flipped...

And The Heart Yearns...

2011-07-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

Lost somewhere are the winding roads,

the green trees, purple hills, O’ the mighty snow.

Lost somewhere is the clear blue sky,

the cold winds, mirrored lakes, O’ her furious flow.

Back they are, to jammed roads ‘n concrete waste

To black fog, un-starred skies, O’ you nature’s foe

Their grit was tested on treacherous passes,

by steep slopes, blind curves & dusty roads

by slippery slush from melted ice,

and puncture threats on rocky precipice.

Their wheels crave for those unbuilt roads,

over deep valleys & thro’ shallow flows.

The unwavering strength was finally rewarded

as the Four scaled the mighty heights unscathed.

But, lost somewhere are those winding roads,

those green trees, purple hills, that mighty snow.

But, Lost Somewhere is that clear blue sky

those Cold Winds, Mirrored lakes ‘n her furious flow.

Back they are, to Jammed roads ‘n concrete waste

to Black fog, un-starred skies, O’ you nature’s foe

Be it Leh, Upshi, Psumdo, Sarchu or Bhand Alchi,

each meal was ambrosia, people friendly & kids chirpy.

For slumber, stood tents in the noisy wild

multi-storeyed holes, for excretion, in some corner lied

The morning began at an early six,

Bungie ties ‘n blue ‘pannis’ let the bags be fix

The daily distance – couple a hundred long

Accompanying was virgin Nature all along

The heart yearns deep for those winding roads,

for green trees, purple hills, ‘n a mighty snow.

The heart yearns deep for that clear blue sky

for Cold Winds, mirrored lakes, ‘n a furious flow

The heart yearns deep to kick-start that loyal bike,

Pack the blue bag & one more time, make a Go!

That unreasonable dream

2011-03-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

There are times when you feel absolutely void. You cant describe it as being depressed, or even as lack of happiness. It is just those prolonged 3 hours you need to be awake before you'd call it a day. You surely don't appreciate company (even if it is your own) nor can you just pull up the covers and put yourself to sleep. Its almost as if you are wishing for something, it's like you're waiting for life to happen. You're waiting for action even if it requires you to go into severe depression but you're just too bloody bored with that substandard thing you call 'life'. Well, certainly next day morning when you get up you do point out to your rational mind that your life has never been substandard. You've done a lot of things which have made your folks proud, you've had a lot of moments which even today bring a smile on your face. So, were the those few hours last night just some unwanted, unnecessary, worthless hours in the otherwise interesting life you lead? The rational mind always says, yes!

The screw up happens when you have an examination to deal with in the coming week and just want to break away from all that rationality. (Maybe because, that's the only way you'd be able to read that book you've been longing to read or see one of those movies which have been stacked up in your hard disk or for that matter just do anything apart from staring into a strange book which you know you must complete before that paper starts.) Whatever the reason, you let the irrationality stay on a little more, you wonder what could have been and what is, you wonder whether where you are going is where you always wanted to go. (You do manage to make quite a few incoherent markings in that textbook you're reading, or to make this relate to more folks those xeroxed notes you're holding.)

That is when the question strikes, where do you want to go anyway(in life, that is)? Who are you trying to be? Didn't you as a kid always want life to be extra-ordinary? Dint you want big things for yourself? It could be being a rocket scientist who would alter the rules of the world, or a writer who would change the way things would be, or even a sportsman who'd be cheered by the whole country. You stopped dreaming cause you wanted a better life for you, your present family and your to-be family. You stopped because not everyone can have an extra-ordinary life. You stopped because all of that happens only in the movies. In doing all this, you forgot one thing, what is the fun of life unless you've lived it your way. Would you not want to just break the barriers one day and fight for a dream which you would be really passionate about? Yes, you would want to but maybe after a year, cause that is when you'd have graduated (or any other self imposed threshold)

The irrational mind asks you, how difficult is it to achieve your dream? It reminds you that at one point you'll be sitting on a chair wondering what all you did and you would not want to regret your decisions. You get but one chance to lead a life, and you have all the right to make it as interesting or as boring you want it to be. Whatever you do, do remember that life is void without that one unreasonable dream. The recurring dull 3 hours before you sleep are a staunch reminder of that voidness. You try to runaway from difficult routes, you try to run towards security but that irrational mind will tell you that the joy is in sweating it out every single day for that one cause of yours. A cause that gives you goosebumps, a cause that lights up your eyes, a cause that will not give you those void hours, a cause that makes you want to live more, a cause that will make you sit back someday and make you smile because you gave it a shot. Whether you achieve it or not, strangely, does not matter at all because it is those sleepless nights you spent, those worried days that you survived and those exiting moments you experienced that make make your life satisfying. Your cause could be as small as giving the most flawless performance on a stage someday or as big as bringing about a change in the way things happen, but that irrational mind urges you to chase that cause with all that you've got. Because even rationally your life is substandard without that one unreasonable dream, that one undying passion, that one unending fight and that one unforgettable day.

We all have it in us to breakaway, but we hold on tight just to our security. The irrational mind says- fuck security, go chase your dream, however unreasonable, while doing so believe in your ability because it is you who want it to happen and constantly keep fighting cause for heaven's sake the fight is what makes life worth living.

But before you do any of that you must attend your cellphone that's been ringing for a while now. Your panic-stricken friend reminds you, you have an examination to give. You remind yourself a responsible person. You would not do stupid things to achieve unwanted, far-fetched fairy tales. No one tries to achieve unreasonable dreams. No one in their right mind, at least.

Bah....

2011-02-22T10:53:00.000-08:00

So, on a sleepy night the author gets fairly worked up about things being superficial in life. He seems to have stuck himself to the belief that most of the things around tend to have no reason. From a superficial marketing gimmick to a superficial academic course, from a superficial coding job to a superficial world cup, things revolve around profits of a handful few and the delusion of the rest. The irony is that there is happiness and calmness in delusion and unrest and uncertainity when the spell breaks.

Thoughts divert to kicking oneself in the arse cause no action and just glorified thought never helped anyone. The inertia takes a while to sake away but the while seems to be taking just too long! And while the while does pass by the author reverts to another sitcom or some facebook surfing or some random assignment copying.............. bah!

Of assembly lines, thresholds and breaking away...

2011-01-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

This probably will be the first time I'll come straight to a point (even though, the temptation of digressing simply to invoke humor or for that matter confusion, is huge). The so called MBA, that i'm pursuing, has finally evoked some thoughts in my head. In fact, all through my education these thoughts always lingered till they reached a boiling point here when I realized that with higher education I am simply narrowing my outlook. I wonder why a Mechanics subject becomes bullshit for an Electronics engineer, or, for that matter, a Finance lecture is of no use for a Marketing guy. I remember being taught, as a kid. that knowledge imparted, from whichever source and in whichever field, should be grasped gleefully. However, as I grew up not paying attention at such instances itself (when knowledge is imparted) became a fashion.

So, the bigger picture (and this. after having pursued education in perhaps the best institutions in their respective fields) is that more and more folks come to learn with the intention of not learning and if they do come in to learn they put in their best to restrict themselves to a certain 'Course' since, empirically its proven that life is full of instances straight out of that 'Course.' I wonder what happened to learning just to quench curiosity, but for that I'll have to wonder what happened to curiosity in the first place!

It got lost in our love to produce assembly line. An assembly line of men and women who are successful because they are well educated. They ensure the path they take is at least taken by a 100 other people and they believe that paths to success are only known to the ones who have already succeeded. Plus, as more 'batches' come out they start making the production of coming 'batches' simpler.

The little originality left is reduces with every batch. That is why, seniors help juniors to restrict the 'Course' further and the juniors are glad they would succeed by knowing less without even flinching about the possibility of having missed vital insights. But then, why would they care for some stupid vital insights if their 'goal' is achieved? And is not the 'goal' the only relevant thing? Maybe, it's all got to do with the thresholds for 'happiness' the society sets for itself and strangely, the whole assembly line becomes programmed to derive its happiness from exactly the same things. It's always about the best job or the most satisfying job-the one which everyone wants and the one which everyone wants is invariably the one with maximum monetary returns! Could we ever try to break free from this assembly line and think for ourselves? Again, I'm not saying this since I believe I have broken free. I myself am a proud production of this very assembly line. I'm merely pondering if there was ever a way we could break free.

Breaking away would mean shit load of books and undefined courses (in our students' terms) or more broadly put, challenging the thresholds set for happiness. By encouraging your own self to think the earth is round when everyone else knows it is flat. By maybe, for once, not restricting oneself to defined courses and instead exploring those topics which always interested one as a kid. But then, who would put such a lot of effort? Ermmm, but who exactly said putting less effort is better? In the one life we have, we try our best to work the least since that way life is more exiting? We tend to define and restrict our learnings since less knowledge would mean a more satisfied life? We jumped into this ironical world of ours just because we started blindly believing in the sacred 'thresholds'!

Life is more about deriving maximum satisfaction. Which would rationally come from making the most out of life. Unbelievably friends, we all have our own perceptions for making the most out of our lives and i'm pretty sure spending years of our lives studying restricted courses features in no one's perception. It's sure an uneasy thought and for the first few times you will refute other 'non-assembly' perceptions till you reach a point when you will define our own happiness. Just wish, for you as well as for me, it does not end up being too late.

Unorganized Structuring....

2010-08-08T08:01:00.001-07:00

Its funny how I've spent around an hour trying to figure out the best way to start this and have finally come up with this silly line after unlimited pondering! This is in fact very similar to how life is, you plan for her for almost an eternity and she stuns you by unfolding in an entirely different way. (Being a male, I prefer referring to life as a female which ensures I at least live with some girl if I end up being single and makes me less of a sexist!) For one whole year now I have refrained from posting as the earlier posts had put a huge burden on me to churn out something as incomprehensible and winding as them. I do not say that I am posting since this is an impressive attempt at being incomprehensible or winding but this is the best I could churn out considering the new profession I've decided for myself calls for (stupid) structuring of thoughts whom I've tried to unorganize here to the best of my ability.

For those who'd care to know the barbers here (Delhi, Kamala Nagar) too believe in intimidating their customer by almost choking them and that is from where I derive my feeling of being at home (for the lack of other incidents as you shall soon see.) The capital of India has this notorious habit of shutting things down by 10 pm which for a Mumbaikar is simply unacceptable. So deserted are the roads that even men walking alone carry with them a small fear of being molested, mugged or raped. The roads are designed (in the area where I live) to accommodate around two cars together on them but the average Delhi guy (or gal) is always confident of finding his way through the lane especially when his is the third car and while doing so he loves honking (incessantly) cause historically car horns have had the reputation of magically displacing vehicles (and even humans) out of their way. It is said that the average Delhi guy spends around an hour of their daily lives parking and de-parking his car cause of the corners they choose to park in and the various kind of protective locks they use around the car. (Any feelings some of my Delhi friends keep of holding me by the scruff of the neck and strangling me should be done away with since this is simply my observation of where I live.)

The place sure has more parks than Mumbai (The urge to call it Bombay is strong). In fact the total number of parks in Mumbai would be equal to the parks in every 2 sq kms in Delhi. Its a different thing that whenever I've tried to enter them the gates have appeared closed! The metro here is a delight and one can only wonder if at least his kids would be able to witness a functional Metro rail in Mumbai. In short, both cities have their pros and cons but the key is your adaptability and on this politically correct note I shall like to lay to rest this debate!

*******

It almost strange how learning more actually consumes your curiosity. Compare yourself to a toddler who's inquisitive about everything around him. What stops us from asking questions like we used to as a kid? Is it fear of being judged? Or, the fear of sounding stupid? Or, simply a habit we get into (being ever so in love with conformity)? Or is it (the most dreadful of all) simply boredom? If you really sit down to think, you'd want to curse the pedagogic curriculum or even your peers (for constantly laughing at your uncalled for zeal, if you ever tried questioning in the first place, that is.) but you'd never blame yourself. Blaming others is another extraordinary characteristic the modern man seems to have developed, but lets do this one extraordinary characteristic at a time!

The unfortunate part is that once lost the curiosity takes a lot of effort to develop. The baffling part is that most of us (the author included) are facing this extraordinary (apologies for reiterating it) disorder at a time when almost any information is available on our fingertips. So, you can get over the fear of getting judged by peers by just being indifferent but how do you shake off the rust of boredom? For that you'll have to ask the first question, try to get the answer and plunge into the world of information.

And yet, amazingly, its our learning that restricts us. So lost are we in our, so called, specializations that we start rejecting 90% of information available to us since it is apparently irrelevant. Alarmingly, the modern man is curious at just two points of his life, one, when he has just started his life and is allowed to trudge at his own pace and two, when he is at its fag end and is left to trudge (or may I say crawl) at his own pace and at other points he's busy trying to conform to everyone else, running at the pace which is at least faster than your closest opponent. Kudos!

*******

For folks, like the one writing this piece, there comes a time when humor needs to be restricted. One wonders why some situations call for utmost seriousness, and if they do, one wonders what holds back a lighthearted, humorous soul from offering the same to it. Being from the school of 'Light Hearted- Using humour as a defense mechanism' myself I guess I'm decently qualified to dissect these guys. What is it that propels us to act unnaturally stupid when we meet new people (more so when it's the opposite sex!) or to give an, uncalled for, funny retort to even the most serious statements or to unnecessarily explain a fairly evident thing?

The truth is that these guys can't afford to be serious for too long and least of all in front of people they hardly know. They generally have a reputation to protect and protecting it is one job (and many a times the only job) they take very seriously. So much for being a jester.....!!

In Dire Times

2009-08-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

Many a times you just get addicted to writing, there is this voice inside you which calls out, urges you to write. Such calls or urges come to me when my mind's pretty messed up and there is just no one to listen to my infinite rubbish! And I inevitably end up in a rubbish imparting mood when there has been nothing to do in one whole day, but if one considers these dire times when the hapless citizens are made to sit back home because of a certain H1N1 virus roaming about freely (ironically in their place) around the city, one would realize that there would then be many such days when there would have been nothing to do, and if one has somehow been able to keep track of the flow, it is during such dire times I would be in the greatest of rubbish imparting moods!

Which is why I find it exceedingly necessary to put to all the folks' notice the habit of dogs (mostly male) to sniff places before deeming them as favorable for urinating. Something I managed to observe whilst i was doing absolutely nothing by my window, which is totally unlikely. The unlikeliness not being in standing by the window but in doing absolutely nothing! The usual and very reliable spending quality time in the loo had also become too boring by then! Though the logic of deeming a place clean enough to dirty later on seemed pretty absurd to me! Even more absurd was my sudden fixation with the intricacies of canine urination procedure. But, as i have been saying these are dire times!

These are times when many decide to sit back at home, and others decide to stand up to the adversity and make the most out of it! If one is left wondering how can one make the best out of this situation, one needs to simply look around and notice the repercussions-

1. The usual fellow who manages to squeeze through a perfectly crowded train and sell his pencils, pens, hankies, combs now comes up with these masks and that with sticking to his normal business strategy of assuring to sell them at rates lesser than the market price! What is even more startling is his promoting technique, wherein he himself is sporting a mask! He even has different types of masks ranging from 10 to 50! Too bad he cant let people try them before they buy them (as is another of their marketing strategies, if some do not know!)

2. How mobile companies earn with every sms which reads thus, "50 odd fellows affected by swine flu and you wear masks, but million odd people affected by AIDS but you dont wear condoms!" (In high sentiment we forget that the HIV virus does not roam about in the atmosphere, and that condoms are not worn on faces and thus their being worn might not be so conspicuous!)

3. How condom companies are enjoying the free publicity!

4. The convenience the police department could have during the Independence day, cause the terrorists will finally not be able to find any place which is too crowded! Maybe H1N1 did something good for us after all!

5.The convenience they could further have in areas around bandstand where many a soulmates (so called!) would finally not be able to get so intimate as to thrust each others facial parts into each others mouths in public! Unless, obviously, they find a way to do so throguh the masks! (assuming here that everyone is way too panic-stricken to take off these masks!)

6. How the usual burkha clad ladies internally mock everyone in that if every soul had followed their age old tradition there would have been no swine flul! The burkha might finally come into vogue after all! (which does bring pictures of random actresses clad in bikinis but having a mysterious veil over their face to ones mind, to promote the further awareness, and to go the PETA way!)

7. How, eventually, some extremely finicky ladies would find it exceedingly necessary to match their masks to their dresses, which in turn would trigger mass production of designer masks.

My personal experience with a makeshift mask was pretty annoying. The abominable piece of cloth was forever trying to fal off my face, apparently exposing me to the dangerous virus (!!) and my attempts to talk on the phone turned pretty tiresome, since even the most regular of my call receivers could not place the origins of the voice from the other side. But the biggest drawback of putting on a mask (makeshift or not) is that one has to breath back their own breath and if that is after one has just had a meal of which the major ingredient was onion, one is in for a putrid time! Some blighters could also realize the importance of brushing regularly and the anguish others go through when these blighters talk! (If you know what I mean!) Finally, the importance of mint shall dawn onto people!

Its ironical, thought, that this lack of freedom to roam about comes right around our Independence day, and that on account of some biological fiend which is too miniscule to be seen by the naked eye! Maybe, all this points out at something! Maybe, nature will have its say after all! Maybe, the freedom we are set to lose courtesy the virus was an illusion anyway! Maybe, this is a good time to ponder about this (than about random urinating procedures!) Maybe, we'll eventually get back to our normal lives and not bother about all this! Thats the most practical 'maybe' till now!
But whoever said most practical is the way to go....

random nonesense...

2009-07-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Now, another year is just about to start, as far as my graduation is concerned, that is! This means the long vacation is about to come to an end. Its not really my cup of tea to sit back, relax at the window, listen to music and ponder about various intricacies of life. Though, I do tend to invariably end up doing just that while in the loo (as has already been put to many folks' notice), due to the lack of anything else to do in there. But most of the times the annoying contractions, which, refreshingly, according to the dictionary can be used in this context too, just screw up the line of thought and that certain thought is lost (or flushed, according to the context!). I do apologize solemnly for making things sound really shitty, and literally so at that, and also for digressing yet again from the main point of discussion, but one does need to notice that neither of them could have been be helped and that I am a firm beleiver of presenting things exactly the way they come to ones mind. Coming back to pondering about life and its various nuances, I just thought it would be rather interesting to put down some events that happened or could have happened in this vacation, and jumble them nicely with some random rubbish, or some random preaching, or some more random critisizing....

1. Meeting a friend to check out his new car just before going off to sleep in the night, and suddenly deciding to cancel the sleeping and drive to lonavala at midnight, and that after rubbishing a certain other friends pleas to go to shimla or kerela for a vacation by drilling into him the unrealisticness of such a particular enterprise in just one night. Driving towards ambey valley up the ghat at 4 in the morning and being able to drive only because the NEW car had fog lights! Every moment that passed was a relief since nothing ungoldy sprang up from those ungoldy surroundings at that ungodly hour. I'd always keep hoping to have such a crazy and unexpected drive again.

2. It is absolutely impossible to understand what the Maharashtra Government was trying to achieve by giving 90% admissions to only SSC students! Their claim was that the other boards need to take care of themselves and their students by having new colleges established. Point is, could not there be given thought to this matter a good one year prior to the admission procedure than at the exact doorstep of the same? What would that student do who took to the other boards knowing he'll get the same playing ground when it comes to admission? (Even though it be by help of a strange formulae, which would invariably have few students getting more than a 100%.) Atleast the final decision of having the same base marks is a lot more rational, though absolutely uncharacteristic, and we would welcome some rationality in the system...

3. How a certain blighter got to spend her vacation at a film making school, then at a scenic hill top in uttranchal and finally in Kashmir and while at all this she also managed to finalize her stay in another scenic village side for six darned months and get somehow paid for it too! Towards her are directed all my envy and my awe!

4. Apologies if you did not understand how would staying in a village would get anyone envious of anyone...(Do not desert the blog just on that account!)

5. A thought was also directed towards how places in Mumbai that are most flooded with water get agonizingly more video coverage by our media, who have ceratinly learnt a fair amount of drama from the TV serials, notice the goosebumps giving music, the always emotional voice of the news reader and the ever castigative nature towards the city authority. It is designed to get the average new watcher completely horrified of rains, convincing them not to step out. And if some smart folks decide to venture out, for nothing but the sheer urge to prove the clowns wrong they are greeted with gloomy faces by their family members for having absolute disregard for their lives and their family's emotions (such reprimands are equally melodramatic). Would not giving citizens information about the safer routes, with an absolute unbiased face (cuase thats exactly how a news reader or for that matter even the news should be) than scaring the already 'living on the edge' citizens (courtesy all the terrorists, the cloudbursts, the rapists, the scamsters and the ever faithful stock market) with pictures of flooded areas be a better policy? But with all that competition wouldnt having simple straightforward news mean plummeting of the viewership? Result, further thinning of the edge that we live on...

6. I have still not been able to figure out why would a certain friend be so insistent of goig to a disco, (in goa, where having such a demand is absolutely viable and also to an extent not unethical!) when after going in all he (and with him us) could manage to do was see a zillion rowdies dancing aroung three (female) dancers, scantily clad and heavily cosmeticized, which was neither appealing to the eye nor any other part of the body.

7. How, finally, there was a long drive, as long as 1500km, and how every part of it was jus crazy fun. I refer here to the trip to GOA, in a CAR, which WE drove, from Mumbai (which is approximately 650km one way) which involved almost every thing a road trip would have, form breaking down of cars to serious hair pulling over what will happen now to being happily ever after. Only flaw was that we went off season, which could explain why the disco was more like a dance bar or why there could be no sports in the water. But there were exotic beaches (I, if not others, consider it exotic for the sheer view!) and some spectacular photography opportunities. The repurcussion of the trip was a borken car which refused to start unless it was pushed like in the 18 hundreds...but that is acceptable in return of the time we had..

8. With the introduction of rains, finally, in this season, which till then found it pretty ironical to be called itself rainy, brings with itself this thought, at the risk of being absolutely film like, of someday walking in the rains with some cherished for company.... (of the opposite gender of course, clarifation does become necessary after the scrapping of sections 377 (or for the sake of being politically right, after the rectification of the same)...and of course with the clutching of the hands and the lack of umbrellas........argh contraction (and another thought is lost).

And since there was no end to this piece, that seemed fitting to me, i'd just end it with the thing thats most on my mind, please comment!!

when you dare to choose...

2009-07-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Now this ones a killer...!! Its already been a fortnight since this event passed but its something ones gotta hear! I dunno what to refer to it as, escaping death (but that sounds way to heavy!), the day when nothing could go wrong (then I should have definitely seized the moment and asked her out!) or the fateful day when Almighty finally presented some insinuation, a strange one at that, but he seemed to be telling me, "mate you're wasting your time as an engineer, you have gotta run!" I cant really tell if that was by any chance some kind of joke he was pulling off on me, but he seemed pretty persistent! After all, as you shall (if you manage to read till the end) duly find out, it is not every ones cup of tea to keep running at around 20 odd Kmph in order to stop from falling off! And it is not, indeed, any ones cup of tea to be able to pull that stunt off in the middle of the road and manage to have attention of most of the living creatures in a diameter of a 500 meter radius completely on you!

Now, hoping that I did manage to catch some of your attention, I shall begin with the main story. This was during one of my final days at the internship and one of the happiest since i managed to get an authentic letter affirming that I had put in some precious days of my life in being trained in some exceptionally important things in the industry. ( I figured mentioning these exceptionally important things would on one side earn me the ire of the engineering world and the nonchalance of the rest of the world, on the other side, that is, so needless to say i reluctantly left them out!) The only sad thing about this was that the signing of the letter took a little while and that abominable little while was enough to make the company bus (which till that day gave me the loyal door to door, and mind u, literally so, service) leave from the company premises, which now endangered me reaching at my door without any hassles. It was even more frustrating to see this bus running away right in front of my eyes.

However, since nothing could really go wrong on that day, or since spirits were on an unparalleled high at that time (and if you do know in such moments of high spirit one thinks very clearly!), I with help of some common sense and with some guidance of my friend got into another bus. By doing this I had ensured that i would somehow manage to reach home from a deserted place like Ghansoli even if it would be with a lot of hassles, but lesser than one would face if he be stranded at that place! So I did get the best out of the situation. At this point I'd like to venture further in the state of mind of one that is on the before mentioned unparalleled high spirits. It does tend to think clearly, yes, but I found out that it sees clear opportunity where others see absolutely nothing! It becomes like a complex high speed multi cored processor (nonchalance expected!) which can calculate every possibility in a whiff. It strives to achieve the best result. Its alright till here but what did me in was its trait of not giving up in achieving the best result and the insatiable desire of getting that little bit more.

So this mind of mine suggested, and very credibly at that, that I was capable of getting off the present bus at a signal and run along and catch my loyal bus. Only catch in this master scheme was that the present bus would not stop at the signal since its takes a flyover. This was simpler to take care of, I simply asked the bus driver to stop for a whisker at a certain point on the road. Here is one more thing that did me in, my fellow bus river was unresponsive, and that even after I very earnestly pleaded to him in almost three languages. In despair I tried English at last, that did manage to get a response from him, but it was much like, wide open terrorizing eyes saying 'stop trying to show me down u dumbass'. There seemed very less hope now that the man would stop the bus even for the required whisker, but i did stubbornly stand on the foot pad of the bus (this again being a scheme formulated by that high on spirits mind!).

Well this is where I finally did myself in, and disastrously in at that! The bus slowed down a wee bit, It wasn't slow enough to get off though. It further slowed down, this time tantalizingly close to what one would call the 'ideal speed of getting down a moving bus unscathed' (if you start finding such a term unheard of, i shall remind you again of that smart calculative mind which was running all my actions presently!) I took the bait, (at this point I would like to mention that because of ease of narration and more so the ease of understanding, I shall start considering my mind, the sole commander of these actions, and my physical actions as one being) and got off the bus. No sooner did i touch the ground I realised the grave mistake, the serious error that my supposed multicored processor had managed to make. and i do suggest to everyone not to trust their minds when they are on a high lest you fall prey to such disasters, the bus was at a fairly higher speed than expected. Which meant that I had to do away with the unscathed part of the above mentioned phrase unless i kept apace with the speed of the bus (as physics might suggest or as a daily train commuter might suggest better!)

This speed must have been some 15-20 kilometers per hour, and in trying to frantically keep apace one after another my shoes left my company. To the outsider it looked as if the shoes were flying all over the road and the girls who had a moment back seen me on the foot pad of the bus started screaming their throats out (or so I was told by my friend later!). I, during this time, was still running to avoid falling down in the middle of the road, and hence avoiding being run down by a car, with bare feet. When i finally came to a halt, which was at least 150 metres from where my shoes decided to leave me, the bus too came to a halt and the driver gave me another of that same look, but this time it simply said, "DUMBASS", cause nothing more needed to be said, i believe, after which he sped off. Now i was left alone on the road and dint have another choice but to turn around and collect the shoes.

On my way back the following occurred to me, in this attempt to achieve the best, I had probably missed both buses and left me the worst. But so is the case when you dare to achieve the unachieved, u win magnificently or lose helplessly. It was a bitter irony and i was just gulping it down when it further occurred to me that one shoe was lying right under a car whose driver had halted to view this exciting spectacle that occurred in front of him. I set my sight on that shoe, but just at that moment a truck came from behind, whose driver too was enjoying the excitement just that he had forgotten to apply his brakes while doing so. As a result he crashed into the car, and momentarily now both my shoes were under a vehicle! One under the car and another under the truck. But the blessed momentum of the truck took both the vehicles off my shoes, which i willingly and quickly retrieved. Now i ran back in the opposite direction to the signal to still attempt to catch my loyal bus.

On my sprint to the signal I managed to glance at the truck and the car owner, both of whom were looking heatedly in my direction, and their looks said, "If i ever catch hold of you in my life, I shall make sure you would no longer carry the balls you required to pull off that stunt." I chose to ignore the aftermath of that look and kept running. And I am absolutely unsure how, but i managed to get on that bus! Huffing and puffing, unscathed, glad that no further hassle would be required to reach home. And from somewhere a voice made itself heard, "See, I told you its possible!"

That's Chance for you. You dare to take a chance, there are odds you'll make it, but here are sure more odds you wont. But in situations that are desperate you have a choice to either take that chance and win all or lose all that u presently have or play safe and not risk everything! But for a long time there is a phrase doing rounds - "fortune favors the brave...."

on the fast track, without too much of a choice

2009-06-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Its unbelievable how growing age with it brings enormous pressure.
Its unbelievable how most of it is because of plain competition.
Its unbelievable how all of us seem to want the same thing when there exist enough things in the world to satiate almost every soul (even after carefully considering the exploding population).
And what tops this list of The Unbelievables is how each of us wants exactly what the other wants and show complete disregard to their own needs, which infact lie completely elsewhere, more often than not! And yet without this the world wouldnt have been the way it is! As Darwin had postulated, when many try to achieve the same thing only the ones fittest to acquire it shall acquire it! All the great inventions, the booming businesses would have this very peculiar characteristic of man to thank for. And most of us are way too hardened and callous to this fight for survival to crib.

The reason i ever let my brain go down to such level of grave pondering is cause i find myself at that dreadful age when every step u take matters. (its a pity, there can be no more spending of unragarded for time in the toilet trying to figure out the nuances of life (many have pointed out that there certainly are better places to put such grave pondering in but i feel at my best in there) or sitting at the beach wondering how long wud i have to swim to reach the other end...) This November, if everything goes as planned, i would have to give an examination called the CAT! If ever there were innumerous people fighting for a handful of seats it is here. And for those who have gone from strength to strength (mostly courtesy the lady luck in this case) in their lives, the CAT is a treacherous hurdle. Treacherous because it has the ferocious knack of completely swallowing away ones joy of successes. Cause simple statistic points out that the odds of not cracking CAT are humongously more than cracking it! And yet i have set out on the quest to somehow manage to crack it! Annoying....!! Its funny why anyone would put oneself against such odds, and well the answer lies in the very characteristic of man i pointed out! Its unbelievable, as I have already mentioned too many times!

Oh! but the reason i mentioned CAT was that, because of this CAT's preparatory class I had to unwillingly put myself into a fast train heading towards Dadar! If I were to point out that this was a Sunday and it was half past 12 in the afternoon and I was to get in from Andheri, many would say that the journey would not be much of a hassle. That’s exactly the kind of mindset I had whilst reaching the station. However, it turned out that I had not considered the prospect of there being a Blockage of trains! Well so suddenly the Sunday became much more like a Monday and the afternoon much more like a morning, but the heat of the afternoon remained so! I blessed those days I had spent during early college days when I had mastered the act of getting into a rather FULL train (there generally seems to be no place for one person to fit in, but somehow, at least 20 manage to squeeze in!). And mastering the act of getting in means u need to be in the first 5 of those 20 people. So I managed to get in unscathed! And mind you that is a serious achievement. Since you are talking about competing (well even here there is competition..aghhh!) with people who consider getting in as a matter of life and death and would not mind landing their fists, elbows, heads or legs, all of which are sweaty and smelly, into either your stomach, mouth, eyes, and other places which aren’t in the realm of ‘worth being mentionable’ places! But sufficient to say that these actions can easily deter one from their main action of getting in and make them sit down at that very place in anguish!

Well, getting in is just half the battle won, cause then one has to very strategically find a place small enough for ones toes to fit in and close enough to something that can be held for support. In doing so one has to realize that anyone else’s shoulder, hand, shirt, ear or hair do not qualify as things one holds for support unless that anyone is someone u know or your loved one, in the latter case there are good chances of one wanting to hold many other things of the body for support or otherwise but they are best left to the reader’s imagination. It’s sufficient to say here that many couples do relish this congestion (with all due respect to their bond of love). Well sadly for me I was travelling alone so there wasn’t much for me to relish, though I would hate the notion of getting physical in front of 100 other people many of whom would ogle at such a site. Even more sadly around me were many people who had not read the above guidelines of finding support and mistook me as an object of support. One felt my face was a fairly good resting place for his hand and another thought I would be easier if he’d just put his hand on my shoulder then bother about taking it up till the handle. The other shoulder was devoted to this young guy who seemed to be enjoying talking to his girl on the phone at my loss! Suddenly, a someone in front of me felt the need to scratch his behind and if u know how close things are in a Mumbai train u’d what also he managed to scratch in the process. I am not saying that I did not do anything to avoid this but when u have two hands up on the handle u can’t really do much. The feeling of being used like this and literally manhandled was shitty (for the lack of a better word).

But there was more in store. That’s life in short for you. Exactly when you think that all that could go wrong has gone wrong and there is scope only for good things to happen, life surprises u with another setback. So, at this juncture, when I was certain the journey to dadar had seen almost all setbacks one last arose in for of a small kid. The woman behind me happened to be too tired of holding her kid and decided to put him down. I am at a loss to understand how that poor soul managed to fit on the ground or how he managed to remain unsuffocated! But all these thoughts were drawn away when the poor lad decided to hold onto my shorts for support. No grudges against him, but he probably in the fear of getting lost in all those legs around him, managed to really pull hard at them! Its another mystery that those loyal shorts managed to hang onto me and may they be blessed for that! Its strange how life keeps on pushing you on this fast track, and u keep on following those orders.

We keep saying we have no choice, but the truth remains that we choose not to have a choice! It comes across as a serious thought but do we really have the time to bother about it? Isn’t tomorrow’s assignment more important? We all wish we could spend more time on the beach (or the toilet, as it suits each) pondering but in the end we chose to remain apparently busy. We keep running away from that choice on the pretext, that we're on this fast track...

at the barbers......

2009-06-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

wow....!! finally i'm back to this place.....
Its been a while now, the urge to blog has always been building up but have never found too much time or the patience to put it into practice!! darn it....i'll stop trying to warm up to it and i'll get on with it anyway!!

So, the sequence of events is as this, due to a sudden turn of events, and mind you, this time, unexpectedly and pleasantly for the good, i landed up having what they call and internship! I say its pleasant because every engineer or budding engineer for that matter would manage to get some industrial exposure, which, considering tho obsoleteness, if such a word does indeed exist, of the present day engineering curriculum, does a world of good to the poor fellow! And i say unexpected because after trying everywhere for an internship I finally managed to get one due to a fellow friend's benevolent gesture just when when all hope was as good as lost. Pretty melodramatic you might say, or well, i might force u to believe!!

But the crux of the matter remains that i landed up in (or is it into) the corporate world of LNT Control and Automation in Ghansoli, which unbelievably is an actual place. And this required me to behave in accord with a certain code of ethics and this behaving involved dressing up and appearing decent too. Well most people who dare to know me would quickly point out that appearing decent is way out of the small bunch of things that i can manage with considerable results. Yet, since there was absolutely no way out but to give my appearance such a touch that it would somehow manage to start appearing decent, i decided that that certain touch had to be a complete shave of my beard! This bit of decision making required way too much of contemplation on on my part since many have claimed and rightly so that after a shave its fairly difficult to decide towards which side does my gender lie and due to the heavy difficulty in deciding many decide it doesnt tilt towards either direction, which is worse that it tilting completely to the wrong side altogether, if you know what i mean! Not that anything is wrong with my countenance (when there is no trace of hair on it), but in the wake of all the Abhishekh Bacchans, the MS Dhonis, the Yuvraj Singhs, all of whom sport a stubble, most have forgotten the handsomeness and the decentness that emerges out of a nice clean shave. (That explains why that daring young man no longer manages to go to his office kayaking through the ferocious waters...it is because he's completely shaven..which means he's outta vogue! and so is Old Spice if the nothing above rings a bell!) Still, after considerable weighing of matters I decided that a clean shave is my best bet at maintaining a code of ethics!

Its fairly easy to shave ur own hair, (more so if you are not a woman, and i aint one, which i hope all of u have already figured out!) still with me, i would mostly end up with a hair or two unshaven which gives one a disgusting appearance, not to forget him becoming the butt of all jokes, making one fell like a butt itself. So, it became inevitable to visit a saloon! This course of action had to be carried out on a sunday, a day where getting out of your bed is almost unacceptable to your body. Well it was a grim battle that i had to fight with that body of mine but i manged to get on my feet. However, by the time I did manage to properly get up it was midday and i had to commit the horrendous sin of venturing out into the scorching heat and all for the sake of that miserable shave!

Any barber is capable of shaving ur hair off well, even the ones on the footpath are fairly skilled at that, so i dint have to choose special saloon (another case where our sex has a thumping advantage). I managed to go to a shady one down the road, since it was the closes thing to my house in which men can get their hair cut! I realized my mistake immediately after stepping in as "oh oh janejana" were the first words that hit my ears..of course that was after i took off my head phones which were obediently reproducing "sweet home alabama" being played by the cell phone! I wasnt sure if it was the striking difference in the two genres of songs or the sudden sight of a famous hindi actor taking off his shirt and apparently playing a guitar that numbed all my senses! But there i was waiting for my turn to come and seeing the string of barbers murmuring (one almost pulling off an encore of doffing off his shirt) the song! When i think of it now i feel a quick act of putting my headphones back on would have been very helpful, life saving possibly, but i was way too stunned to perform any sort of action after having been transported into a completely different world. Not that i have anything against it, but the sudden manner in which it was thrusted upon me would have taken the air out of anyone's chest.

Slowly but surely my chance came! Til then i had gathered myself enough to be able to convey to my allotted barber that i shall be needing him to shave my beard. He very kindly brought a cloth and put it across my upper body and equally unkindly tied it across my neck, possibly an attempt to declare who was in power there! I took the hint. I dunno what it is with these barbers but they love to play around with your face. Not at all like ur girlfriend does with yours but a lot like a butcher handles his meat. they happen to grip ur face with one hand and turn it to their liking, if u dont comply they bring in another hand, pass out a grunt, and with some fighting manage to put it in the right position. This 'right position' has many times come to me as stunning cause i personally was never aware of my neck or my face to achieve such unorthodox positions!

Well all that manhandling was too much to handle for me and i decided the only way to get through it was to keep my eyes shut..and comply! Well, any chances of me raising a voice against him were outta hand cause he had his grip firm around that cloth which if would have been tightened any more would have surely strangled me and now he even have a blade in his hand. Its funny how ur barber can easily assassinate u if he wants. Its difficult to imagine how the likes of Barack Obama or Manmohan Singh could ever trust their barber, but then, neither of them really need one, one has hardly any hair and the other has way too many by now to ever bother bout trimming them to size! (With all necessary respect towards both of them ofcourse) I felt a little secure since my killing had absolutely no importance to politics or to the society, though many would revel in the pass of such an event, since then there would then remain absolutely no one in the world who would be capable of talking utter nonsense! Yet, i hope, that wasnt reason enough to kill me, not for the poor old barber at least. That is too much digressing from the main story in which i had duly closed my eyes and that slowly got me drowsy and later got me asleep.

I went into a good sort of trance, where everything was blank, colorless, and there was this overpowering peace...the whole feeling was fittingly relaxing!
But like all goo things, this also had to come to an end, it started with some song intruding into my state of trance....
it sounded like "tum to thehre pardesii.......", that unpleasent song triggered a whole lot of other events which as u shall later see can be classified as equally unpleasant if not more. My state of peaceful, relaxing, blank, colorless trance was broken, no, shattered and my brain nerves were pounding because of the new, unwanted, incoherent garble of words that hit my eardrums not to forget the loud, intolerable, flashy music too! At that very moment i felt a pair of hands almost caressing my cheeks, such a feeling is almost, in fact completely novel to me since there has never been any caressing carried out on any part of my body leave alone my face. (Not that by this i'm trying to make a plea of to be caressed but it is just a matter of simple fact) This caressing made me involuntarily open my eyes, who could not resist to have a sight of that being which had managed to do the impossible! Well only i know the horror that struck me after falling prey to this involuntary action. I was presented the scene of a that ruddy barber staring right at my face almost too close for comfort and it almost made me yelp in disbelief or maybe I did yelp in disbelief.

However, as i was had come out of the trance things started flowing back into my mind. Things such as along with playing with your face all the time the barbers have a tendency to get way too close to it too...(and that to ensure that those one or two hair that would remain left out are completely taken off, so its not act of lust by them. Its simply what u pay them to do.) and they should not be mistaken for a girl not even if what they do is almost too similar to caressing.... !
In a while i had a face which was almost shining with light reflecting from it! It had never felt so clean before like almost all load was taken off it but for that matter it had never felt so manhandled before either! Also, most of the people that met me out of the saloon did voice their opinion that i had managed tilting to the right side of the gender scale, despite of the glowing face! That lone fact made the trip tolerable.!

PS- All this effort was put in to figure out why a frnd loved typing or "why she liked typing as a substitute for her love for typing!" in her own words which is till now absolutely incoherent!

when reality hurts!!

2007-12-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

felt like typin this..a long time back..
but well never had the courage to blog..
yeah..u all there mite jus be laughin bout the fact htat even now i int acquainted to bloggin..
but wel thats how it is!

things jus build up inside me....
when i read the mornin news paper......
"riots in xyz city....CM cals for army control"
we as citizens of india feel so completely shattered by the fact that some of our own ppl are suferin becoz of all this!
we tend to feel empathy..

the whole city under consideration is under crisis..
the normal man is affected..
the political parties are fighting...
there are armed men attackin citizens who ae clueless of whats happening
its a situation none of us wud want to be in..
readin it all in the news paprs, seein it all on news channels is terrorizin enuf..

and then comes this thought.....is all wat we see ad read really the truth?
WAT CAUSED THE CRISIS
DID A SMALL ISSUE OVER SOME RANDOM HUMAN RIGHTS?
ON SOME TEMPLE BEING CONSTRUCTED IN PLACE OF A MOSQUE?

OR WAS IT JUST A POLITICAL STUNT BY OUR POLITICIANS TO GET SOME PUBLICITY....TO SERVE SOME INTERNAL PURPOSE THAT WE HAVE ABSOLUTLEY NO CLUE ABOUT...TO TERRORIZE PEOPLE LIKE US...SO THAT THE CAN VERY NICELY AND EFFICIENTLY GO ABOUT THEIR JOB OF FOOLING US....OF JUS MISLEADING US..
MAKING US LIVE IN A WORLD CREATED BY THEM...RULED BY THEM...
a world no different from the one suggested in a movie like matrix...where THE MACHINES RUN AROUND THINGS....
here only difference is that we have not yet reached to the machines yet...its some powerful humans, making us live in a state of illusion...under terror..for reasons best known to them...
and we end up believin it because well isnt it all happening in front of out eyes...
which means surely that it must be REAL

the only point i'm trying to drive in is that...we NEVER know the truth..
the so called reality hat we are served...is so nicely modified, altered, and distorted....that it wud make us live in an illusion..
n fact the its not the reality that’s altered......REALITY is presented to us, but we are made to perceive it in the way these ppl want us to perceive it as!!

but do we really perceive things
we merely take them as is shown to us..
So engrossed in living this world...which we believe is so real...
but is it really...?
and even if we do start believing that whatever we're shown might not be the real truth..
We are left helpless....because we cant do much to change things...
or can we..?

until we can....
REALITY HURTS!