gravity of this issue is hardly felt when the argument stays afloat, such as the one above. It shouldn’t be whether love is good or love is bad. It should start from a level that rests far far below. The argument begins with whether it IS love or not. The time has come for it to sink in and dig deeper.

The fundamentalism of this very question will reduce the size of the two arguing parties, with a majority of them choosing to leave the argument owing to the lack of knowledge. Some of them might choose to switch sides after a lot of deliberation. Some of them might leave thinking it’s a waste of time. (This is probably the mentality of many who refrain even from taking a side.) But, the very point of this is to make society aware of the lives of a huge portion of the youth at stake because of a notion called love that has meaning, understood only and strictly by a few (By few, I mean very very few).

To dig and dig till we get there is the task in hand, following which we could have a thousand debates on why, how and when. To know it fully and from the right sources (The Bhagavad Gita, for instance) is crucial before an argument is put on the table.

I could go on and on because I’m appalled at the rate of suicide attempts, scandals and the sheer hopelessness of youth today and I’m concerned deeply for every soul that is a part of this struggle that is a mere consequence of an ambiguity and that is totally uncalled for. Nevertheless, it is time to embrace radical thinking for a while now to put our heads back in place before digging deeper. Bringing two lives together is blissful, only if it doesn’t take anyone else’s away, both literally and figuratively..

Rules of Life.

2010-08-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Before he could apply the brakes, I saw his bare hands folded, his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror and his mouth mutter those seemingly pardonable words, “Chuki Zaala tar maaf kara.” Those were the first few words dad muttered after the cop with a moustache, not as big as his ego, accosted him right after he ran screaming, “Peela singal kaata! Thambaa O!!”

Flustered and flummoxed, I reached out for the seat-belt, trying hard to convince myself that I was not at fault. A seat-belt is not necessary. (It is, by the way.) Surprisingly, that was not why the traffic police caught us. As his job is, he noticed dad conveniently ignore the yellow light at one of the crucial junctions in Mulund. So, while I was busy gaping at the green lawn of Johnson and Johnson to the right, only to confuse dad that I was staring at him for no reason at all, I turned away to find a huge fat arm waving at us and a red-faced guy whistling his life out of a pipe, signaling us to stop.

Obviously we didn’t escape. So, as dad uttered those words of, “Chuki Zaala tar maaf kara” a thousand times with his hands annoyingly folded, I just wished my hands were steady enough to make God of Guttered Voice, Himesh Reshamiya (or whatever his name is) stop singing at a time when crisis had struck. But, I was holding on to the seat belt, only to escape a huge fine or something. ( I don’t know traffic rules that well.)

The magic of those words I know not, but it worked. The traffic police looked at my dad in the rear view mirror (Believe me, the entire conversation was through the mirror) and sighed. As far as I could comprehend, he said, (rephrasing it in English) “Sir, it’s my job. I have to check flouting of rules. Nowadays, so many accidents happen because of singal-cutting (sorry, I can’t help mentioning the way he pronounced signal :D)” Then he asked for dad’s license and the papers, all of which we thankfully had.

Well, just as I thought it was over and I could continue gazing at Johnson and Johnson’s nature-makeover masterpiece, dad subtly converted a formal cop-culprit conversation to an emotional dialogue. He said, “I work at Axis Bank, here in Mulund. I am a father, a husband , etc.” I went berserk. My instincts drove me crazy and all I wanted to do was press the accelerator and get away from there.

The cop said, “Chaalel. Zaa tumhi.” And then we left.

On a more serious note, traffic rules are made for a reason. We learnt it, though not the hard way. It would have been easier to wait for a couple of minutes and escape this trouble. But hurry caused it all. It’s good to learn that life, in a hurry will no longer be called life at all..

If only..

2010-08-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

If coins were made of sand and clouds, of hay,
Imagine what would be of you, my son.
If the sky was green and water, brown,
Imagine what you’d call night, what’d be day.

If water could cry and rain, laugh,
Imagine what would be of your tears, my son.
If wind were a carriage and world a hemisphere,
Imagine why you’d call every full, a half.

If you could deny everything I say now,
Imagine what’d be the might of denial, my son.
If you choose to embrace it all, instead,
Imagine the might of the question, ‘How?’

If you could choose to have a choice, my son
Imagine what’d be of our mother, Fate.
If you could tell black from black,
Imagine what’d be of the other hues, my son.

If you could answer every question I ask,
Imagine what’d be of a question, my son
If you could die to gallop away from problems,
Imagine how life would then be one huge task.

If all I tell you didn’t make sense at all,
Imagine what’d be of wisdom, my son.
If only, you wish to live with this smile,
Imagine if there’d be anything called a fall..

Why?

2010-08-16T19:46:00.001-07:00

It’s weird that some things happen without a reason. What’s weirder is the fact that there is this completely uncalled for tendency to want to know , If it happened, why it happened. Sometimes there seems to be a plausible reason, cogent enough to convince ourselves. There ends the issue. But if there’s absolutely no reason why anything happens, we tend to worry more and more only because it isn’t fair. It’s like; you know the probability of heads is half and that of tails if half. You want the outcome to be heads at least once, but it turns out that every time you toss, you get tails. Why? Why? There is no reason. Nothing at all.

What can we really do about it? It’s the coin’s wish, not ours. If it’s happy giving you tails, you can’t convince it to give you heads. So either we just ignore the outcome totally or accept it wholeheartedly. Ignore, you can’t because one outcome is better than no outcome at all, so you are forced to choose the one that’s coming to you. And once you adapt yourself to it, you start loving that side of the coin and never want what you wanted before.

That’s exactly what life is like. You strive hard to get something. Once you get it, you strive hard to preserve it. Inevitably, fate targets that one thing you wanted and takes it away from you, no matter what you think. Chance sure has a huge role to play in our lives, doesn’t it? It’s very wise to work. It’s wiser to pray for luck. Whatever is the thing, an ambition or even another human you want to get closer to, pray for it to come to you as much as you try going towards it. It might not give you what you wanted but at least you’ll get a reason why it’s gone if it is.

Maybe it’s just good to believe that I’m bigger than my life. So I’ll do what I want to do, not what life wants me to. But, if there’s no life, there’s no I. So, welcome to the vicious circle..

To choose or not to choose.

2010-07-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Let’s talk about choice. Consider choosing between two dishes you absolutely love. What would you choose? You end up choosing one of the two because you love both. You’re happy, though not gratified with what you chose only because there was a high possibility for the other one to be just as delicious. That’s when grapes are not sour.

Suppose you had to choose between two dishes you hate. It’s like devil or the deep blue sea. You choose the better of the two, only thinking it’s better. It might be just as bad. There’s nothing you can possibly do after you’ve made a choice because you already have. It’s plausibly a fruitless task to choose between stuff where rationality fails and probability takes over.

A choice is hard to make only if there is one. If there's no choice, it's absolute struggle. Conviction beats everything then and you tend to harness every tinge of dedication towards that one thing that came to you, the one thing you embraced when you were left with no choice. That one thing is bliss if that’s what you wanted all your life. But what if it isn’t? What if you had something else in mind and now you know there’s no ‘something else’? There’s just this one thing which is dying to be yours. You just adopt and adapt.

Choice or no choice is itself a choice. If you choose to have no choice, then you pretty much are clear about what you want. If you choose to be open to choice then there inevitably is a large pool of choices that jumps in, surreptitiously exploiting you. But sometimes weighing pros and cons helps instead of choosing to be relentlessly focused on just one thing. The one thing might not even be worth that very focus towards it.

Radical thinking takes you through everything. If this seems more beneficial, you go for it. But is radical thinking completely devoid of prejudice? Suppose you have either A or B. You lay down parameters to compare the two things, measure feasibility and then very easily convince yourself to choose one. But what’s funny is that your target was to convince yourself of something that you'd already chosen in the subconscious. That’s a consequence of prejudice. It’s like flipping a coin. Just when you flip the coin, you realize what you really wanted. And if the outcome is not in your favour, you change the rules to best of three and then to five till you get there.

Maybe there is an emotional aspect to choice, which is not palpable in most cases. Whether it’s good or bad is dependent on individual perspective and circumstances. Even if there seemingly is no choice, there inevitably is one within you; between your heart and mind. One says, “Take it!! Take it!!”; The other says, “Nah, Leave it”. That’s like choosing between one thing and nothing. Which one will you choose?

Yet, I am.

2010-07-13T20:02:00.001-07:00

Yet I own a glimpse of time,
That takes me far far away,
Dream and destiny, the flawless chime,
Yet I never forget to pray..

Yet that star glistens in the dark,
To whisper through silence a lesson,
‘Distance and Day make a mark,
Yet beyond lies thy mission..’

Yet I pray for wings, the flight,
That never shall come to me,
Everyone can see when there’s light,
Yet, dark is when I want to see..

Yet another day goes by,
And with it, another night,
The sorrows depart, bidding goodbye,
Yet the struggle, of wrong and right..

Yet, I own a priceless melody,
That filters out every sham,
To it, I fall deaf during tragedy,
Yet I pray, Yet I am…

Dead Before I die..

2010-07-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

(Insight into the mind of someone who chooses death before life, rather than life after death..)

Why, this ain’t the end, maybe not,
My sky below I see, my world above,
To leave behind, To leave to rot,
This fall, O my, my fodder, my only love..

Dead I am, Dead is me,
Dead is my soul, Dead long ago,
Truth don’t matter, Dead cannot see,
Age don’t matter, Dead cannot grow..

Money don’t matter, Dead cannot spend,
Cries don’t matter, Dead cannot hear,
Mistakes don’t matter, Dead cannot mend,
Belonging don’t matter, Dead ain’t near..

Here and now, I make my fall,
Forcing wind, against my face,
Hair behind; The final Peace call,
Every other, is plain disgrace..

My blood is gone, My soul is too..
Losing my breath, losing it all,
Unfettered, free, dead and true,
Nothing never, once and for all..

Heart..felt.

2010-07-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

Veganism - The new fad that’s been on the block for a while now. Wiki says, Veganism is a philosophy and lifestyle whose adherents seek to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. It’s a wisely coined word that combines the beginning and the end of “vegetarian”. Even figuratively, it does. It’s a self-imposed discipline that serves to benefit both, vegans as well as nature. Why, it is a selfish thing to do. (Before you raise your eyebrows,) It is a sacrifice of one thing for another. The time you stop paying heed to the loud desires of your stomach and start listening to those of your heart, is when you turn vegetarian or vegan.

The irony stays. It’s a conflict, not between your mind and heart, but your stomach, your taste-buds, your drools, all of them and your heart. To some cynics, veganism is preposterous. They have a rather intriguing question, “If one form of life is sacred, why not another?” Well, if we choose to look at all forms of life as sacred, ours will probably plummet and before we realize we’ll be in heaven, admiring the sacred forms of life on earth.

The human tendency to have a debate over everything alludes to the not so blatant fact that humans think. We think about everything that comes in our way, be it other humans, changes, opportunities, ambitions, targets, emotions or anything that seems new, not realizing that in the process, we lose what we have in hand. Life starts to encompass all possible extraneous stuff. It’s rather funny how, being humans, who by definition are the most radical beings on earth, make biggest bloopers when it comes to prioritizing our lives. When I see my close ones trying hard to ‘create an impression’ in someone else’s mind, I wonder whether their lives are in their hands. Validation, recognition, ‘making a difference’, climbing the steps of a ladder and crying for another ladder, after reaching the top, is what we live for.

The heart is an entity that deserves to be preserved, to be taken care of. Success is what we live for, but that’s only if we live. We ought to take some steps to fight anything that poses danger to the most important part of our body, the heart. Why shouldn’t we acknowledge the fact that the heart-throb isn’t just a rhythmic beating, it’s the heart’s way of rejoicing our survival through everything. We need to let the heart speak, for which it needs to have a voice..

For this and some of the more implicit reasons, I chose to take the pledge on www.billionheartsbeating.com. Win your heart and you’ll win. Quoting Seth Godin, “What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust? What if the win is the ability to give a true gift?” If you (choose to) have the time or the patience to think over these, do not miss the heart-throb getting faster with every question you read..

Humplydumping all the Way!

2010-06-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

To run ashore, to humplydump, to dance to the tunes of life.. That’s what Life has always been, to me, to you, to all of us! When my good friend scored a 67 in his first ever mock-BILLIE and tried to be silly modestachio about it, I told him “Dude, Bask in the glory.. Sip some wine.. Do the Chandler Dance!” Sad it was just an SMS (I’d have preferred showing him the Chandler Dance.) He said, “Itna Kya?”

To begin with, I hate “Itna Kya” people. There’s more to life than Itna Kya. Every second is bliss, so to say. I find it wonderful that there are such amazing people all around me.. Some to make fun of, some to be envious of, (In my case, I envy all girls with Katrina Kaif-ish hair!), some to bitch about, some to look up to, some to look down upon, some to fall for (Oops, sorry.. That should be ONE to fall for :P), some to hate, some who look like punching bags, some who fall prey to your tickling charisma, some whom you want to care for but can’t, some who care for you though you don’t want them to, some who love gossiping only about you (That’s a sign of envy, again.), some who hog food like it’s oxygen,….. There’s always something good that occurs in life when you least expect it. If a dog gave you a miraculous smile and a whoof-whoof to spice it up just after you walked out of the exam hall wondering whether life is just about Pass or Fail, then name the Doggie “Pappu” and own it for the rest of your life so you can boast about it to your buddies!

I hate “C’est la Vie!” people as much as “Itna Kyas”. It’s like they’ve hit against a boulder and died. Then, they have woken up to preach about how much bigger the boulder can get. It’s easy to not go near the boulder at all, instead of fretting about its enormity! I look at life like it’s a piece of cake (not in the figurative sense of the phrase). I eat one bit at a time and never gulp it till my taste-buds are the happiest in the world!

I’m worried about just one thing in life. I have put a lot of people at task to wonder about a mystery about me. It’s a matter of concern for people all around me about something that’s rather peculiar and spooky about me. They have spent their lives poring over one aspect of my life and are still wondering whether it is mere coincidence or whether there is more to it than that. They have consulted a hundred numerologists and a lot of Supernatural forces-oriented gurus to try and put an end to the mystery, all in vain. I myself am wondering whether it is mere coincidence that my initials happen to be PJ or whether God created them only for me, knowing that I am the best PJ- cracker ever! Well, PJ-cracker plus an Anti-Climax addict (evidently!). One PJ dedicated to those who have managed to sustain so much of my thought vomit AND are smart enough to catch the pun! This one is for you:

A well-known director made a movie called Death of The Cockroach. However, the movie became a big flop. His team, thoroughly disappointed, left him for the dismal performance of the movie and took a vow never to work with him again. But the director smirked and told his manager, “I’m making a sequel. It’ll be called ‘Death of The Cockroach 2’”. His manager left him, confirming his insanity. He didn’t lose hope and worked on the film all alone. After the movie released, to everybody’s amazement, his first movie and the sequel ran super-successfully. He called for a press conference when a journalist asked him, “Sir, just how?!” He said, “Let me call one of the viewers, a total layman, to give you the answer..” A man walked up, blushing and said, “After the second movie released, we realized that the director sir tried to deliver HIT pe HIT movies!” (For all those who haven’t grasped it yet, look at the names of the movies and read again, and and, polish your wit.)

A friend once told me I deserve a Nobel Prize for my service to society. It made sense. After all, who else is endowed with the inexplicable ability to crack to pieces the world’s best PJs?

Travel, chocolates, Star World sitcoms. They fall under my “Brush-my-teeth” category. I’m married to Chandler Bing (in the parallel universe), which is why I have the worst jaw ache ever, laughing perennially at his untimely jokes. Roger Federer is my Godfather (Parallel universe, again!) who has taught me equanimity. The Goa Beaches are my Shoe-Lace-Untiers. I go all the way to Goa to untie my shoe laces. All I need to do is go and stand at the shore. The waves do their job, unpaid, nevertheless.

That’s that about my life. Life is a mammoth and I want to look at the big picture. Past and future, in your face! Present is my present.. I shall go grab a cookie now..

Heaven has Sisters..

2010-05-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I got myself a new friend. Nothing I need, no more! She’s beautiful. She has no name, she is no entity. She has no life. She is life. She is untainted. She is in the sand that embraces every drop of water that comes her way. She rests deep in the ocean pushing away every ripple to grow out far far away. She is in the sky to see her darlings dance below. She is in me. She is in my soul. She is what I am. She is where I am. She is everywhere every day.. She is called Nature..

Sure there’s somebody up there who has surpassed every damn thing man has tried his hand at. Can you, human? Can you create a million zillion tumblidillion tones of water and pour it onto a planet? Can you create an equivalent number of creatures to walk on it, talk on it, sleep on it, jump, laugh, think, cry, play, study, grow, dance, sing and bathe on it? Of course you can. Stop those ‘puppy-dog-faced’ waves from coming gushing toward you and then you sure can, human! Make noodles out of sand and water. Make rivers wear chic blazers. (They have their ‘meetings’ too.) Make the sky florescent green for a day. Make this earth go ‘boom’ so we can have a debate on whether it’s still round or plain. Or let’s spin around and see if we take off into space and land on another big bold universe we wish to explore.

The subtle touch that grows into this marvel, just how! I talk about those silent beaches. Just the moments when you let the waves speak and you listen to a song you have never wanted to listen to. You stand like you’re floating and suddenly you start loving yourself. You love yourself because you realize you are finally one among the lucky few to know that you live in the same era as everything and everyone that God created around you. You are the one who has heard the music of nature, the voice of the Almighty, the truth of life. Suddenly, the moments seem less harsh, the mind grows silent and the heart wants to be heard. While your friend spends all day under the dim lights of the lamp, pouring over how many stones there are on earth, you see life in them, in those tiny pebbles that glisten in the sun and hide in the dark.

It’s a trance, truly. I now know what it’s like to be a nature lover. Wordsworth’s poems sound bizarre until you step into Heaven’s sisters on earth. It’s sad you ought to ‘take some time off’ to breathe this air, so pure, to come and feel this side of life, so blissful.

Sunshine and moonlight are long gone. Skyscrapers are what we are born for, today. You hold your child in your arms to show him the tallest structure in the world and he goes, “Wow Dad! How cool! Who made it?” Push that aside and show him the sky and tell him who created that. Can you, human? No. “It’s an everyday thing. Who cares?” you say. Remember the time you took your son for a ride on the cruise? He saw the big beautiful Casino Royale Cruise and said, “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen!” Ask him to glide two glances below to look at what beholds the cruise. Show him the sea and ask him if he has ever seen anything bigger. Can you, human? No. “It’s water. What’s the big deal?” you say. The time has gone when nature was home.

It’s a century when you have a bigger home and live a smaller life in it. Embrace what has embraced you, will you, human? Make life bigger than it seems. Give space to space and time to time. Cut it loose and let go. Can you, human? No. Nobody cares. Nobody will..

A ROPE CALLED LIFE..

2010-04-18T21:53:00.001-07:00

“So I pray.. I could breakaway..” Kelly Clarkson’s gasps around these magical words quite intentionally manage to create this thing that seems very rare to every human, but is nevertheless very common to everybody, something we call “an evanescent bliss”. On one hand, the option of ‘breaking away’ and on the other, self-help books bound with the threads of philosophy. The might of philosophy and glorified stories of those ‘crossed-a-thousand-and-one-hurdles-and-finally-smiling’ legends serve to bring into this world the one thing that this world quite conveniently prefers to loathe, the one thing that battles its way against the intangible drug called fear, the one thing that we reluctantly call, Courage.

If you embrace fear, it’s like fastening your seat-belts so hard, you end up strangling yourself to death. Haven’t we heard a lot of those ‘chilled-out’s say, “Loosen up, man!” To which, we smirk and say, “Easier said than done.” , something I call the Denial Syndrome that almost all of us suffer from. The chilled-outs are chilled-outs for a reason. It’s easy. Imagine a rope hanging down from the fan. The rope has a name. It’s called Life. The rope is yours and you can do anything with it. Since the world has been ‘unfair’ to you and ‘nobody understands you anymore’, you loop it up and hang yourself to death. If you are one of those chilled-outs, you’d grab the rope and start trying all the scouts’ knots and have fun with it. Or you’d do a Tarzan-stunt by holding on to one end of the rope and flying around, kickin’ all those who managed to “piss you off” all the while.

A bizarre analogy, such as this one, usually turns out to perpetuate your thought process and take you where you exactly “want” to belong, not where you “should” belong. It’s funny how people tie themselves up to other people or to things that they would otherwise gaze at if they were still those one-year old babies. Now that they have grown, and along with them their grey matter, they strive so hard to push their heads against the wall to break yours and invade into your territory. That is precisely when the realization dawns upon you and you say, “Holy crap! I had a wall to protect?!” By then, it’s too late, because you had a wall you weren’t even aware of and some random creature managed to bring it down only to gloat over your agony.

If God had a complaint box, it would be flooded with complaints, all of which would be small chits with big bold letters that’d say, “WHY ME?!!!?” It’s easy to fret about how bad the weather is, how harsh that person is, how mean anyone can get, how dirty the street can get, and ultimately, how downright insensitive life can get. None of these include, how cowardly am I? It’s a question that’s really rare. It is, indeed, harder to laugh at oneself than to laugh at others. To point to your faults is difficult because your eyes can see only others, not yourself. And the others only get worse if you start piling up these junk-full of frivolous questions. And then, you’re doomed with no questions left and nobody else to blame. You cry out loud, “I give up.” ,when there’s nobody left to hear you.

Well, my point is if you enjoy NFS or Demolition Race on your PC, why not enjoy the real game called Life? It stinks, yes. But even too much of fragrance gives you a headache, doesn’t it? The ugly side ought to be unveiled some day. It’s better you do it soon because it only gets uglier with time. Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse for fun and gave it life. God created you for fun and gave you life. You are a cartoon character who is laughed at for your idiosyncrasies. Nevertheless, you are adored because you are unique. There’s only one Mickey Mouse. There’s only one You. Live life like you’re a cartoon and loosen up..

Black without Brushes..

2010-02-26T20:14:00.001-08:00

A great deal of action-packed mid-semester week has finally come to an end. Everything came flashing, hit the eye, blinded us, flew past time, jumped across and has already covered half the circle. As we walk ahead, in search of a longer path, so time goes slower, we have this in mind.. ‘You can even escape yourself, but never your fate.’

I always thought fate is a woman, or more typically, a drama queen. If she’s upset, she paints your sky black. If she’s happy, she drops a rainbow in your sky. She smirks after you realize there aren’t any brushes left to paint by yourself. Then the heart throb, followed by a drastic decision dumbfounds her. How could she ever guess you could paint the sky black with no brushes left? You used a hand, a knife and your wrist. Your sky turned grey, more grey, more grey and then died with you. All that was left was nothing. Fate sure didn’t want to see nothing.

If philosophy had the might to take over this world, fate would have been happier. If only everyone followed, “Live life today. What if there’s no tomorrow?”, fate would have continued her games with life. You wanted to hear only the latter part of the adage. You wanted to show your might. You said, “What if there’s no today?” and did what you did. You painted your sky black, you left no trace. You won. Fate lost. With her, Life lost. With you, Death won.

Would you believe if I said the people who loved you love Fate more? They cried after you left them, because Fate lost. They camouflaged their anger beneath their tears because you were unfair to Fate. They wanted to love you no more, but you were gone, how would it even matter? They thought their voices reached you when they said “Leave it to Fate.” They did, but you heard only, “Leave it.”, for you despised Fate. Today, the world is happier without you, my friend, for they have rested their faith on fate. She paints their skies. She has given up on you and your progeny. Nobody knows where you are, neither do you. If you have a life after death, live it, for once.

The sky is clear. There ain’t no rainbows. It isn’t black. We have walked half the distance, under the sun. We love life. We love what it brings along. We live with what it brings with it. We’ll make a difference, only because we know we have a chance, a good one. It is a circle, but we defy. We will reach a new world. The circle, this one, will not bring us to the same point. All of us, with life, await new hues in our skies.. We know it’ll take too long for Black to come, because Fate dislikes black. We’ll take what Fate gives us and move on..

Less is More..

2009-12-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

Yes life, I’m almost there. To catch up with my own life is getting harder by the minute. I see my little darling cats, William and Toblerone, outside the hub in my college, sometimes flirting and sometimes having tiffs over no can of milk and I wonder how much different it would be if I were one of them. I’d have a fan following, photos taken without achieving too much, being called coochie-poochie something something, being told to jump, dance, meow, sit, watch, sleep. I’d be ingrained in the memories of creatures whom I do not recognize or care about. I’d have somebody (typically one who is either in love with cats or has nothing to do and no one to talk to), missing me or asking random people where I am. “Hey, have you seen William? My small, little, really cute cat?” Now, all the adjectives used therein are relative. But, who cares? I’d become a “MY cat” to a lot of people I wouldn’t even wish to look at.

Anyway, since I am what I am, I am happy. I’d say I am a blend of a thinker, a procrastinator, or in other words, an engineer. Engineers are endowed with the ability to have an opinion on anything and everything, thanks to lot of time and like-minded buddies. Being opinionated is almost always a bane. Not because it affects others, but because it affects others’ opinions. It’s actually quite bizarre, because everyone has a separate head to think, and invariably one head befriends another and they become one. Since cats have no opinions on anything, I’m glad I’m not one.

Getting to a more serious bit, what disappoints me is that a day in man’s life starts with nothing and ends with nothing. The time in-between is flooded with different matters with different priorities. There is a set routine, which inevitably is tampered with by none other than fate, alias Murphy! (Oh yes, he is like an organ in my body, never willing to get out of me) We tie ourselves up to schedules, submissions, reports, agendas, meetings, pros of this, cons of that, etc, etc. And all of this, for something that is a little less crucial than what is most crucial.. Ourselves.

We. The most ironic aspect of our lives is the fact that the more we think about others, the more futile our thoughts become. We hear rumours on the grapevine, set a special place for them in our head, call it a ‘piece of gossip’ and pass it on free of cost. Everybody, (especially girls) NEED gossip. Gossip is like food. Either you live to gossip or you gossip to live. The people who indulge themselves too much into this so-called hobby are actually those who do not mind spending most of their lives on observing others, only those who hardly matter to them, and developing a thesis in their heads based on what they have witnessed and how much worse the situation could become. The thesis (totally unasked for) includes every minute detail, intricacies and answers to any question anybody asks. What’s funny is that the subject of this pastime thesis discovers that his life has become almost an open book and that a lot of people know him primarily because he is being spoken about so much. If you are the subject, all you need to do is laugh at yourself and at the ones who are busy scrutinizing your life. Laugh at yourself because there is nobody (or to be precise nobody left) to laugh at you, since eventually everyone around starts giving you furtive glances and frowns, indicating how committed they are in studying every gesture of yours. Laugh at others because they are worth laughing at. For futility, sky is definitely not the limit. Maybe, Planet Pluto is the limit.

Anyway, a thesis on a thesis is what I have done now. Thinking is my passion. My blog is my canvas. Time is less. But, if we look into how much we get to learn in one day, it seems so much more. Yea, Less is, indeed, more…

Monday morning blues.. or.. ?

2009-08-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever watched an amazing, high-budget movie, packed with over-the-top drama, starring your own near and dear ones, while you were cuddled up under your amma’s silk saree in the middle of the night before a boring Monday morning? Sigh. I have.

The filter coffee I bolted down the next morning did NOT pull me out of my sleep! Sweltering, I went up to the window to see if the sun had risen from the west. I stopped half-way across the hallway, to find my dad sipping coffee, engrossed in the love-of-his-life.. The Times of India. I closed my eyes, panting, hoping for something. He brought the cup down, after a sip of coffee and Yes! His moustache was right there, below his nose! “That’s real, illiya?”, I asked him, pointing at his moustache. He felt it, and then realized I was rubbing off my stupidity on him, for whatever God-forsaken reason and gave me the never-before stern + confused + irked look, which meant, it was time for me to go wash my face and leave him alone with his love. I did.

I deserved another cup of coffee that morning. I went to the balcony with my second cup of coffee, trying to escape the weird stare appa gave me, still making sure his moustache was real.

The balcony felt blissful, I do not know why. I spent ages there, trying to recollect why I behaved like a weirdo. I felt remorseful because I could not imagine my dad (sans his moustache) as a truck driver, or my mom with a bob cut! Why did I have to witness all of this? What wrong had I done, to anyone?

Nevertheless, the dream (or whatever, hmph.) ought to be described from the beginning till the end. Ok. As stated before, my dad, who is the Vice-President of Axis Bank, was a truck-driver. The truck, one with an infinite weight-limit, could apparently bear the weight of entire tower I live in. I live on the 13th floor. (That’s true by the way). I do not know whether my home is jinxed, but it surely was, in the stupid dream. Anyway, dad drove the truck, happily, with my building on it. I don’t care if you cannot imagine it. Mom, meanwhile, was all smiles with her brand new hairdo.. a bob cut!! Her knee-length hair, which was internationally acclaimed (by all my relatives overseas), was gone! And I, ladies and gentlemen, a stoic, was totally unaffected by all the upside-down changes around me. Like I asked for more, dad did nothing but drove, up a hill.

Then, I behave like a zealot, jumping with joy, like I made a discovery no one would possibly dream of. I spot my aunt’s bungalow on a plain land, protruding out of the road that made its way along the hill. Eh? Yea. Dad stops the truck. I walk out of the tower, galloping my way with amma to my aththai (aunt)’s place. She opens the door and is surprised to see us. We walk in and she calls out to her son.. Tushar. Tushar, in real life, is my old colony friend’s cousin brother, who was fortunate enough to grab a role in my dream. Lucky boy. We chat, eat, drink, sleep, wake up and leave for home.

We get onto the truck, all the way up to the thirteenth floor. I get back to lazing around. Dad starts the truck and continues driving up the hill, to I don’t know where. The real drama unleashes. Nature, apparently mad because she didn’t get a role in my high-budget dream movie, makes a cameo, with her very famous “blow”. Either dad drove at 120000 kmph up the hill, hence the tower bent backwards, or a really peeved wind uncle spat at the tower, with all his might. The 20-storeyed building I lived in BENT backwards! My sofa almost chewed me up, but I managed to make my way out. Now, that was a near-death experience!

I jumped from my balcony, down to dad, to figure out what had gone wrong. As we spoke, a helicopter hit the tower and the tower crumbled down. Thankfully, mom was with us, cleaning the driver’s seat, without disturbing dad. I ran to the tower and found corpses lying amidst the debris. I saw a taxi with a father and his son, having an earth-shattering conversation about whether or not to send the son to attend tuition classes.

I ran back to my aththai’s place, hoping to find some solace. Tushar opened the door and asked me, “Did it hit your tower?” Without waiting for my reaction to his baseless question, he continued, “I told mom not to send the helicopter!” Aththai entered from the kitchen with a sorry-ish smile and said, well, “Sorry.”

I rushed back to the truck, just to find everything back to normal.. Dad happily driving the truck with the tower on it, mom with the mop and the bob (Hmph.), the sofa back in its place.

Something struck me and I decided to put an end to the crap that had conquered my senses for an entire night and I opened my eyes, making my way to the exit door of the theatre.

All I can say after experiencing the trauma is that there should be a law, which puts a limit on the stupidity level of a dream. It can spoil a day, a week or an entire month. The impact on me has not died down, evidently. I have resorted to praying to the Almighty every night, asking him NOT to try me if He’s bored. Even if He does, He should supplement the dreams with something more sensible, which could perhaps enhance my belief that every dream means something.

“Rakhi ka Swayamvar” ..A (Heart)-Breaking news for men rejected by the lady of their dreams, Rakhi Sawant

2009-07-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Well, since the lady in the limelight has managed to give a new perspective to marriage, it’s high time we go a step ahead to ponder over other bizarre ways of getting married.
In case you are already thirty and still single, you could probably put up posters with your photos on them, and a tagline, which says “WANT2wED!” with your e-mail id. If you choose to shortlist from those who seem interested, which is very unlikely, you could arrange for a Bachelors’ party and ask your buddies to do the rest.
If you plan to have an economical wedding, go to a beach in Goa (quite affordable), get dressed in leaves and nothing else and imagine a priest with an invisibility cloak and a silencer, who would get you married with your love and exchange rings made of matchsticks or straws. The kiss, of course, is priceless.
If nothing works for you, your only choice is Rakhi Sawant and her brand new show on television. It isn’t a bad idea, considering the fame and recognition that supplements it, on getting married on national television with THE most controversial woman. It wouldn’t end there. You’d be interviewed on a monthly basis as to how hard it is to live with the most unnerving lady. So, more fame.
Evidently, NDTV Imagine has given imagination a new definition. They have managed to come up with a reality show (starring the most unrealistic lady) that has surpassed imagination.
Rakhi Sawant is one lucky woman. Who would get paid to choose a guy from a bunch of losers and then get married to him, in a palace? There are a lot of possible reasons Rakhi would have though of before signing up for the show. One could be because she gets to be called a “beautiful”, “gorgeous”, “smart”, “self-made” and above all a “wed-able” “woman”, ALL the time. Another reason could be to prove to the world, the existence of people in society, who, indeed, possess this inexplicable ability to make fools of themselves far better than she does. The most likely reason could be to ask her “suitors”, not intimidated by each other, to lend some breath-taking fashion tips to the gay community.
The show has seemingly crossed the line of stupidity and has made viewers look beyond the horizon. It has undoubtedly given a chance to a few strugglers to showcase their ability to convert nightmares to reality, which shall be witnessed and acclaimed by millions around the globe.
The elaborate selection procedure has finally come to an end, with these gentlemen (read “gentle” men) competing hard to convince poor cupid to acknowledge their “sachcha pyaar” towards the woman of their dreams, or nightmares, to be more precise. However, there is a tiny little chance for a sequel to the show or a climax to this one, where they could change the name of the show from “Rakhi ka swayamvar” to “Rakhi ke swayamvar”, signifying polyandry, and restart the selection procedure in search of the other guy who would have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get married to her. Stupidity is thus versatile. So, those who have chosen to live in despair, for having lost THE only chance to be called one of “Rakhi’s suitors”, there is still a ray of hope, considering the climax or a sequel.
Well, the show has an implicit message to its viewers, if any, that Rakhi doesn’t always symbolize brotherhood. Rakhi happens to be an entity in herself, who is busy proving to the world that she resides in the auricles or ventricles or both of more than a thousand men. It is not appalling to witness such people, who happen to make one belief more evident, the belief that God is human, in the sense that when He is bored, He tends to show it on his job and such people are mere consequences of that.
So, as the channel has invested time and money on a show like this, it is our duty to watch, acknowledge and appreciate their efforts come to life, so beautifully. The world has not witnessed cupid go on a strike and this show will make that happen on the day when the marriage takes place in the palace. So, let’s just “wait and watch”.

Monsoon.. The best time for His Highness, Lord Murphy!

2009-06-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

A vada-pav never felt so delicious. Even a cup of coffee never felt so asked for, I’m sure. The time has come, ladies and gentlemen, to open your chatris and to wear your mottled raincoats. I suggest the latter more so because chatris tend to rebel when it starts “pouring”. And then, monsoon becomes more of a nuisance and passers-by are left sworn at. In other words, frustration sets in. It’s rather ironic that it takes a jiffy for an inanimate object to get on to your nerves.

It happens to a lot of us, students especially. A class is scheduled at a merciless time like 7 in the morning when even the sun doesn’t seem fresh. In monsoon, the sun is not even seen. Hmph. Nevertheless, I rush to the station to catch a train and the never-sad announcement lady happily announces that eight out of ten trains are cancelled. She knows nobody can come and smack her, na. And there stands a woman in despair, who has to reach her destination in less than five minutes and is stuck with a pile of books, half-wet, half-folded, waiting for a miracle (read “a super super fast train”) to happen.

7.10am. “Panchpakhadi jaayenge?”, the question to a rickshaw-wala which actually means, “Will you fly me to my class?”. He doesn’t care. Do these guys sense telepathy or something? “Haan ya na?” , I ask, trying to be polite. “Strike hai medaam..”, he says, like the world is in his hands. Well, does anything EVER come one at a time?? No, apparently.

And then, I walk, with my brand new umbrella, I prattled about, just the day before. It started to pour, like, someone opened the tap, but wasn’t satisfied, seemingly and hence decided to break it. Voila! My chatri shows off what lies beneath her beauty. She “opens up”, although nobody asked her to. “Shameless idiot.”, no no, not to my umbrella. A guy passed by and was blinded by the rain, evidently, and could not see me walking ahead. He almost pushed me to the ground like I was invisible.

7.45am. Annoyed, distressed, helpless, I reached class. When I opened the door, awaiting a soothing reaction from someone, the class bursts out laughing, like it was the biggest joke in centuries. Embarrassed, added to the first three. All I could do was get away with a sorry-ish smile and take a seat in the last row, so nobody saw me, the loser for the day.

Well, that describes a day in the rain. These are the times when everything seems to be mocking at you and everyone seems to be living a better life, just because nature is less harsh on them. There is nothing we can do about it. Every dog has its day ..or whatever. Hmph.

Making the most of it..... Heaven.

2009-06-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

The mood is in place and the weather is just as pleasant as it can get here, in Sydney. The results had to be declared when I am on the best holiday ever. Well, it did not make that much of a difference though, because it’s engineering and it’s one of those typical things that become inevitable parts of our lives without us asking for them.

I’m here again to share some of the new things I experienced in just the last two days in this very place I have fallen in love with. The people are just so amazing. The Aussie lingo is hilarious. I have bought a really cool t-shirt with the most common colloquial terms and phrases they use. I look too thin in it, though. I still took it considering it will probably shrink after a wash or two. Or I will probably put on some flab to fit into that one.

Discipline is what these guys are born with. This trip overseas is more than just a holiday for me. There are still so many things I’ve got to learn from this place and the people here. Like this one, the escalator etiquette. I do not know if it is followed in our country or not, but it has made me fall for this place even more. Well, what it says is everyone who gets on to the escalator stands to the left on the escalator if he or she does not want to climb up, thereby giving way to those who want to climb up the escalator and reach faster. It’s obviously not a written thing but it makes sense. Most of the things they do here are outcomes of sheer common sense and nothing else. Common sense is executed so brilliantly that it accentuates the beauty of every corner of the place.

A train journey has never been so memorable for me than the one from Adelaide to Melbourne. The train, called “The Overland” was almost like a flight, from the inside. A lady, called Jackie, with a mesmerizing smile and a nice voice, welcomed us and shared with us, the history of the train along with some funny incidents that had occurred in the past years, as we were travelling. She had a witty side to her, which kept the moods of the passengers upbeat throughout the journey.

A cafe, with the best delicacies, attracted most of the passengers every fifteen minutes or so. With Jackie at the counter, people couldn’t stop themselves from visiting the cafe, more so to hear her speak. The landscape was marvellous. That was another instant when I wished time would come to a standstill. A piano instrumental in the background and a view of the trees standing tall on the many acres of land for miles and miles.. the best combination anyone could ever ask for. The trees are one of the many creations that amaze me. They look dormant all the time but still breathe and live a life of their own. They seem like they possess this immense patience, which is enough to keep them rooted to the ground. Well, they just seem like they say, “This is another way to live a life... and it is the most peaceful way.” I just absorbed that fact and took a nap, after a sigh, which made the feeling of tranquillity around me more evident.

So, that was another experience, unforgettable. Like I said, there is a lot to learn from this place. I am making the most of this trip. Photos, videos and these posts aren’t enough to describe this place I should say. The one disappointing thing is that, so far, I haven’t had the luck to witness as many kangaroos as I wanted to. I saw a few of them at the zoo in Sydney but they weren’t active. I found the koalas cuter though.

Well, I may not have too many people agreeing with me on the thought that the people here are way too charming. But I have had an excellent experience with each one of those I have spoken to in this trip, which is probably why I have the opinion.
This trip just inspires me to explore more places, which I will, definitely. It’s just amazing to find people, so different, yet so much like our own..

Explorer in Heaven..

2009-05-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

Typically, the stuff I write are consequences of some experiences, especially those which I call the “powerful” ones. Evidently, it took a while for such an experience to occur, which is why I am here, after a long long time to post something that is worth a read.

Melbourne, Australia. The city I am in at this very point of time. The experience I was talking of is pretty much here, in Australia. Well, I couldn’t have asked for a better stress-buster than a holiday in heaven. The one agenda I had in mind when I stepped into the flight was to meet the creatures I’ve never seen before, the Kangaroos. I almost forgot about them when I met the people here, the Australians. Well, to those who beg to differ, I would just say, only if you come here will you acknowledge the fact that the number of people living in harmony exceeds those who create nuisance manyfold.

A description of the nature and the landscape here is not something I can put in words only because nature is what I call an irresistible creation (food also, by the way) that ought to be experienced within nature herself. Not that people aren’t as irresistible. Well, not all of them are. Or should I say very very few of them are. For me, every Australian is irresistible.

It’s strange I have read a lot about Australia but haven’t really been amazed by its very existence in this world. I have seen Australian people on tv. The fact that they are such wonderful people to bond with is something I’m sure I wouldn’t have believed just by looking at them. Every aussie I’ve accosted so far has been amazingly generous to me, like he or she knew me since birth. Everyone here carries a magical smile, which is probably enough to keep them (and others) pumped up for the day. Every conversation begins with a “Hey, how’re you doing today?” and ends with “Have a great day, cheers.” Or with a tiny joke. Like there was this one guy who we saw at one of the outlets in Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, who started it off with something like this.. “ Hey there. Good morning… uhm, if it’s morning that is.” My brother, who is pretty used to such conversations with random guys answered his usual witty way, saying, “Depends on which part of the world you’re in.” The guy laughed and said “well, I’m from Russia.. so well, yea.. morning there too I guess.” And the conversation created a seemingly comfortable atmosphere to shop in, though all I need for shopping is good stuff and money.

I have noticed a sense of discipline that shows in almost everything they do. Everyone looks impeccable from head to toe. Fitness is like food, here. They are obsessed with it. Punctuality is quite evident from the way they almost fly past each other every morning. There is no compromise on discipline, nevertheless. They do not cross the roads unless the lights turn green. Every street is neat, which is expected, but is worth a mention. All cars have automatic gears (I drove one in Melbourne!) and are driven with lane discipline, speed discipline and amazing judgement. Oh ya, and, I do miss hearing the noisy honks outside on the streets of Mumbai every millisecond. The vehicles here can easily do away with the horns. I haven’t heard a single one and neither has my brother. So, well, there is a lot to learn from these guys.

Well, to leave this place is going to be hard, not only because of the people here, but also because of the kind of comfort it delivers. Everything I see, hear or feel soothes me. We took a drive out of the city today on this road called “The Great Ocean Road”. It gets its name from the fact that the road makes its way with the Pacific on one side and beautiful landscape on the other. What more can you ask for..! The beaches with sun-kissed shores and the blue sea, with the horizon stretched from one end to the other and the breeze.. all of which made me feel like I was in heaven. Time had a chance to come to a standstill but it dint.

I would go on and on about this place but it’s time for me to go, continue this experience. Well, I had another reason to share this with those who have read it so far. India is a beautiful country, without doubt. We can make it better, nevertheless, if you just go back and read the description of only one hundredth of this country. We Indians are blessed with the second largest population and the brightest of minds. We can make wonders if we put to use the body and brain of our country to make it a more adorable place to live in. A little more discipline in us, citizens, can probably lead to a welcome change. One of the million little changes could be to stop littering the roads and railway tracks. Another one could be to do less of the spitting on the streets. I urge all of you to do something less, if not something more. After all, it’s your country.. your motherland who’s given you a place to live in. So consider this a duty. It’s something we ought to do without anyone telling us.. We can create a better tomorrow if we make a change today.

A life in a life….

2008-12-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Boredom. That one thing that has conquered most part of my life, already. There is no particular part of the day, which defines the time this thing needs to creep into me. Nonetheless, I know what it takes to get it out of me, no matter how much time it takes to shed “the thing” away. A cup of coffee and my balcony. Coffee, because it’s Coffee and my balcony, because it offers the most splendid view of my very own school, especially at dusk when the sky is orange and the school stands below, facing my balcony, facing me..

One sip of coffee and one look at my school.. as effortless as it can get, it is by far, the best way to re-stimulate me. It is an experience, that is periodical and one, which manages to unleash my emotional side, which is perhaps why I spend more time there than anywhere else in my house. A glance at the magnificent walls is just what it takes to bring back all those memories of the blissful moments I spent in school, behind those walls, in those classrooms.

There were two blackboards in a classroom, green boards actually. The one on the left was gridded and the other on the right, plain green, the one that was more frequently used by most of the teachers, except math of course. She preferred the left one. It made the subject more mathematical she said. Reading the numbers through those white criss-cross lines was unnerving though, which none of us dared to tell her. Well, those were the times we would think a hundred times before complaining about anything, especially if it had something to do with the mannerisms of the teacher. We wouldn’t think at all, in that case. At that point of time, the mind was an epitome of what was usual and expected in children, something that was called innocence.

We accepted what was taught to us. We actually “studied” the stuff that was given to us, in prescribed textbooks. Today, if someone claims to have “studied” something, it is either considered a joke, or he or she becomes outcast. And prescribed textbooks.. One, there is nothing “prescribed”. Two, there is either one textbook alone or no textbook at all. A bunch of photocopies is just what is needed, not a month before the exams, not a week, but a day or two before. If you are spotted with the photocopies a month before the exams, again, outcast.

I remember those times in school when we approached the Days, the special ones, the Annual Day, Parents’ Day, Sports Day and the like. In my school, we had those mass drills that were religiously followed before every Sports Day, when books remained in our bags for several fortnights and we galloped our way to the Raymond Ground, every morning after Prayers. The actual Sports Day would end rather emotionally for the tenth graders, who dreaded the fact that this was THE last Sports Day of their lives. It happened to me too. A while ago, I was at the centre of the ground, singing the National Anthem, and the next moment I felt like someone actually let me free and I was escaping reluctantly into a new world, which perhaps did not wait for me, like school did, when I took my first steps into it. This world did not know me. I had to introduce myself to it. I had to pave my way through it, all alone. There was no school. There were no teachers. It was going to be me, and only me, for the rest of my life. And when this truth struck me that day, I closed my eyes and shed a tear. Not that I did not live my school life to the fullest. It was this truth that brought tears, the truth that School life was a life within a life. And here I was, amidst my teachers, my Principal, my friends, not knowing how much time it would take to thank each and every one of them, but knowing for a fact that they were the ones who were truly responsible for what I was today and what I would be tomorrow. As I ran a glance from one end of the ground to the other, I saw faces of everyone, who had shared a moment or many moments with me, at some point of time, at some corner of the school. I felt like walking back to school and treading my way through the corridors, passing by each classroom and reliving every moment that I had spent in that mansion.

So, here I am, in this new world, which knows me like it knows a billion others and is asking me to be a part of it, to live the ups and downs, to make me meet others like me, who had abandoned a life some years ago, only to enter into this one. It is true that everything that happens, happens for a reason. The life I live today has a reason. I am living it to put to use what the life in school had taught me. The life that I spent in school had a reason. I was living it, unknowingly, to learn to live this life of mine, which perhaps is the actual life that we need to live. A life, that has no teachers, no prayers, no discipline. To live this life, we need a teacher in us, a prayer in us and a discipline in us….

Stairway to Heaven..

2008-12-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

There have been times when life has been harsh on me, when I have felt an emptiness, which is probably inexplicable. Such moments turn out to be the most appropriate moments for me to actually thank the Almighty for giving me something, that is almost like a ready-made staircase, all the way to heaven (and back, of course). I have a voice, which makes sense when I sing. This is the “something”, which makes me glide through those harsh times and the emptiness, without much effort.

Singing was a pastime till I realized how blissful an experience it is. Carnatic music, especially, creates an aura, that everyone craves for. From the time I have started to sing, there is this particular category of listeners among all those who I have come across, who enter into a trance, momentarily. They aren’t crazy of course. It’s just that music affects them from within. It may seem bizarre. It’s true, nonetheless.

Music is an entity in itself. It is a pretty sophisticated form of art, which perhaps does not get the acknowledgement it deserves. When I sing, I can feel the evilness being virtually chased out of me. Issues which affect me emotionally, a few minutes ago, seem to be thrashed out, in a matter of seconds, by something, which I cannot define. That is the kind of power that music is endowed with.

There is something I experience very often, which reiterates the fact that music has not managed to have much of an impact on the entire society as a whole. The moment I am asked to sing in a crowd, I hear people asking me to sing the filthiest of songs from Bollywood movies. Not that I expect people to listen to more of the music I listen to or sing, perhaps. In fact, I listen to a lot of such songs myself. They are really good stress-busters. The kind of music I am talking about , is something that manages to make you wake up to a new world, which you never want to leave.

It is hard to comprehend, for many, as to how magical music can get. It’s like vacuum. It is something, which exists, but is virtually nothing. In fact, Music therapy, which is a kind of treatment for the mentally challenged, has benefited many around the globe. It has become a part of my life and it should necessarily become a part of all of our lives, for the kind of positivity it adds to life.

Singing and listening to music is my passion, evidently. I would never regret resorting to music, an art, so pure and so magical. It is, in fact, a stairway to heaven, the only stairway I am never tired to climb..

A beginning...

2008-12-02T19:42:00.001-08:00

A line of unforeseen events have occurred, over the past few days, the impact of which has been disastrous, both physically as well as psychologically. People and their lives are taken for granted. The perfectly planned and executed terror attacks on Mumbai have managed to instill a sense of fear in the hearts of everyone, regardless of monetary status.

The fickle-mindedness of the politicians is not a surprise even at this point of time, when the entire nation is mourning the death of over a hundred people and the very few true Indians, the NSG commandos. The blame-game has begun. On one hand, there is Shiv Sena, unable to decide on whether or not to “hold a bandh” on Monday. On the other hand, we have people, who have conveniently chosen to resign from their offices, knowing for a fact that the elections are round the corner. We then have our very own CM, visiting the devastated Taj, accompanied by Ram Gopal Varma and Riteish Deshmukh. RGV was there to draw parallels of this disaster with the disaster of his horrendous films, perhaps. An earth-shattering issue as it seems, it has managed to accelerate the animosity between politicians on a personal level. Such things are bound to happen in big cities, a statement made so effortlessly by the Deputy CM, who probably should have tried showing a certain amount of political maturity, which is definitely expected from him, especially when the country is going through a crisis like this. Politicians stink. There will be a day when fingers will point at us, for having chosen such people to form the political system of our so-called “democratic” country.

Issues do not end there. In a country with the second largest population, it is a disgrace to see how our leaders still look for personal gains, even when the nation is going through hell. Expectations agglomerate and come crashing down. India is not as vulnerable as it seems. It is a democracy. The citizens are the culprits and the victims of such attacks. We were culprits, who regret sending such people to run our country and now, we are the ones victimized.

Politicians are busy passing the buck and here we are, suddenly realizing the importance of solidarity, secularism and patriotism. These words were unheard of for a really really long time. Do we need a “massive terror attack” to get us all together to pay heed to these terms? It’s not enough for us to expect our leaders to act. We should expect ourselves to be more concerned about what has been and is happening around us. It is hard to believe that we are all united and feel “patriotic”, only after such things happen to us. Patriotism is nothing to feel proud about. You are an Indian if you have it. You aren’t one, if you don’t.

It’s high time we put an end to the pointless blame-game and focus our attention towards the latent loopholes, that we have been oblivious to till date. India belongs to all of us. There is no way we can let her fall prey to insensitive terrorists and self-centered politicians. Together, we can scale unbelievable heights and take our nation to a new level, which no one would have ever imagined in the past. This’s not the end. It is just the beginning. It’s never too late, is it?

JAI HIND.