God has his own way of doing things....

Because of Us and Them!!

2011-03-16T03:53:00.020+05:30

Because we were learning to fly..
Because college was just behind us..
Because we were not royalty..
Because life was about to unfold..
Because friendships were just ephemeral..

Because I wish you were here..
Because an eclipse doesn't last forever..
Because a bitch is not just a female carnivore..
Because fights are borne out of expectations..
Because a friend in greed isn't a friend indeed..

Because of a long and lonesome highway..
Because an icon is hard to find..
Because love is always around the corner..
Because it hurts to be in love..
Because people never learn from their mistakes..

Because of a dangerous and an irresistible pastime..
Because of an unforgettable sojourn amongst the ruins..
Because we were not in our comfort zone..
Because it's always better in Goa..
Because highways lead to God's abode..

Because that pub isn't there on every street..
Because breakfast is best had a hundred miles away from home..
Because a Palolem hangover is tough to get rid of..
Because London was calling..
Because friends aren't always enchanted..

Because everybody hurts..
Because of a french cafe by the sea-side..
Because of a spectacular end to the epoch..
Because of an endless search for the soul..
Because of light at the end of a tunnel..

Because we all lived in a yellow submarine..
Because it was too hot to handle..
Because it was time to move on..
Because the States beckoned..
Because it was also the time to hold on..

Because of you and your friend..
Because of lessons in organization..
Because of betrothals and promises..
Because of those mischievous giggles..
Because we could turn the clock back for a while..

Because I was amused to death..
Because of this and because of that..
Because of a lot more..
Because somethings are best left unsaid..
Because those things just get better with time..

The wonderful angel that is..Tina Sani!!

2010-11-14T23:59:00.004+05:30

What a voice..What a person..It's true that music transcends boundaries..It's true that the greatest music is the one that emanates straight from the heart..

Hope and Healing was the theme of the performance..It's a tough job doing that when you are performing Ghazals..Ghazals which speak of the pain of loss in love..But Ghazals also speak of the pleasure in that suffering..and how the loss makes that love even more pristine and divine..Tina Sani's effort was to soothe the wounds and heal our souls..She did a fabulous job and managed to stitch together a really fine balancing act between anguish and ecstasy with her mix of nazms, ghazals and little anecdotes..

She is passionate about her singing..that shows in the way she performs..She completely immerses herself in the lyrics..It's like she wants the audience to listen to what she has to say and feel her emotions..Her gestures and expressions are witty, naughty and loud all at once..She has a voice that reaches you and is reflected back to her..and she basks marvellously in the glory of that acceptance from her listeners..

Semi-classical was never my cup of tea..She surely has changed that perception for good..Her love for the nazms and the shayari of 'Faiz Ahmed Faiz' is so deep that its inspiring..She does amazing justice as well by lending her silken voice to them..

Two days back I had not even known about someone by the name of Tina Sani..about ghazals like "Bahar Aayi", "Ab Toh Ghabra Ke", "Dasht-e-Tanhai" and the likes..When I watched the video of her performance on PTV way back in the 80's something just told me that she was unlike a traditional Ghazal singer..She has a little more flair than others, an unusually casual demeanor about herself..But most strikingly what she has is a need to connect with her audience..She wants the one's hearing her to respond..to hear what she wants to say..and to feel it..

During the entire concert one thought kept coming back to me..She never seemed to have come from a different country..neither did the absolutely brilliantly talented folks in her team on instruments..As she confessed during the show, the guy on the Tabla has been playing with her for the past 30 years..and that his presence itself was comforting enough for her..They were all from Pakistan..and they did not, even for a moment, seemed to be any less an Indian..In her own words.."We human beings keep on experimenting with everything..those experiments which fail are forgotten in the due course of time..the problem is that things which are forgotten are very easily repeated..It's only the message of love that artists like us carry along..and it's a pleasure to be in this beautiful land of yours"..Quite fascinating what wonders a mixture of philosophy and music can achieve..She and her crew were received with a generous applause at that and a standing ovation at the end of the show..

She sang a Deccan Nazm and Kabir's "Duniya Darshan Ka Mela" on one hand and "Mori Araj Suno" and "Nawai Ney" on the other hand with equal passion and fervor..That she wanted people to understand her message was obvious in the fact that she kept breaking her performances in the middle to explain in Hindi and more often in English what she was about to sing..and the two words that she used most in those explanations were 'beautiful' and 'love'..Truly the sign of a pure heart and a pristine soul..As she later confessed that she generally doesn't do that..but this was an audience in wrong of the two Hyderabads..She also added something which moved us all.."Sabse badi gawahi toh dil hi deta hai" (It's the heart that gives the best testimony)..

Tina aapa aapka tah-e-dil se shukriya!! No words can describe what a pleasure it was to be able to watch you perform..It truly was a magical night and an unforgettable gig..I would have to admit though that it was your inner beauty that struck me the most..You are a gentle soul and a genuinely lovely person..I look forward to listening much more from you in future..

Irrational Objectivity!!

2010-10-09T05:12:00.004+05:30

It's back and stronger than ever,

Like the last few embers of a long doused fire.

This wave with its crests and troughs,

In the endless ocean of a sea.

Here now and gone tomorrow,

As ephemeral as it gets.

Your absence is your existence,

As gorgeous as it gets.

It's so dull and so bland,

It's almost a little spicy.

It's so real and so magical,

It's almost a little archaic.

This road less traveled,

Seems a little too crowded.

All it needed was someone,

A little more exquisite.

Rationality is the reason,

Behind this inanity.

An intent so logical,

It almost borders insanity.

The end of the Golden Silence..and we are back !!

2010-04-01T21:15:00.006+05:30

Silence is highly underrated. Silence makes some people go insane, makes others numb. But the most common reaction to silence is anger and helplessness. Not many people in this world can be comfortable with silence. The lack of sound around them drives them mad. They are in constant search of food for their ears and their brains as long as they are awake, and probably even in their sleep. Be silent and you'd experience the whole spectrum of emotions from a single living being. Try it on more, and you'd have the most enriching life of them all.

Silence, they say, speaks louder than words. The most interesting conversations that you can have are the one's that really don't involve any oration. You can know that you know someone special when silence becomes comfortable. When silence doesn't have to be interrupted by your voice. When your eyes talk and the mind understands.

The power of speech is probably the greatest asset that human beings have. It solely distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, who seemingly have no way to converse, apart from their actions. For that exact same reason, an ability so strong and so powerful, should be used wisely. Words, once said, can never be taken back. Think twice before you speak, because you might end up losing more than what you could ever gain.

There is nothing sweeter than a healthy relationship with a person. Analogically speaking, there is nothing more bitter than a relationship gone bad. It just takes you from one extreme of sadness to the next without ever giving you the peace of mind that you deserve. It's like quicksand wherein, the more you try to come out, the more you sink into it. It's worse actually, because you cannot ask for help from anyone, cause no one's got the bloody time !!

Relationships, they say, are based on communication. Two people can never think alike, let alone be alike. No one in this world is the same as the other. That is why we are all individuals first. Communication forms that base of the understanding that you develop with another human being. Little do they know, that greater forces in nature, far beyond our comprehensive capabilities, are at play in bringing two people closer and even at splitting the deepest of connections. We are just tiny creatures in this wide wide universe, trying to comprehend the meaning of our existence and trying to put anything that we cannot comprehend into tiny little axioms that no one can ever prove and nobody ever questions.

The most important thing to realize is that it's our existence in itself is the most significant fact. Anything that has happened before us or is going to happen after us is totally immaterial. We can live with anything that was not there before we were born, and we can live with anything that was not there after we were born. Speech being one of them. Just like a mother can understand an infant's emotion without any conversation, so can we. It's more important to have that awareness and that connection with a person to understand him, than any other sound or action possible.

So ladies and gentlemen. Keep your mouth shut and let your eyes talk !!

Adios Amigos !!

2009-08-05T21:51:00.003+05:30

Its been a long long journey with me and this blog and I guess the time has come for us to part ways, for today is a day when, life as I had known it, changes forever.

Sometimes, we keep thinking about doing something and never end up doing it. Other times, we throw our thinking hats out of the window and just go for it. It's amazing how beautiful life can be at times..how horrific at others..

I'd like to add that this is just the end of the beginning of the adventure that is life..Someday or the other everyone realizes that its time for them to move on..I think that time has come for me now..

Cheers to all the patrons of this blog..It was only your endless support that made me sustain it for this long..I am alleviating you of your pain and granting you freedom from this torture, this very moment..

ADIOS..AMIGOS !!

Stay happy forever and ever .. :) :)

It takes two..

2009-07-21T16:22:00.005+05:30

Sweet drops of silence,
The venomous glint of the eyes.
Holding onto the sole saviour,
That kept them from melting away.

As he walked the road less taken,
Wondering about the endless possibilities.
The sheer brilliance of her existence,
Took him far away from reality.

The two entities were on a collision course,
Unless someone diverted their paths.
The catastrophe that lied ahead,
Left their predicament all in force.

Denial of the obvious was his crime,
The voice of his conscience was too loud.
He could not feel what his soul craved for,
Could not read what his mind wrote.

When the rendezvous finally happened,
Sparks flew off in all directions.
None could make out one from the other,
Their bittersweet fate of damnation.

I don't know !!

2009-06-08T16:29:00.003+05:30

Do you know yourself,
As well as I know you?
Or do you keep contemplating,
Searching for a clue?

Confusion is your source of desperation,
An enigma of some sort.
Eccentricity is an obsession,
Naivete, your sole possession.

You come across as a wonder,
A sparkle in the still waters.
Your smile lights up the sky,
The silence takes me into a trance.

Why are you always on my mind,
Like a voice inside my head.
You speak to me in a quiet hush,
Reminding me of my fantasy.

I wish you were for real,
That you had a mortal soul.
A bloom which I could hold,
Like a petal you'd unfold.

The Beast Within !!

2009-05-04T17:51:00.003+05:30

Life is not measured by the number of breaths that we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Life is lived in a continuous set of phases. You realize the importance of a phase only when its time to move on to the next one. While you are living out the phase that you are in, you are totally oblivious to the existence of space and time and world around you. That's just because things are so stable and move so slowly that you get seriously bored of it. Bored of it like hell.

Then, when the transition arrives, you start to realize how you did not live each moment to the fullest and how much you would love to turn back the clocks and be blissful all over again. Things, they have a habit of changing. Everything in this world has a nature of adapting to the environment and the changing surroundings. The one's who can change are the one's who survive. The rest are lost in the annals of history.

Change is something that I hate. I loathe change. I detest change. Change is always for the worse. I might be speaking the language of an ever pessimist but that's truly what I believe. Sadly for me, I too know that change is the only inevitable truth. But I just hate it when somebody tells me about it. I just hate it. Everyone knows about this fact, so why do they have to keep preaching the same old blasphemy to everyone else.

We human beings were actually supposed to be animals. What makes us different is that we have emotions and a conscience that tells us the difference between the correct and the incorrect things to do. Somehow I feel though, that being an animal is the best way to live. Everyone keeps reminding everyone else that to be successful one has to be ruthless and barbaric and all. What I make of such people is that they are not human beings. Their lust for success drives them insane and transforms them into brainless animals who are just looking for opportunities to pounce on the prey that comes first on their radar. They do reach the heights of fame, but sometimes I wonder how much they would have lost in getting there. Is everything that they have left behind worth the result that they have achieved ?

No one is genetically programmed to love and care for anyone else. Its always a physical need that drives two people closer and the society around them that puts a garb on that surreal bonding annotating it with meaningful names like relationship. Everyone in this world is living for their own self. The emotions and the feelings and the connection is all a farce. Every animal is programmed to love their offspring. Any other connection between to entities is an eyewash.

Expectation is the root cause of all misery, disappointment and anguish. Once you learn to be free of all the bonds and not expect anything from anyone, only then can you find true happiness. The redemption does not lie without, it lies within. All that one has got to do is to look for it. No one should be scared of expressing what they feel like. The only thing to remember is that when someone is expressing themselves, one should not read in between the lines. Its important to take people at their face value and believe that they mean what they say and they say what they mean. Live the life of a cynic but not that of a pessimist. Everyone in this world is going to hurt you one time or the other. Some of them are just worth the pain.

They Come, They Go !!

2009-04-13T00:04:00.003+05:30

They come, they go,
Little do they know.
I am a tiny little speck,
In this great big wreck.

They come, they go,
Like water they flow.
I am next to a crumb,
All my senses are numb.

They come, they go,
Rain or shine, storm or snow.
I keep standing still,
As if in a drill.

They come, they go,
When will they ever grow.
I lend a helping hand,
To my brothers in the marching band.

They come, they go,
Will they ever be able to show.
I for one would never say never,
Only if they knew that friends are forever.

The poison of first Love !!

2009-04-05T23:25:00.007+05:30

A girl is lucky,
If she is a man's first love.
A man is lucky,
If he is the girl's last.

I walk this wilderness,
As lonely as a dark cloud.
There isn't a silver lining,
In the annals of my fate.

I know how it is to be in love,
As pristine and pure as it can be.
When I was possessed and obsessed,
Your comfort was a bliss.

You have chosen a new path for yourself,
I vacillate between the two extremes.
When I try to get over my past,
You hit me back with your wild innocence.

I have sulked and I have cried,
Those tears I wept were meant for you.
They helped me move on with my life,
Why does now, the past haunt you.

I wish you well, is all I wish,
As much as I am going to miss.
Those thoughts that I etched deep within,
Some memories which truly are mine.

I am trying to reason your eccentricities,
Why you laughed when you cried.
This endless search is my home,
You and me all alone.

Romance Unlimited !!

2009-03-29T17:07:00.002+05:30

Its been so long that I 've known you,
Now I wonder, if I really know you.
Its been so long that I 've seen you,
Now I wonder, if I ve really seen you.

When I look at your face,
My eyes just cant see anything but your eyes.
Your stare pierces my flesh like a sword,
Then you ease the pain with your smile.

I imagine a life without you,
Then I realize I am already living one.
I imagine a life with you,
And the whole world just transforms.

Pondering and contemplating is all that I do,
Someday I will be there with you.
By your side, I will be resting,
Heaven wont be far away.

I meet you and my heart starts thumping,
Reminding me of its existence.
Every single time that I see you,
My thoughts are all over the place.

May the dream come true, my sweet Lord,
Wish that I see you soon.
That one day we could be together,
Just staring at the big white moon.

Love of the Evil !!

2009-03-02T21:32:00.003+05:30

Optimists say that one should be glad when the worst has happened, since things can only get better from there on. Well, what do the optimists know !!

There are points in everyone's lifetime when they are so down and low that you feel that it just cannot get worse. Then suddenly the abyss that you are in, decides to give you another shocker. Deep down in that trench of darkness and gloom you realize how helpless it is to fight your fate. You realize how you are doomed to misery and grief all your life.

As soon as you accept the fact that you are a helpless soul in the middle of a deserted island, things begin to change. It is a sort of revelation that comes as a bolt from the sky. Life never ceases to surprise me. The emotion and the drama that unfolds each and every passing moment is worth every second that you breathe.

What is this life, that we have been graced with, by the God almighty, really meant for? Is it just meant for getting up everyday with a sense of hope, struggling your way the whole day and then coming back to the same dungeon at the end of the day licking your wounds from the battles you fought all day long. Is it a routine that we are supposed to follow or is there some message in all this. Does He want us to break free and wander in search of the ultimate truth, the treasure of absolute happiness.

When you surrender to your destiny, the game that unfolds is quite a marvel. They say that life is lived every moment. Every moment should be cherished and made worth remembering. Satisfaction comes not to those who chase it, but to those who have become oblivious to the fact that it even exists. Human beings were meant to be depressed souls searching for gratification all their lives, not knowing the fact that the sheer pleasure lies in destruction itself.

Sadistic pleasures are a fact of life. It is so simple to be happy but so difficult to be simple. Learning to appreciate the evil in you is the only way out of your misery. The love of the evil is the carnal sin that every living soul in this disconsolate universe is supposed to undertake, for, the demise of the worldly desires is the beginning of the highway to perdition.

The Rime of the Modern Mariner !!

2009-02-17T02:36:00.004+05:30

When the wedding bells tolled,
And the couple exchanged vows.
I felt blessed to be there,
Watching them espouse.

That blissful ceremony,
Was the epitome of trust.
For someone like me,
Left utterly nonplussed.

Into the skies I went,
Met a strange exotic bird.
The fowl wanted to know something,
About a place I never ever heard.

I spoke with impunity,
During the lengthy conversation.
The bird was left impressed,
By the amount of information.

I went to the nest after that,
Met a tiny little dude.
I had hoped to see him smile,
He was just not in the mood.

Hours passed like minutes,
As I kept on trying.
Finally the smile came,
And then I felt like crying.

I moved on to explore a bit,
Met a whole new flock.
If I'd hoped for a quiet journey,
I was in for a shock.

The group was young,
And a lot of fun.
I was drowsy though,
Wish I had a gun.

The destination was far,
The journey was slow.
When we finally arrived,
We had nowhere to go.

The no man's land,
Was close to the border.
When the girls started dancing,
It seemed out of order.

The shopping had to happen,
What if there was no sale.
This is one of those aspects,
Always fuzzy to a male.

The shrine by the night,
Looked even more divine.
The still waters by its side,
Reflected a heavenly shine.

The next morning we had to go,
To the same holy place.
Sleep, hunger and lethargy,
Was all over our face.

When the plans went haywire,
No one had a clue.
I was just as perplexed,
Contemplating what to do.

We wandered like nomads,
Ended up in a garden.
Which was supposed to be a tribute,
To martrys gunned down by a crazy warden.

Life slowly dragged on,
Overwhelmed by depression.
The end was coming closer,
Of the team's disintegration.

The journey back was a cakewalk,
Apart from the lack of sleep.
We were in the middle of an ocean,
In a big white heap.

The farewells were quick and tidy,
As I had to rush.
To the place where the toddler lay,
Sleeping in quiet hush.

That same day went reflecting,
On the days gone by.
What a week it had been,
With all its lows and high.

If the journey was a picture,
The octet had to be its soul.
We fitted together like a mesh,
To reach the common goal.

Life is nothing but a journey,
You meet people along the way.
Some moments are there to stay,
Memories that just dont fade away.

Punjab - In Retrospect : Part I

2009-02-15T03:01:00.006+05:30

The first time I went to Punjab was when I had just finished school. It was a stroke of pure luck that I was able to make it. I should really thank my uncle for actually taking the trouble of joining a spoilt brat like me on a trip around the state to where my origins belong.

They say that a visit to Punjab actually changes your outlook and your mindset. At least it has a lasting influence on your thought process since the people and the atmosphere just overwhelm you. You just have to experience the place since no amount of praise can do justice to the feeling of actually being there. If there is one place where you feel welcome, it most definitely has to be Punjab.

Ever since I came back from that trip I had promised myself that one day I was going to return to my motherland. My fortune had other plans in store for me though. I did manage to go back to the mother ship once again but the occasion and the responsibilities were so hugely surmounting that I did not get any time to get a feel of that place.

Finally it took another stroke of genius from another friend to get me back to the Land of Five Rivers. That week of my life can never be erased from my otherwise amnesiac memory. I experienced so many emotions, lows, highs, troubles and favors that I actually was more mentally drained than physically fatigued at the end of it all.

The journey began with me having to go to Chennai to attend the marriage of two of the closest friends that I have ever known. They have actually made me believe that true love exists and their solemn wedding was just the epitome for me. No other marriage has ever made more sense to me than that one. I haven't enjoyed any marriage more than I enjoyed their's. Love was truly in the air and I could get a whiff of it being there. Chennai was etched into my memory forever.

Before I could blink I had to depart to join a highly anticipated and the second leg of my trip up north. As I was leaving all alone in that cab going to the airport I had only one thought in my mind which was "I should have slept earlier". More seriously, I was just thinking how some events change one person's life and I was wondering if this was one of them. That one day had changed a little bit of my cynical mindset. Chennai had already done what I wanted Punjab to do to me.

I had a hunch that the flight would also not be as uninteresting as all the others that I have been on and I was right. As I sat in the front row of that flight to Delhi, all I wanted to do was sleep and wake up only when I had reached my destination. Then all of a sudden this British gentleman came and sat next to me. I generally avoid talking to people on flights and I give such condescending looks to others that no one else bothers talking to me as well. That trick fortunately did not work on this Brit chap and we ended up talking about loads and loads of stuff on the flight. He was so impressed with my knowledge about Delhi that he gave me his contact and promised that he would show me around London in case I ever wound up there. Again I had ended up enjoying my time even though I detest flight journeys to the core.

Next stop was my nephew's house and no sooner had he seen me that the sweet little thing started raking his brains out trying to find that grey cell in that tiny little head of his, which recognized me. I never liked babies and especially the ones which cry, which, as a matter of fact all of them do. I dont know why though this toddler with his huge eyes and his chubby cheeks and his wafts of overgrown hair and his unrelenting innocence made me change my mind about babies. I just wanted him to like me as much as I loved him. His one smile was all that I wanted and it took me 8 hours to finally achieve it. Maybe it was a sign that he had registered me and my face in his memory. For me it was one of those timeless moments in life.

I wanted to spend all my time with him and my sister (of course) but I had a promise to keep and so I had to leave. The journey had not even begun and I was already lost in translation. I was physically present in one place but my mind was still trying to catch up with my physical being. The adrenaline was flowing and the heart was thumping. It happens when you expect the unexpected to happen and your future is all that you can see since you are oblivious to your present and your past.

Punjab - In Retrospect : Part II

2009-02-15T03:00:00.010+05:30

When I ended up at the railway station I almost forgot my cell phone in the cab. I shook my head, gave myself a kick in the backside and pleaded my mind to stay with me for a little more time before I gave it some rest. I was mistaken. What was going to come my way was a barrage of verbal assault from the gang I was supposed to go with. Before all that happened though I spent a little time with the close friend (A) who had organized the trip and another gang member (V). (A) was looking tired, obviously because of all the travelling. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere the other gang members arrived and all hell broke loose.

I have always been amazed to see how each person reacts when they meet someone new. Everybody has his/her own special or rather unique way of meeting and greeting a stranger. What made this congregation even more interesting was the fact that we all had to be together for the next two days and so everyone started off showing their best self.

Punjab beckoned and as though some conspiracy was being unfolded the train that we had to board was getting delayed by the minute. When it finally arrived I thanked the heavens for my mind had had enough of introductions and pleasantries. I got into the coach and was getting ready to sleep when (A) quite surprisingly came off and made me realize how filthy and selfish I was acting. I knew that (A) was right and so I decided to spend a little more time with the gang. There were two people who hailed from a village in Punjab (CJ a.k.a. Devil 1) and (JS), two Tamilian twins (Devil 2) and (CHA) and one Bengali (SO a.k.a. Devil 3). All in all it was just the perfect mixture of stupidity and intelligence that makes a trip interesting. I spent as much time with those folks as I could. My mind had switched off a long time back but it was only when my body started giving signals that these folks relieved me and I gladly obliged.

I slept like a baby and the next thing I knew was that we were in Jullundur on our way to Amritsar. The events of the past few days had been playing on my mind. I decided to get off the train to just have a change of environment before the train started chugging off again. There are few things in life better than sipping hot tea on a strange looking platform with the winter chill biting you. What makes it even more special is if you have friends who share the same interests as you. Tea never tasted as good as it did on that platform in Jullundur city.

The next stop was Amritsar and when we finally got down the anticipation of it all had just drained the excitement out of us. We wanted to explore but our hearts and our minds were just not in sync. In a fit of helplessness we decided to book the return journey tickets back to Delhi and that later proved to be the single biggest mistake in my book. But a trip is incomplete without it's screw-ups. As travellers our first priority was lodging and we managed to find a decent hotel which was reasonably priced as well. The cost of living in the city had struck me as shockingly low, but I chose to ignore the first signals.

It was already late afternoon and we decided that our starved souls needed some respite. So we headed towards the "Brothers Dhaba" which sounds quite uncanny when the Punjabi name of the restaurant is translated in English. In the heat of the moment each of us ordered a full Punjabi meal and by the time the food arrived we had already started regretting the decision. The calorie scale would have to invent new units to measure the amount of fat that the meals contained but to all of our surprise we gobbled all of it up and even had space left for some Lassi. A trip to Punjab is incomplete if you dont have a glassful of Lassi right after the heaviest meal you will ever have in your lifetime.

Next destination was the Wagah Border and it just had to live up to its expectations. The place is utterly crowded and very poorly managed but the ordeal of reaching the destination is definitely not in your mind when you make that final rush to the Indo-Pak border. The entire ceremony is quite a marvel. It certainly got my, almost dead, patriotic juices flowing and that in itself justified the amount of chaos, energy and decibel levels that that place generated.

One piece of advice to all folks who love to travel. Always keep some time in your itinerary for shopping immaterial of which place you visit, since when you travel with the shopaholic sex you got to give in to their addiction. We all decided that in the best interest of us all, we have a rather sober dinner to quench the raging fire in our tummies. By the time we reached our rooms almost everyone had decided to call it a day and were about to retire. I had other plans though.

I knew that the "Harmandir Sahab" looked even more divine by the night and I knew that I just had to be there when it mattered. Luckily that enthusiasm rubbed off on all of the rest of the gang members and everyone decided to join me on the holy trip. (A), (Devil - 2), (CHA) and (SO) being the items that they are, happened to try on their shopping. I must admit that all of them were looking quite cute though.

That one night in that heavenly place is the stuff dreams are made of. If I ever was closer to God it was then and it was at that place sitting next to the "Sarovar" looking at that wonder structure standing majestically with the serene waters around it trying to soothe my restless soul. It was as if the silence was talking louder than ever, preaching us, telling us that true happiness lies only in selflessness.

It was only when (SO) caught cold that we decided to leave since we had plans of visiting the place the next morning and it was not worth risking it. I knew that none of us was going to make it. It was tough to leave that place and it was even tougher to understand how one can feel so connected to something having seen it only minutes back.

Punjab - In Retrospect : Part III

2009-02-15T03:00:00.009+05:30

Life goes on and when that day ended I felt that I had learnt something. I felt that that trip had already been a success and that, we all, together as a unit, just clicked. The next day promised a lot more fun and a lot more excitement. It turned out to be something quite extraordinary though. The first thing we did was to visit the Golden Temple again and have langar. Although it was a lot more crowded this time round, that place still taught so much to me that I was just left overawed by its beauty.

When we left that place finally, I knew that we would not be seeing anymore of it anytime soon but I also knew that one day I would be back to visit this out of the world monument. The next place we visited was the Jallianwala Bagh. I had a lot of expectations from this place but it turned out to be the worst experience of them all, apart from a few laughs that I had, seeing General Dyer (CHA) firing bullets while her sister (Devil - 1) combed her hair.

We had absolutely nothing to do after this since the plan that (JS) had made had to be cancelled partly because of the delay and partly because of our lethargy and we were left as clueless as dorks about the future of our itinerary. We visited a temple after that which had the idols of the Gods and Goddesses from all over India and was a nice little tweak to the trip.

All this while it just seemed that the end of the sojourn was coming close and that, alongwith the dull weather lent a depressing feeling to my mind. We went back to the hotel to freshen up and get set for the ride back but not before we hogged some badly needed food and beverages. I managed to catch a little nap as well after the binging session and that helped me to carry on for the rest of the day.

The journey back to Delhi was quite uneventful except for the fact that the morning fog there was reported as one of the worst in the history of that city. Sitting in that bus, it felt almost like we were in the middle of a white ocean, trying to find the black strip on which we had to move. When I finally split up with the gang to go on my separate way I felt no emotion at all. I knew that this was quite abnormal at that time. Maybe my mind was still trying to come to terms with the fact that the trip had actually ended.

I had one more day to spend with the little dude and it seemed like he was the only one who could make me laugh after the terrifyingly tiring ordeal that I had been through. During my spare time that day when I regained my senses, I tried recounting the events that had transpired in the last week. I realized that those wonderful moments were never going to come back. I realized how much we all had achieved together as a group. I realized how fortunate I was to have been a part of a team which never let the spirits dampen. I realized how it is the company that makes an average trip into an unforgettable experience.

The soulmate, the flights, the friends, the Little Dude, the family, the roads, the places, the moments, the feelings and the memories had more than completed the collage of my life that week and it turned out to be quite a masterpiece. I most certainly felt alive that week of my life.....Punjab had done it again !!

It's that time of the year again

2009-01-03T01:22:00.002+05:30

Life seems to have come a full circle
I am getting back with those whom I had left far behind
Sometimes I wonder if its part of a greater conspiracy
I wonder if its God who is behind this play of massive proportions

Its that time of the year again
When you breathe frost out of your breath
When Santa is just round the corner
You feel excited just to be alive

In an inebriated state my emotions are overflowing
I tend to shout but wonder if anyone wants to listen
If we keep running in a circle who wins the race
I keep meeting those along the way whom I detest to the core

Its that time of the year again
When you just yearn for one cup of coffee
When a warm hug is all you need
You feel like being alone in a state of surrealism

If ever there was a way out that I could choose
Standing still is the worst feeling of them all
What do you do when you feel incapable of breaking the shackles
The invisible barriers seem to be stopping the blowing wind

Its that time of the year again
When you feel that miracles are in the air
You feel lucky to have people alive around you
Celebrating the same joy as you

Things, they have a habit of changing
Nothing in this world is stationary
Change is the only inevitable overpowering emotion
Love is the only thing that is temporary

Its that time of the year again
When you want to fall in love all over again
The feeling of knowing that someone special
When you rediscover yourself all over again

No more a teenager!!

2008-10-27T15:46:00.003+05:30

It has been quite a while since I wrote anything about the love of my life, my Ford Ikon. Yes, all this while we have been together, I never realized when the time and the miles flew away. I guess it was only a matter of time before she came out of her teenage and reached the important milestone of 20K.

I had always been fond of Ford vehicles and when Ikon hit the Indian markets a long time back, it was my immediate favorite. Since then I had a secret desire to own an Ikon at some point in my life and on that wonderful day of June the twenty-second I finally managed to realize my childhood dream.

Having driven my Car for so long, I have come to realize how it is not just a piece of machinery. I have realized how much like a human, can a car be. It is quite like another woman in your life, which takes amazing care of you if you keep her happy and can be painfully tough to handle when upset.

There definitely is this connection between you and the car that you own which cant be put into words. You just know when it is in the pink of its health and when it is down with a fever. It does not take you long to realize how your vehicle is feeling on any given day and you just learn to adjust with it automatically. You know which pothole can bruise your vehicle and which one's she can just glide over. It's the most amazing feeling to be in a relationship with someone when everything is understood implicitly without ever saying a word.

Yes, I know, I do sound like I m in love and to tell you the truth, I actually am. It was the sole reason that I took my sweetheart on a trip to Goa, to celebrate an important pitstop in the journey that we had embarked upon a long time back. I never know how can I ever let go of you....Thanks for being there with me....Always !!

Dark Side of the Moon

2008-10-22T00:43:00.005+05:30

When life was beautiful,
You seemed so fresh.
When the mind was free,
No flaw I could see.

Everything you did,
Made me laugh.
And your cheerful smile,
Never revealed your guile.

Somewhere deep down I feared,
My conscience had warned me.
I kept ignoring the sign,
Assuming everything was just fine.

Slowly life began to change,
It started shedding its colors.
You did not seem as immaculate either,
When you lost your funny vigor.

I tried to forget and forgive,
Blamed everything on my fate.
I wanted to give you one more chance,
To help myself come out of the trance.

Then I chose to walk the walk,
Take the road to perdition.
I never wanted anyone alongside,
When I trod along the seaside.

And there you stood on the crossroads,
As lonely as a cloud.
You had lost all your wisdom,
Controlling you was gruesome.

Slowly life dragged on,
Like a never ending highway.
Every breath was fuelling my rage,
While I sat there like a sage.

I was face to face with reality,
As ugly as it looked.
I never knew this aspect of life,
It was like a never ending strife.

Now I have chosen to forgive,
Over time I will forget.
I don't know if I should stay,
Or into the distance I walk away.

Hyderabad-Goa Road Trip

2008-10-14T04:16:00.005+05:30

Here is a gist of how to reach Goa from Hyderabad via road for all those driving enthusiasts who love to hit the highway.

These are the major routes to Goa from Hyderabad.

1. Hyderabad - NH9 - Sholapur - Kolhapur - NH4 - Belgaum - Londa - Panaji.
2. Hyderabad - NH9 - Sholapur - NH13 - Bijapur - Belgaum - Londa - Panaji.
3. Hyderabad - NH9 - Sholapur - Sangli - Kolhapur - Savantwadi - Mapuca - NH17 - Panaji.
4. Hyderabad - NH7 - Raichur - SH20 (K'taka) - Lingusur - Hungund - Bagalkot - Yergatti - Belgaum - Londa - Panaji.

I always prefer to take the 4th route mentioned because it is one of the shortest possible, also almost 80% of the times the road is empty and the condition of the roads is marvelous. The only blemish is the drive from Londa to Goa border where the road is in a pathetic condition thanks to all the dumpers and lorries plying those so-called highways (but then you would anyways have to encounter that road on 3 of the 4 options mentioned above).

The round trip mileage would definitely not be less than 1600KM leaving aside the travel in Goa which one can safely assume to be anywhere from a 20-50KM average a day if you like to roam around in Goa. Again, it totally depends on the enthusiasm the drivers show.

Have atleast 2 good drivers who have previous experience on highways with you with one backup driver who can drive on empty highways. An ideal scenario would be to have more than 3 good drivers because that way, you can get a lot of rest for each driver.

It takes anywhere from 14-17 hours of driving to reach Panaji from Hyderabad, and thats a lot. So you better get your vehicle serviced and in a good shape before you set off on the road. Also, be sure that you tank up at each petrol bunk that you see cause you never know when you might run out of fuel.

A word of caution, the ghat section is tricky and needs experience. So have your best drivers driving you through the ghats. Also make sure that anyone who is driving in the ghats has had a nice rest before that since it can be particularly tiring with all the clutch, gear-shifting, hair-pins, and traffic to avoid.

NEVER DRIVE AT NIGHT IN THE WESTERN GHATS. It is a total waste of time, since all the dumpers and lorries would be all over the roads and it would be foggy as well. It is just a waste of time. Dont be an idiot in trying to be brave. Be wise and hit the ghats only in broad daylight.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this post. Do share your experiences if ever you take the road to Goa. It is a feeling quite unmatched by others.

Unreal Tournament

2008-10-14T03:32:00.004+05:30

In times of uncertainty, you just cant trust anyone. Your outlook becomes overly cynical and life seems terribly unfair. Everyone out there seems to be conspiring against you. It is in testing times like these that your character truly evolves. The strength and the might of a ship can only be tested by a violent sea.

Keeping calm in a storm can be tough at times. You know that any act of haste can ruin more than what it can resolve and the temptation of destroying everything around you seems irresistible. When you are undergoing an inner turmoil and the world within is in a conflict with the world without, your mental strength undergoes a stress testing of sorts.

At times like these, it helps greatly to be able to think clearly, positively and judiciously. And for doing that you need to be able to talk to your inner self, your soul. You need to be able to ask questions to yourself and even be able to get the answers to those queries. After all who knows you better than your own self.

Your morals, ethics, nature and character are all put to a thorough test and you just have to come out good if you dont want to risk losing something important in your life. But then these are the times to find out who you really are, what limits you can stretch yourself to and what really is the X-factor within you.

Sometimes, life can be tough. Sometimes, life seems to be surreal. It seems to be running at such a fierce pace that you fail to catch up with your own self. You seem to be lost in the vast sea of uncertainity and cynicism. That is when you can truly find yourself. A little bit of introspection can help you find those dark corners within you, which you never knew even existed. So take it as a blessing in disguise the next time you are depressed because its only then that you get the time to hang out with yourself.

The Drowsy Warrior

2008-10-02T03:43:00.007+05:30

There he stood fighting the enemy,
There he stood holding his ground.
While his comrades were being ripped away,
He did not let his attention sway.

It was like fighting the phantom,
It was like shooting in the dark.
The warrior knew he never had a chance,
But he continued fighting with undettered stance.

No one ever doubted the outcome of the fight,
No one ever doubted the warrior's might.
It was just a question of how and when,
This gruesome affair was going to end.

He was trying to stop the wind from blowing,
He was trying to stop a raging river.
He fought on with marvelous fortitude,
Some divine force he seemed to exude.

It seemed that the end was closer,
It seemed that the feud would be over soon.
The warrior had been enervated,
The long fight had left him jaded.

Then came a blow like a flash in the sky,
Then came a blow from a scintillating sword.
The warrior fell to the ground gasping for breath,
He could fight anyone but his own death.

The warrior had seen this fight before,
The warrior had seen it in his dreams.
But when the plot had gone wrong somewhere,
The kid realized he had had a nightmare.

Close Company

2008-08-31T04:22:00.003+05:30

I wish I had my friends close by,
I wish I could learn from them.
I wish I could spend more time with folks,
Who have a germinal stem.

I wish I had an intellectual company,
Who'd teach me to learn new stuff.
I wish I had not stopped exploring,
To end up in this bluff.

I know that I have to stand up,
Its time to be counted.
I know that I have that will,
One day my wish would be granted.

I know that it will change someday,
Its just a matter of time.
I know that there will be one day,
When everything will be just fine.

Mumbai - Not quite Mumbaiya : Part I

2008-07-24T01:04:00.000+05:30

I had always wondered as a child what the big cities were like. Growing up in a small township where everyone knows everyone else generally does that to you. I had promised myself that one day I would visit all the four big metropolitan cities and see what makes them click. I must admit that travelling is my craze and I just love to be on the road.

Well, as luck would have it the first of the metro's that I got a chance to visit was New Delhi. That was kind of strange considering the fact that Calcutta (the former and in my opinion, more posh name of present day Kolkata) was barely 5 hours from my hometown. There is something about New Delhi that hits you the moment you enter that city. Maybe it's the strange feeling of being in the capital state of the country, where the future of the country takes shape day-in and day-out. When you see places like the Rajpath, the India Gate, the Parliament you are just dumbfounded by the amount of history associated with those places. You can only stare at them and imagine what would have been happening the very same place 60 years back.

Then there are places like the Chanakyapuri and the Aurangzeb Road, the Akbar Road and others which are teeming with the residences of present day political honchos and diplomats from all the Big Countries. You cant stop and imagine that these are the very same people who represent millions and millions of people of your country in the Houses of the Parliament.

A little further you go and one gets to see scores and scores of malls, world-class movie theatres and state of the art roads and of-course cars. This all reminds you of two things. First that people in Delhi are filthy rich and they dont hesitate to show off their money. Even people who just barely manage their expenses, just have to shop in the biggest of malls and move around in the costliest and not to forget the longest of cars. Secondly, it shows what a capital of a country like India should and should not be like. There is so much intermixing of good and bad in Delhi that you sometimes wonder that only God must be running this city.

If you are visiting Delhi, you have to visit the North Campus. It was here that many of the great leaders and bureaucrats of today once used to study. Also this has to be one place where you can find the hottest crowd of them all. Trust me, no one is ugly here.

At the end of it all, I would say that being in Delhi is an experience. The pace of life, the energy of the youth there, the exuberance in the culture, the vibrance of the politics and the richness of the heritage there just doesnt stop to deceive you.

So much about (by now you must've realized, considering that this post was to be about Mumbai, my favorite Metro) Delhi. The next metro that I got a chance to visit out of the Big Four was Calcutta. I had visited Calcutta once when I was about 5 months old. I hate to say this, but my memory of that visit is really very hazy. The second time I visited Calcutta was when I had to come to take a flight to a place where my career was about to start.

Let me tell you one thing about Calcutta. Most people say that change is inevitable. Well Calcutta proves that wrong. This place is in a state which makes you think if it was only yesterday that the Britishers left. All the noticeable architecture that is standing in Calcutta was built by the British folks when they reigned over this city. Coming back to the point of inevitability, the only thing that is permanent in Calcutta is Strike (or Bondh, spelt B-A-N-D-H as the Bengali chaps call it). Anyday, anytime and anywhere there will atleast be one dharna, procession or bandh happening somewhere in this city. That's what 35 years of Communist rule does to a place.

Having said it all, I still love that place to the core. What you need to learn from that place is the very fact that change is not always for the good. The people in that town stick to the basics and thrive on it. The poor are happy in their poverty as much as the rich are discontented in their affluence. That place teaches you how not to let go of your roots and still learn and explore the new world that's knocking on the doors of tomorrow. Calcutta is as much about the people that live on the streets, have discussions over a cup of tea everyday in the evening and live the life of a true blue communist as much it is about the super-rich businessmen both from the city and from the nearby sub-urbs living it up in the City of Joy. Calcutta is as much about 24 Parganas as it is about Salt Lake. It is as much about the Dum-Dum airport as it is about the Howrah station.

Mumbai - Not quite Mumbaiya : Part II

2008-07-24T01:03:00.002+05:30

Finally, coming back to City of Dreams as I would like to call it. Mention Mumbai to a common man on the streets of India and what you get in response is this "Sapno ki nagri hai....Wahan ek rupiya ek raat main ek crore ban jaata hai" (It's a city of dreams....There, a rupee can turn into a crore overnight !). That city has been glorified to such an extent in the eyes of the common man that you just expect something out-of-the-ordinary when you visit that place. I would like to admit that I too was debilitated by the same syndrome.

A little bit of flashback first. I tried to visit Mumbai an innumerable number of times. All the while I was in awe of the city. I just had to experience the experience that was Mumbai. I just wanted to know what was about this city that had inspired so many personalitites over such a long period of time. First time I contemplated going, Mumbai was hit by the worst floods ever. The second time I thought of going it was via Goa. I had a blast in Goa for 2 days and the day before I was about to leave for Mumbai, the absolute villian in my life (read the HOD of Computer Science) calls me a million times and my parents a gazillion times looking for me. The whole point was he wanted me to pursue my internship in a place of his choice and not a place of my choice. That much for dictatorship. He even went to the extent of saying that I was not to leave town (Note : it was the semester break) without informing him. I wished I had died then and there. I had to rush back to B'lore to Meet and Greet Him and my attempt at Mumbai was ruined yet again.

So then, I was third time lucky. This time the purpose of the visit was two friends getting engaged (to each other obviously) and I could not thank them enough for choosing Mumbai as the place of that ceremony. After many ordeals, I finally landed in Mumbai (Chembur to be precise, since some people dont consider it as Mumbai). Remember that initial vibrance that I felt when I entered Delhi for the first time. Well, there was nothing of that sort happening to me this time round. I said to myself "Maybe I am tired with all the travelling, let's see how it goes".

Two things you notice about Mumbai as soon as you hit the city. First everyone seems to be in a hurry. Everyone, for some wierd reason is running and trying to overtake everyone else on the road just to meet the same person again at the next signal. Then, just as if the mad rush was not enough, they do it all over again. Second, you cant help but wait for some turns or curves in the road. All the roads are just dead straight. They just keep on going on and on and on for eternity. It's like they built one road that went right upto the sea and then they thought to themselves "Wont it be nice, if we had other roads as well....It would be easier for us to reach our homes then".

I must admit Chembur impressed me at the first glance. There was a shop available for every damn brand name that you could imagine of. The roads were nice and people although a little hurried, were helpful. We managed to find a hotel with much difficulty and just when we thought that we got ourselves a place to crash we get another shocker. The hotel seemed to be pretty much empty, but instead of letting out the room straight away the owner started inquiring about our whereabouts, just like we had entered into a police station to surrender ourselves after a gruesome crime. Finally, after much effort, we managed to convince him that we were no criminals and he let us in.

I had planned my Mumbai visit for years and years together. We had more than a day to spare and I wanted to cover almost everything that I knew of about the city. I wanted to go to the Chowpatties, the Band Stand, the Local train, the Marine Drive, the VT station and so much more. The journey to Mumbai was so tiring though that I allowed my battered spirit one night's rest and promised myself that I would do a whole lot more the next day.

Remember this about Mumbai whenever you visit that place "You will sweat no matter what". In case you are someone who sweats even in the B'lore climate then while in Mumbai, it will be a downpour, a thunderstorm. So better be prepared for the muggy and sultry conditions there. Dont get irritated by the fact that you are the only one sweating there. There are others too out there suffering the same plight as you are. Just that you wont be able to find them since they would be running all the time. And yes, that is the only cure to this problem. It's only when you are stationary that you sweat, you will NOT sweat when you are running in Mumbai. That explains one wierd behaviour of the Mumbaikars. Also if you see someone who is born and brought up in Mumbai, remember the axiom that true Mumbaikars (just like true Chennai-ites and true Kolkatans, for some God-forsaken reason) do no sweat.

Mumbai - Not quite Mumbaiya : Part III

2008-07-24T01:03:00.001+05:30

The Mumbai sojourn was more of a nightmare for me after that. The next day, I gave in to my friend's request of checking out of the comfy hotel to check out Mumbai. So we decided to check out Band Stand for the sole reason that we had heard of that place the most number of times (not that we had some list with that kind of ordering done !!). Needless to say both of us were drenched (no it was not raining, in our own sweat) by the time we reached there. We decided to lay around in the Barista Coffee Shop and enjoy the scenic beauty. Within two minutes of us sitting there, we realized that this could not go on forever. We needed that wonderful invention called the "Air Conditioner" created solely for the down-trodden people (read pigs) like us. After some time pass and some coffee and snacks till my shirt dried off all the sweat we decided to give the Mumbai roads another shot.

So off we went and this time back to Chembur to attend that solemn engagement. All of a sudden we realized that this was supposed to be a ceremony for the civilized and not for some fauna like us. So we decided to camouflage into human beings and got ourselves some clothes (and that gentleman of a shop-owner even ironed those clothes for us). After all the camouflaging (and bathing in the Deodorant exercise) we finally ended up at the place where we ought to be. Thankfully the guys had booked an AC hall. While inside, we enjoyed ourselves watching those two close friends get engaged to each other and noticing their insurmountable smiles and happiness. All of a sudden it was time to leave and I prayed to God that the conditions outside might have improved.

Point # 2 to remember about Mumbai. If you sweat in Mumbai, the conditions never get better. They just go from bad to worse as the day progresses. So we decided to run again to save ourselves. We inquired about some place where we could have some cooling down (read Beers). To my surprise, we were greeted with a scorn that is hard to forget and the lines "YOU WANT TO DRINK NOW ??" Drinking before nightfall in Mumbai is apparently a crime. After much persuasion, we did get some leads to a million places in Mumbai where we could chill out, but no one seemed to know of one particular name of a pub (or they might have been deliberately keeping the name from us). Maybe it's taboo to talk about the pub you visit in Mumbai. We decided to go to our final destination in Mumbai which was to be the VT station. We heard that en-route we would definitely find "SOMETHING". Well, we searched hard to find that mysterious something but could not. Suddenly out of the blue I saw a sign saying "BUDWIESER" and my eyes lit up and the taxi came to a screeching halt since it was time to re-hydrate ourselves. We barged into that posh restaurant thingie and asked for Beer....Chilled please. We were greeted with another condescending scorn (I thought to myself maybe all Mumbaikars suffer from the same disease) and the manager blurted out "WE DONT SERVER LIQUOR HERE !!" reminding me of that female's statement a few hours ago.

Without giving a darn I ordered a Lime Juice. I thought, what the heck, that place had a nice AC and a good television. We might as well soak it up for sometime. After sometime when the manager started giving us looks (the ones saying, get the hell out of here) we decided it was time we went ahead, ready to commit the CRIME (of drinking) in broad daylight. We went to the only pub in Mumbai called "THE PUB". There must have been a long thought process that would ve gone into naming that pub as "THE PUB". But I have never seen a more fitting name for any place anywhere. It was actually the only pub in approximately a 15 km radius. We had some drinks there, dried our shirts, chilled our spirits and promised ourselves one final shot at getting out of this living nightmare.

Out we went to the Cafe Coffee Day right below the pub to get rid of the high with some strong Cappuccino. All this while we were roaming around the VT station not even knowing if VT was the same as CST (which was mentioned on our tickets). At the end of it all and a little more inconsequential hurdles we reached the station and dumped ourselves into our respective berths. The next thing I remember was getting up in Hyderabad. Babies dont sleep that well. Only God knows how I praised myself in my dreams for booking a 2AC ticket.

Finally, after all the non-sensical talk I would like to get down to the point. Mumbai might definitely be a city of dreams. It might definitely be a city full of energy and zest. It might be the fashion and economic capital of India. It might be the place where the richest of rich and the poorest of poor can co-exist in harmony. It might be the place where Dabbawalas operate with Sigma-6 accuracy. It might be the place where there is no dearth of human spirit. It might be a place where life runs in the top gear.

BUT that place still lacks one thing. It lacks that X-factor that makes a visitor feel welcomed to a place. It's something like, if you want to visit Mumbai, you'd better behave like a Mumbaikar and follow all the regulations that a true-blue Mumbaikar would in his day-to-day life follow. You have to run when everyone else runs. You have to eat, sleep, get up, talk and even drink when everyone else does. It makes you feel like you are not wanted in this place if you cant be one of them. That repulsive feeling is hard to get over. If you are the "I live my life....How I live my life" kind of person, then my best guess would be that Mumbai is not the place for you.

My next destination is Chennai. Though from what I've seen of it while passing by that city in a train, I am not too excited. But then, guess what. The two friends of mine (who got engaged in Mumbai) are getting married this January in Chennai. So all the patrons of this blog would have to wait until then for me to update the blog about Chennai. My dream is finally gonna come true!!

Note : I haven't stopped cursing my friend for checking-out of that hotel in Chembur that day ever since.

When Love is in the air

2008-06-26T17:53:00.004+05:30

When the sky is dark
And all hope has sunk
When you are in despair
And nobody seems to care

When life seems to be dull
And your optimism sleeps in a lull
When you suffer those dreadful blues
And you are desparate for good news

When the clouds of gloom mar the mind
And the warmth of love is hard to find
When it's tough to overcome your depression
And misery seems to be the sole obsession

Along comes someone as fresh as a rose
Who wishes to wish away your woes
Along comes someone with utter disdain
For sorrow, grief, hatred and pain

Along comes someone as bright as a star
Who takes you to some place very far
Along comes someone with a bountiful of verve
Whose sanguinity no one could swerve

Along comes someone as vivid as a dream
Who tests your patience to the very extreme
Along comes someone who changes your world
And steers you away from the wistful herd.

Peace Within or Peace Without!!

2008-04-11T00:39:00.000+05:30

As I wait for something to change
My life just meanders through the plains
As a river that will finally merge into the sea
I ll let go of all the worldly chains

What's that next big thing in store for me
I want to know now because it's killing me
I wonder if it would change my life
I wonder if it would set me free

I went everywhere in the search for peace
I did everything that I could possibly do
To get to that heavenly place where serenity abounds
To get to the place where the mind has no bounds

Is everything just Black or White
Or are they merely different shades of grey
Is everything in this world just good or bad
When we are happy, why is everyone else sad?

Desparate Times

2008-04-09T02:21:00.000+05:30

There are times when everything seems to be happening against you. When there seems to be a conspiracy of the stellar level against you. When, even God seems to be giving it back to you. This is about those times. This is about the desparation that bugs us all.

Desparate times require desparate measures. No one can plan their life way ahead into the future. Rather, one can, but I am a firm beleiver in the fact that it really does not always turn out to be the way you wanted it to. Therefore I always look for small bundles of joy which give me happiness now rather than somewhere down the line in future.

Great things come in small packages. You do not, rather you should not look for massive occasions and moments to make you happy. Live the moment that you are in and enjoy what life has to offer to you. That said, it does not mean that one starts looking for instant gratification in everything around oneself. In other words, you do not search for happiness, you do not run after it, you do not chase it. All you have to do is to let it come to you as and when fate has decided it to.

But then that's not what drives you crazy. That's not what desparation is. That's absolutely not what this post is all about. It's about times when things just start going wrong left, right and center. When you encounter failures one after the another because of something that you could never have controlled. When you do not succeed even you know that you have given it your best shot. When defeat stands as tall as a mountain and you just cant get over it.

Desparation drives one crazy. It forces you to think about your problems when there aren't any. It also forces you to think about the solutions to those problems where there aren't any. All that this does is to move you farther away from the truth. All logic seems to take a back seat. Everyone seems to be your enemy.

The whole point then, is that how do you get out of this black hole that you've gotten yourself into. It happens because you have just experienced that huge burst of happiness in your life and while you were busy with the celebrations, somewhere in the middle you just stopped living your life.

Living life is not just about being ecstatic and being happy. What you are is because of the good times that you have seen and also beacause of the bad times that you have been through. You will be fine as long as you walk the middle path of joy and sorrow coming at you in succession. The moment you swing to either side of the balance, you are in trouble.

When you are high on life and every thing seems to be going good, what you should do is to take a little amount of time and reflect on the tough times that you just faced. Similarly, when the going gets tough, you should take time off and think about the wonderful times that you had just experienced.

Never forget that life will always have it's ups and downs. It's your inertia that defines how quickly your mood changes. I have seen many kinds of people in my life till now. There are those with a heavy baggage who are either very happy or very grumpy. Then there are those who live in the moment and change moods in a flash.

There is no one solution to anyone's problems. Just that when you have people around you to support you and given the proper environment, things do turn around sooner rather than later.

So the next time you are desparate in life, remember that you yourself are to blame because somewhere down the line you had forgotten the good times that you lived and you were too high to get over it. Now life literally seems to be giving it back to you. That said, this is not a point to get depressed in life. Rather it's time for you to stand up and be counted.

Always remember that there is someone watching you all the the time. "Dukh main simran sab kare, sukh main kare na koi. Jab sukh main simran kare toh phir dukh kahe ko hoye" (Everyone remembers God Almighty when they are sad and never once when they are happy. If you had remembered God just once when you were happy, joy would've never left you ever). Happy Living.

10K and still going strong

2008-03-02T03:01:00.000+05:30

This week was kind of special for me and my car. We reached a short milestone in the long journey that we have set ourselves upon. I completed 10,000 kilometres in the first car that I have owned. This car has a special place in my heart. I cant stand it having the smallest of problems or the slightest of scratches. Definitely I feel I am in love with it.

The car has had almost all of my close and not so close and some really really not close at all friends as its passengers along the way. I can tell you from experience that there are not many feelings better than driving your own car, especially on empty roads late at nights or on open highways with the destination being unknown. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the window rolled down. The cool wind blowing through your hair and the music just right for the mood you are in. And your speeds touching close to a 100K. It's just amazing.

My car has been a dear friend and a great companion thus far. Seldom have I had any problems with it and even when it does give me any I ignore them in the true spirit of friendship. Although if I did get any problems I would surely not be able to fix it since even a nursery kid would know more about how his toy car works than I do about how my actual one does.

Even though I have been on a lot of trips in and around Hyderabad on this car I still have several other short as well as long trips in mind. The most important ones on the list right now are trips to Goa and Bangalore. I would also like to take it once on a reaaaaaaly long drive to my home in Bokaro or maybe even to Delhi. Finally I have never seen Bombay and Pune so that too would be on my list for things to do before we (me and my car that is) decide to part ways and I let my car rest in peace forever.

This post is a tribute to my car, my Ford Ikon which has been alongwith me through the ups and downs (or should I say the bumps and the potholes) of my life in the past few months. I just wish my car could understand human emotions. I would have certainly said cheers to my car with a glass of whisky in my hand and a tank full of petrol in it's back side.

P.S. : If you liked this post, please leave a comment on it. My car would really appreciate that.

If looks could kill...

2008-02-17T02:10:00.001+05:30

Hello all jobless idiots reading this stupid blog. I am back and with a new look. I promise to bring loads more crap to you all. After a sabbatical, I am all set to bring you posts that will surely keep you on the edge of your seats.

You would see more innovation and color on this blog now and not the dark side of the things. That's not to say that my outlook towards life has changed. I am just giving this a shot and hope you guys like it.

Ahoy, all patrons of this BLOG. I commmand thee to come aboard and sail along with me on the rough ocean waters on this Journey called LIFE.

Days of My Life

2008-01-27T13:10:00.000+05:30

What is darkness but the absence of light,
Seems like I cant get anything without a fight,
Was this just meant to happen, was it in the stars,
Or is all this just a myth, is all this just a farce.

As I walk this journey called life,
wondering what's in store for me next,
There comes a sudden shock to me,
Something that I didn't expect.

Where have all my pals gone,
They were all here just a while ago,
I tried to question everyone around me,
But nobody seemed to know.

Well then I tried making new friends,
Out of past acquaintances and more,
It wasn't as easy as I had thought it to be,
So tough to forget the days of yore.

I hate to say that I've given up now,
But I've decided to let my fate have it's way,
While I try to cling onto the things that I have,
While I try to save them from slipping away.

Time flies by..We stand still

2007-12-31T14:26:00.000+05:30

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and years pass by, but we hardly seem to have moved from where we started our journey called life. It's like being in the middle of the sea, all alone. Nothing seems to move. Everything is so still that you start wondering how long can one survive in such a place.

We don't live in the seconds that go by. In the end what remains with you are only the memories. A large part of your life goes by without you even noticing it. What you do remember is a collection of all those small moments that were really worth living for, moments that are buried so deep in your memory and your heart that you can hardly ever forget them, moments that are so close to you and so special that you refuse to let go of them.

Life is nothing but an assimilation of those small moments. There are times in one's life when nothing special happens to you. Life seems so monotonous and still that you start hating it and everything that's related to it. And then, when you are fed up of hating everything around you, you get even more bored.

In the haste of getting rid of that boredom, you end up doing some really silly things. But the funny part is that when you reflect back on your life it's those silly things that you did in your life are the one's that you remember more fondly than your everyday regular business.

Then is it possible that someone actually goes so far ahead in the future looking for something good to happen to them that they forget all the wonderful moments that they have left behind in their past. Just the thought that someone can completely throw you out of their mind is actually kind of scary. Why does this happen is as big a mystery as is the human brain.

It's said that time and tide stop for none. You can only ride along with them. I sometimes wonder where do we end up if we do choose to ride along with the times rather than fighting them and treading our own path. This question too, along with many other questions might be answered by time itself someday. Others will get lost in translation and be forgotten forever.

Is it simple being Simple?

2007-11-16T01:51:00.000+05:30

A lot of our problems arise because we take life to be too complicated. It's like being stuck in quicksand. The more you try to get out the more you sink into it. Similarly, the more you try to complicate your life, the more complex it tends to get. Very few people have the ability to take life as it comes, to lead life in such a simple way that it makes you wonder whether they really are serious about it.

Success surely means you rise higher. It definitely augurs well for you. But then, as you move forward in your life, you do leave others behind, cause if no one gets left behind, no one will ultimately win the race. There are two ways to handle success. There is a complex way where-in you change yourself to a new person in a new role. The other and definitely the tougher way is to remain the same old person that you were and that had lead to your success.

It's not easy to change your attitude towards life overnight. Your personality is a culmination of a lot of events that have happened in your life over a long period of time and it's not easy to let go of everything at once. If at all a change has to come it will come slowly and the most important ingredients in that would have to be your patience, your honesty and your effort.

Life presents you with a new challenge at every instant. It's upto you to face those challenges and tackle them head on or to run away from them. There is no correct way to tackling your problems. It's just that you do what you think is best for you at the moment. This thinking as I have already mentioned cannot be changed overnight, and it takes some doing.

For some people, things are in black and white, right and wrong, true and false. For others there is a shade of grey in everything. The former choose to lead their life with an uncomplicated approach, the latter entangle themselves into a web from which they seldom get out of. What you choose is your wish, but what you wish might not be what you ultimately get.

Strange But, Hmm... True!!!

2007-10-22T16:13:00.000+05:30

Have you ever noticed that there is one thing common about all of our lives. It's the fact that none of us are perfectly happy about it. Each one of us wanted something else from our lives. Someone wanted a little more from his life and is sad because he did not get it. Someone else got a little more than they expected and he ruins the fact that he could've gotten a lot more after all. Whatever be the case, this inexplicable dissatisfaction runs like a common thread through all of us.

It's because life never ceases to change as long as you live. Every second that you live, adds something new to the experience that is called life. Just as you are never contended with your life, similarly your life never stops to change. In other words, if there ever comes a day when you are totally contended in all senses, you would practically stop living that very day. Life is a struggle. Struggling is what you are supposed to do all your life.

In the end it's a matter of choice. Considering the fact that no one has a perfect life, you yourself can either choose to be happy or sad about it. What you choose is totally your decision, but remember that in the end you can't put the blame on anyone else but yourself for the decisions you make in your life.

Do you remember the day when you thought you were the happiest person on the face of the earth. It may have been the day you got your first video game, your first salary, your first car, your first kiss, your first child or your first child's marriage. If you do remember that, then you will also remember how different your happiness was at each of those moments. How each moment was quite different from the other. The only fact that remains unquestionable is that you were still happy at each of those points in your life. That in itself denotes how your life changes as you keep going through it.

Probably there will be a day when you would have nothing left to do. When all that you ever wanted in your life will be at your footsteps. Can you then say that you are the happiest person ever. I guess not. Happiness is an abstraction. You can never see it, touch it or smell it. It can't be created with the wealth of the entire universe. That's what is so special about happiness. That's what makes it truly the costliest gift you can give to your parents, friends, family and the world.

So the next time you catch hold of that pessimist, give him a piece of your mind and ask him to stay happy for no one likes to share anyone's sorrows, but everyone wants a piece of the action if you are happy. Happy Living.

Happy Birthday to Me...

2007-08-28T22:51:00.000+05:30

Birthdays are wonderful. The best part about them is they come once a year and changes your life like no other day. This is one day when you can live in the past, present and future all at the same time. Once in a year you know you should be happy not because you really see anything different that day from all the other days but because all your near and dear one's want to make you feel special that day.

There was a time when birthdays used to be fun. Birthdays meant parties, getting gifts and having a blast for one day when you are the centre point of all the attention. Remember when you cut the cake how good you felt, you just knew that the first piece of cake had to be for your mom, your dad and your siblings. Can you recall just when exactly and more importantly why did that feeling change to one of embarrassment for you?

Celebrating birthdays was not for you anymore. Maybe the priorities in your life had changed. Maybe you didn't want that attention that people give to you on your birthdays. The phone calls from all the friends and relatives started annoying you. Your mindset and attitude changed a lot from when you were a child who had no ideas about the ways of the world. All that you wanted on your birthday was to be left alone, no friends, no parties, no gifts, no nonsense.

Now you'd rather not have your birthdays at all, forget about celebrating them. I called up one of my friends to wish him happy birthday ( I had been confirming the day from a lot of guys, since I am not too good with dates ). To my surprise that guy was sad about the fact that it was his birthday. I hate to say this but his pessimism rubbed off on me too. Instead of talking about how he was celebrating his birthday all we did was crib about the life we are leading and then discuss how we could get out of this shit.

I have been a victim of this too. I know how my friend must have been feeling that day. Its a really terrible feeling to have more so because its your birthday. You have to smile because your friends are smiling and because they want you to be happy, while inside you are hurting and getting irritated by all the attention that you are getting.

I have tried to reason this behavior a lot but could not find any answers. When you live a life where days come and go without you even realizing when the weekend arrives and when it whizzes past you having this one special day can be really tough on people. Maybe that's one justification to the kind of feeling people get on their birthdays.

The best thing to do would definitely be to be happy and keep a gentle smile on your face all the time just for the sake of your friends and family. There are only some days when you get their undivided attention and its always better to cut the hay while the sun shines.

My idea of a perfect birthday celebration would be to spend quality time with my friends or relatives even if I am super busy that day. I just wouldn't want to be alone that day. There would be many other days that you can choose to be sad on. For this one day I would ask all my friends to be happy just for the heck of it and have a good time. To all my friends I would plead not to overdo anything that you do to make your friend feel special.

I dont mind getting gifts though. I really appreciate the feelings behind them ;) .

Friends!!...Forever??

2007-08-23T17:26:00.000+05:30

I dont know if the world has changed or is it me who has changed or everyone else has changed but nothing seems to be the same anymore. When we are young we are told that friendships last forever. It seemed to be true all this while. Its only now that I feel that all that was farce, a lie that our parents told us just to keep us away from the stark reality and its only now that I feel that friendships do have their expiry date.

I love meeting people and making friends. I have been pretty good at it also. I have so many people whom I can proudly call me friends and some of them have been with me for a really long time. But all of a sudden I feel that I am the only one left with that feeling and all the people whom I considered my friends at some point of time have just moved on. Is it true that friendship doesn't last forever?

I for one never beleived that things change. I am a firm beleiver of that. The only thing that changes is you and the way you see things. The rest of the world continues to be the same. It's said that "Familiarity breeds contempt". I guess that's what is happening to everyone now-a-days.

We see someone, we like them, we become friends with them and spend a lot of time together and then "Kaboom" all of a sudden one day you don't want to be with that person anymore. It's a natural human reaction to loose interest in something once he has got what he wanted. It's true with everything that you want, you'll yearn for a thing only upto the point that you dont get it. Once you have been there and done that, you realize what kind of an idiot you've been all the while.

I don't know why this has to happen but it does happen. It's one of those sad realities of life and no one belie that fact. Though there are some relationships that do last forever. Some relationships just leave an example which others can follow. I had so many friends when I was young, now I hardly even know where each of them are, let alone talk to them.

I guess this is all a byproduct of the fast paced life that we all lead. No one has time for each other. Every one is running a race of their own, if you try and stop someone for a while you will be left behind in the race and so will that person. People come online on messengers but their status remains BUSY, as if they are showing to the world that they do want to talk but they just dont have the time.

I sometimes wonder what has changed. Is it me, is the world or is it everyone else. I know I will never find the answer to this question. Once upon a time I had lots of friends. I still know them, I still remember them. I just hope they remember me too not as an acquaintance but as a friend. This change that I see around me and within me is killing me. I try to forget about it, I try to stop it from bothering me, but it keeps coming back and hits me even harder everytime.

Friends are forever. Friends keep the deepest of secrets and share the saddest of moments. Friends are there when you need them, they are also there when you think you don't need them. Friends never think twice before giving, but never ask you to give anything back in return. Friends never say GOODBYE.

Visit this link for some beautiful lines on friendship (and more...).

Keep it simple, will ya

2007-08-02T21:18:00.000+05:30

There was a time when things were simple. All that you needed to smile was a chocolate from your dad or a nice pudding made for you by your mom. I dont know what has changed. People say things change over a period of time. They say things get complex as you grow old. Sometimes I wonder, if its really the things that change or is it we who change? Do the things get complex or is it just that we stop comprehending the simple pleasures of our life?

Humans have only two natural emotions. That's how God wanted it to be, two simple emotions. We were either supposed to be happy or we were supposed to be sad. There was no room for the highs and the lows. These two simple emotions are best depicted by a baby. It conveys all its feelings just by laughing and crying. Maybe it's the simplicity in that small cute baby that attracts everyone closer to itself.

In the process of growing up I guess we gave up so many things that anything that has still retained it's simplicity amazes us. We wander about restless searching for something all our lives. Something that we are never going to get, but still the search never ends. I guess what we are looking for is peace within rather than peace without.

When you are young, you yearn to grow old. You yearn to get out of the jail that seems your home and roam like a free bird in the world outside the four walls of your living room. Such a shame then that when you finally get what you wanted all your childhood, when you actually get that freedom, what you miss the most is exactly that, your childhood. You die to go back home and sleep like a baby in your king-sized bed, to have that pudding your mom used to make, to help your dad wash the car and to fight with your sibling.

When you are young, you are little bit of everything. You are a scientist, a poet, a singer, an athelete and an artist. I guess growing up is the process of giving up on those things one by one. But there is always that one thing that you always wanted to do but could not. It's because you were not strong enough, because you couldn't stick it out, because when the moment of truth arrived you just ran away from it. I know that it has happened to me, probably this has happened to each and everyone of you out there too.

Simplicity is the essence of excellence. You can do the toughest of jobs if you can just keep things simple. If you can just stick to the basics. Its easier said than done though. Its really easy to loose your way at the crossroads in your life. Its only the few who can really hold their own, who can keep their mind clear, who make it big in their lives.

There was a time when things were simple. When a smile did not cost anything. When the whole world was your backyard. When nothing seemed unattainable. I never beleived that times change. It is we who change. We change each and every moment and every second of our lives and we tend to change everyone else around us too. It's a natural phenomenon and no one can stop it. The only thing that you can do, the only thing that is under your control is to be yourself. After all being yourself is all that you can do.

(P.S. : Do not forget to leave your comments on this)

Be Happy Sad, Not Sad Sad

2007-07-30T21:19:00.000+05:30

There are times when you are happy. Then there are times when you are sad. This is about the times when you are neither of the two. This is about those times when you dont know how you feel. When things happening around you seem so immaterial. When you are "Comfortably Numb" to the world.

You never know when this happens to you or how this happens to you. Therefore you also dont know how you can avoid it or how you can live with it. Its a terrible terrible feeling and you want to get out of it but you are as helpless as a kitten up a tree, not even knowing your right foot from your left.

Time just seems to stand still. You are clueless about what is going on and you can only hope against hope that this feeling just passes away as quickly as it can. The thing that kills you the most is the sympathy and consoling by those who are close to you. You know deep down inside that they are just trying to help but the truth is that on the inside you just get even more irritated and frustrated, both about the fact that you are behaving this way and also about the fact that it might rub off on those trying to cheer you up.

You want to be left alone when you already are the lonliest person on the face of the earth. You dont feel like talking to anyone and you want to scream like you've never screamed before. There is no cure for this, no instant solution that makes you feel high. Mind you, this is not to say that you cannot get high, only that mind has it's own ways of interpreting things and feelings and materialistic things seem to be the least important of them all at that point of time.

Time can heal the biggest of wounds it is said. It could never have been ever more appropriate than in this regard. Whenever you feel this way, the only thing you can do is to let things be and take them as they come. Time as I already told you will stand still as if making fun of your misery and your desperation. In some ways this is a test of your patience and in other ways of your endurance. If you think about it this way, you can overcome this feeling much easier than trying to push yourself over it (you might end up pushing yourself over the edge).

There are times when you are happy. Then there are times when you are sad. This is about those times when you are neither of the two. Time afterall is meant to pass away, it is not meant to stand still. Yes, contrary to the popular belief, it does changes the rate at which it passes away. Sometimes this is excruciatingly slow, other times its really really quick. Remember the fact that in the end its only you who can change your own mind and no one else. It then hinges totally on you, how you choose to live your own life.

I would like everyone to keep smiling at all times (even at the toughest of times). It makes others think what you are upto....Happy living.

Too Late to Handle

2007-07-29T14:17:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been in a situation when you thought, "Why the hell didn't I do this earlier"? I bet all of us have. You kept on avoiding doing something saying "I can't do this, what if ..."? and in the rare circumstance that you actually do the thing that you had been avoiding for so long you feel so miserable at having done it so late in the game.

The only way to get over your fears is to chase them away. My dad told me this when I was too young to understand the actual importance of this sentence. It all makes so much sense now. But then all I think now is that it might be too late in the game now? I have been running away from my fears for so long now that I have understood that I would eventually loose this battle, for I am a mere mortal and I cant run forever, but my fear would haunt me as long as I live.

"It was only a fantasy, the wall too high, you cant see...No matter how he tried he could not break free...and the world ate into his brains". Famous lines from a famous song by a very famous band. Such coincidence that this song comes up when I am writing this post. It is such a fitting statement to come up. You have to grab your dreams and make them come true, killing all the if's and but's that come along the way.

I was so scared to talk to this one person all this while that I could not utter a word from my mouth when that person came in front of me. The reason that I was scared was that, this person was so dignified and transparent that I felt really really small (microscopically small) whenever I met that person. All this while I just kept avoiding meeting that person so that I did not have to face that agony anymore, or I made sure I was not in my senses whenever I talked to that person, so that the pain felt a bit less painful.

Then one fine day, I thought what the hell, let's give it a shot, and before I knew I was really good friends with that person and I was really happy at that fact. Then came the realization that "Why the hell did nt I do this earlier" and this just hit me so hard that I came crashing down to the accept the fact what a fool I had been all this while. The icing on the cake to celebrate my misery was the fact that this person was about to leave the town and the country in a few days time. It was getting so much to handle that my life seemed to going on in a fast-forward mode.

There are friendships that last for ages. And then there are those that are flashes in the pan. You cherish the memories of both, for both of them have a special place in your heart. It's tough to forget the nice times you spend with the closest of your friends and it always comes as a shock to you when one of your friends has to leave and you suddenly realize that your life is not going to be the same from now on. I guess that's what life is all about. At the end of it all, you will only be left with the memories, the only thing that will be totally yours and no one else will have any claim on it.

I dream a lot. I dream of going to most wonderful of places in the world, the beaches, the mountains, the smallest of villages and the biggest of cities. I dream of going on long drives, alone in my car, to meet my girl. I dream of amazing impromptu trips with my friends with no planning at all. But the dream that I would like the most to come true is that of meeting a long lost friend in a remote corner of the world where both of us are lonely and we only have each other for company. Until that happens to me I only hope that there exists such a place. I only hope that there is such a friend.

Run Rabbit Run

2007-06-20T16:45:00.001+05:30

Growing up is the process of giving up things that you loved to do when you were a kid. As you keep growing up you just give up on those things, one by one. It's not easy growing up. You are not old enough to make a choice of the kind of life that you want to lead and you are not young enough to just stand there and let everything happen in front of you against your wishes.

Sometimes I think that the worst thing that someone can demand from you, is for you to "Grow Up". You would ve heard this retort so many times without actually ever bothering about how bad a retort it actually is. "Grow Up" means that you are being asked to let go of one more habit of your's that actually lets you be a kid, an innocent kid who does nt know about the complexities of a grown up world around him. I wonder sometimes why would anyone want anyone else to grow up. Is it because they themselves have grown old and are feeling miserable about it ?

All your life you will always wish that you could rewind the time and go back into the past to a time when you were young and happy and everything was so good and lovely. But the thing that you never realize is that even if by some miracle you did end up there, you would want the same wish again. The point that one doesn't understand is that one has to be content with what one has and one must also, learn to live in the present.

What most people call a "Rat Race" I like to call it as a "Rabbit Race", not because I like rabbits, but beacause I hate rats. You can see everyone who loves you and wants you to succeed in life shouting out like an ardent fan of your's, "Run Rabbit Run.....dig that hole, forget the sun.....And when at last the work is done, don't sit down, it's time to dig another one". As soon as you learn to walk, you are asked to RUN. At the end, you find that all your life, all you have ever done was to keep running, leaving all the things that you wanted to do as a kid, all your dreams behind.

The race never ends. It just goes on and on and on. People keep joining the race all the time and similarly others keep going out of it. Others just keep running without knowing what are they running for. This all makes no sense at all, but still all of us keep doing it, because if you do not run, that means you are stagnated at one place and no one today can tolerate even a second of stagnation.

Growing up can be tough. You want to do so many things and you seem to have so little time. You have so many dreams but you can't sleep long enough. You have so many friends but you always want a best friend. You have so much to learn but you still end up going to school. You have so many choices to make but none of them is decided by you.

Happiness is a relative term. When you are happy you would want everyone around you to be happy too. That's easier said than done. People, grown-up people, have so many complications in their lives that they hardly remember when to live their life. It seems that they are living their lives for someone else. When you live your life for yourself, you ll understand how easy it is to be happy.

Ever seen children playing around in a park. The last thing on their mind is what will others think about me. I would term that as absolute happiness. It's when you have no care in the world, no worries about anyone else in the world, when you live life for yourself and no one else. All I would like to wish is that we all could stay kids for all our lives, that we never become Rabbits, that we stay happy forever, that we never GROW-UP.

Moving On

2007-06-12T20:45:00.001+05:30

As I write this story, in some days I will be completing one year in my current job, which as a matter of fact happens to be my first job. Over the past one year I have learnt a lot of lessons, gained a lot of new friends and lost a few too. Now that the year is about to end, everything that has happened seems so far back in past that it's tough to imagine that it all ever happened once. All that remains with me are the memories and the companionship of those who are the closest to me.

I still remember the day when I first came to this rather unwelcoming city. It was an overwhelming experience, so much so that it was tough to imagine that something like this was happening to me. Slowly and steadily it all began to sink in, and I started 'coming back to life'.

If I had to mention some of the most important things in my life I would certainly keep my friends among them. I just can't seem to live without them. I have always been really dependent on them. I have always had great friends and I have always loved their company. It was only recently that I realized that I am too possessive about my friends and to speak the truth, it came as a shock to me.

It's going to be an year and what I see all around is a lot of discomfort and a lot of movement. This reminds of a very important fact of nature that says that the same kind of entities in an place tend to move away from each other and keep moving away from each other forever. Much like the galaxies that just keep moving away and farther in the universe expanding it along the way. No one seems to be happy with what they are or what they have. I guess one has to be in their position and experience what they do before commenting on something like this, but the fact is that this discomfort is universal. Only thing that differs among everyone is the level of discomfort and more importantly what steps they can take to get rid off it.

While some choose to crib about it all and vent it out and start all over again a few days later, others are much diferent and crib all the time. The remaining handful of people really have the guts to do something out of the ordinary and they really show us the "WAY TO GO". I personally really appreciate such people and dream that someday even I would follow where they have led by example.

What I need now is that this year be full of good things and full of lucky charms for me and all my friends and that I be ready to move on in life without my friends too. I have made all efforts possible to meet each and every one of them for one last time before they embarked on a new journey in their lives and to spend quality time with them while doing so. The fact that I might never meet them ever again compells me to do this and I love doing it too. Some of the best parts of my life till now have been spent with them and those will always remain in the deepest corners of my heart forever. I guess it's tough to accept but things change and they will always continue to do so as long as they exist. I for one, do not like things to change at all and this has been a very dreadful fact that I have never come to accept.

Now that most of my friends are moving on in life, I have nothing more to say but "WISH THEM THE BEST OF LUCK" and hope they succeed in life. I would love to meet them someday somewhere in some distant corner of the country and share a moment with them over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, whatever suits him/her. But what I would want the most would be for the time to stop so that no one ever had to go anywhere and things remained as beautiful they are forever and ever. Cheers to all my achiever friends, my heart goes out to you.

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2007-06-06T18:47:00.000+05:30

Life is fun isn't it. You just can't get enough of it. When you are happy the whole world smiles, or they just seem to be smiling, but who cares as long as you are happy. The worst part is that you know that good things come in small packages whereas the common perception is that "Size does matter". The two conflicting points-of-view almost got me admitted to a psycho-ward.

There was a time when public transport was the way to go. Familiar routes, empty streets and the same old Ticket Collector every day. Ofcourse, the bad part was that you had to wait at the station for a long time for the right "MOVING BOX" to arrive. The good part was that you could get accross the town at the price of peanuts. Well things do change, and so they did and I started to detest public transport for all that I could see in them was the CONS. The crowd, the sweat, the crawling speeds and the same faces everyday. I thought this was not for me and that I had to do something about it, and so I did. I started to patronize the AutoRickshaws.

This small 3-wheeler has the capacity to cut the road anytime and anywhere and anyhow the driver likes and there is no dearth of power in this vehicle either. So you get the excitement and save time too for a little extra burden on your pocket. But I could live with that as long as I liked it. The matter of fact was that I started to hate them too.

I began to see all the bad things about them. Sure, the waiting time had reduced at the stops but still there was a waiting time. Sure, the Rickshaws were omni-present all over the city but not everyone would go where you would want them to. The agony of a stupid AutoDriver turning your offer down as if you had asked him to take you to a place that is below his dignity to enter was getting too much to handle. But above all what annoys you the most is the exhorbitant prices they demand, and in cases where they don't demand anything the Meter does the trick on their behalves.

So finally I decided that I had had enough and that I needed a car. All my life I had been thinking why do people think so much while buying their cars. I used to think, whats the big deal about getting a car. I felt as if buying a car was like buying any other commodity, like soap or soda or something like that, you go to the shop choose what you like and just pay the price and get it home. Now that, after I had myself decided to buy a car, all that became clear as a crystal to me. I understood that it is really a big deal, probably the biggest deal that you will ever do in your life of course after a house deal for sure.

Now that I had decided that i needed a car, I had to take a series of decisions one after the another. The first and the most crucial decision one was which one did I want to buy. I will tell you one thing about cars, if you ask 100 people for their advice on buying a car you will get close to a gazillion answers and everyone will seem to be giving the right advice. You will get so confused that you will actually start to regret the fact that you even thought of buying a car, leave alone asking so many people. But the dream of having your own car will be so attractive that you will get over all those thoughts pretty easily.

After a long, and I mean a really long thought process that included inputs from my room mates, my friends some of them experts in this field and some of my long forgotten relatives I finally decided on which car I was going to buy. It had to be a Mercedes and that too C-Class. I knew that this was a bold decision but I never had a thing for hatchbacks. I was more of a big car type guy and by big I mean really BIG. So the decision in the end was pretty easy and seemed to be logical considering the fact that I had a budget which helped me narrow down on only one or two cars that I actually liked.

I would like to tell you 2 things that you should keep in mind before buying a car. First and the most important, decide your budget. By that I mean, decide the least amount and the maximum amount that you can put in. I am putting so much stress on this because without you having decided on this factor, only one sentence will keep ringing in your mind "Dude, let me stretch a little bit more and get a better car", and beleive me, this, by far is the most horrifying thing that can happen to you. So bettler learn to avoid it and once you have decided on the limits of your budget, you are good to go.

The second most important thing to note is that once you have decided on what car to buy, you should, rather you must become totally deaf. This because you will hear so much criticism from so many people that you will actually think for a moment that you have commited some crime. Still, this is not as tough as it sounds to be, only that its a bit tricky as in how you handle so many people speaking about your decision at the same time, while half of them have nt even seen the car that you are planning to buy and the other half has never sat in one.

In case you survive these two gruelling periods the car that you decided upon is almost half yours. Well I say half because you still have nt paid the money yet, remember. I have already said that a car deal will be amongst the biggest deals of your life and this is bound to affect your economic condition whether you like it or not. Whether you go for a loan or for a lease you will definitely end up having lesser bounty in your hand each month than you used to have previous to buying the car. Still what makes it worth it is the fact that the car is all yours, atleast you have the pleasure of driving a vehicle of your choice and this feeling, beleive me is not surpassed by too many other things in life. I can promise you that the moment the dealer gives you that key in your hand and says that the car is all yours, you are bound to have an emotional breakdown, and thats just the lull before the actual high that you will get once you sit in the car and drive it away from the showroom.

Finally, what's most important to remember is that a car is a car, but your car is "THE CAR". I would recommend all the people who are reading this to actually own a car once in their lifetime and see how it feels like to drive a new baby out of the showroom for the first time onto the streets, to a place will be her territory for the rest of her life. A car is one of the most prized things a man can have and it's very deeply attached to his emotions. I would like to end this with a beautiful thought from one of my friends. It went something like "...a car's a car, it's the feeling that you own that marvellous piece of machinery that is unparalleled..". Happy driving.