This is a question that needs to be asked by each one of us. How many times have we read the forwards that speak of chain-snatching incidents, muggings, thefts, house-breaks? How many times do such incidents move us? At least I did not get scared when I read those kinds of mails. Think “What is the world coming to?”, and delete the mail without a second glance. I thought such things happened to unfortunate and careless people. Not me. This was my take on the issue as a whole. UNTIL YESTERDAY.
It was a long day at work like many others. I left office around 9 P.M. Mom warned me to get a cab-ride back home. But when you are 25 years old, what mom says doesn’t make much sense. “Why wait in office for one more hour when I can catch up on an hours sleep?” is what I thought. Mistake no: 01.
I reached up to Mehdipatnam bus-stop safely. There on, I thought of taking an auto till home. When I asked the auto-drivers, 3-4 of them refused as it was a short distance away. The 5th or the 6th one asked for 20 rupees which is double of what it normally is. I haggled with him to drop me for 15/-. He dint relent. I am not a stingy person but I dint board the auto coz that would be against my ego. Mistake No: 02.
As I was walking towards my home, I was careful enough take only well-lighted streets but barely 100 meters away from my home a motorist slapped the nape of my neck. Instinctively I let out a muffled scream, my hands went to my chain, and I ducked away from the motorist – all at once. The scream must have startled him for he dashed ahead without turning back even once. I tried to make out the registration number of the bike. But it was covered with dirt and wasn’t visible.
My first thoughts were that this was a drunken eveteaser probably. But 15 seconds later, realization dawned. My chain had been deftly cut in two. Thankfully since I had reached for it immediately and moved away from him, I dint lose it. I reached home and told a paled mom all about it. There was a tiny rash-like cut on at the nape of my neck. It seems that this person used some sort of a blunt blade to cut off the chain. My sidestepping away from him, the scream and the fact that the street was well-lighted is what saved my life I guess.
My guardian angel must be working overtime yesterday. But the incident is scary nevertheless.
Please be careful while traveling alone and unescorted at nights. The world is not such a safe place and neither are we invincible. Make sure you leave work by a decent time and reach home early too. Leave early for work if need be. And if it is not possible to make it to home before dusk make sure you are escorted back home by someone whom you know. Don’t take unworthy risks like saving measly 5 rupees or not getting a cab-ride back home when you are entitled to it. Make sure your parents or your room-mates back home know what time you are leaving office and by what time you should be back home so it is easier to track deviations if any.
Let be responsible for our own safety. Take care, God bless!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Check (the) mate!
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT the author of this wonderful wonderful piece. I could give an arm, a limb and a few other organs to be able to write in such a beautiful and succinct manner. This was the most wonderful piece I have read in a long long time. After much delibration, I pass it on so that it might reach a wider audience...
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1.) My cousin, who was born sixteen hours before me, got married recently. I am expected to follow her footsteps soon. Thankfully, I have been granted more than sixteen hours to do that.
2.) My father’s health has taken a turn for the worse.
3.) My mother is completely exhausted.
Rationally, points 1, 2, and 3 would be distinct from each other. But in my family there is no such thing as ‘rationally’. Therefore all these points are inter-related. Strangely, here, we believe my marriage to be an antidote to mortality and fatigue.
I happened to be sitting in my parents’ room while Ma looked through Papa’s blood reports. They didn’t look good. Ma was worried and Papa didn’t help matters much. He kept talking about Sourav Ganguly and why he deserved better. Ma got further agitated and after flinging the reports somewhere inconvenient to retrieve (I should know), she snapped, “So what? There are many like him.”
Papa doesn’t believe that and would have no one in his family believe that either. He went to considerable lengths to explain why there could be never be anyone like him. It was a waste because Ma doesn’t listen to people, especially her husband. It’s a trait that runs in my maternal bloodline.
Amidst all this, Ma asked Papa, “What if you die?”
Papa replied, “Then I’d be dead.”
Ma smiled. In my parent’s language, that was ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too.’
Now that the subject of impending death had been broached, my parents looked at me. I, of late, have come to be associated with such merry matters.
“See, she looks worried,” Ma observed.
“Hmm”, said Papa, a little perplexed. He would have preferred to go on about Ganguly’s eternal uniqueness. His daughter looking worried was, well, normal and hadn’t we all learned to live with that now?
“What is worrying you?”, Ma asked.
The thing is that I have joint eyebrows. If I’m thinking about anything, they furrow and give the impression that I’m translating Bertrand Russell’s works to German in my head. In reality, I may be thinking of something quite inconsequential. Like, when my mother asked me what was worrying me, I was actually wondering what a pregnant sparrow looked like. I told her.
“Why are you worrying about pregnant sparrows?!” I think I had alarmed her a little bit. Papa couldn’t believe that his eloquent discourse had been interrupted for this.
“I’m not worrying about them. I was just thinking why I hadn’t seen any.”
Now Ma came and sat next to me.
“There is a boy,” she began. “I want you to meet him.”
“Sure”, I said. “What standard is he in?” Usually, I give career advice to distressed youth.
“No,” Ma said. “For marriage. The proposal is for you. Meet him.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Why not?”
I was pretty sure that I was trying her patience now.
“That’s not how I want to meet my life partner – like this.”
“Why?”
“It’s like getting a job through reference. It’s not on merit. I don’t like it.”
“On merit! What...how…what...on merit?!” I could tell that she was having a little problem grasping what I had just said.
“How do you intend to find a partner – on ‘merit’?” Sure, when you say it like that, the idea seems pretty silly.
“The universe will unfold and I’ll find him if I have to.” I made a sweet gesture of using my hands to denote the universe. The way kids do when they sing, ‘He has the whole world in his hands, he’s got the whole wide world in his hands.’ Perhaps this was a bit much now. I can’t be weird, juvenile and demented all together at the same time.
So, the Mumbai Mirror was flung aside, which landed squarely on the DVD player. Neat. Sometimes, one must take a moment to marvel the handiworks of wrath.
“You thought the Universe was unfolding the last two times, didn’t you? What happened?”
A good point.
“Nothing happened. I made a mistake,” I replied calmly.
The Mumbai Mirror is the exact size of the DVD player. The things you never notice.
“What if there is nothing when the Universe unfolds – except maybe pregnant sparrows?”Another very good point.
“We’ll have to wait and see”, I replied with appropriate gravitas.
“What if there’s no Universe?”
Ma was on a roll here. I should have read that essay by Russell. I believe that someone had asked him this – of course, someone more amenable to reason than an irate mother.
“Are we still talking about the boy?”, my father interjected, hoping to continue what is annoyingly becoming his favorite topic.
“Yes,” Ma snapped. It can’t be easy being the only non-strange person in the family.
We went to my room. Ma closed the door and switched on the AC. This would take a while. She sat down opposite me and asked me why I was so closed to the idea of her introducing me to someone.
It took me some time to gather my thoughts. I didn’t want to come across as flim-flam, but I guess I had taken care of that risk long back.
And then, calm and collected, I made my move.
To me, my life partner will be like my most cherished book. And my most prized books have come into my life unsought.
I was sixteen when I was really close to a pen friend. He was suffering from osteoporosis. Apart from mailing each other, we occasionally talked over the phone. Around that time, I was going through the motions as a suburban girl in a ‘town’ college. Every day, I came across ways to ease my discomfiture. Learning these wiles was fun. You came in to class early and left late so people didn’t get a chance to see you walk. You went to the library during break and sat near the Anthropology periodicals where nobody ever went. You talked only when spoken to. That sort of thing. I was telling this to my friend when he stopped me and said that I wouldn’t be the same person once I graduated.
I disagreed. Sixteen is when you staunchly hold on to a sense of self even if it isn’t really there. So the grip is tighter.
Later, I went to the library to get some books.I got some comics and was distractedly pulling out other books from the shelves and putting them back. In my head, I was still talking to my friend. I had no idea what books I had selected.
When I reached home, among the usual suspects, I found this novel, ‘Just the way we were.’ It was by a rather unknown author and ordinarily, I would not have chosen such a story. But the title sort of spoke to me. That story about two sisters, growing up and parting ways, was so close to what I was thinking. All this from a book I had picked up without actually picking it out.
Something similar happened in my very first year in college. One rainy afternoon, I had fallen asleep in the library. The librarian woke me up when the library was closing down. I was leaving the hall when I happened to look at the book, ‘Dandelion Wine’ by Ray Bradbury on the center table. It was such a splendid title! I touched the spine of the book and just felt that this would be important. But the library was shutting down and I couldn’t issue the book then.
I came back the next day and couldn’t find it. This library had another level with long corridors of shelves. I went through one dusty shelf after another and nothing. According to the librarian’s records, there was only one book of short stories by that author. Nothing else.
I studied in that college for five years. I was a member of two external libraries and didn’t find the book there. I went to so many book fairs but no, there was no ‘Dandelion Wine.’I graduated and worked in four jobs. Nearly eight years after that day in the library, in my fifth job, I met Jaygee. On first instance, she and I didn’t have much in common. But then we worked together and she told me that she’d gone to school with one of my best pals in college. Somehow, in her, I used to get the feeling that she was my link to something out there. Like I’d be thinking about some restaurant in town and she’d have visited it the night before.
One day, I came across this link to on-line literature that I forwarded to all my friends. In the evening, when Jaygee and I were having coffee, she told me that the link was good.
“It has some interesting books. Salman Rushdie too,” she informed.
I agreed, longingly eyeing a brownie.
Then she told me that the site had links to works by other authors she hadn’t heard of.
“Some interesting titles,” she continued. “There was a nice one..Dandelion..something.”
In so many years after graduating from college, I had never once given the book another thought. Yet, at that moment, I knew that was the book we were talking about.
“Was it ‘Dandelion wine’? By Ray Bradbury?”, I almost shrieked. I cannot say what I felt then. To have lost something you never had and find it so astonishingly. I still feel a little chill when I think about it.
“Yes”, she replied nonchalantly. “It’s on the site you forwarded.”
That moment, I had gone back to the library and found the book on the table. It was still my first year in college, it was still raining and dark and cloudy outside. I wake up to the musty smell of a closed, cluttered room. But now, I have the book.
It is so soporifically mind-boggling. When I think that it took eight years to get this job, to find this link, to meet Jaygee who told me about this book. The chances of me finding ‘Dandelion Wine’ this way were so slim. I may have decided to not join this job or not forward this link or Jaygee and I would not have worked together or she may have not talked about the link over coffee. I could have missed my Dandelion Wine over such slender slips. But I was meant to find Dandelion Wine – somewhere, some how.
I think that I would meet my ‘boy’ like that – quirk of fate, twist of destiny, hiccup of the Universe. Whatever. Through the sharp force of magic. I know this sounds like sodden garble. I know you stop thinking this way when you turn sixteen. The trouble is that’s when I started.
In the most certain part of my soul, I believe that people, like books, arrive to answer a question. Sure, sometimes you find that the book has some pages missing or it wasn’t what you wanted or maybe you don’t quite understand the language or the print is difficult to read. Or you may get the book simply because it’s on the bestseller’s list and everyone’s reading it. Then you wonder what the big deal was anyway. Sure. That happens. But then, you do find a book that answers the question your soul has asked without you even knowing it. Like that quote, “You’re everything I never knew I always wanted.”
You don’t coerce the soul to ask a question just because everyone else is asking it at the time. You don’t get a third person to ask it. You don’t push a finger into a bud and force it to blossom because it’s spring and all the other flowers in the valley are happy and fragrant. You wait for the season of your bud. You wait for your book to reach you. Most importantly, you wait for your soul to ask the question.
And if you never meet someone, it only means that your soul was evolved enough to know all the answers, so it didn’t need anyone else. What really is there, then, to feel bad about?
This is what I told my mother- no loud voices, no shrill tones, nothing. Thus I stated my whole, soul truth, uncorroborated though it was.
Ma listened quietly and started folding linen. It is surreal when that happens. Her eyes told me that she now accepted that her daughter was weird yet wonderful. Or maybe I read too much into that. Maybe the eyes only said, “My daughter is weird. End of sentence.”
Finally, she spoke.“So, have you ever come across a book that is so complete and wonderful that…I don’t know, fills you up?”
There was. This book, truly, made me a person. If my literary life can be divided into two parts, it would be before reading that book and after reading it. That, as far as books go, would be my absolute soul mate.
“Of course!”, I answered. “Roots by Alex Haley.”
Ma folded the last bed sheet.
“You may want to remember that your mother got you that one.”
I smiled. You know it when you’ve lost the queen.
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1.) My cousin, who was born sixteen hours before me, got married recently. I am expected to follow her footsteps soon. Thankfully, I have been granted more than sixteen hours to do that.
2.) My father’s health has taken a turn for the worse.
3.) My mother is completely exhausted.
Rationally, points 1, 2, and 3 would be distinct from each other. But in my family there is no such thing as ‘rationally’. Therefore all these points are inter-related. Strangely, here, we believe my marriage to be an antidote to mortality and fatigue.
I happened to be sitting in my parents’ room while Ma looked through Papa’s blood reports. They didn’t look good. Ma was worried and Papa didn’t help matters much. He kept talking about Sourav Ganguly and why he deserved better. Ma got further agitated and after flinging the reports somewhere inconvenient to retrieve (I should know), she snapped, “So what? There are many like him.”
Papa doesn’t believe that and would have no one in his family believe that either. He went to considerable lengths to explain why there could be never be anyone like him. It was a waste because Ma doesn’t listen to people, especially her husband. It’s a trait that runs in my maternal bloodline.
Amidst all this, Ma asked Papa, “What if you die?”
Papa replied, “Then I’d be dead.”
Ma smiled. In my parent’s language, that was ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too.’
Now that the subject of impending death had been broached, my parents looked at me. I, of late, have come to be associated with such merry matters.
“See, she looks worried,” Ma observed.
“Hmm”, said Papa, a little perplexed. He would have preferred to go on about Ganguly’s eternal uniqueness. His daughter looking worried was, well, normal and hadn’t we all learned to live with that now?
“What is worrying you?”, Ma asked.
The thing is that I have joint eyebrows. If I’m thinking about anything, they furrow and give the impression that I’m translating Bertrand Russell’s works to German in my head. In reality, I may be thinking of something quite inconsequential. Like, when my mother asked me what was worrying me, I was actually wondering what a pregnant sparrow looked like. I told her.
“Why are you worrying about pregnant sparrows?!” I think I had alarmed her a little bit. Papa couldn’t believe that his eloquent discourse had been interrupted for this.
“I’m not worrying about them. I was just thinking why I hadn’t seen any.”
Now Ma came and sat next to me.
“There is a boy,” she began. “I want you to meet him.”
“Sure”, I said. “What standard is he in?” Usually, I give career advice to distressed youth.
“No,” Ma said. “For marriage. The proposal is for you. Meet him.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Why not?”
I was pretty sure that I was trying her patience now.
“That’s not how I want to meet my life partner – like this.”
“Why?”
“It’s like getting a job through reference. It’s not on merit. I don’t like it.”
“On merit! What...how…what...on merit?!” I could tell that she was having a little problem grasping what I had just said.
“How do you intend to find a partner – on ‘merit’?” Sure, when you say it like that, the idea seems pretty silly.
“The universe will unfold and I’ll find him if I have to.” I made a sweet gesture of using my hands to denote the universe. The way kids do when they sing, ‘He has the whole world in his hands, he’s got the whole wide world in his hands.’ Perhaps this was a bit much now. I can’t be weird, juvenile and demented all together at the same time.
So, the Mumbai Mirror was flung aside, which landed squarely on the DVD player. Neat. Sometimes, one must take a moment to marvel the handiworks of wrath.
“You thought the Universe was unfolding the last two times, didn’t you? What happened?”
A good point.
“Nothing happened. I made a mistake,” I replied calmly.
The Mumbai Mirror is the exact size of the DVD player. The things you never notice.
“What if there is nothing when the Universe unfolds – except maybe pregnant sparrows?”Another very good point.
“We’ll have to wait and see”, I replied with appropriate gravitas.
“What if there’s no Universe?”
Ma was on a roll here. I should have read that essay by Russell. I believe that someone had asked him this – of course, someone more amenable to reason than an irate mother.
“Are we still talking about the boy?”, my father interjected, hoping to continue what is annoyingly becoming his favorite topic.
“Yes,” Ma snapped. It can’t be easy being the only non-strange person in the family.
We went to my room. Ma closed the door and switched on the AC. This would take a while. She sat down opposite me and asked me why I was so closed to the idea of her introducing me to someone.
It took me some time to gather my thoughts. I didn’t want to come across as flim-flam, but I guess I had taken care of that risk long back.
And then, calm and collected, I made my move.
To me, my life partner will be like my most cherished book. And my most prized books have come into my life unsought.
I was sixteen when I was really close to a pen friend. He was suffering from osteoporosis. Apart from mailing each other, we occasionally talked over the phone. Around that time, I was going through the motions as a suburban girl in a ‘town’ college. Every day, I came across ways to ease my discomfiture. Learning these wiles was fun. You came in to class early and left late so people didn’t get a chance to see you walk. You went to the library during break and sat near the Anthropology periodicals where nobody ever went. You talked only when spoken to. That sort of thing. I was telling this to my friend when he stopped me and said that I wouldn’t be the same person once I graduated.
I disagreed. Sixteen is when you staunchly hold on to a sense of self even if it isn’t really there. So the grip is tighter.
Later, I went to the library to get some books.I got some comics and was distractedly pulling out other books from the shelves and putting them back. In my head, I was still talking to my friend. I had no idea what books I had selected.
When I reached home, among the usual suspects, I found this novel, ‘Just the way we were.’ It was by a rather unknown author and ordinarily, I would not have chosen such a story. But the title sort of spoke to me. That story about two sisters, growing up and parting ways, was so close to what I was thinking. All this from a book I had picked up without actually picking it out.
Something similar happened in my very first year in college. One rainy afternoon, I had fallen asleep in the library. The librarian woke me up when the library was closing down. I was leaving the hall when I happened to look at the book, ‘Dandelion Wine’ by Ray Bradbury on the center table. It was such a splendid title! I touched the spine of the book and just felt that this would be important. But the library was shutting down and I couldn’t issue the book then.
I came back the next day and couldn’t find it. This library had another level with long corridors of shelves. I went through one dusty shelf after another and nothing. According to the librarian’s records, there was only one book of short stories by that author. Nothing else.
I studied in that college for five years. I was a member of two external libraries and didn’t find the book there. I went to so many book fairs but no, there was no ‘Dandelion Wine.’I graduated and worked in four jobs. Nearly eight years after that day in the library, in my fifth job, I met Jaygee. On first instance, she and I didn’t have much in common. But then we worked together and she told me that she’d gone to school with one of my best pals in college. Somehow, in her, I used to get the feeling that she was my link to something out there. Like I’d be thinking about some restaurant in town and she’d have visited it the night before.
One day, I came across this link to on-line literature that I forwarded to all my friends. In the evening, when Jaygee and I were having coffee, she told me that the link was good.
“It has some interesting books. Salman Rushdie too,” she informed.
I agreed, longingly eyeing a brownie.
Then she told me that the site had links to works by other authors she hadn’t heard of.
“Some interesting titles,” she continued. “There was a nice one..Dandelion..something.”
In so many years after graduating from college, I had never once given the book another thought. Yet, at that moment, I knew that was the book we were talking about.
“Was it ‘Dandelion wine’? By Ray Bradbury?”, I almost shrieked. I cannot say what I felt then. To have lost something you never had and find it so astonishingly. I still feel a little chill when I think about it.
“Yes”, she replied nonchalantly. “It’s on the site you forwarded.”
That moment, I had gone back to the library and found the book on the table. It was still my first year in college, it was still raining and dark and cloudy outside. I wake up to the musty smell of a closed, cluttered room. But now, I have the book.
It is so soporifically mind-boggling. When I think that it took eight years to get this job, to find this link, to meet Jaygee who told me about this book. The chances of me finding ‘Dandelion Wine’ this way were so slim. I may have decided to not join this job or not forward this link or Jaygee and I would not have worked together or she may have not talked about the link over coffee. I could have missed my Dandelion Wine over such slender slips. But I was meant to find Dandelion Wine – somewhere, some how.
I think that I would meet my ‘boy’ like that – quirk of fate, twist of destiny, hiccup of the Universe. Whatever. Through the sharp force of magic. I know this sounds like sodden garble. I know you stop thinking this way when you turn sixteen. The trouble is that’s when I started.
In the most certain part of my soul, I believe that people, like books, arrive to answer a question. Sure, sometimes you find that the book has some pages missing or it wasn’t what you wanted or maybe you don’t quite understand the language or the print is difficult to read. Or you may get the book simply because it’s on the bestseller’s list and everyone’s reading it. Then you wonder what the big deal was anyway. Sure. That happens. But then, you do find a book that answers the question your soul has asked without you even knowing it. Like that quote, “You’re everything I never knew I always wanted.”
You don’t coerce the soul to ask a question just because everyone else is asking it at the time. You don’t get a third person to ask it. You don’t push a finger into a bud and force it to blossom because it’s spring and all the other flowers in the valley are happy and fragrant. You wait for the season of your bud. You wait for your book to reach you. Most importantly, you wait for your soul to ask the question.
And if you never meet someone, it only means that your soul was evolved enough to know all the answers, so it didn’t need anyone else. What really is there, then, to feel bad about?
This is what I told my mother- no loud voices, no shrill tones, nothing. Thus I stated my whole, soul truth, uncorroborated though it was.
Ma listened quietly and started folding linen. It is surreal when that happens. Her eyes told me that she now accepted that her daughter was weird yet wonderful. Or maybe I read too much into that. Maybe the eyes only said, “My daughter is weird. End of sentence.”
Finally, she spoke.“So, have you ever come across a book that is so complete and wonderful that…I don’t know, fills you up?”
There was. This book, truly, made me a person. If my literary life can be divided into two parts, it would be before reading that book and after reading it. That, as far as books go, would be my absolute soul mate.
“Of course!”, I answered. “Roots by Alex Haley.”
Ma folded the last bed sheet.
“You may want to remember that your mother got you that one.”
I smiled. You know it when you’ve lost the queen.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The life ahead!
“So what are your future plans? “, He asked me.
“Excuse me?”, I looked up in disbelief. What are my plans for the future?
I always claim and take immense pride in the fact that I know myself a lot better than people ever get to know themselves. So what indeed lies ahead of me? For the past six months, life has been nothing more than a series of onsite calls, deliverables, deadlines, inevitable bouts of fatigues, crash diets and similar mundane activities that in no way point out to my inherent belief in the theory of existentialism…
Where is my freedom of choice gone? What am I here for? Why am I doing something I would rather not? And why the hell did I not notice the time fly by, just like that?
Ah! All that can wait. He is waiting for an answer. But what do I answer? What can I say? “He he he… I never thought of it” sounds so stupid.
“Well, as far as professional life is concerned I want to stick to this company for some more time. Then maybe I will jump over with a job band change. Personal life, anyways mom and dad look into it.”
Uggh! What was that? A 1/10 at max.
He gave me a strange stare. I stared back at myself too. In retrospect, I realize what is going on… All those days of serious planning, those carefully and painfully planned itineraries… Whatever have they resulted in? A big NOUGHT.
So I left all planning to the One who is greater than any one of us… He who moves everything around and makes myriad patterns of nothingness of our lives just as he makes our lives out of those very myriad patterns of nothingness.
And anyways by planning your life you make an elementary mistake... You tend to overlook the central fact that all the factors that have lead to a particular decision are themselves ever changing… Nothing is more ridiculous than to arrive at a place ( or a conclusion) and realize you have no idea why you struggled so hard to get here in the first place! :0)
And this has happened to me many times in the past. Result: I deduced that I am better off not burdening myself with the lofty pursuits of the tomorrow that never comes… Each day is the same as the previous one or the next. Whatever! Accolades of today are forgotten tomorrow just as the ignominy of yesterday is lost on us today.
What is time? What is today? What is tomorrow? And what exactly was yesterday? All of it is nothing but a myth and all of it comes to nothing in the end.
I will pass on to the next world.
So shall you.
We all will be replaced by someone else.
Who shall plan for his days too.
In vain do we think, we write the story
We do as we will, we are indeed free
If it is so then tell me what is it that you’ve changed
Indeed, how different are you from me?
“Excuse me?”, I looked up in disbelief. What are my plans for the future?
I always claim and take immense pride in the fact that I know myself a lot better than people ever get to know themselves. So what indeed lies ahead of me? For the past six months, life has been nothing more than a series of onsite calls, deliverables, deadlines, inevitable bouts of fatigues, crash diets and similar mundane activities that in no way point out to my inherent belief in the theory of existentialism…
Where is my freedom of choice gone? What am I here for? Why am I doing something I would rather not? And why the hell did I not notice the time fly by, just like that?
Ah! All that can wait. He is waiting for an answer. But what do I answer? What can I say? “He he he… I never thought of it” sounds so stupid.
“Well, as far as professional life is concerned I want to stick to this company for some more time. Then maybe I will jump over with a job band change. Personal life, anyways mom and dad look into it.”
Uggh! What was that? A 1/10 at max.
He gave me a strange stare. I stared back at myself too. In retrospect, I realize what is going on… All those days of serious planning, those carefully and painfully planned itineraries… Whatever have they resulted in? A big NOUGHT.
So I left all planning to the One who is greater than any one of us… He who moves everything around and makes myriad patterns of nothingness of our lives just as he makes our lives out of those very myriad patterns of nothingness.
And anyways by planning your life you make an elementary mistake... You tend to overlook the central fact that all the factors that have lead to a particular decision are themselves ever changing… Nothing is more ridiculous than to arrive at a place ( or a conclusion) and realize you have no idea why you struggled so hard to get here in the first place! :0)
And this has happened to me many times in the past. Result: I deduced that I am better off not burdening myself with the lofty pursuits of the tomorrow that never comes… Each day is the same as the previous one or the next. Whatever! Accolades of today are forgotten tomorrow just as the ignominy of yesterday is lost on us today.
What is time? What is today? What is tomorrow? And what exactly was yesterday? All of it is nothing but a myth and all of it comes to nothing in the end.
I will pass on to the next world.
So shall you.
We all will be replaced by someone else.
Who shall plan for his days too.
In vain do we think, we write the story
We do as we will, we are indeed free
If it is so then tell me what is it that you’ve changed
Indeed, how different are you from me?
Life goes on - Unlimited
Lost in the emotions of ecstasy & despair by turns
We all need to unwind at times
Take out time to smell the roses
Feel the breeze, listen to the wind chimes
Let the body serve but as a mouthpiece
Let the soul do the talking
Let go of yourself in the train of thoughts
Flow with the currents and stop balking
Speak out fearlessly, unabashed, totally uninhibited
Not mind if the words make any sense
Just watch oneself from a distance
Unmindful of whether you come across as a genius or simply dense
It is at moments of truth like these that we realize
The answers we seek are already there
Hidden beneath the surface of our flawed premises and assumptions
Willing to reveal themselves, if you shall dare
Pals no pals, company no company
Thoughts will go on unabated
Its just that i have to purge them from time to time
And let my life go on – unlimited!!!
We all need to unwind at times
Take out time to smell the roses
Feel the breeze, listen to the wind chimes
Let the body serve but as a mouthpiece
Let the soul do the talking
Let go of yourself in the train of thoughts
Flow with the currents and stop balking
Speak out fearlessly, unabashed, totally uninhibited
Not mind if the words make any sense
Just watch oneself from a distance
Unmindful of whether you come across as a genius or simply dense
It is at moments of truth like these that we realize
The answers we seek are already there
Hidden beneath the surface of our flawed premises and assumptions
Willing to reveal themselves, if you shall dare
Pals no pals, company no company
Thoughts will go on unabated
Its just that i have to purge them from time to time
And let my life go on – unlimited!!!
Jerks!
Here comes my birthday again. 25 years of life gone by… Time to rethink my life and what is it that I am doing wrong. Well, let me not bore everyone with all the details of THAT now. One of the most important things that I thought I would get to do is to be more patient with people I interact with. I had barely made this resolve and walked into my office with an intent to implement all that I'd planned, when the P-I-D-Ns of the world strike again. I receive a few mails from unknown “gentlemen” wishing me a very happy birthday.
Ok? What’s wrong with that now? And as a decent individual, what do you do? A polite thank you, maybe? Now isn’t that a right thing to do? NO. It isn’t. Never even bother replying to people you don’t know. The problem with this world is it is full of jerks. Even the sensible ones are mad. What is then left to say about the not so sane ones?
Some of the beauties that I got back in replies were something that ran like:
· No Archoo, (Yuck! I really hate endearments when they pour in unsolicited. Now Dad calls me that! YOU are not my DAD and I don’t want you to call me that. I never really realized how is it that people get so cosy cosy with someone they barely know?) I thought we can be friends but…
· No, we do not. I just thought of wishing you a happy birthday. So which district in Andhra do you belong to? (And just how is that necessary for you to know, when all you wanted to do was JUST WISH ME? and why do you think I will be willing to answer a question like that? What does it matter anyway?)
And there are few more precious gems of this sort that’ll go down in my gallery of “Men- Inscrutable, crazy, jerks, geeks or plain nerdy”.
As I wonder – Why me? Sri gave me this response - Freaks! ALL b'cos u chose to be too free on the discussions in public forums. Now everyone knows there’s a lady Archana Amperayani who kind of talks jolly. That’s it with gals in India I guess. They get to leverage the best of orkut and others....but they get to deal with such crap too…
What rubbish? I am not saying Sri’s deduction is wrong? Maybe, not maybe... Surely that is what is happening. But then, what the heck? Yeah, I do enjoy talking to intelligent people. But, either in a witty conversation or with close friends. Not to every Tom, Dick, Harry. Ah! How much do I hate these unsolicited mails and calls?
I mean, don’t most of the men lament how girls always talk make-up, shopping, dolls and other things they aren’t able to relate to at all? How being around girls puts them off coz they indulge in “sissy” talk! Well, I am real glad that they do! At least, they don’t have to put up with this kind of a crap. No wonder most of the women like to play dumb. It’s probably the smartest thing too.
Getting complimented for participating in a witty conversation feels good. Getting stalked doesn’t. How difficult is it for people to understand that just because someone takes part in a discussion in a PUBLIC, SECURED forum doesn't mean he/she is available for you to come, chat and carry out your crazy experiments on… One gentleman actually had the nerve to ask me out to a park (What the hell?) in the very first mail that he sent me? LOL… Now, how the hell do you know that I am not a psychopathic killer who first cuts the ears, then the nose, then the fingers before dousing you in kerosene and setting you ablaze?
I know I haven’t blogged in a long while now and I know this kind of an acerbic post doesn’t make a fitting end to a brief self-imposed exile but then:
"I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already."-Hobbes
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