Thoughts In Play (T.I.P)

Things To Do On Valentine's Day: Tips for the single souls

2012-02-09T00:10:00.002+05:30

Are you single? No, don't flatter yourself thinking it's a cheesy question from me. It's for you to answer to yourself. Are you single this Valentine's Day? Yeah? Alright, this post is for you. Just in case you've been wondering what will I do on the 14th of Feb... sob sob! these tips might help you.
So, how can you spend the most-dreaded day (for singles) without cursing yourself for it? These are my suggestions:

1. Get proposed with gifts and chocolates and everything called "romantic" in front of your friends. Mysteriously: Not as crazy as it sounds. You're in college with your friends, listening to their woes and nodding at the fact that Valentine's Day is just bullshit (for obvious reasons) and suddenly somebody comes in—carrying a bouquet full of flowers, loads of exotic chocolates and a pretty card with lots of hearts here and there, hands it all to an astonished you and says in the softest tone possible... somebody has sent this for you. Alright, the guy isn't anyone but, so what! You just rendered your friends to the highest levels of envy! They'll be burning inside seeing the lovelies you have just received! So what if they were ordered by, ahem, you only. Who's gonna find out how lucky, (or crazy), you are!

Don't forget to write on the card: will you be my Valentine? —Anonymous. "Anonymous"—now THAT is important. Because a) You don't want this to be discussed ever again, lest they start finding loopholes in your plan and b) It's the safest bet, for both guys and girls, I say. Enjoy.

2. Sit at home and do... nothing: Boring? Reading a post that promises tips on how to spend the Valentine's Day, d'you think YOU really can call something boring? And sitting at home is not as uninteresting as it sounds. In fact it's... normal, just your regular stuff. Just lock yourself up in your room, tell your family that you'll be working on a very important project all day so DND. No access to any newspapers, nor to the internet and you won't even remember what day it is. Okay, that might be a little 'difficult'. Curse me not, for difficult is this post.

3. Facebook!!!!!: Why lose hope when Facebook is there! Your partner for years, a true soul-mate, it won't disappoint you this time too, for sure. If there is one website that can never exhaust of the options of things-to-do, this, it is. This!

Send out a bazillion friend-requests. Who knows, you might get your Valentine for the next year.
Browse through girls' pictures. "Like" them (even if you don't) and post comments like, "you look so sweet:)" (even if she is looking like a disaster and her smile isn't worth a single penny). Deja vu moment, guys?
Post philosophical status-updates talking about the love, which you do have. What is it? Aye, parents! You may or may not remember them on another day but on the Forever Alone Day they suddenly look like the most beautiful people you've been gifted with, no? Put up a status like: 'This love is superficial, friends. True love is the love you get from parents. Grow up!!!' (... ahan? You really think it's them who need to grow up, mister/miss pretentious? :P)
The funny status updates never fail. You could post, "gotta accept one of the million pending proposals, man. :D" and you'll emerge a winner. Because a) both you and the readers know you're kidding b) both you and the readers know what the truth is.
But at least, you get away with it... umm.. wittily!

4. Like all of 9Gag's "Forever Alone" pictures: Come on, you just find them a lot funny. Nothing personal. No no, no one will think it's your story. I hope.

5. Write a love story: Or a post to help others like you—or no, leave that out, only writers and bloggers can do that. In stead spend your time reading some of them. Ah, such a good option. Consider these posts by me. They became pretty popular when I wrote them. Although the stories, if you ask me, embarass me now. But they're on "love" nevertheless, might suit your taste. :P

6. Join the Shiv Sena: If none of the above works for you, this surely will. Being a Shiv Sainik gives you the official, unquestionable right to vent out your frustration at being single on those who aren't. Go about smashing windows, or maybe people's heads because they happen to have a date. In return you get a hundred reasons to state—why Valentine's Day is a crime according to our culture—and also that this is why you oppose it. (Yeah, whatever)

So, that was it. Five simple tips on how to spend the 14th of February differently. It's okay, it's okay, you don't have to thank me, haha. It is my responsibility to think in the benefit of my readers, come on, goodness comes to me naturally. :)
Just make sure you've clicked on the like button (which was dysfunctional for SO long, till only today:-/) of this post. Why? Well, because this Valentine's I'll be sitting in front of my PC counting my blog's statistics. To each, his own! :P

Sayonara!

What does democracy mean to me?

2012-01-30T01:17:00.000+05:30

Just as this question is propped before my eyes, I do what most people would do in their attempt to answer it, just for an ignition start: a Wikipedia search of the term "Democracy". As expected, I read the first line carefully and end up reading just that. The definition can't be clearer.

Democracy in its purest or most ideal form would be a society in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.

A number of words in the singlet strike me hard, causing a hodgepodge of political views and personal beliefs and the actual reality. The part that I, in particular, can't take my eyes off is this—"...in its purest or most ideal form would be..."
"Would be"—but it isn't. In its purest form—which, again, it isn't. You see what I meant when I said "the actual reality"?

Hello, dear reader. I come from India—a country popularly acclaimed as the "World's Largest Democracy". Though if you were to ask me, the title is anything but a reverend source of pride. Of all other things, it reminds me of our country's over/ever-growing population. That apart, I have grown to doubt its pragmatism more often than not. Because whether or not you agree, India—yes, the World's Largest so-called "Democracy"—hasn't exactly been very well all these years, not even close to that. Slightly unacceptable for a nation looked up to as the "largest" in what might happen to be the only reliable way of governance in this world, don't you think? Just what has gone wrong?

Quite recently here, people were strewn into two, or rather three, debating parties. One, that supported one Anna Hazare's Anti-Corruption Movement. Two, who didn't support... Anna's team and its fight, that is, not the cause of being anti-to-corruption. And three, obviously, who either didn't have a say or weren't sure or didn't care to have a say.
Anyway, so people worshiped them like devotees, at least initially they definitely did. For the supporters, every word by Anna/Team was etched on the stone. Anti-Anna people were, in fact, looked down upon as traitors. Well, not exactly; take it in a figure-of-speech manner and you'll get it. Anna kept fighting (read "fasting"). The first protest was a widely popular one: hefty rains in Delhi and a multitude of people waiting to welcome Anna—also considered by many as "another Gandhi"—outside jail, to later join him at the fasting venue, undeterred. People and the media roared, that this is how the public can make governments squirm in their seats, this is what a democracy can do... so on.
And thus, all that happened. But, it kept happening! People soon grew tired. Fasts, fasts and fasts. Brawls and issues within Anna's team, the government's own version of the much-debated Lokpal Bill (called the "Ombudsman" elsewhere) plus new questions being raised on its ingenuity and old people backing out from the revolt and the whole thing being seen as a sham being used by opponent parties and heck, what not!... all this further added to the doubts as to what the hell was going on. Suddenly, just SUDDENLY, it wasn't so cool to shout "I am Anna"; suddenly the picture was fading out. Fading to callous oblivion that had existed before the hype built up.
When the whole hysteria ended—which was only recently—I had a new opinion of my own: Eliminate all traces of intellect from "Democracy" and you arrive at the concept of "Mobocracy"—exactly what we are.
You know why? Because a country whose governance relies on its people is democratic, no doubt, but tends to be stupid just as well. Stupid, to say the least. Here's why: "People", in the real sense of the word, comprises a faceless crowd of individuals. And crowds move either east or west, they don't, and can't, settle for a middle-path, even if it is the correct one. What else do you think extremism is?
And so, be it an Anna Hazare suddenly propping up with a resolve to eliminate corruption by FAST means or something else, a change—any change—in a country like ours is bound to stir up things, but only for a while, only as long as it sounds "sensational". And thus comes into the picture the forever dwindling public, the janta—a long lost kin of one of Gandhiji's monkeys, perhaps. Except that at any point of time it either talks OR stays deaf OR becomes blind and so on. So when it talks, it just talks, without thinking, without looking and without understanding. And when it is quiet, nothing can move it. All in all, dumbness is a key characteristic of the public!

Why all this talk? you may ask. I tell you why, because the question is: what does democracy mean to me? And the answer is similar to that of Wikipedia. It means a lot to me, BUT, only in its ideal, pure form. All adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives—what could be more reliable? More responsible? More fair? But, idealism is idealism because it isn't the practicality. Ditto for the concept of Democracy—at least here, in India.

And thus I arrive at the concept of Mobocracy. If Democracy is the fantastic beauty, Mobocracy is its unintelligent alter ego, and also the stark reality. There is a reason why politics in India has dirtied itself and the system badly, a reason why good leadership is missing, a reason why corruption is fast seeping into the very roots of our foundation, a reason why, let's admit, we still don't seem to care enough. There is a reason why nothing is right about the "World's Largest Democracy".
You know what the reason is? I'll tell you what I feel: that we aren't a democracy anymore, no matter how much we claim it, we are, actually, being ruled by the mob. Mobocracy.

So, the gazillion political parties here have just one aim in mind—to please the mob, or at least, a majority of it. Votes matter, but the sad thing is, they are the only thing that seem to matter. Not development, not welfare, not progress; just votes. So if the mob has suddenly risen in support of the cause of a certain Bill, the government cannot dare to say a flat no. It'll rather say a yes and then, when the dumb mob has gotten confused enough out of its wits, pass their own version of it. For the people, with the people, by the people redefined.

And to make it worse, the mob doesn't want to think. A part of it has an opinion, right, but nobody really has the time to figure out what needs to be done and then freaking do it! Forget everything else, this is India, where 80% of the youth doesn't even go cast a vote! We'll sit at home, talk articulately about how this country is heading to nowhere (the way I am doing right now, yes, you can say so) and so on. Further, our patriotism and junoon shall remain dormant for as long as possible UNTIL one sheep decides to take the lead, for us to simply follow it... BLINDLY. That, my friend, is another facet of Mobocracy—the herd mentality.

I can croon for as long as I want to. I can complain as much as I want. But the truth is, while doing so, there is nothing fruitful that I'm leading to, doing nothing new. So I'll conclude with my final words on the topic "What does democracy mean to me?"

Like I said, democracy, in its ideal form means a lot to me, brings a lot of hope and somewhere, also looks like the only fair way of governance we can have; yet, the way its real picture comes out is dismal, to say the least. It comes with its own drawbacks, yes, but then... can we imagine being ruled by dictators? Can we imagine being enslaved by another nation, just because it happens to be more "powerful"? Can we imagine having a king who has to be worshipped, has to be appeased and whose word has to be considered the final word just because he happens to come from a "royal lineage"? NO! There is a reason why all this came to an end, a reason why people stood up against it, a reason why nations saw lives aplenty being sacrificed to become democratic, to become a country that is ruled by its people and not a handful of individuals, to become an entity where the leaders are under the people... all in all, to become nations run by PEOPLE. Just WHEN will we realize this? Just WHEN will we realize the power of our vote? Just WHEN will we try to find out who deserves to be our leader and who doesn't? Just WHEN will we have the heart to step in the dirt and wipe it off, instead of playing sidelined spectators? JUST WHEN WILL WE WAKE UP?

"ADVIA!" — A Short Story by Sigrun Srivastav

2012-01-29T13:35:00.000+05:30

Hi friends! This post is to share with you all an extremely beautiful and touching story that I first read back then in 7th standard. I'd like to tell you that it is a book named "A moment Of Truth" by Sigrun Srivastava containing "true stories from around the world" that brought me to it. The book was a prize, and thus an even more prized possession. The stories in it, lucidly written for children but drenched with emotions and life nonetheless, were awe-inspiring. But the best of them all is "Advia!". It was while reading "The Kite Runner" recently that I recalled faint memories of the book and "Advia!" as both the stories are based in Taliban occupied Afghanistan. It sends shivers down the spines to think what kind of a life commoners there would be living. Won't say more.
Thank god I found the book among my old things. I was trying hard but the word "Advia" just couldn't click. The whole story revolves around it. So don't look it up. I'd love it if you too would read this short story. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Tanvi says, “Forget it, Puja.” But I can’t forget it. The memory of the two men, hitting on the car window, rattling the door, shouting, “Advia, Advia”, still haunts me.

***

I hadn't decided whether I liked Afghanistan. I knew my father did, though he had been here for only four months, working as an engineer at the Khanabad Irrigation Project. My brother and I had stayed back in Delhi with my uncle and aunt. We had come to spend our holidays with my parents in the small town of Kunduz, not far from the Russian border. We had visited the historical place of Balk over the weekend, and were on our way back when everything began to oppress me: the stillness of the wild rocky mountainside, bare of any vegetation; the ghostly craters of rocks and stones flanking the road on both sides; the dust and the heat. I felt uncomfortable.

I looked at my brother, sitting next to me in the car. Suddenly he put into words what I had been thinking, “Look at this side. Isn’t it a perfect hiding place for dacoits?”
My mother started and shot a questioning glance at my father who laughed softly. Without taking his eyes off the road before him, he said, “I haven’t been long enough in Afghanistan to comment on that. But from what I have heard from my colleagues and experienced myself, I gather the people of Afghanistan are rather friendly and hospitable.” I met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He smiled at me and added, “Oh, don’t look so frightened, Puja. We will soon be at Tashkurghan and from there it is not far to Kunduz.” And to change our mood he suggested, “Why don’t you all sing a few oldies for me?”

So we sang the oldies at the top of our voices, in an attempt to drive the blues away—the blues and the dacoits. After the next bend, before the road began to rise, my father slowed down and brought the car to a halt on the right side. “Nothing to worry about,” he assured us. “I’m checking the rear wheels.” He got out of the car. We opened all the doors to let in some fresh air. But the air that entered was hot and dry.

My mother picked up the flask at her feet and I wiped my forehead with my handkerchief. I wished we were back at Kunduz and I could take a long cool bath.
“Do you want some water, Puja?” asked Mother, I nodded and extended my hand, while my eyes travelled past her, up the road. What I saw made me drop the cup. Water spilled onto my jeans and the matting of the car.
“Puja,” scolded my mother.
“Idiot,” grunted my brother.

I continued to stare past my mother’s surprised face at two men rushing towards our car. The taller of the two charged at us. The other one limped behind awkwardly. Their eyes glittered menacingly from under their dirty turbans. Their ankle-length black coats, with long sleeves hanging at both sides, flapped around them like the wings of some monstrous bird. They were coming straight at us. I shrieked and pointed at them. “Dacoits, dacoits.” My mother turned around to stare at them, at the one swirling a stick above his head and shouting, “Advia!” My mother shrieked again. The, flask dropped from her lap. Drawing away from the window she whispered, “Rohan, Rohan, help!”

“Papa, Papa,” I shouted and flung myself across my brother in an attempt to leave the car from the opposite side. My brother pushed me back and said harshly, “Get back, Puja. Stop acting like a fool.” Then he was out of the door and calling to my father, “Papa, dacoits! They’re coming straight at us. Come back. We have to leave. Start the car, Papa. Hurry! Please!”
Sudhir banged the door shut and shouted at us, “Shut the doors. Wind up the window glass, fast.”

I pressed myself back into the seat of the car, paralyzed with fear. I kept staring at the two men advancing towards the car at my side. The taller of the two had already reached the bonnet. His left hand slid over the metal and touched my mother’s window. He shouted something.
“Wind up your window, Ma,” I heard my brother shout. “Lock the door, Ma. You must lock the door. Bring your window up, Puja. Do you hear?”

I did hear him. But his voice seemed to reach me from a distance. I wanted to move, wind up the window, but I couldn’t. I just could not move. I was aware of my father squeezing himself behind the steering wheel, slamming the door shut behind him. Winding up, he shouted, “Lock the doors! Lock the doors!” Then he turned the ignition key, once, twice. The motor started.
Automatically I reached out for the handle. My hand trembled as I turned it rapidly. My eyes were fixed on the face of the man who had reached my mother’s window and I did not notice the glass moving down as I turned the handle in the wrong direction. The man thrust his hands forward. By that time, I had realized my mistake and started raising the window glass. The hands were caught by the upward moving glass. He grabbed it, and clung to it, trying to push it down with great force. The glass inched up slowly, painfully. When finally it reached the top, it pressed the dacoit’s fingers against the frame. The man yelled and withdrew his hands. He banged at the glass with his fist and hammered the door with his stick. Then he dropped it and rattled the door handle with both hands. He shouted at my mother. His words sounded like “Advia”.
Then from behind the furious man, the other one emerged. He threw himself at my door, and tried to hit at the window pane with his fists. But there was no window pane. He hit me, almost. Then grabbing my arm, he pushed himself forward and with his bloodshot eyes flashing at me, he roared, “Advia, Advia, Advia!”

I stared at him, unable to move or speak. All I could do was stare into the dusty, bearded face and listen to the voice that shouted over and over again, “Advia, Advia. Lutfun mara dawa bitte.” He shook my arm and reached inside the car with the other hand. “Papa,” I shrieked.
Then I was thrown forward against the back of the front seat and bounced back again. The dacoit was jerked forward. He released my arm but hung onto the window. As the car gathered speed he fell into a run beside it, still holding onto the window frame with his left hand. His dirty face bobbed up and down as he kept on running and shouting, “Advia. Advia. Advia.” Over and over again.
And then his hands were gone, his hands, his face and his voice. Our car sped along the unmetalled road, leaving behind a cloud of dust.
I did not turn to look back. But Sudhir did. He cried excitedly, “We licked them. We shook them off, Pa. Wow!”

Then he looked at me disdainfully. “How dumb can you get, Puja? Don’t you know how to raise a window glass?”
“Stop picking on her,” murmured my father. “These things do happen in such moments.”
“But the dacoit almost got her by the throat,” shouted my brother.
“He did not,” I protested weakly.
“Well, if he’d had time to pull out his knife, you…” “Sudhir, please,” pleaded my mother. “Will you please stop that! Let’s thank God that we are all safe.”
“Okay,” mumbled my brother, and shot a last disdainful glance at me. He looked out of the window, then shook his head once more and cried, “We’ve licked them! Papa, you were great! You got the car started in a few seconds.” Those seconds had seemed an eternity to me.

“These guys,” continued my brother, “were out to get our watches and Ma’s chain. But we shook them off. We licked them!” Sudhir clapped his hands gleefully. But I wasn't pleased at all. I was on the verge of crying as I fought the voice still running through my head, “Advia. Advia.”
“Pa,” I said finally after we had had our dinner, “I would like to look up the word ‘Advia’. I wonder what it means?” “It means ‘hands up’,” stated my brother taking the last spoonful of kheer, “or ‘I’ll kill you!’ or...”
“Sudhir,” pleaded my mother. My father returned from the bedroom with a thick dictionary. It did not take him long to find the word, but it took him almost a minute to read it. His face was pale and his eyes looked troubled as he said in a flat voice, “Advia means ‘medicine’.”
For a long time no one spoke. Then my mother whispered, “Oh my God, oh my God,” over and over again.
I stared at her and at my brother and did what I had wanted to do all afternoon. I began to cry.

******

Love, Miracle and Adventure: Three life changing experiences

2012-01-13T14:46:00.000+05:30

Love, adventure and miracle: can there be anyone sans experiences of three such fantastic realms of life? Following are three priceless anecdotes that I saw flashing in my mind when these words came in front of my eyes. Needless to say, they are true and in fact, marked as fond remembrances in the form of pictures clicked by our first camera—the conventional "reel-wala" camera—an invaluable commodity for us in those days.
I hope, this post turns out to be as enjoyable for you as it is for me. The photos are products of the same old camera. Not very clear here though, as I didn't have a scanner.

1. LOVE: Mum, me and the Fancy-Dress competition

I was in the second standard then. A fancy-dress competition was announced as part of an important school function. Important, because it wasn't the regular stuff where one could simply volunteer and participate—rather, a teacher was doing the rounds of various classes looking for new interested 'talent', auditioning them and then selecting the ones who would get to take the stage in front of the whole school.

I have fancied the stage ever since I was a kid. So when I saw this opportunity coming my way, I couldn't resist. When the teacher came and asked who was interested in taking part, I was among the first (actually the only) one(s) to raise a hand. That felt good.

But when it came down to the auditions, I failed to impress. I don't remember a lot but she probably asked me to say a few lines, confidently. I fumbled; I was nervous as hell and clueless on how to go about it. Unconvinced, she politely asked me to go back to my classroom.

I was a shy child, a very shy child. But that didn't deter my wish to not let go of the chance that I saw coming. Sad and upset, I shared my grief with mum. The next day, she was in school, pleading to that teacher to guide me a little bit but let participate. "Bachche ka dil toot jayega," was her point. I think it is very embarrassing to be standing next to the one who is asking someone to do a, umm, favor to you. The teacher tried to say no, but mum asked her to give me another chance. (So Indian Idol-ish, I know!) As goes any fairy-tale, I did much better this time. My delivery of the lines—with mum's support and advice—turned out to be much better and convincing this one time. The teacher agreed and included my name in the list of participants.

With each practice—at school as well as home—I became better at it. By the way, it wasn't any rocket science that I was aiming at (a kid's fancy-dress competition, what else do you expect?) As decided by mummy dearest, I was going to "essay" the role of a TOMATO (can you imagine!) in the competition.

To make my entry the winning entry, mum came up with an excellent idea. Students of 2nd children actually had to just walk about the stage like, err, models. But mum wanted me to say a few lines. What were they? I still remember that funny little doublet. DO NOT laugh: लाल लाल टमाटर हूँ मैं, हर सब्ज़ी में डलता हूँ| जो भी मुझको खायेगा, लाल लाल हो जायेगा! On the D-Day, shit happened. Mum was to bring from home the costume. She wanted to dress me up herself and so was going to take a half-day's off from work to pay me a generous visit. Unexpectedly, that didn't happen. Not soon enough.

I kept waiting at the backstage, anxiously looking at other students—all decked up in the most hilarious costumes ever—going on the stage to give their "performance". First standard students and then of second standard, all went and came back. While I stood here, still waiting. My teacher told me that my turn was over and I couldn't participate now. I was shattered. (God, kids take a wind's blow to get hurt, don't they!)
By the time mum came, fifth standard (the 'big' students of those days) children were at it. Had it been today, when I am twenty years old, I'd have fought with mum. But in those days I was a very quiet kid. I just silently told mum that my turn was over. <insert sad face> Unaffected, she dressed me up as if the competition was still yet to begin and went to the teacher, again.

They had a little discussion/argument/whatever again and finally, this was the conclusion: Sugandha can go on the stage and give her "performance" along with the 5th standard kiddos (as suggested by mum) but she will not be eligible for the prize. I can't even explain how odd it was, going there after the "big kids". I mean, here I was, barely a few feet above the ground, walking in unexpectedly after the 5th standard "big kids". Before entering, there was another source of fret. I was to be the sole contestant who would be going on the stage alone. The advantage was that since the fifth standard participants were to use a mic, I got one too—unlike my fellows. So I went there, walked about and around and came in front of the mic, delivering my lines smooth as ever—forgetful of the fact that there was a huge audience sitting in the front and I was a late entry.

I heard the loud sound of applause cheering me from everywhere. My teacher appreciated me saying that I actually deserve the first prize. I don't know if it was really said to mean so or it was just another encouraging gesture for a little child; nevertheless, it was a proud moment. Elated and flying high in the glory of the moment, I looked up to that lady who had taken all the pain and made all the effort for this one moment. Standing in one corner, smiling and waiting for me, she planted a nice wet kiss on my reddened, tomato-ish cheeks. And I was, once again, reminded of the purest form of love(r) I have been endowed with. Who else, but this lady, could know what mattered to me more—the prize or the joy of seeing a dream come true in front of my eyes. She taught me how to be confident as long as you are doing your job right, she fought for me where it was a matter of her darling's dreams. The encouragement—actually the push—I got from her in the initial years of my making, helped me become confident enough to face an audience and/or speak my mind, forever in life. She was, and still is so, my most lovely mother.

2. MIRACLE: My brother who could walk again

"Miracle", I feel, is a hard-to-define term. What's miracle for me could be mere co-incidence for someone else. Having said that, I still believe miracles should keep happening. Just when we begin to think we have known enough and our logic and rationale can very well interpret and/or predict anything, something totally unexpected happens, shaking us to the coarse reality—there still exists a power more powerful that can twist things in a manner that'll leave us gazing in total awe and astonishment. Today when I see my brother—who is four years younger to me—go crazy playing cricket, I am reminded of a very difficult and testing phase of his and our life—especially so for my parents who have seen their first daughter pass away right in front of their eyes.

He was all of 6 years when doctors declared that he wouldn't be able to walk again. Disasters strike unwarranted and unpredictably. That night, he suddenly felt his legs becoming numb. On being asked to walk, he couldn't even stand up. He cried in pain and helplessly groaned. Mom and dad could hardly understand what to do. In the meanwhile, my maternal uncle came to the rescue to take him to the hospital—at 2 in the midnight. That night and for days ahead on stretch, my little brother and parents had begun to lose hope of seeing him walk again. I remember the times when that little child who was yet to know the meaning of life would say innocently, with a few tears of pain wetting his supple skin, "बहुत दर्द होता है| इससे अच्छा तो मैं मर ही जाऊं!" That broke our hearts. Seeing mom and dad break into tears he would then try to cheer them up. "Look ma! See, I am fine!" he would say while trying to stand up with support of the wall behind. Everytime he tried doing that, he would fall down miserably. Nothing pains more than seeing your dearest ones in pain; that too the youngest child of the house—this beautiful, innocent and an absolutely pure soul (and believe me when I say that) who had a heart of gold. Nothing pains more. Many days passed by in this suffering.

We lived in a rented house in those days. One day, the landlord's wife came upstairs to meet mom. She told her about a particular lady doctor in a particular hospital—Dr. Kulkarni of Kalavati Hospital's orthopedic department, as mom informs me. Apparently, the doctor had successfully rendered a relative of our landlady to absolute fitness. My parents visited this doctor with my brother in their arms. The doctor could do what nobody had been able to do till now—she detected the problem area, the disease. Few days before this calamity struck, my brother had gone down with a normal viral fever. New in that area, my dad had then taken him to the nearest clinic that was running inside the doctor's residence. One can hardly imagine the harm that a bad doctor can do unless one has actually faced the outcome. We surely did, especially my little brother. Dr. Kulkarni informed us that the 5-day course necessary to fight away viral fever had not been rendered effectively. The bad doctor had instead given my brother normal tablets used to get rid of a temporary fever. In the next few days following that, the viral fever—untreated and alive—attacked the lower part of his body, right where the legs meet the abdomen, thus crippling him.

It was a rare case. Thanks to the diagnosis, effective treatment could be meted out over the next few weeks—FINALLY. Some months later when my brother could walk again, he couldn't stop running and jumping about excitedly. It became a challenge to explain to him that he needs a few days' rest still. For the next some years, in fact, he was weaker than kids his age. Low appetite, weak muscles and easily tiresome. But by god's generous grace, all passed well. My father touched the doctor's feet that day. A benign lifesaver, she had been. It still sends shivers down my spine to remember that the doctor had said then, "Don't thank me, it is my job. Thank the one who you pray to. We are just the medium, he is the real doer."

Mr brother, on our first vacation after
he regained his health: Manali

Man can do wonders with his sciences and inventions. But without belief in that eternal guiding force, all innovation, all discoveries can fall flat. The next day, we paid a visit to the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. Tears couldn't stop rolling out once again. This time, they were tears of joy and gratitude. Miracles happen.

3. ADVENTURE: "God save us from the Bheels", en route to Mount Abu

We were on one of our most beautiful trips of all time—to Rajasthan. Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Udaipur and Chittor had already been checked off on the list. The next and final destination on our itinerary was: Mount Abu. I was excited, as I had always wondered what a hill station in the desert land of Rajasthan would feel like. But there was a lot that fellows at our hotel told (read SCARED) us of. A lot.

The road route to the hill station is resided almost entirely by Bheels—a very prominent tribal community of our country. The first thing we did was cancel plans to cover the journey at night-time. There were several instances about tourists being robbed off money, jewelry and even clothes by tribesmen at night-time. Although if you ask me, traveling in the afternoon was no stress-buster either.

Every big rock that we saw on the roadside gave us the heebie-jeebies. We were told, these rocks are used to block the road at night so if a car comes by, the driver will have to get down. And that is how robberies took place. In day-time these rocks weren't used for this purpose so they just stayed there on the side to be used again at night. Some even had ropes attached, to be thrown from hilltops. Spooky much.

Every milestone that we passed made us heave a sigh of relief. The entire road was deserted. Somewhere you could see little kids of the Bheel tribe going to school. That was a soothing sight, making us think that these people were also humans like us. Such things were a good change as they let the elders change the topic. Both my parents being government employees, wondered whoever gets posted in such a lonely place would be smitten by bad luck for sure. "Can't be women," mom said. I agreed. Just for the heck of it. Like I cared, as long as the talks weren't Bheel-ish!

Just when things seemed to be getting normal, something happened, forcing us to fear the adventure turning into misadventure. On the road ahead we saw a huge rock placed right in the middle of the road.

So that dumb old rock squatting in the middle of nowhere freaked us out like hell, heaven everything. It felt a little stupid, shivering at the sight of something as un-alive as that. But the oh-so-unpopular fables couldn't be so easily ignored either. You won't believe it but for half an hour, we stood there. Goddamn stood there. Windows up, doors locked, eyes blank and staring at the rock. Discussions between my parents, my elder cousin who was accompanying us and the driver went on—to do or not to do.

Just then, four locals came by from the opposite direction. I saw them coming towards our car and informed the elders about it. Expressions changed all of a sudden from fear to... err... more fear. Secretly, I had wanted to see these much talked-about people—the Bheels. I imagined they'd look like the tribal people one saw on television—dressed up all colorfully and singing aloud jhingalalahoo. But no, I wasn't ever game for a robbery or... or... maybe something worse. Besides, these looked quite uninteresting. (Uninteresting—>Normal) Normal pant-shirt and stuff. Sheh!

They came and gathered around our car. Two on one side and two on another. One of them knocked at the driver's window. He said something too—obviously in their local language, Bhili. I so wish we could decipher what he was saying, because without that it all sounded like hololulu. Or maybe a dangerous warning to take out all our money and things! So here was this dark-colored (please don't think I'm a racist) man with three other similar looking people peeping inside our car with wide eyes, one of them knocking on the window as if it were made of wood, not glass and shouting out hololulu. Err, something like that. God, scary, was it!

With each passing minute, the knocks became louder, the eyes wider and the hololulu wilder. We sat still as that rock, transfixed in our position—as the driver instructed us to. Soon enough the Bheels got tired and began to move away. Talk about relief at its best! The driver finally muttered, "dekha dekha, kaam kar raha hai!". But lo! Those men didn't move away, instead they moved closer, to the rock. Holy mother of Jesus, what were they getting at!!!

All four of them joined hands in picking up that rock. Once they were able to do so, we freaked out a trillionth time! Were they going to throw it upon us/our car? Were they going to break open the car doors with it? What were they going to do with it??!! We were on the verge of jumping out of our skin!

Guess what they did. They... placed it back. Yes. On the roadside this time. You know what that means? That means they cleared the road for us. What the... ???

Before we could know what had happened, they were dusting their soiled hands with their clothes and beginning to walk away. OKAY. So had they just helped us? Is that what they had been trying to do till now, for SO long?? I suddenly felt the hololulu translating into, "kya hua ji?"

A picture of the Sunset-Point at
Mt. Abu that reminded me of
this incident. Love the fact that
I had the eye for it quite young. :)

Dumb-asses we. STILL didn't dare to go out and thank them. What if it is another trick? I am sure that was the question bugging everybody. We kept looking at them as they walked away, till they were no more visible. Only when the horizon seemed clear, we came back to our senses. WHAT THE HELL HAD JUST HAPPENED?!

As we started driving to Mount Abu again, I went into a perpetual thought process. So, are these people not bad actually? Are those stories mere rumours? If not, what could make people kinder than the "normal" people commit such crimes?

THAT LAST QUESTION there gave me the answer. "Poverty is the mother of crime", as someone rightly said. Yeah. Rightly said.

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P.S: This entry is a part of BlogAdda contests in association with Zapstore.com
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Year 2012 → 20 Resolutions That Should Be; 12 Resolutions That Shouldn't!

2011-12-31T15:13:00.001+05:30

First up, let me tell you, I am not the kind who makes and breaks resolutions every year. Not at all! Instead, I make and break resolutions every day. Err...yeah.Which is why, I do not waste the last day of the past year or the first day of the new year in listing down things that I ought to be doing in the new year. I either do them, or I don't. Needless to say, it's the latter, more often than not.

So here they are, 20 resolutions that should be:

I will study. On days other than those just before an exam.
When someone waiting for me somewhere calls up to ask where the hell I am, I'll say the truth.
I will not sit in front of the computer 24x7. Sometimes, I'll stand too.
I will not blame Engineering for my uselessness. I will blame it for every-damn-thing wrong with life.
I will be good even to those who I don't like. Means, I'll punch them a little less harder.
I will reject friend-requests from strangers. Without looking at their profiles.
When someone asks me, "how are you?" and I know they are doing it just for the sake of it, I'll be truthful. Which means, I'll bombard them with stories of how I really have been and how worse people like them make it for me!
I will get everyone who uses "Dear" while addressing any and every girl shot right in their head. To stick to the principles of humanity, I won't say after that, "they deserved it".
While on chat if the other person uses a word that I don't know, I will simply ask them what it means. Instead of doing this: open new tab → Google → "what is the meaning of..." → click best result & understand meaning → Back on chat → "Oh yes, I know what you mean. M-hmm."
If someone says something that I don't like, I'll ask them to shut up right there. Instead of imagining later on, things that could have been said.
I will learn to forgive and forget... my mistakes. Nothing more, nothing less.
While driving on the roads, I will not look down upon female drivers with disgust. I shall remember that I am one of them too.
I will take better care of my loved ones. Loved ones—other than myself.
I will read the newspaper daily—the main paper more seriously than the supplement.
I won't simply criticize the system, instead, I'll do something about it. Do what? Criticize.
I will not keep a tab of the number of people who subscribe to me on Facebook and also not rejoice at every new subscription.(What-the-hell-ever... 58 already, I am famous!)
I will not judge people by their: looks, grammar, college, talent and sense of humor. Doesn't mean I'll not dislike the ones who don't have any of it.
I will start reading more blogs. Other than my own.
I will not sadden myself thinking how I could've been taller, slimmer, prettier. Instead I'll look at the ones who're shorter, fatter and uglier and... laugh at them. Jokers, haha!
I will become a better person, a better friend, a better sister, a better daughter, a better student, a better human and... a better liar.

I hope you know all that doesn't have to be taken seriously. Actually, all this must be stuck-with forever and ever!

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Going on with the nonsensical stuff, here are 12 resolutions that should not be:

If someone hurts me real bad, I will let them go without a punch in the eye.
I will envy the ones who are better than me anywhere, instead of learning from them and getting inspired. (Yes I know, philosophical shit.)
I will reach college on time. Early enough to be able to attend the first class. <faints>
I will learn to value time... by getting a costlier watch.
I will be more sympathetic towards the baby called 'Justin Beiber'. Why? Because he's a kid afterall. (A kid who romances long-legged lasses. WTH, let's just beat the shit out of him!!)
I will not hate guys whose sense of humor thrives solely upon a)flirting b)puns with double-(not so innocent)-meanings. (This exercise will teach me how to ace the impossible. Humph!)
I will not call guys who make hearts on Facebook and elsewhere GAYS. The same holds true for girls. (Just replace 'gays' by 'girly'. Sexist, I know!)
I will respect people who say "I didn't knew". (<omg>)
I will stop looking for 'ways to generate money from blogging' in the name of 'writing for fun'.
I will begin to dislike Ranbir Kapoor just because he is a playboy in real life. (Uh-huh whatever.)
In a situation where I have to be witty, I will go with the wittiest answer (actually a question) of 2011—Why this Kolaveri Di?
I will not look down upon girls (and boys) who can't stop posting pictures of themselves in various poses; especially when I know, I have had my share of self-obsession too.
What the hell, it wasn't SO bad. Eww.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

So, that was it! The "should be" and "should not be" bucket-lists I prescribe for us all, for the year 2012. Funny enough, I hope?

Resolutions, or no resolutions, here's wishing you all a DAMN

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Just hope that we don't die. And welcome the new year with just one resolution in mind: I WILL STAY HAPPY :)

60 Things To Do Before You die

2011-12-20T12:18:00.000+05:30

This isn't exactly just my "bucket-list". So read on and find out how many of these things you want to do—at least once in life—and how many you have done already.

But before you go ahead, I want to tell you, that writing this list did wonders for me. I saw myself travelling back and forth in time, understanding my own self, my wishes and once again dreaming the way I used to, as a child—when I didn't need to be so practical or wise.
You too, my friend, must do this. At least once. And when doing so, follow only your heart, not your brain. Because the brain suggests only things that you will, or will be able to accomplish. That is where the disappointment of real life seeps in.
The heart, on the other hand, forces you to do anything and everything that shall make you happy—however illogical. It comes with some consequences sometimes, which is why, we cannot follow the heart in our real lives. But when thinking of the 50 (or so) things you must do before you die, let your heart rule. You always wanted it to, isn't it?

Ultimately, all that we all want to do before we die is to live our lives fully. And you know how that is possible? By experiencing every emotion, every situation, every up-and-down at least once. Failure, success, happiness, sadness, pain, tears, pride, nobility, peace, satisfaction, dissatisfaction and so on and on and on. The sixty things listed below, have been devised on the same lines. I urge you to not be judgmental, for once, and instead use this time asking yourself: what all do I want to do before life ends?

The list can obviously not be exhaustive. But if I am able to accomplish even three-fourths of all this, I'll assume having lived my life really. Do expect a few errors here and there—grammatical or otherwise.

Learn to play at least one instrument—the Guitar. Drums, Synthesizer, Violin, Flute, Tabla, Sitar, Duduke...so many more to learn thereafter.
Having done that, now compose a song entirely of your own, in your voice.
Fall in love.
Fall out of love.
Now fall in true love :P
Do a live concert—in your own room, with no one as the audience and yourself singing at the top of your voice. ✔
Openly tell someone how much you like them and why.
Openly tell someone how bad you hate them and why! ✔
Spend a day doing something special for each of your loved ones; make them smile, give them a long hug, tell them full-on sentimentally how important they are and why!
Do something REALLY adventurous—something you wouldn't, in your senses.
Put up an unedited, full-profile picture of yours as FB display pic.
Eat a lot and get fat for some days on stretch.
Spend the next some months on stretch: gyming, exercising and losing a lot of weight.
Start writing an autobiography. ✔
Stop writing the autobiography; thinking that no one is going to read it. ✔
Create a blog. ✔
Admit that you don't understand why the world hates Justin Beiber THIS much!
Face some form of on-stage embarrassment in front of a huge audience. ✔
Attend a big rock concert. Even if you don't understand rock, head-bang like hell.
Tell someone who hurt you how big a loser they are. Write a hate-letter to them. Let it be everything IN THEIR FACE. ✔
Go about with your friends ringing peoples' door bells and then disappearing. ✔
Spend a day in a water-park with friends/family diving in and out of neck-deep waters. More fun if you don't know how to swim. ✔
GO ON A WORLD TOUR!!
Write/Think of a long thank-you speech that you'll be giving at the Oscars. Now practice it hard. (Come on, we're talking about dreams and happiness here!) ✔
Must see: one desert, one hill-station, one village, one rainy-area, one forest.
Take a day off to go driving...freaking AIMLESSLY!!
Spend one day just to look your very best; at whatever cost that it takes.
Do something really worthy for school. Pay back to your alma mater in some measurable way.
One birthday in a crowded place with people singing out HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU aloud, smudging your face with cake and doing stuff totally nonsensical. ✔
Dance in the rain like you don't give a shit to the world, or the cold that you'll be catching the next morning. ✔
Take up a job you love.
If the above is not possible, then fall in love with the job you have. :P
Get invited to be the chief-guest for the school's national holidays' functions. (An honor meted out to a select few really successful alumni)
Admit for once in front of your friend that you didn't call back on seeing his/her missed-call just because you wanted to save your balance. Get nagged for being a miser.
Gift something great to each one in your family with your first salary.
Create your own language with someone close. ✔
For ONCE get a haircut you never tried before—something totally different, untried, maybe awkward.
Learn to say NO when you mean NO.
Spend at least one day doing something for the poor, illiterate, destitute. You are only trying to reduce the poverty of your heart this way, not theirs.
Cry when in pain. Even if in public. You don't always have to hold back when you can't.
Appear on T.V. In a way noticeable enough to be proud of.
See your favorite artist/band perform live any-damn-how! (Yanni in my case)
Write a book.
Help someone not close to you in a way that they won't forget.. So when you die, there'll be at least someone wishing that you were alive, not out of love or attachment, but out of sheer remembrance of your goodness.
Know yourself better than anyone else. ✔
Go out on a full day's luxury date—with mom.
One BIG individual achievement to be very, very proud of.
One stage-performance in front of a nice big audience—being cheered for like a rockstar. ✔
Get dressed up as someone from the opposite sex. ✔
Get asked for your autograph. ✔(don't think too highly of it :P)
Get your heart broken really brutally. Once.
Get over the heart-break like a true hero.
Save someone from being bullied and tell them why they cannot let just anyone bully them and what exactly they need to do about it.
Dream. Dream. DREAM the desirable, however impossible! And for once, don't regret doing so! ✔
Take mom on a world-tour.
Drive mom around in one of the costliest luxury cars—bought by you, on your own.
One whole vacation to go sky-diving/bungee-jumping/river-rafting etc. Go bonkers exploring adventure!!
One 'spiritual vacation'. Preferably at the Mt. Everest. For once try to discover the meaning and purpose of your life and this world and succeed at it too.
Create your bucket-list. Write down all that your heart says, without wondering if you will ever be able to fulfill it. ✔
Now set on a mission to fulfill your bucket-list, as much as possible. To live fully, is the most important thing to do before you die. ?

God. There's so much left to be done in life still! There is a deep philosophical thought behind each thing, couldn't list those out along. If you feel like questioning anything, drop in a comment below, apart from your 'things to do'.

Want to share with me and others, how many of these you have already done? Participate in this direct poll I created out of this list: http://poll.fm/3frv2

P.S: This is a late addition, didn't want to make it 61—an odd number. But how could I forget adding: get a professional DLSR or something and explore photography intensively. I really really want to do that. But a DSLR for now is, well, a tad too expensive. :P

How to be happy: A ten pointer

2011-12-09T22:19:00.001+05:30

As impossible as it may seem, I still wanted to do this. For myself, if not for you. The "key to happiness" has long been a mystery unexplained. Yet, it is all what we strive for. All of us, for that matter.
While it depends a lot on a person's own outlook, character, environment and particularly, the people he lives or spends his time with; there are a few basic things we all want/don't want. Those, form the essence of this post, aimed at listing out '10 ways of to be happy.'

1. Ignore hatred: Hatred begets hatred. That apart, hatred also begets unhappiness.
The fact is, we all hate someone or the other at some or all points of our lives. We hate them for their selfishness, for their meanness or simply, for their lack of love for us. Don't try to make them hate you lesser, it'll only remind you again and again that someone doesn't like you, don't try to pick up a fight about it either, just ignore it. As a wise man went on to say: "hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated." Could it be said any better?

2. Count the ones who love you. Not the ones who don't: Yes. For they don't matter.

No one in this world can be liked or loved by all. There is always somebody who wouldn't appreciate the way we are, or worse, our efforts to be as good as we can be. It could be because of jealousy or their own inferiority complex. That sounds mean, doesn't it. But let's just be honest to our own selves, jealousy and/or inferiority complex are feelings we all experience sometimes. They are no less a part of human-nature.

Even without really 'jealousy' being a reason, it is possible that someone just doesn't like you. Whatever be the case, it is best for us to not panic over it. We all have been made with some flaws here and there; the only way out to be liked or loved by every-damn-one, is to act fake. But mind you, the liking that shall follow will only be temporary then, and will turn into the worst form of hatred, when they get to see the real, flawed side of you. So be real. And be happy.

In one way, this point is an extension of the first one. But still separate to emphasize on the need to not just ignore hatred, but remember the ones who love you too.

3. Be choosy about your critics: Believe it or not, this is VERY important. Till some time back I used to be confused about this thing, that, while on one hand it is necessary to have someone tell you about your flaws time-and-now, lest you lose your ground and start flying too high with over-confidence; on the other hand, cynics can be really dangerous. Infact, a cynic can do more harm to your self-confidence and happiness than a critic can do good to them.

Thus, over the past few years, I have learned to make it a point to be selective about the people whose criticism I should be bothered by. At all points of time there is somebody or the other trying to pull you down; just because it is wise to stay rooted and be able to take criticism positively, doesn't mean we can let just anyone—sometimes even friends—ruin our personality. Afterall, there is something called as "accepting your friends as they are" too!

If you're interested to know my criteria of distinguishing between genuine critics-cum-well-wishers and cynics-cum-haters, here it is: only the ones who are as loud and frank about your achievements and positive traits, as they are of your weaknesses and/or failures, are worth paying attention to. Everybody else, is part of the big mean world.

4. Indulge in something creative: Other than your job—if it does involve something creative, that is.

You could be an engineer, a doctor, a Software Developer/tester or just a businessman, but indulgence is always important. One, it gives you an out-of-the-world feeling that yes! I am more than just my job. Two, it adds an altogether different, respectable dimension to your personality. Three, it teaches you how to be creative all the time, how to be more and more innovative. These are qualities that come handy in every sphere of life—professional, personal—everywhere.

Four, and lastly, it makes you smarter. Might sound naive but trust me, there are people who could be getting the highest grades in class through rote-learning or nerdy studies, but without some creative credibility to their merit, you may still find them dumb. Creativity, I feel, smartens one up. In the long run of life, it is things such as these that can make you successful, no? Not that marks won't make you successful(the definition of "success" is again debatable); but just marks certainly won't.

So take up something creative to exercise your brain-cells better. Art, music, dance, writing, entrepreneurship ...could be anything! (Girls, please do not include the "art" of doing good make-up here. I mean you could. But I'd suggest something, well, bigger.)

5. Let yourself be ruled by some divine force: Now, this doesn't have to be "god" necessarily. We all have our own reasons for being theistic/atheistic/agnostic/spiritual etc. That is not significant here. What's significant is, not letting yourself be the only person who can influence you. Trust me, that is unhealthy, because, you won't ever be able to know that you are wrong, if you are; you won't ever be able to know that you need to change the path, if you're on the wrong one; you won't ever be able to respect the fact that others are not, well, fools. It is like being one of those demons straight out of the Hindu scriptures—the ones who'd claim with an evil laughter, "there ain't no god here. I am my only god. I am THE god!!"

Might sound a little inflated but then that's what you're leading yourself to be—self-absorbed—by not giving space to an influence you'd really respect. Even more unfortunate is the fact that it does harm not only to the person who is so, but those around him/her too. I speak with experience, of being around such people, not being one.

So let there be a light in your life that matters a lot, that has been vested with the power to affect you, move you, touch you. That, my friends, is all what can keep humanity alive—the little that is left, I mean.

So, what is the divine force in your life? A religion? Spirituality? Music? Dance? Any other form of expression? Love? What is it??

6. Give limited amount of importance to the virtual world: "Says who!" did you dare say? Huh.

I am online most of the time. But honestly, with time, I have learned to not over-trust people here, not over-associate with people you don't know in real life and never expect too much from a virtual friendship. But here is another fact, some of them are really good and worth keeping up with. I knew no bloggers, writers and similar other creative people, before I became a part of the Web, somewhere in 2009. I have grown from strength-to-strength, as a person, writer everything ...by interacting with various people. So, do not step back from taking chances. There is always something new to learn from and in life, always someone who can teach it. Just that you should be able to judge a person, his/her intentions, character etc, before beginning to interact with them. That might take a little time to come, but then it's worth it.

7. Know your strengths: It is as important as knowing your weaknesses, but due to some reason, most manuscripts don't seem to mention it. I mean, how else would you know your life does have a meaning on this planet; how else will you be confident about yourself?

Here again, self-obsession is bad, very bad. Now don't blame me for being hypocritic or anything. Don't you know, "too much of anything is bad for health?"

I want to add here another important point: never let happy memories leave you, keep them preserved well in your heart. Didn't want to make it an "eleven-pointer." I like even numbers.

8. Be real. Express your real thoughts freely: They don't always have to be kind, just true, real, honest. Some will like it, many won't. But I'd say, this is still the best thing to go with, for personal satisfaction. You won't feel suffocated. Like, ever!

I said sometime back, "be who you are, and you might end up losing some people; be who they want you to be, and you might end up losing yourself."

True, no?

9. Be stupid. Don't let the child within you die: "What the hell?" you might say. Especially after this whole philosophical doctrine. But I'm sure most of you will agree, sometimes (rather, often!) nothing brings greater happiness than childish stupidity. Pretending to be flying like a bird swayed by the cool breeze, clapping joyously, relishing a simple orange ice-cream bar like the best thing on Earth, jumping excitedly, laughing, giggling, being naughty and teasing friends...all of this might make no sense to others, but the child within us understands no sense. He just does what he feels like doing, unaffected by people's reactions. What else do you think innocence is about. Sense and innocence: are they antonyms?

Here again, there is a second side to the coin("too much of anything is bad for health," remember?) I advocate this prophecy only because we all need to relax once in a while, to let ourselves enjoy freedom at its fullest and blah blah. BUT, growing up is also about ...umm...growing up. That too is important. Breaking into laughter when someone failed his exam, or dancing like a free bird when someone's, say, gotten into jail, will make you seem like you're out of your mind. And really, only someone out of his/her mind can be SO badly-timed.

Thus, we should probably try to get the right mix of things: maturity, along with childishness; smartness, along with innocence and yeah, blah blah.

Come on, I can't act wise all the time! #being stupid :P

10. Write a post titled, "10 ways to BE HAPPY:" No, really! I mean, just look at me. I have written down a whole long post teaching others how to be happy, as if I'm some monk who has attained satisfaction, peace and the 'key to happiness', in life already. I'm not even a Philosophy scholar and basically, in no other way credible enough to follow. Why then, "10 ways to be happy," from ME?

The answer is—for myself. I started this post long time back when I was really upset about certain things, I needed thoughts that would help me be happy. I wondered, how to be happy? And I started writing, wrote down the first two points and stopped there. Yes, at that point of time, the causal factor of my unhappiness was somewhere related to only them.

Today again I took up this post, albeit not in an unhappy state of mind. So I could think more clearly, more practically. And all the conclusions I arrived at, are here for you to see.

Thus, I come to the end. "Practice what you preach," a wise man(or was it a woman?) once said. Thank god he/she didn't say, "preach only that which you practice, " otherwise, I'd have never been eligible to write this piece.

Still learning. Hope this post will help. Me.

Rafiki's Priceless Lesson

2011-12-06T00:29:00.001+05:30

"Success!!!", he growled out loud
Success is all that I want from thee.
Money, chicks, name, fame...all unbound
Let mine be a life, all shall envy!"

"Aye...", smiled Rafiki, a face so un-ordinary
For it had the brightness of super-human wisdom
"This definition of success, my child, isn't even the elementary
But if that is what you ask, then that is what shalt be done."

A wise baboon and god's own messenger,

Rafiki could grant good-doers a wish

This man with his hard work, had emerged a winner
So the turn to demand something, was now his.

"Alright my son, then here you go
With what you think would satisfy you
Though it occurs to me most apropos
The outcome of this, is going to be huge."

Saying this, he took out his wand
God's messenger—the wise baboon, that is
Round-and-round, he swirled it around
Poof! The task was accomplished.

Very soon the man became
Everything he had aspired to be
A business tycoon, a world-known name
With 'chicks', money, fame: in no scarcity.

Day by day, more and more, he went on achieving
More money, more fame, more name and what not
Yet soon enough, something was changing
— perhaps, his idea of a perfect life's plot

It was sinking in again, that feeling so awry
Of being a creature so imperfect and incomplete
While everybody else envied the lucky guy
He was trying to figure out, "why am I not happy?"

He missed his family & friends he long back left
In pursuit of his so-called "bigger dreams"
"Why is it always the unsuccessful ones who preach about success?"
—he'd yelled at them then, most haughtily.

When all that they had asked the rising star
...was to slow down a bit and relax for a while
Lest there be a time when he'd have gone so far
...that he won't remember the last time he wore a real smile

Confused, he thought of paying Rafiki a visit
One after a rather long time
"He was who put me into this
Now he'll have to bring my life back on line"

"Rafiki!" he banged open the tree-house's door
"What the hell is happening to me!
Having got everything the world yearns for,
Why's it still so hard, for me to feel free!"

"But why my child" asked Rafiki simply
"Why at all do you complain?
I gave you all that you wanted from me
So your resentment now, to me looks insane!"

"Money, name, fame, girls and power
Altogether spelled your concept of 'success'
And now as you're fast climbing the ladder
You still dare to think, there's something amiss?"

"Yes yes yes!!" the man broke down to tears
"I have never before felt so empty
That with everything in my feet I still fear
..dying a life...unfulfilled really!"

"I have no one with who I could share everything
No one to rejoice in what I thought is "success"
Besides, there is this weird instinct bugging
That I'm never going to get, the key to happiness?"

"LOL," Rafiki chalked on the board in bold
"Is this what you were thinking then?
That with all things material in your hold
You'll get to be counted, in world's happiest men?"

"Sell off all your gold and gems, if you may
Bed, maybe, the hottest girls in town
Still, if you half as get for which you pray
I'll be the one, from that cliff to jump down."

"For, listen my child, I'll tell you now
What you missed out in this race
Was love, of the ones who mattered
—the ones you not long back caused disgrace."

"About the time when you'd asked arrogantly
'Why is it that about success who preach
Are the unsuccessful ones only?'
I've got here, a little lesson to teach."

"Imagine a bird flying bound for the skies
Not caring to spare a look, back around
And if that be the way there'd soon be a time
When it'd have lost its way, down to the ground."

"Works in a similar way for humans too, my friend
Much the same way, if you were to ask me
That it ain't success that stays in the end
But the way we first handled it."

"You could be big one day and have no clue
But never forget where you started from
Never think anyone around is less than you
'Coz sometime back, you too were at the bottom."

"And in the end, my child, all I can say is this
that love is love and money, money
The latter is to work for, aim, earn and spend
But it's the former that'll ultimately stay."

"So keep your loved ones close, be ego-less
They'll be there even when nothing's done
So in times of loneliness and distress
from a certain Rafiki, you won't need a lesson."

P.S: All credits mine for this attempt at writing this ballad-of-sorts. But all credit to the Timon-and-Pumba episodes I watched as a kid, that inspired me to use one of my favorite characters of those times, Rafiki, in this little tale. :)

Four stanzas of ..."Pretence"

2011-11-09T09:04:00.000+05:30

Every damn one imbibes it within
It is, every damn one's conjoined twin
At some point of time, or all
Every damn one's resort it's been

—Pretence

I don't know what's up with this place
Everyone around seems stuck in a race
A race, to be meaner but not let that show
A race, to act good and not let others know

—Pretence

I do not crib, for the want of perfection
To live less perfect, is a right still human
Which takes from me the right to complain
But, there's one thing that brings disdain

—Pretence

To claim that it's everybody else who's mean, and not us
To claim that it's only the others who want to be selfish, and not us
To claim "I cannot ever be as bad as him/her"
Makes it immodesty, at its dishonest worst

—Pretence

Two Hours

2011-11-06T12:36:00.000+05:30

Note: This post has been written for Indiblogger's "Surf Excel Matic #GetSmart Contest". This is the first time I am participating in a blogger contest. Hope it doesn't turn out to be too bad!
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It was one of those sticky situations where every single second counts more than a lifetime. At quarter past nine in the night, all that I could think of was how to pass the damned exam that was supposed to screw me the next day. More than the fact that I had wasted the whole semester lingering and loitering around, passing time, blogging, sleeping, dreaming, singing ...basically doing everything strictly unimportant, I was cursing the college administration for having given just a day's off for the subject I dreaded the most — Computer Networks. Books, notes, papers, pens lay in front of me fluttering like the wings of a restless pigeon — the simile might not make much sense, unless you pay heed only to the word "restlessness", which was making things all the more impossible then.

"If only I had attended all the classes, if only I had taken down all the class notes myself, if only I had issued the correct books from library, if only I had not believed my nerdy friends when they said there's hardly anything to study ...those liars, those pretenders, god! May they rot in hell. Now I'm here, wondering how the hell to manage a measly forty tomorrow and they'll be asleep already, dreaming about getting the highest score in class. Bloody %^&*#@!"
The chain of "if-only's" and frustrated blames simply refused to stop growing. Albeit nothing new for me at exam time, things were getting on my nerves a bit too bad this time. This one semester had been the worst test of patience one could ever experience, with multiple projects and sadistic teachers breaking tables on the head over this and that. Computer Net works, in particular, was one subject I had little idea about: be it a month ago, or the night before the final exam.

Just then, something happened. Something scary. I yawned! You know what that means, don't you? That I'm not going to be able to stay awake anymore! I don't know about you, but my case is always the same — the entire goddamned course could be lying untouched, but the moment I sense my body senses drifting to sleep, or wanting to, I instantly begin worrying more about my sleep than about the exam. I started calculating how to pull off (at least) 6 undisturbed hours of sleep somehow, anyhow. I am yet to figure out how do I manage to be so...so...awesome in such stressful times, but then I guess I just am made like that — awesome. (next only to Barney Stinson, of course).

I blessed the wall clock with an intense glance — tenth such since the last 45 minutes. '12 A.M,' it yelled at me like a bristly project manager would, if you were stuck on a previous assignment for an eternity. Quite an irony, I thought, the situation, my condition and the...the..time.
  After checking the time, it was now turn to check out how much of the syllabus was pending still. I started flipping pages of the book madly, till I came to the last page of the last chapter — "what a pleasure it'd have been, coming to this after having read the others," I thought. Two crazy units were left, and really crazy ones, mind you. So crazy that each bore a massive weightage for the exam and I had exactly the same amount of knowledge in each — nothing, that is. (BTW, did you know that "weightage" is only an 'Indian English' word. After Blogger showed a red line below it, I went on to check facts and then got to know there's something like 'Indian English' too.)

"It would take me two hours at max, if I were to mug up the important stuff in these two chapters. The really important ones, that is. The best part is that Yamuna (that's my friend's name, FYI) did give me an idea about the relevant topics in these most crucial crucifiers." I started giving excuses to myself. However lame they might be, excuses are definitely great stress-busters. I felt my tensions getting halved almost instantly! "Two hours, two hours, two hours," was all that echoed my head, for around a quarter of two hours. "If only the day had two more hours to it, I'd have been saved so smoothly. It's 12:35 right now. I'd have slept upto 7 in the morning" (that's a little greedy, you may say on closer look at the calculations); "studied this doublet from 7 to 9 and left for college at 10. It'd have been so wow-some! The course would have been completed to the best/worst/whatever of my capacity and the main thing, those 6 quiet hours of sleep wouldn't have been as unattainable as they are right now! What the hell do I do now. Mom says one should take adequate sleep before an exam to have an active brain the next day. So sleep is important. Oh of course it is! If only the day had two extra hours. Two hours, two hours, two hours..."

Before I could know what had happened to me, I was studying already. With new, revived energy-levels. I turned through pages briskly, noted down the key concepts, underlined the important things for last-minute reading, mugged up the most relevant concepts. All that took me two hours precisely. "So, my calculations weren't so wrong afterall." Proud, I packed up the whole academic mess, set the alarm, cleared my bed and instantly fell on it. Phew, I heaved a deeeeep sigh of relief and dozed off in a flash of a second. I can hardly explain how damn peaceful it was, how relaxed I was feeling. It was, what do I say, awe-mucking-some!! "I'm prepared a little, finally. Finally, I know something about CN. Yay. It'd be good. It'd be good. It won't be very bad...."

Almost as if the planet had been struck by a Zombie attack, I felt my world shake all of a sudden. The sound/noise of the alarm clock woke me up in a state of utter bewilderment. It played one of my favorite tunes — 'Rainmaker' by Yanni — but at the moment, it was no less than some badass heavy metal stuff. I stretched a bit and saw the time. '9:30 A.M,' is it only me or clocks do really shout out the time? I realized I was half an hour late according to my planned itinerary. "A little extra sleep doesn't hurt, bah."
Just when I was about to leave bed, I noticed my books left open, pages turning from first to the last and vice-versa in an infinite loop 'coz of the fan. Notes lay here and there and pens, uncapped. "But I had packed all of this after completing the two chapters dammit. The two chapters that I did in those two hours. Wait, those two hours? WHICH two hours?!"

Holy mother of Jesus, the realization could hardly settle in. Where on Earth could two extra hours come from suddenly!? HELL, I was damned for the day. "So I had actually slept through a crazy random dream, while in my sub-conscience imagining myself to be studying!!!! Shit!"

Need I explain what could've happened after that? I had little time to do anything, anything apart from getting ready and leaving for college. At 10 A.M I left for my exam that was to be doomed, praying to god to save me at the cost of my previous good-doings, if any.
I left at the stipulated time and slept for the stipulated number of hours. So the plan hadn't failed entirely afterall. Apart from the two chapters. Things would have fallen in place even for them. If only I had had two extra hours. If only....

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P.S1: Chuck if-only's. They are merely an outcome of over-imagination. The fact is that two extra hours or not, I'd have still slept them off. But that doesn't mean I don't want or need them. Saying that would be like belittling the importance of sleep — which, I believe, is the more important than laughter. If laughter is the best medicine, sleep is what keeps at bay the need to take medicine! :D
P.S2: The post was a work of fiction. Apart from the fact that I hate the subject CN, whose exam I take this very month. :P
So if the day had two extra hours, this is how I would spend them. What about you? Would love to know through the comments below.

From the pen of an occasional-hopeless-philosopher

2011-10-30T01:21:00.006+05:30

When I was little, I was spellbound by a story by the name of "Phoolkumari" that, first my mom and later some story-book taught me. Ever since then, I have carried it in some corner of my heart — well preserved, untouched, unforgettable. I say I don't know why, but actually I do.

Come to think of it, anything that touches us, affects us, makes us feel nostalgic, somewhere carries something that we can truly and deeply relate to. It is, but, human, to feel ecstatic at the fact that someone else too feels about something exactly the way we do. Having said that, Phoolkumari's story that mom'd often narrate to me at bedtime, is what it is for me, because I have seen it come into action, too many times to ignore. For the uninitiated, the story goes something like this:

Phoolkumari was the darling daughter of a king, a pretty little princess, so cheerful that her vivacious laughter could light up the environment, spring up new flowers and what not. She liked being happy and so, didn't need a reason to be so. Everybody loved the little rajkumari for the purity of her heart and her cheerful nature.
One day, the princess went out to the garden with her father, just for a stroll. While she was her usual self, the king wasn't. There was some major issue of the kingdom administration perturbing him and he wanted a little peace of mind to spend some time thinking, on his own. Phoolkumari, on the other hand, was loving the greenery of the place, the colorful fragrance of the flowers, the cool breeze and the chirping birds. All of a sudden something—something probably amusing—happened and Phoolkumari started laughing. She was a child, and thus couldn't gauge the tension on her father's face. She tried to share her moment of amusement with her loving father, hoping to make him happy too, but he instead ended up getting angry and shouted at her, "are you mad? Why do you always have to laugh without a reason?!"
The king's words were such a blow to the ever-so-loved and happy princess, that she couldn't even smile again, forget about laughing. Days went by and the whole kingdom joined the king and the queen in their anxiety, over the princess's lack of response to things. They yearned for her smile, the king cursed himself inside for having been so harsh with a little girl. He made his best efforts to cheer her up again — people from all over the country were called in to entertain her, if someone could bring her smile back, he was promised a huge award.
I won't get further with the story, but in the end, one of the entertainers, a stand-up comedian, did succeed in making the princess happy again. And the whole kingdom celebrated that day.

Unfortunately, we are no kings/queens/princes/princesses. We are ordinary people and if we're not happy, we're not happy, the world doesn't give a damn. And that much is fair enough. My problem is with the people who don't let us be happy, who have to be doing something or the other that distresses us or worse, spoils the day. And believe it or not, intentionally or unintentionally, we all or almost all, make someone unhappy with our words or actions quite often. You, me, everybody. I wonder why. There is a goodie-good person residing inside all of us, that knows what might unnecessarily hit the other person adversely, yet, it don't care to think too much. We don't.

I give both thumbs-up to straight-forwardness and honesty, one shouldn't lie. Fake compliments too are best avoided. But of late, I have started to think, how important criticism really is? Even honest criticism for that matter. If I don't look good some day, how important is it for someone to comment, "ye kya ban ke ayi hai?" or if I got a new dress that I am happy to be wearing, how wise is it for someone to play the spoiler by saying, "yahi mila tha kya?" OR say, a girl and a guy are in a supposedly serious relationship, and a happy one at that. They maybe poles apart from each other, but happy still. We, as spectators, obviously don't know the deeper nuances of their relationship. The girl maybe very short-tempered and the guy, a wise man; the girl may be hurting the guy everyday 'coz of this and the guy maybe the sweetest she could ever get, who deals with her patiently, and so on. We wouldn't get to know such things as outsiders. Then what fun do we get in comparing them both, maybe looks-wise, and casually commenting, "the girl is way too good for the guy man. Just look at him!!" We may mean no harm, but is it fair? Is it wise? Say one of them heard such things being said behind their back, how'd it feel? Would they be left totally unaffected?

I don't want to project myself as some melodramatic Phoolkumari with all this. These might sound like instances drawn from nowhere, bearing no coherence or little relevance, but I hope you know what am getting at. These aren't personal experiences, but things that still go around. Wonder why?
Maybe we could just let others be happy as they are and not poke our noses when not invited? Maybe we could keep our honesty at one side sometimes and not be outright critical/cynical about someone; it isn't that we don't commit sins greater than dishonesty anyway.

Maybe we could avoid indulging in mankind's favorite activity of describing others' faults to them. 'Coz admit it or not, the good old philosophy of "being honest" has been misinterpreted by everyone as "being unnecessary critical". Maybe we could let a person be happy if he is, and not be what the king was to the princess in that old story. Maybe. I'm not too sure. Happiness, afterall, is easier to lose and difficult to gain.

P.S: Please don't mind having spent your time reading this if this made little sense to you. But then, the title had enough to warn you in advance: 'from the pen of a "hopeless" philosopher'.

Jagjit Singh (8.2.1941–10.10.2011)

2011-10-10T11:23:00.000+05:30

Another demise. Of another man of brilliance extraordinaire. Isn't it strange, how people who don't even know of your existence, can cast such an inexplicable influence on your life, that their loss is shocking enough to wring your soul to tears.

I was little, very little, when I first heard dad singing the ghazal Garaj Baras. Young, however I was, I so loved it. Heard it on several occasions from dad, and playing on one of his many cassette tapes often enough to be affected. What was strange was that, even when dad stopped listening to those cassettes after some time, the ghazal, the voice and the words, remained with me. So much so that, when I grew up and had internet access—which I didn't, till 12th standard— I looked it up one day and was just too happy to have finally found it. It's there in my phone still and I play it whenever the mood is a bit low and I feel like reflecting a little bit. I started listening to ghazals only because of the legend who is no more.

I have seen him a lot on T.V, heard him and about him—from my parents, who'd tell me about his tragic life that witnessed the unfortunate death of his only son when he was just 21 and later, of his adopted daughter too. But he moved on, had to move on, and continued singing. It brings me to shivers, to think how hard it must have been, for him to let the musician in him to continue working, while the father in him was so broken.

"Garaj Baras" that I talk of, isn't perhaps his most popular rendition. People's reminiscences of the legend, that are on right now, don't seem to be mentioning it; but for me, it is special and close to my heart. "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho, kya gham hai jisko chupa rahe ho" is another one. But this is closest to me. I would suggest you to spend a little time listening to it and reflecting upon the words, if you listen to ghazal-music. If not, you might at least be able to measure the weight of the loss that the whole country is mourning.

Some of its most moving lines:
...soch samajh waalon ko thodi nadaani de maula...
...jeene waalon ko marne ki asaani de maula...
...jhooton ki duniya mein sach ko, tabaani de maula...
...tere hote koi kisi ki, jaan ka dushman kyun ho...
...fir mandir ko koi meera, deewani de maula...

Here's the link:

Won't say "R.I.P Jagjit Singh". If his soul can't rest in peace, no-one's can.

On death, Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs' death.

2011-10-06T12:52:00.002+05:30

On this day that the whole world mourns in unison, I can't help but contemplate over the two opposite facets of death — ironically the most inseparable part of life — as they flash in front of my eyes.

The last time so much was said and heard about someone's demise was when Osama Bin Laden — the most intimidating terrorist of all times, one whose very mention was enough to send shivers down the spine — was shot dead in what went on to be, one of the most talked-about missions ever undertaken in the history of mankind. At that time, the philosopher in me had prophesied:-Forget the basics of humanity and be staunchly 'religious' all your life. You too might die the most celebrated death ever.

On this day again, as people of the world seem wholly taken with the reminiscences of the man — Mr Steve-Apple-Jobs — the creative genius of an innovator who had the eye for an "I" that was going to change the very face of technology, and hopefully still will, the philosopher in me again wants to prophesy, for myself this time, that: if I were to die a death even a needle-point as mourned as this; if my dead soul was to be prayed for, honored and glorified even an atom's size as of the man who is no more, I'd know, sitting in heaven or hell — whatever may be the case — that mine was a life lived like none other . How I wish.

And this is not just to bask in the glory of the moment that I say all of this, I really mean it. Every word of it.
R.I.P Steve Jobs.
Ironically, it's only now that you're dead, that the part of the youth hitherto untouched by your inspiring words, would know of the great who backs the mind of every budding entrepreneur today. The man left a lot to learn from. For all of us.

10 best things about girls' schools

2011-10-05T17:34:00.001+05:30

Here are 10 things that, I suppose, make life in a girls' school rocking:

Life is pretty much free from double-not-so-innocent-meanings. Be it the Geography teacher's mention of a certain "rapeseed" or those Biology lessons on Reproduction, everything is what it really is. Simple humor, simple life, simple smiles.
Girly talks uninhibited. For the lovelies who can't resist discussing about their nail-paints, hairstyles, latest trends and stuff, an all-girls environment works better. 'Coz when they do so in front of guys, it's the other girls who end up looking elsewhere sheepishly. #askMEaboutIT
No bickering, bitching and message-passing for those helpless love birds; no going to school to "see someone special"; no friendships going bad due to stupid crushes; no making friends just to be friends with some-one; no fighting for a seat near that, it's getting cliched but, some-one again. With boys and their desperate acts not around, none of this to hamper the smooth-running of regular school-life.
It is thanks to hearsay that I know of all the cheesy stuff that commonly goes on in co-ed schools. As corny as they may sound, girls' schools are thankfully, and obviously, free of all such bullshit.
You learn how to ace the impossible—how to understand girls. Though of course, only if you are a girl too. But then, as a matter of fact, girls are impossible to fully comprehend not just for the ever-so-weepy about this, guys; but girls themselves! Infact, forget about girls knowing other girls, it'd be a surprise if they can be sure about themselves even.
How this helps? Well, god doesn't seem to have endowed any other species with as much variety as the fairer-sex. So when you get to know them inside-out, you get to know a lot about human-nature inside-out, in general—how sweet as well as bitter it can be, how selfless as well as selfish it can be, how fickle and oppositely, how focused it can be, and so on. Thus, you get to know not just two, but multifarious possible facets of you. (Some philosophy, that is, eh?)
It is fun being "un-conscious". Having people of the opposite sex around, of whatever kind, certainly induces some amount of self-consciousness and/or discomfort, for anybody for that matter. You are bound to want to watch your actions, words etc, even if they'd have been harmless otherwise.
Not that this is some problem, but then, was being at your natural best, ever short on fun?
The teachers, get to be just teachers, for god sake! And not a part of some toddler's fantasies.
I've heard of just too many guys having some liking—to say the least—for those "pretty gurus" who had the misfortune of teaching them. Liking for their smile, dressing-style, hair, laughter and so on and forth with the crap.
This is why the idea of a girls' school brings more relief, to me at least. That doesn't mean there's no-one here taking daily note of their teachers' dressing-styles, hair, accessories, gestures and the like, but the manner is a lot more innocent. Just a bunch of growing-up girls looking up to pretty ladies they'd want to be like. A lot girly, that is, however. A lot, even for my imagination.
Girls and their sense of humor at play. Contrary to popular belief, girls do have a sense of humor. And a way simpler and non-cheesy one at that. Unlike boys who seem to survive on jokes derived from the "bent" angle of their minds, girls can have a hearty laugh at: a couple of them imitating teachers and their ways, poking fun at each other's habits, sharing jokes and encounters with stupid people (guys) and so on. Not that all of them are funny, no. But many are; and the rest, can well appreciate the funny ones.
As a last message on this, to all the guys who dare say that girls lack good sense of humor, it takes one an appropriate sense of humor to appreciate another's. You can today smirk at your being funny, most probably because a girl told you that. Roger that?
They're funny creatures. :D Now this is not about their sense of humor, but girls, in general, are quite funny. Again, owing to the "variety" factor I guess. So you have all of them bundled up together in one crazy place: the blondes (dim-witted beauties), the pinkies (the ones with an addictive fetish for pink butterfly hair-clips, pink bags, pink watches and so on), the stinkies (yes, there are girls who stink real bad), the cool-ies (those cool-dudes of sorts: sleeves rolled up, abusive language, untied shoelaces ..basically with a way of dressing defying the very purpose of a school-uniform), the tomboys, the "mis-oriented" ones (you get the pun, don't you? I'd call them classic cases of some psychological identity-crisis and nothing else. Perhaps one downside of single-gender-education), the fighters, the back-biters, the jokers, the aunties, the nerds, the fashion-police (only girls can boast of knowing this weird art of inspecting uniform-clad people from the "fashion angle", or turning the whole uniform into something more "trendy". Although I, may I tell, have never been a fan of this skill) and finally, we have the smarties (those enviable pieces that smell of perfection) and so on ...it's crazy, really.
There is a wannabe inside every single human being, and possibly a bigger one in girls—all girls. It is when one of them goes berserk with it, that the others get a chance to giggle at them. Having said that, there's no denying that there are some guys and girls who just cannot get over their attention-seeking instinct of theirs, at any point of time.
Order order. Even though girls nowadays could put their previous generations to shame, given their fearless approach that shouts more of feminism than plain "fight-for-our-rights" confidence, there is bound to be a lot more discipline in a school where there are only girls, than one where there are boys too. Thus, it is less likely—in a girls' school, may I add—to be left astounded at the noise of a sudden bomb-explosion in the classroom when Diwali's around; less likely for teachers to be backfired with rude and impolite answers from a student who doesn't study or complete her homework; less likely for a classroom to witness chalk-pieces and paper-balls floating in thin air or students skidding on the floor. Mind it, I only say "less likely" and not "impossible".
Since we had our own moments of "dare-devilry" in school, you know. The whole class being sent to the principal's office for making a hell lot of noise in a free period or a bunch of students being meted out the classic punishment of standing in the corridor all day, head-down with shame, for littering the ground too bad, in a bid to celebrate a birthday or the last day of exams. Our own class once had it from the teacher, for spilling Pepsi all over the floor. We were trying to act smart and older than we were. As a result, we were put to cleaning the floors ourselves.
All in all, girls do try such stunts at times. Maybe just to act older and bolder than they are, or to get a hang of something different, something risky, for that matter. But the best thing about them is that they won't, usually, repeat a mistake they last got scolded or punished for. They obey their elders. Yes, they really do.
And as I strike the last point for this post, I reckon, there's a lot more that can be told. But to sum it up all, I'd say, there are good girls and there are not-so-good girls. Upto school, they are in their making; after college, they become who they want the world to see.
But whatever may be the case, for almost every girl, there's no alternate for a good girl-friend. The worst thing about us girls is that we get into envying one-another way too easily and way too much. Having said that, she may bond well with guys, but sooner or later, every girl is gonna need a female shoulder to cry upon, or for support. Because the emotional, psychological and instinctive constructs of a man and a woman can never match.

Cheers to girlhood. Cheers to the ten years of life with my Alma mater, Holy Child Sr. Sec. School. :-)

P.S: Wow, did that just show how good a man-free world might be? Let me know through the comments.

7 ways in which blogging has helped me. 7 reasons why everyone should try it.

2011-09-26T00:04:00.000+05:30

My first blog-post went online on 12/08/09. Ever since, I have improved a freaking manifold—as a writer, as an expressionist, as an appreciator of creativity and above all, as a person. Here are the 7 best things to have happened to me, courtesy blogging. If you've been considering taking it up too, this post may serve some purpose. If not, I wish, you do consider this amazing pursuit ...to explore yourself, if nothing else.

You can call yourself a writer—and so you are! Well, at least unofficially. Picture this: people spend half a lifetime in churning their brains to come up with some "novel idea" and then the rest half of it, in writing manuscripts for the planned book. Finally, at least fifty thousand words, gallons of ink (or loads of electricity units, for the E-writers) and marathons of runs from one publisher to another later, they are able to enter the literary world/market as "writers", with no certainty that the title will remain with them for long. And here you are, with the requirement of just having to occupy a little space on some free hosting site like Blogger or Wordpress, penning down your content:one-liners, poems, articles, whatever you feel like and finally, clicking on the "publish" button. 1-2-3 and you're ready to call yourself a 'writer'. Now if this is not a meaty deal, what on earth is?!
You get to come closer, to grammar—Check out my own first post linked to, above. That was a time and this is one time, and the growth is, but, so obvious. Isn't it? Infact, let me tell you, the linkwithin widget, that shows to you any four random posts below any post, has time and now taken me back to my past works. And reading them through and through, I have even felt embarrassed and subsequently, spent a great deal of time editing them.
Languages, as subjects, have always been my strongest point, which is why I took up blogging when I had nothing else to do in college—a place minus any co-curricular activities. At that time, I didn't care if people read me, I probably didn't know if fan-pages even existed, 'coz I could have never even imagined having one for my blog. Besides, I was very very new on Facebook. Thus, my internet-language was like most others' : complete with all the shorthands and overused smileys and yes, even stuff like "lolzzzz". * embarrassed*
Further, don't know why, but I used ellipses(....) so SO much, that one's eyes could cross the boundaries of their monitor, in a bid to reach the next word. My framing of sentences was nothing spectacular either. All in all, my writing was naive. Very naive.
But no regrets, I wrote only because I wanted to write, to use my free time more creatively. And to make up for the immense loss of creative undertakings that I suffered, after coming to college. One fine day I was so fed up of the lack of life in college life that I suddenly felt the urge to have some place that'd host just what I'd say. I got to know of the existence of something called "blogs" and went BINGO. Today, I'm only too happy that I did. Else, I wouldn't have undergone such phenomenally multi-dimensional growth as a person.
I've almost always shared a rapport with my language teachers—that may make me sound snobbish, but it was only because Hindi and English were subjects that genuinely interested me. (Though yes, it's only proficiency that begets interest. Be it music, dance, writing, acting etc. If you're good at it, you feel interested in it. *wink*)
So, my articles and stuff never quite failed to impress people. I wrote articles, even poems, speeches and delivered too many of them on-stage too. I was always appreciated and it felt good. That explains the confidence with which I took up blogging. But, some months into it and I knew, I am not as good as I thought I am. I got to know of the shortcomings of being a non-reader. It's only now that I realize, I may or may not have been good with words, but I was surely not a good writer back then. Not even remotely so.
One can write simply if he knows how to write. Having said that, writing what you're writing, in a more respectably organized manner, doesn't hurt. Call it "good writing". When you become a blogger, you may start out as a true amateur:new, naive, unlearned. But over time, as you get to see works by other respectable bloggers and get feedback from people—however bitter or sweet, you get to know where you lack.
What you write can be good only if you are imaginative enough. But how you write can be good if you have all the literary tools handy:the grammar. I can proudly say today, even though I never sucked at it earlier, I wasn't ever as good as it, as I am today. Start blogging, to know what I mean.
You build your vocabulary yourself, and don't even realize doing so—May I add, I was always an ardent non-reader. My mom didn't like to see me reading novels. She thought I'd read love-stories and those'd spoil my head. (Moms, actually, are too cutely right all the time. However wrong we may think they are being.) She forced me into reading newspapers though, the editorial section especially. I found it boring. But it helped a bit.
But I was never, and actually still am not, rich on vocabulary. I never did, and still don't, know words that'd weigh a ton. I was just a little pro (:P) at building sentences since the inception of school life—with all the "Make Sentences" exercises as the building block. Just by hobby, I loved making sentences and always tried coming up with unique ones, teachers always appreciated that. But the truth is, my coffers were never full of impressive idioms, unique words or interesting phrases. A year and a half into blogging, and I know a lot more than I did, back then. Still not much, of course, but much more. I won't get into the nuances of how I facilitated my learning process, since it varies from person to person.
You need words to write anything and with every new post on your blog, you shall get to know more and more of them. So much so that, you won't even know how.
Believe me, you can be bad/pathetic/good/great at writing and/or vocabulary. But with blogging, you will most certainly get to go miles further. To put it simply, blog if you want to be way better than how you presently are.
You can express your views. And get them heard too!—Who minds getting listeners? Who am I kidding, who manages to get listeners, in this busy world. Everyone is so involved in their own thought-processes that few have the time to pay heed to you and your ramblings. But with a blog, you have all the reasons to say all that you may want to. Don't worry if others are reading or not. No need to spam too. I never did. But as I improved as a writer, so did my posts. And I didn't even know how and when it all went on from one post to another, to a fan-page and to a good number of "followers". I am no stalwart, but it definitely feels good. Thanks to you all. :)
You get to "meet" new, potentially interesting people—without even stalking their profiles! Err, yeah.
So, the blogosphere is really big and as a blogger, some or the other time you are bound to come across/meet/talk to/hear from some of your counterparts—other bloggers. And let me tell you, they are awesome. Except for the fact that some, or rather most, of them could be really creepy spammers, they can actually help you learn a lot:directly or indirectly. Most of the improvement in my writing skills and grammatical-knowledge is courtesy some of my blogger friends. The rest of it, I owe to all those whose posts I happened to read and learn from.
You can earn money—I don't. So can't elaborate on how that is feasible, but everyone knows blogging can earn much, if not too much. Even though I have looked into this aspect, searched on it in the past, I am certainly not the best person to talk on it. One can easily find tips for it allover the internet.
One thing though, you can't expect to move mountains in terms of earnings, through blogging. Particularly blogging that's not niche blogging.
You get to learn new things—And I'm not talking about vocab or grammar. I mean they are also there obviously, but not just them. There's a lot more you can learn through blogging. Like if I tell you about myself, I've been incredibly low on technical know-how and sadly, incredibly uninterested too. Initially, my blog was meant only for pouring out all the trash I had to convey. So I took one of its default themes and simply started writing. Anyone would start like that only. But with time, as you grow, as you see people actually reading your stuff, you want to make their experience truly worth the while. Thus enter new themes, new widgets, new features and what not. The first technical thing learned in this process was to selectively choose one theme from thousands of those available for free on the net and then upload its XML file. Yeah yeah, that's no 'scaling the Everest', but for non-technical people, it still invokes a goody-goody feeling. From there on, one can learn loads. How widgets work, teeny-weeny bits of info about the web, adsense and stuff, HTML-XML tags and all that. It's not like I have learned all of these. But yes, blogging has brought me rather closer. It feels good to not be unaware of such terms, even while you waste hours writing, writing and writing!

As far as the technicalities are concerned, I have learned rather little; as I took interest in little. That's because I am more into the writing part. The very opposite would hold for a tech-blogger.
Thus, the amount and type of learning is bound to vary from one person to another. But on the whole, blogging is one attractive deal if you really want to learn a lot of stuff.

Writing skills, grammar, vocab, technical know-how, communication skills, wit, sarcasm and so on. There's too much of it up for grab. Go, blog. Go, learn!

What type of a Facebook-user are you?

2011-09-19T15:12:00.000+05:30

There've been countless posts around, about the various categories of Facebook-users (or as you may say, F-bookers). This is my attempt of doing the same, from what I have observed till date.

If we as Facebook-users were dogs, these would be our various breeds:P

"I am what I am! \m/ !!!!"—Half of their 'about me-s' declare this. Wish someone could tell them, dude! Fine, we know that. Why don't you instead try being better than who you are?
It's funny how people can even imagine, that by exploiting an already 'raped' cliché, they can 'stand out of the crowd'. (Why's everyone so obsessed with being called "different" anyway, I often wonder. It only makes them so much like everyone else).

"Cn v b frndship?" —Need I say more? Every girl who's on Facebook, every single girl, (even if she is not a girl in real), must've experienced the plight of going through such decent messages in their already-overloaded inbox, too many times. AND in this regard, looks/intelligence/talent/popularity....all of these, no bar! You just have to be a girl profile, and there'll be at least a dozen of such 'swt, carng, honst, frndly' guys out there, waiting to be your 'frndship'.

"Hey dear, u so swt.cn we b fraands?"
"Where's MA(h) maa?" —If maa is the universal symbol of love, then "ma"/"mah" certainly are the ultimate symbols of epic-failures. The only difference being that the former is way more respectable. And the latter, just a pathetic attempt at trying to be KEWL.Did I forget to add, short-hands SUCK?
(@Wannabes, ma/mah/iz/pics/lyf/rox/frns : take your pick.)
The Devadas-es —All hell breaks loose when they come online. Newsfeeds are flooded with copied, barbarously over-used and common one-liners about love, lovers, greedy girls, mean world, broken hearts, tears, memories and what not! The black-hearts that Facebook provides, are an ever-green part of their every post—be it a song, a video, pic of a teddy bear or a status like the ones mentioned above: hopelessly clichéd. All that's probably left for them to do is, send a personal message to every possible soul on Facebook about how their heart cries. I don't mean to sound mean, but dude! Once in a while is still okay, but all-time moaning? There sure are better ways to make a joke of yourself in public or to be the talk of the town. Never heard of the saying ,"laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you're left alone?"

On a more philosophical note, it is my personal opinion that mostly, people who have easy lives, who do not know how worse it can actually get, nevertheless need something to cry over or yearn for, something that would make it seem like they too are struggling in life and not having it cheese-smooth. "Love" is what helps them get into this illusion.

well...

The writers —My personal fav, probably because I think I belong to this breed too. (:P) These are people who do not like using short-hands (even if they were on their death bed, counting their last breaths, and putting up a status about the same, they would probably still be typing everything in F.U.L.L!), they hate plagiarism and plagiarists and would put up lengthy arguments here-'n'-there about the same, their comments are rarely to-the-point or concise because they are too fond of expressing (and maybe, overdoing it). They are poets, story-writers, philosophers, one-liner-crackers, bloggers and to put it all together, writers! The busiest, yet the vella-est breed around, who seem to be under the misconception that the world cares about every stupid thing that they've got to say. Well, some do get heard. (anyone listening?) :D
Funnily enough, most of them are B.Tech students or Engineers, many of who are whiners too! Time and again complaining about how they landed up at the wrong place, how Engineering has made them realize what they are NOT meant for (so early, heh?) These kids may not be liked in real life, but for all the time that they spend/waste in thinking about life, framing witty/philosophical status-messages, 'opinions to share' and all that, they are usually "liked" a lot. Like I say, most bad engineers are good at engineering with words and vice versa.
Having said that just in good fun, the fact that they are also the ones who actually make sense, most of the time, is undeniable. Just like another fact there—they don't just act witty/sarcastic/funny/philosophical; they are so. Pretty much so. Entertainingly so.
A word of caution: this lot can easily be seen poking fun at themselves. But if someone else dare try that, the consequences could be severe. Plus, like I said earlier, I seem to believe I belong to this category. Get the picture? :P

The 'studdy' geeks— They are THE studs of Facebook, or so they seem to believe. They live in a world of their own, where the only rule is—THEIR RULE! They 'share' things hardly a fraction of the population would be interested in (considering that most people belong to the categories mentioned above and below) of course, apart from their friends who are (or want to be) much like them.
These dewwds seem to think that they are the Gadget-world's reporters for us. So if the market has been (or will be) invaded by a new browser, a new operating System, a new laptop, a new I-phone, a new set of earphones, new tablets, apples and anything else that even remotely concerns Computers and/or electronics, the Engineer in them awakens and decides to enlighten the world.

Some of those updates might look like:

:Yippee!! I have completed my dream project! It is written in the Bambola

programming language and can connect one Zambola with a Jinjola!

:Google launches new search engine for young men: F-ogle. Awesome!
:Yayyyyy!!! Now I know all programming languages in the world except just one,
that is, Logo. Time to study that and then rule the world FTWWWW!! (how
strange is that even for the imagination?)
:Oh no!! I have forgotten one Linux-command! Such a bad day!! :(:(:(:(
:Just realized I'm still not the best programmer alive. Why is life so harsh? why?? :'(

Let me speak no more about these gentlemen. Most of them know they do all this
and why they do all this but won't admit. So, let's just let them have fun in their own
world and get that little dose of satisfaction with the comments that follow:- Bhai tu to
mast hai!/You rock dude/Tum to god ho!! /Wow yar!...etc.

The 'commentators'— They comment. On posts, photos and shares. And they do so just for the heck of it. The good part is, they do make sense. Sometimes.
The ones who wear invisibility cloaks—Virtually. One fine day they made an account on FB. No other such fine day ever came again, for them to think of logging in. 10 years after the day they came on Facebook their wall still reads, "Speedy Singh joined Facebook."
The 'I actually need Twitter but I don't know how to use it, so am here' kind— Says all, doesn't it? There wouldn't be a second you won't know what in life are they upto. And the latest Facebook features ensure that all the more.
The ones forever in a relationship with their relationship status— It's complicated->single->in a relationship->it's complicated. The cyclic process that it is, you can never be sure at which state they currently are. Plus, with the growing popularity of section 377, you now cannot be sure of another thing: the gender of the person they are in a relationship with/married to/engaged to/divorced from etc.
Rakhi Saxena is married to Ruchika Sawant

Get the picture? Best-Friendship redefined.
The plagiarists— They think life without at least 10 likes on every status isn't worth living. Sadly, they aren't linguistically equipped enough to make their life worth-living (in the same sense) on their own. Thus, they adhere to pointless, shameless copying of The Writers' stuff. Picture this:
The Writer: Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and they laugh at you.

The Plagiarist: Hey! Laf n da hole wrld laffs wid u,,,cry n dey laff at yew!!!!!!! :D:D

And then they reply to the congratulatory comments that follow ('hey!! greatly said yaar!!!!', 'you said this? nice!') with some real audacious comments: 'Thanks yaar', 'yep. i sd it. :):):)'
If the actual owner of the stuff in question—the writer—happens to see all of this, the poor thing ends up burning gallons of his/her own blood. Tch tch. Such is life.

And now, here are some breeds according to people's photo-habits:

The picture-maniacs— They are crazy about photos, of themselves. While everybody likes to put up pictures where they could be possibly looking good, the people of this breed are interested only in that. Check their wall and you would find a whole stack-full of 'Xyz changed her profile picture' written all over a gazillion times. And yes, there is a reason why I use "her" here. *looks elsewhere*
The taggers— They are friendly people, virtually. But not friends necessarily. You may not be knowing them, couldn't have ever talked to them—even a chat for that matter, or worse, may have even exchanged just hateful glances in school/college, but they won't forget to tag you (and 5000 others) in a picture with splashes of color shouting out HAPPY HOLI, or another one showing a manicured lady-hand holding a diya with HAPPY DIWALI!! written most calligraphic-ally, or if nothing else, then the picture of the Tricolor wishing all Indians a very Happy Independence/Republic Day.
How sweet. But then the string of 'ohh so sweet dear, same to u!' and 'thank u!!!!!!!!!' comments that end up pestering you to the core with pointless notifications, suck away all sweetness from this epic gesture of formality.
The 'I, me and myself' kind— They probably come from some country like Albuma. So every second day there is a new photo album titled: I!!!!!!!, MyPicz!!,Dis iz meee\m/!!, Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!, Simplieee meeeee!!, Just meeeeee!!! And the best part is that each of the 500 photos in these albums justifies the tens of exclamatory marks in the album-name. 'Coz all that you'd find, if you care to see, are photos of the same person, in the same clothes, in the same place, but, only from different angles. And suddenly, you feel like the director of some modelling agency who is supposed to dissect a desperate aspirant's portfolio.
Mind you, don't dare to say the breed is uni-sexual, with only girls belonging to it. 'Coz there are guys, and no less great. Beware, you might just be the next one to be tagged among thousands others, in one of their profile-pics showing them wearing their most epic (fail) goggles. Two likes and 1 comment: gud.
The 'Look I have so much fun in life B)' ones— Lounging on couches in groups of 100 smoking the latest in-thing:hookah, pulling each others' hair, cleaning shit off the roads together with friends for fun, making weird faces, kicking, kissing, killing each other and so on...see them having all the fun of their life with friends, almost live.
One question to them though, if you really are as cool as you make of yourselves, why care to try so much, to make the world know of it? :-/
The Photo-Editors— Picassa is their pick as Photoshop isn't everyone's cup of Pepsi (:P). Much glow, much brightness, much shadow, much highlight, much color-saturation and cropping later, they finally arrive at a pic they won't hide from sharing. Some of the girls, though, aren't still done yet. So add on some butterflies, ribbons, color-splashes and a kewl-quote and maybe then, they are ready to believe that that picture of them pouting pitiably looks purrfect.

So that should be it. Albeit there can never be an end to this list of a thing, I put down all those could think of in the time I devoted to this long-pending post. Of course, there are categories I too belong too but won't admit. And the same may conveniently go for all the readers. So, never-mind!
You can thrash me, hit me, applaud me or simply ignore me for this post. But if you do all of it verbally, through comments, it'd be appreciated. *wink*
ADIOS!

Exams: Art Of Preparing (AOP)

2011-09-10T10:39:00.002+05:30

Turn one page,

.
.
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Sleep for an age!!!

[Image courtesy: Google Images]

`Earthquake aala rey` ...

2011-09-08T01:39:00.001+05:30

HAAN to bhaiyyon aur behno, if this gets posted, it will be my random-est ever! And most spontaneous too!
For those who don't know, Delhi-NCR just experienced a quake. Some 5 minutes or so before the clock hit 12, hum dilli-waalon ke literally 12 baj gaye!! :D
Imagine this scene:

I am sitting, watching T.V—merely changing channels, actually. (How boring :-/)
Mom's sleeping. My brother and sister are sitting in the next room—the former eating Sweet Lime (chuck English, Mausambi is what I'm talking about) and my sister, studying. Thus, I have no one to talk to (How very boring!! :-/)
Suddenly, as I land on to some cry-baby-saga on T.V, the ground below my feet starts shaking. Not just figuratively, but literally! And intensely. (How NOT boring! :D)
Mom wakes up too, almost instantly. My younger brother, otherwise always trying to act like a super-stud, comes running—with his hands on his head, an expression so strong and fearful as if he just saw a Python and the inherent innocence of a 16 year old (awwww) (how interesting! :D)
Before I can realize what happened, the first mini-second right after that brief quake, I tend to see this as an opportunity to get him scolded (hoohaha :B), thinking it's probably him who has done something which led to all of us shaking. The next mini-second, I realize that's actually not possible. 'Coz no matter how hard he tries, shaking a whole house from its roots it still, umm, a little difficult, you know.
And the next second when all of us have known what we had been through, I and mom rush out to the balcony to see what's happening around. As expected, but gradually only, lights in every house start glowing up again. A family on the ground floor is all out already, walking on the road while making conversations with passers-by and each other (arey mai to so rahi thi!). Another one is inquiring from everybody who's coming in their line-of-view (aapko bhi laga kya? bada tez ki aya tha na!) and still another one is on phone relatives ka haal chaal poochne ke liye (apna haal chal ensure kar lene ke baad finally, that is)
Mom goes to sleep again (:O). I come to my room and begin texting some of my friends, getting mixed responses ranging from .."it was scary but fun!" to "Haan ho gaya ab to. Am sleeping now. ZzzZ" to "OMGOMGOMG I am crying!!!!!!". Next, though I had planned not to, I switch on the computer to see what everyone has "on their mind" on Facebook, and also to share mine. Expected as hell, the news-feed is already brimming with posts like: 'Quake!', 'Earthquake!', 'OMG I'm scared! :(:(:(' (yeah yeah it was a girl. Sigh), 'bad day for Delhi after the blasts' (hmmm) and other witty/funny/serious/stupid ones. The point is, everyone is, and has been all that while, making complete use of the opportune moment to fetch maximum likes—in case they are left alive, that is. The attempt bears fruit in the end. Facebook has made us laughable creatures, or what?

After laughing around at life, people and everything, trying to act funny in the light of the moment and taking digs at things here-'n'-there, I finally get back to normalcy. And so do the others, perhaps. Afterall, no one wants to be accused of being repetitive (even if they/we are :P). But my normalcy, I assume, is a tad different from most others. The reason being, if my state before the quake is being taken as the normal one, it wasn't so. In any sense of the word.

Thus, what started off with a defeated view of life: "—And when the 2012 destruction of the world is what you start hoping for, is there much left to life anyway?—", ends with a way lighter take at it: "LOL! Reporters reporting live about the quake in their pajamas, people rushing out to their balconies to discuss their experience, families sitting together to share old stories about earthquakes, instant forwards (imagine..."this was Rajni's phone on vibration mode!:D), flooding news-feeds and WHAT NOT!
Hum dilli waale funny hain yaaar! :D:D:D
P.S: With legs still shaky, maza a gaya! :P (bas dobara na aye) :D"

A couple of seconds and I'm shown the difference between life, life-less-ness and death. A few more seconds, and I have forgotten all that is not -so-good at the moment in and about life. Dare imagine it giggling while we're freaking out, as if yelling with a smirk, "in your face! Bloody humans!?" But only smiling inside, at how subtly it had driven us all away from our usual rants. Perhaps, the real face and value of life comes only when one is nearing death.
Hence proved, nature is wonderful. And to top on that, it has an amazing sense of humor.
P.S: The way things are moving these days allover the world, little school-children will soon be having another essay to learn and recite apart from "My first day at school", "My first bag", "My first holiday" etc ...."My first Earthquake"

Any Déjà vu to share?? :)

Some common Metr-O-bservations

2011-08-24T17:01:00.005+05:30

Here are some of the most common Metr-O-bservations that I have made over time in my Metro-journeys. Traveling alone in the Metro can certainly make you a keen observer.

There is almost always a kid in love with the windows and poles in the metro: revolving at at least 500 rpm, as if to break a Guinness world-record or something. It may also be a little girl, but it's more likely to be a little champ. Boys develop this energy-issue quite early, I suppose, they always seem to have too much of it. I remember seeing my kid brother run about in the house at 50 km/hr. just for the heck of it! He'd end up sweated, exhausted, breathless and all: and enjoying all of it! And to top it all, he'd start running allover again like a madman! It was so crazy! Maybe boys are crazy from quite an early age.
And these revolving-kids follow various patterns of revolution, I tell you. Some keep rotating around one pole, others switch from one pole to another, ensuring that at no point the chain breaks. The basic rule is to go on increasing the speed of revolution—the rpm—till maybe every part of the body becomes numb. The mother can usually be seen smiling and smirking proudly at her son's strength, while occasionally getting up to bring him from one end of the train (where he must've reached while switching poles) and place him back at the starting point. Then he'd be glad doing all of it again, with everyone around: free and jobless as hell, watching while smiling wide, all awwwwww-ed up. Especially us, the girls. We certainly don't need a thing to be really cute in order to call it cute. But these kids are. They certainly are, I admit.
The first compartment turning into a ladies-only affair certainly has brought man's (yes, man's) desperateness in full public view. There is never a time when the join between the first and the second compartment is men-free. If it's an empty train, you'll see one or two of them there; in a more crowded one, a lot more; but the point is, you'll always see some specimens of the "darker-sex" flocking that part of the train. Others, the more 'polite' kind, would be sitting/standing in their respective compartments—as near to the first one as possible—forever peeping into the compartment that houses all the ladies and aunties. I wonder what's on their mind while giving all that pain to their freaking necks; are they hoping to see some goddamned girl suddenly get up and start doing belly-dancing? Or that a pretty soul will right-away pass them a hint: a wink or a smile or something, and they'd fall in love-at-first-sight the nth time in their lives? Or that the poles will help the ladies turn the very face of the entire place, if you know what I mean? I can understand, on a crowded day they might be cursing the seated ladies merely out of jealousy (though even ladies' compartments are no respite these days), but on other days, I fail to be able to imagine, what the hell are they so keen on!!
Then there are these readers: mostly girls, as the guys are almost always busy in sight-seeing unless they're already with a girl—that's the only time when they probably are supposed to act decent. There cannot be a ladies compartment:

Without a lot of chatter.
Without one or more girls reading a funny novel: "funny", not as in 'humorous', they mostly lack the sense of humor for that—not all of them obviously, but most do, I admit— "funny" as in, stupid. Yeah stupid. A Chetan Bhagat piece, in the highest probability. Or some other silly "love-story" (by the way I don't KNOWW how can they call those sweet little pieces of crap "love" stories!) by a young Indian author: certainly an IITian. I don't have a thing against them, the IITians, but I think they write too many novels, too many actually. With the kind of crazy money the government is spending on them, you'd probably expect them to come up with something more techie, like say, a robot that could write an entire, potentially 'best-seller', novel for you with just the basic story-line: complete with expressions and everything. But no, they choose to write novels themselves instead. And novels that largely project them as love-engineers, may I say. They wouldn't leave this to the English-literature students, but prefer to do that on their own. And all of them, for some strange reason. (IITians, please don't mind. This is the condition of all Engineering students, myself being in the same boat. So, just kidding. :D)
So yes, these girls can normally be seen with earphones plugged in, tiring their eyes over some book with a colorful and "cartoony" cover: the ones mostly about love, and "love". I once saw a girl madly lost in this book, that I just remember had a title containing the word "virginity" or something. I don't know what was funnier: the way the girl was lost in it, as if preparing for the civil services examination, or the fact that the book was about virginity and had a cartoony cover. I mean, what would you think of a book carrying a title like that and having a colorful toony cover at the same time—like the ones that kids' books carry! I don't know, I think it's plain funny. Very funny infact
There also cannot be a ladies' compartment without the ladies staring at each other blankly: the aunties to simply scrutinize the girls (and later come up with conclusions like, "aajkal ki ladkiyan bhi na"..), the girls to, firstly, stare back at the aunties for scrutinizing them worse than the guys do and two, to scrutinize other fellow girls, unfortunately again, worse than the guys do. The idea here is to: note down latest trends, criticize the bad-dressers just for the fun of it, envy the better-dressers while at the same time updating their "must follow/ape trends" list. No wonder, you see new hairstyles, dress-items, accessories etc swiftly moving from one girl to another at the speed of light nowadays. But, they're all original and unique, please. Girls always are. Get it or not, they always are? You have to nod a 'yes', come on!

4. Guys, you probably have had enough of giggling at the girls, time for a
little switch. Can there ever be a metro not having this kewl-dEWd wearing
dark—stark black, to be more precise, goggles up on display on his moron-ish
face, a black tee with a really bold print: a danger sign or something inspired from the
'heaviest' genre(s) of music—the one(s) he might not even have ever heard! Hair
gelled to be either combed back for the DON-look or made to stand like Punjab's sarso
ke khet, and also these really awry shoes in yellow or white or anything else strictly
not in league with the rest of the attire. And if this chap ever opens up his mouth, your
ears are bound to be treated to a really sick accent.
I don't have a problem with them acting like studs. I also don't have a
problem with their sick accents. I only have a problem with them acting
like studs inspite of having sick accents. Well, kind, as I am.

5. Couples! How could I forget them! Those literally "fearless", "progressive", "bold"
twosomes not in the wildest of one's dreams bothered about who are looking at them,
what they are thinking of them etc. Funnily, mean as I might sound, inspite of such a
"modern" outlook, they aren't really the most sophisticated people around.
The guy is usually this desperate, weird looking moron who is sort of unable to hide his
happiness and pride over having some girl—no less weird than him—to stand/sit next
to. You shouldn't be surprised if he is trying to literally corner the girl in this public-
train, even if just for talking. Intimacy thus transforms into cheapness. Not always so
much, but still pretty much. All this while, the girl will be simply giggling, enjoying all
the attention and yet, having the guts to act shy. Sigh. Those are the stupid couples. I
don't know if they're even couples or not: I mean they could be just friends, yet acting
that insane, 'coz they are, well, stupid; but the girl might look better because she is
well, the more stupid one of the two. Looking at them you'd get a view of the perfect
kind of people on Earth who don't have anything else to do in and with their lives,
except horse around.
Today itself I happen to see this boy and girl somewhere in the corner of an open
place meant for passers-by. The two of them were, well, studying. (YOU DARE
THINK SO!?)
Then there are these suave couples: the girl is bound to turn heads around and the
guy might be good too. Everyone is interested in observing them, everyone. Girls
would compare the two and come to a fair conclusion as to who is better and then, find
faults in the girl: character, too much make-up, skimpy clothes ...anything. Boys would
inevitably end up saying ..."bandi mast hai. Banda langoor hai."
I don't blame them. Earth perhaps has fewer good-looking men than women.

Some other common objects-of-observation are:

Crying babies. Miserably crying babies.
College students completing their files.
Bored souls sitting on the corner seats: heads resting on the wall, earphones plugged, eyes probably close: basically sleeping.
When the train stops at a particular station, can there ever be a day when the waiting crowd doesn't come BANG onto you from the front? The answer is a plain NO. NO.
Photography is not officially permitted inside the metro, but India does a lot unofficially. So why not this. Click each other, click others, click anything you find funny and thus, come up with something new to post on your FB profile. Please don't kill me for this. Truth hurts :P :)
Aggressive debates. Aunties, on the previous day's episode of "Bade Achche Lagte Hain" or "Balika Vadhu" etc—hero's dhokha (betrayal), heroine's sarees and/or make-up, the evil saas and her tantrums and finally they might move on to bitching about their own moms-in-law and daughters-in-law.
The old uncles would OBVIOUSLY be talking about political matters: Anna's movement, bekaar-sarkar (useless government), badhti mehengai (inflation) and so on so forth. I sometimes wonder why does Indian Politics consist of oldies only, these uncles give me my answer: gents are possibly a lot more interested in the country and its affairs at this age than their youth. The youth is, of course, preserved for more useful stuff. Just kidding.
The youngsters might be debating too. It could be an intellectual debate, or one related to their academics—that is, how some XYZ lecturer sucks at teaching(what else did you expect of a so-called "academic debate"? We are college-students, for god sake!). More realistically, the guys could be discussing a girl/girls. YES, that is more possible. And the girls might just be busy teasing each other/comparing how many friend-requests and messages they all received the previous day/yelling their longest "oye-hoyeeeeeee" possible at useless little nothings such as—an innocent nerdy guy who happened to strike his bad luck and come to one of them for notes OR one of the butterflies was seen talking to a boy in campus, OPENLY(:O) OR blah blah/concluding that this guy is after this girl as she received an SMS-forward from him that said, "friends are precious." Oye hoyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Heck yeah.

What more? I dunno. Isn't that enough? Guess it is. I don't even know if I have really observed all this, or maybe I did, unknowingly. But then, I couldn't be making-up all the whole story: hell no, I'd be worse than all the characters I described above, if I did. So tell me if you agree. Share any more observations and we'll all have a good laugh at ourselves.
Hee :D

The Catcher In The Rye: A Book-Review

2011-08-21T02:03:00.004+05:30

It has been around a week since I completed this novel; feels a little awkward to say, but I really really "miss" reading it. Such was the connect.
For those who don't know, I am not an ardent reader. The number of books, fiction in particular, that I have read in my life, is so less, that I keep adding every book I read to my Facebook profile, just to keep a count for myself. Further, it is not that I don't like reading, I actually have loved reading whenever I did, but due to reasons known and unknown, I never got into it habitually, never had people around who'd really urge me to try it or was always pre-occupied with various other activities, being the "multi-hobby-ed" person that I am.

This is also the reason why I am very choosy about the books I pick up at a time, now that I have started reading occasionally. I had heard a lot about "The Catcher In The Rye" from people (on Facebook). Even when I went searching for the "best novels ever", I found its name at positions nowhere below the top:number 1 actually. Obviously thus, I was tempted to get my hands on it. And I did. (Shhh, on a copy that wasn't original)

The story started quite immediately, very immediately. Unlike how fiction is usually perceived to be, there was no beating around the bush in this one, certainly not in the beginning at least.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

The narration turned out to be in first person—again something I had not expected. But what scored maximum on the "unexpectedness" factor, was the language that began to surface: so very informal, casual and increasingly profane, that I couldn't believe I was reading a widely acclaimed "classic". There were phrases and slang words repeated almost everywhere. From two to twenty to thirty pages as I moved on, I found myself regretting all the more—so much so that I started getting irritated at one point. I asked a friend of mine what the heck was going on, how could a 'classic' be like that, for I had expected to get to learn some new literary tools, new phrases, new ways of exploring the beauty and power—thus the beautiful power—of words, which clearly wasn't the case. Then I was told that the book, belonging to the 20th century breed of fiction, is testimony to the fact that the American sense of writing had pretty much got deteriorated, "polluted" by then. (I guess it is ever since that era, the Americans are known world-over for their pure and gorgeous language and expressions #sarcasm) The friend also added that this was why he loved reading fiction from the British, Queen's era. 'Whatever. Now how do I turn this into a British work, duh," I thought to myself.
But I knew that I'm no great reader to understand how fiction-reading works, so 'better be patient and continue reading,' I told myself. Thankfully.

Half-way through the book, I was completely with the character, if not within it. I was travelling with him everywhere he went, experiencing the little events that he kept mentioning and hating or liking people according to his observations. Which made me sit up and take notice of how writing in first-person can prove to important, extremely important. Here, I'd like to mention, that before going on to reading the book, I had some-why gone through a few critical reviews available on the web. And there in those reviews, what I call a boon, has been clearly flagged off as a "bane". People have accused the author of being too self-centered in the story, so abrupt in switching from one character to another, that the limelight never shifts from the author's role of the protagonist, and a little bit from this magical creation called "Phoebe"—his sister. People come, people go. And that is what has constituted the rants of most critiques.

One of the most widespread criticisms of The Catcher in the Rye deals with the adolescence and repetitive nature of the main character, Holden Caulfield. Anne Goodman commented that in the course of such a lengthy novel, the reader would weary of a character such as Holden. Goodman wrote "Holden was not quite so sensitive and perceptive as he, and his creator, thought he was" (20). She also remarked that Holden was so completely self-centered that any other characters who wandered through the book, with the exception of Holden's sister, Phoebe, had no authenticity at all. (Ref.)

And I don't deny that. Now that I read the above criticism more clearly, I realize I had exactly the same issues with the book for quite a large part of my tour through it, in fact, I had even started questioning why should a certain Chetan Bhagat be detested for his free-style, if this is what a classic can afford to be like? All this, till I either got accustomed or simply started ignoring all that I hadn't been liking, to be able to take note of the author's point, his story, his emotional and physical turmoils and fantastic observations of events and people. I also picked up a few techniques of story-telling that I strongly felt would match my style:one of them being, first-person narration.

Having told any potential readers of what they may not like in the story, I dare not resist sharing all that is superbly amazing about it too. First, the narration. It's a completely no-nonsense business, and at the same time, nonsensical at some places. No-nonsense because, like I said before, there isn't much beating about the bush anywhere. I get a feeling that this could be because the author has chosen to talk through his story rather than just narrate it. One is bound to feel at some time or the other as if Late Mr JP Salinger is sitting right in front of you, telling his tale of what all happened with him, complete with natural expressions. Natural as in, just the way a teenage American boy probably would—calling every second thing, but every single person: goddam, phony, bastard, sonuvabitch, madman. We all, in real life, are habitual of using some phrases too frequently (like say, "literally") and JP Salinger does so too through, a lot actually. Like I can recall: that kills me (everything kills him), if you really wanna hear about it, it did it really did and so on. Sporadically on repeat.
So the golden advice is, if you happen to be someone who reads novels to enhance his grammar and/or vocabulary, Catcher..is so not your calling.

If you do read the book, read it to discover this superb character called Holden Caulfield, who might even come across as an alter-ego of sorts at several places, many places in fact. Here is this guy who is absolutely aimless, no direction, no love for life, god and his blessings. To almost all others he is this reckless good-for-nothing fellow who won't be able to make anything substantial out of his goddam life. He has an eye and opinion for everything that passes his eyes and we, the readers, get to experience it all as time passes. He can see the bad in everyone, but him. He abuses the whole world for being full of bastards, while his own dark side isn't so hidden afterall. There are people who'd beat the shit out of him and he won't be able to say a word—so much mean, that is—but there also are others who he won't mind being rude and mean to, either. "Survival of the fittest," as they say. Holden is a person very strong at some places, and very weak at some others.
BUT there is a very soft side to him. A side that knows the difference between good and bad, evil and angelic, beauty and ugliness. There is something very child-like honest in this sixteen-year old, I felt, which sets him apart from his age-group. While others think he is mad and immature, you might as well think he is too mature for his age. Holden is a boy with some principles, that even he might not be knowing. He is an extremist in the sense that whatever comes to him, comes in excess:love, hatred, judgmental-ness and thinking. He madly loves people who he loves but doesn't realize this as much. He hates all others and does realize and acknowledge that, which makes him seem a bit too too hateful. Too much of a thinker. Too much of a pessimist.

I bet, I am not the only one who could relate to Holden. But the best part in the whole book is when you discover what the title is about.

The book is nothing if one doesn't understand the character and everything, if one does. Read The Catcher In The Rye to see Holden rise from a phase of self destruction to life again. See him fall into severe depression due to his judgmental hatred for the world, that makes him wreck himself up so bad that he ends up in a state where he cannot control his emotions, cannot understand them, cannot understand his own needs and becomes a loner en-route to complete self-destruction:physically, mentally and spiritually. See him experience the bad at worst:violence, betrayal, sex, anger, hatred and what not.
But then, see also something happen and bring things to a standstill. His little sister (a prodigy in fiction and an epic character in real), literally and quite unknowingly brings him back to life.

How? Hear it from JD Salinger himself in this tell-it-all novel that is a classic for the way it has succeeded in etching the human mindset accurately, if not for the way it has been written. Though, there ARE some very powerful lines in this piece of marvel. "The Catcher In The Rye", the name.

Another seven-pointer: not in support of anything

2011-08-19T11:54:00.002+05:30

I had been voicing my opinion about the ongoing movement like most of us—in Facebook status updates. Till at some point of time, it got more serious, thus drawing widely varied response. I then decided to gather all that I have to say:my doubts/fears/reasons for lack of faith in the Lokpal/whatever you may call them, in an article for this blog. But with some literary goodness, it happened to make way to a bigger platform—The NTMN.

As expected, I got feedback ranging from positive (in favor) to zero (neutral) to negative (ready to slay my throat :P). For those who care to read, I wish to make some things clear here. But before that, you may want to read the article and the feedback it got, I'm talking about. Here it is: A seven-pointer, NOT in support of Anna, for a change.

Read? Now here are some things I need to add:

I am not against Anna Hazare. I am just not with the Lokpal. But for fiery supporters of him, that may count in as opposing him. In that case, there isn't much I need to say.
When I say I'm not with the Lokpal, I mean it for both versions of the draft:Anna's as well as the government's. The Lokpal's proposed provisions sound fantastic, but yes, fantastic, dreamy. They make things sound as easy as 1-2-3, when they aren't. My point is simply that instead of creating so much brouhaha over the idea of a new bill, a new body; it would be probably better if we paid as much (or even half of it) heed to the existing laws and provisions in the constitution. I would have been with Anna too if instead of pressurizing the government to accept HIS bill, to agree to things the way HE wants, he had used the huge support he is getting along with his experience and apparent good-will, to press the government to get going the right way: to bring into action the existing provisions in order to eliminate corruption, to start looking into pending cases and subsequently punish the guilty-found as quickly as possible, to keep a better vigil over activities of the government officials so that they are left with no opportunity to harass the common-man and to mend all that is wrong—need I enlist?
I wish those who criticize my viewpoint, also grant a thought to the fact that the government would have been in a lot more trouble, for reasons most genuine, if the protest was directed towards more genuine and inarguable shortcomings. All of us would have been united then, there would've been no two facets to the whole affair and the impact too would have been way, way stronger—bound to force our hitherto unthinking and irresponsible leaders, to sit up and do something. Nothing could get on their nerves better than (more than) a billion people joining hands in dissent of their lousiness. Am I wrong here?
But since that is not the case, sadly, inspite of the unusually massive rage in action, the focus still is not on what actually matters:corruption and its elimination, but on whether or not the bill is right in the first place. Like me, there are several others who shun the draft as "not needed", and there are several others, completely in favor of it. The moral of the story? People are broadly divided in their opinion: in favor, not in favor, can't say, won't say(i.e not bothered). Remember, united we stand, divided we...?
By not supporting the bill, I'm neither supporting any particular political party, nor opposing the cause that has brought so many together. I also would like to add, I was never so confident about my view on this earlier, as much as I am today. And this is because, I have read/seen/heard both, undauntedly opposite sides of the coin, as some people have hinted their doubts at. Mine is not a political opinion, I have also avoided being too factual, there are ample other resources for that, but being an expressionist, I couldn't stop myself from drawing a little light to the less accepted stand and its ingenuity.
We Indians are sentiment-driven people. So much so that, we may even afford to skip thinking rationally for a while, swayed by emotions. Most of the arguments that I have been given are centered around one idea: Anna is ready to "fast-unto-death" for the cause, for us. He is who brought the RTI, who changed the face of a small village. A 74 year old man is ready to fight, and you are not willing to even support him? My dear, I do not discredit Anna and his past efforts, his contributions as a social-worker and like he himself says, his life being 'devoted to the motherland, ready to even be sacrificed if need be', but that doesn't mean I have to support all that he does, have to hold him correct no matter what or that I'm not entitled to my right to differ or that I'm being insensitive to his hard-work and many a people's spirit by not sharing their viewpoint. I happen to have my own say about things, and not as ignorant as some blind-followers may accuse it of. With due respect to everybody, to Anna's previous contributions to the society, to the cause of eliminating corruption and punishing all those who are cheating on us, I still very firmly choose to opine, due to reasons galore, the Lokpal is simply not needed. Now hang me if you will.
I do not mind many people's idea of "trying something new" for the cause of eliminating corruption, through the Lokpal. But I think, so much hype over just another attempt is unjustified. The state's normal functioning is being disrupted, many a lives are being disturbed—think of a daily wage earner, the public is facing inconvenience (take the autowalas' strike, for instance) and a lot more...I would have stood in support if all this was for something more solid and, I tend to use the word again here, inarguable. The second point above, elaborates on this.
My lack of support for the movement should also not be seen as a political opinion. Of all other examples of "deviation of focus", one prominent observation is that people, in a bid to criticize the government and thus the Congress, are taking advantage of the situation to justify their own political beliefs, to gather support for the political party they personally support, like say, the BJP. Today morning specifically asked me to listen to this speech of Arun Jaitley: Arun Jaitely speech in Rajya Sabha on PM Statement. I did; and pitied the innocence/cleverness of many a common man, due to which, they tend to easily forget/ignore, knowingly or unknowingly, that as far the political parties are concerned, they all are the same. Mr Arun Jaitley's well-put speech too, stands testimony to the fact. It is clear that even the BJP is nowhere close to supporting the bill, for the obvious reason that it seeks greater autonomy than even the government, it calls for the making of a supreme body that'd be more powerful than even the "tallest functionary of the country", as Mr Jaitley himself says and somewhere some day the BJP itself may come to rule; BUT being an opposition party, they certainly can't afford to lose this golden opportunity to add to the ruling party's troubles. And thus their vague arguments about the government violating Anna and Co's 'right to protest' and so on. While actually, quite a lot of measures have been provided for the protest, that finally starts today, to go on smoothly. 400-500 MCD employees were working all night to prepare a drenched Ramlila maidan for the protest, Anna has been provided with a television set that he had asked for, to keep a check on the activities, metal detectors and other security measures have been deployed, as today's newspaper informed me. Clearly, they were never denied of their right to protest, because they cannot be, it being a fundamental right. But when the matter is so sensitive, safety of the people is an equally important aspect, that such aggressive protesters tend to forget. All this is, infact, the govt's responsibility, so they didn't oblige anyone by doing it. The point is, some conditions obviously had to be imposed, though I do agree, the govt.could have opted for something more sensible than right-away arresting Anna, which angered the masses further.
I do not tend to contradict myself, talking of the BJP's double-standards (Ref.link). My purpose is only to highlight that let's not, at least, make this a political fight, remembering that the first objective of every party is to come to rule, for which they need people's support, for which they need to spill mud at the party currently in rule. We, as matured citizens, should not let them use our sentiments for their ulterior motives and instead stand for what our understanding says is right, and stand against, what we feel isn't.
I absolutely deny being biased. No. If they dare to accept, the supporters are more biased than the non-supporters and near-neutralists like me—the very trait of rash and spontaneous anger that arises from the heat of the moment. Anger probably turns people into hypocrites, so they'll clap when a certain Mr Jaitley talks of the fundamental right to protest, but won't acknowledge the presence of another fundamental right: of expression—which, by the way, grants as much permission to voice their beliefs to those who don't support something, as those who do. I still chose just the quiet power of words for the purpose. When they call Anna "Gandhi", it is fair; but when I reason he is aping him, I am cursed. No wonder, everything after the so-called "seven-pointer" in the post went ignored, it was generic, and honest, and thus not of the angered supporters' interest. Which is also why, while I, and those who agree with me, can still respect everyone's involved emotions and sincerity and hope that whatever happens, happens for the best—even if that means we stand falsified by the end, Anna's strong supporters find it hard to swallow a different opinion and pass remarks that range from personal to aggressive to derogatory. I repeat, I'd be more than just happy if all this bears fruit some day. These are my doubts, my reasons for not standing alongside many and if they are proved wrong, the society would still be at gain. Which is all that matters, not just for you, but for me too.
But there also were people who didn't agree, yet gracefully acknowledged a different take. I thank them. And hope that their optimism wins over my pessimism. Even though factually, the movement for most is either driven by sentiments for Anna & Co. OR by their dissatisfaction with the govt. OR by big dreams of the bill succeeding in eradicating corruption completely and quickly ('everything will become cheap when the black money comes back to our country, I won't have to bribe anyone,' a very common definition of the Lokpal bill, as seen on T.V). As for the Lokpal, I still feel, it is not needed. Not as many as other reforms waiting to be brought about. Amen.

The Americans: an observation

2011-08-16T16:06:00.001+05:30

The Americans are such hopeless narcissists that they just want to eliminate YOU from everywhere. Thus for them, "colour" becomes "color", "favour" becomes "favor" and so on.

Like I said, they just want to eliminate "U" from everywhere!

"INDIA": A pledge

2011-08-15T23:32:00.004+05:30

64th Independence Day and we are no better than who we were, back then, as official "slaves". Makes me wonder, how fruitful has this independence really turned out to be? Illiteracy, over-population, poverty, corruption, pollution, female foeticide, casteism and WHAT NOT: there are problems galore, waiting since 1947 to be addressed by a united nation. Anyone listening? No.
Not by people, not by leaders, we are governed by differences. Differences of cast, color, creed, religion, rich-poor and so on. India is one: one Hindu, one Muslim, one Sikh, one Christian, one rich, one poor, one man, one woman, one upper caste, one lower caste: India is "one".

How to bridge this gap between being ONE and "one"?
What if we, the youth, pledged something like what I've written below. I don't know, maybe, we should?

I will not give to this land another corrupt Indian. I, will be ruled by my conscience, not the lack of it. I, may or may not try to fight corruption, according to my capacity, but I will, certainly, perform my responsibilities righteously. I will be someone my nation, and all those who sacrificed their lives to give me a free country, would be proud of: an honest, sincere, responsible scientist, Engineer, doctor, pilot, writer, singer, dancer, police officer ...whoever I grow up to be, I won't be a blot on the name of my country. I pledge.
Never will I discriminate between my fellow country-men and women. My general judgement of people will be governed by their character and moral values—the way our culture teaches us—and not by the color of their skin, their surname(s), their lifestyle and/or their financial backgrounds and most certainly not by their religion. I will truthfully play my part in living up to the age-old slogan that we've forever been proud of: 'WE ARE ONE'. Presently we aren't, but I will try my best to justify it.
Defense, politics, civil and allied services, police etc: these are the core sectors working where, one can really bring about a difference in the society. The country needs more people to work in these areas with the correct spirits, correct intentions and correct methods. The cleanest has to often rise from the dirtiest, it is high time our generation stopped running away from these sectors just because some evil minds have gotten to rule them. If so, we have to set things right, instead of participating in the blame-game. I promise myself, to make any possible effort(s) to do the same—to enter these powerful, though sensitive and dirty at the moment, arenas—for this is the best way I could serve the country I owe my life to. If not so, I will still try to serve my country and my people as whoever I shall be, whole-heartedly.
India is my country and I owe my life to it: I shall never forget this, till my last breath. I shall also never forget all the sacrifices that went into giving me a free country to live in. Thus, India will forever be the country I ought to be proud of—truly, sincerely, genuinely. I do not give myself the right to curse this great nation, to mock at it or its people, to praise another nation while criticizing my own or to NOT respect its, my, national flag, national anthem and other symbols of the entity that my country is . There are things not right with it, yes, very unfortunately, but if I do not have the guts to work towards eliminating all that is wrong, I also do not have the right to criticize them.
Awareness: I need to play my part, by encourage my fellows to do the same too—that, is how things can actually change. It is high time development stopped being so one-dimensional: confined to only the cities, only the upper classes and only the powerful. We, as a united nation only, can help bring about the kind of revolutionary transformation that some most specific areas need. If those in power have lost their conscience, we cannot afford to lose ours. Our constitution-makers rested enough power in our hands, to ensure that we weren't ruled by selfish jerks. India wasn't made a democracy for nothing, my people need to be made aware of their power, so they do not have the chance to sigh ..."what can I do".
I will vote. I will not let morons come to power and rule us. We are the public and we have to stop acting like Gandhiji's monkeys: deaf, dumb and blind to all that is not right with the system. I will vote, and that is the least I can do.

Sounds surreal, doesn't it!?! Imagine each one of us promising our own selves all of that, what a country it would be. Man!
But but, we don't care a devil! Do we? I mean, it is a good feeling seeing our flag being hoisted and all ...standing upright during the national anthem in places where we must ...and my heart sometimes actually swells with pride listening to stories of people who died for us and all and those amazing touchy patriotic songs—they make me say all the time you know, 'feel a gayi yaaaar'. But do I care more than that? Heck no!!!
We, the youth of India, shall continue being the hypocrites that we are, and that Indians have always been—that, is our unofficial, yet strictly obeyed pledge, dude!

See! With the last line, I myself violated the second last part of the so-called "pledge" ...'I won't curse my country and its people' and blah. Hypocrites we all are.

Funnily, self-confessed hypocrites.

Jai Hind!
Or no wait, Jai Ho—the song that won one of our Indians Ihe Oscar. See, I love my country so damn much! B)

Once upon a time during end-sems!

2011-08-11T21:49:00.003+05:30

<Some day in the month of May>
<Year 2011>
<End Semester Exam: Information Technology>

I entered the examination hall 15 minutes late today, deliberately. There were a few derivations and formulae I wanted to take a last look at, at ANY cost and having said that, 15-20 minutes definitely wasn't all that costly for me. If you think that's too stubborn of me, I can offer my reasoning for the same. You may or may not find it sensible, but then, whatever.
See it's simple for me- if I have studied/read/seen/sniffed a topic/page/para/line, I cannot afford to forget it while writing my exam, I mean I wouldn't like to. As in, I don't like the prospect of coming out of the exam hall with this guilt/excuse, "yaar maine wo padha tha, par exam-time pe bhool gayi!! *sob*".

So yes, where was I? Outside the exam hall.
Yes, there I was. At 10:15 P.M I entered the exam hall in some bit of hurry, and went on to the invigilator to get my set of answer sheet and question paper.

Me: Sir, DTU. Software Engineering.
(I'd like to pop in a teeny weeny bit of info here, DCE was 'upgraded' to DTU around a year back. The 'old branches' are still called as the former of the two and the 'new' branches our referred to as 'DTU', which is technically not correct, but that is how it is and 'we' are supposed to be given sheets different from the 'DCE' people, which is why I had to explicitly mention, "DTU". For more info on this, check out...oh come on, don't you have anything else to do?! )
Sir: Communication Engineering? (something like that)
Me: (in a hurry) Yes sir. (The subject was actually IT. But I thought it was much the same.)

I took the sheet(s), went on to my seat- part excited, part nervous 'coz of the time I had lost.

I looked at the paper.

I looked at the paper.

I looked at the paper.

I looked at the paper.
.
.
.
.
And you know what?
I looked at the paper!!!
'Coz that is all what I could do! Like, SERIOUSLY!

Question 1........................WTH?
Question 2........................WTH?WTH?
Question 3........................WTH?WTH?WTH?
Question 4........................okay, a 7 mark question: attempt-able
Question 5........................WTH?WTH?WTH WTH?
Question 6........................6-7 marks, huh?
Question 7........................WTH WTH?WTH WTH?WTH WTH?WTH?
And, over!

I still hadn't got the hang of it! How could it be, not knowing a question or two would've still been tolerable, obvious actually, but THIS was so not done! I definitely wasn't going to pass with 14 marks. Add to it the mid-sem score of 16 and that still would make it just 30! Oh man! How can this happen!

I tried to pacify myself, "come on, start with the ones you know, everything will be fine". Right. I started the (only) one I knew.

"Achcha badla liya sir ne. Damn, why did we bunk his classes! Look now what has he done to us. And this is the subject with the lowest credits!", I was thinking to myself all along. Just then it struck me, "wo wo hold on, why just me? Shouldn't the paper be equally horrific for everyone else? I mean, alright I'm not a topper, but still, I can't be THIS pathetic?!".
Following this wise thought, I looked around a bit, hoping to find some panicking faces, trembling hands or some lines on foreheads, if nothing else. But lo! There were none to be seen! The one in front of me, the one besides, the others around , whoever I saw, was writing! Damn, the future seemed dark.

I wrote around a paragraph. And then, just for the fun of it, just to try my luck (ACTUALLY just to try my luck!) I turned over the question paper. I saw its first page, top-right. It read:

B.E (ECE)

LOLmax!! Did that actually just happen?! Had I really taken the wrong question paper and freaked out myself (totally!) over it! I felt A.M.U.S.E.D!

I went to the invigilator, showed him the paper. He retorted, "pehle nahi dekh sakte the?". Eh, 'wasn't it you who handed it over to me?', I thought. But I felt too funny to be angry.

I took the new question paper, glanced at it. KIDDO!

I started writing. Trust me, for no less than ten minutes, I was actually controlling my laughter.

'Coz this had been the second such event. On the first day, the invigilator had handed over the wrong answer sheet to me. By the time they realized it, more than half an hour was already gone, and by the time I got a new answer sheet, 1 hour was well over. That it wasn't really my fault, and how I ended up in a miserable-to-better-to-fine condition is a rather long story.

I don't mind such incidents if they bring a little variation in life, at least by the end of the day, they have most expectedly given me something worth talking 'bout. Thus, a splash of some color is fine, but make sure the color doesn't spill over all that's important. Like here, it could've been my exam- answer sheet. Holy cow!

Songs of a legend called "Kishore Kumar"

2011-08-09T01:48:00.004+05:30

I wanted to do something with music. "What better than blogging," I thought.

I wanted to begin the noble task with a sincere post about someone/something totally great. "Who better than Kishoreda," I thought further.

Lucky I was, to be bugged by the novel idea of exploring more, the eternal love of my life called "music", on the day when one of the ...no, THE greatest legend of Hindi Music was born—Kishore Kumar(4 August 1929 – 13 October 1987).

Kishoreda left the realm of this planet at least four years before I was thrown onto it. Thanks to the advent of technology, the very face of Hindi Music has turned upside down from those times, bringing us to an age where people with merely an audibly-good voice are being called 'singers'. Sometimes, not even that. Music has become more 'corrective', than 'creative'.

But, thanks also to technology, that we can still listen to the greats who were singers because they were really, genuinely gifted–singers. That was the era of simplistic music: one or two simple instruments aesthetically doing their job and a strong, beautiful, touching voice steering clear through it, imparting to the ear-drums of true lovers of classic music, eternal delight. Sigh.

Thus, I owe a million thanks to my dad's evergreen cassette-collection, the T.V, the internet etc. With the cheap songs (allow me to make a probably exaggerated generalization here) being produced (and massively appreciated for reasons whatsoever) these days, I would have never known what singing actually is all about, had it not been for these blessings of technology to mankind. Listening to naturally gifted greats has helped me realize over time, what simple, but simply soothing, music is. Needless to say, Kishoreda tops the list of such maestros.

I don't know how many songs he actually sang in his life, but, I'm quite sure that an unbelievably huge number of them constitute Hindi Music's evergreen renditions. There can never come a voice more, or as, romantic, honest, natural and convincing as his. Here, I share with you some personal favorites from his awe-inspiring renditions that I have heard. In no specific order. For I'm too small to be able to rate them.

1. Ek haseena thi (Karz):This song is special for more reasons than one. First, because of the legend who voiced it. Second, because it was literally 'ahead of its times' in all terms: picturization, choreography, costumes, set, music. The best part, the song connects very well even with our generation, owing to its foot-tapping beats, the Disco-Era's raw feel and simply because it is fun to sing and play!

2. Om Shanti Om (Karz): Another song from the same movie that brought with it an unforgettable phase of groovy Hindi Music, particularly because of its vivid flavors from various genres. The song tells a story. Shaan re-delivered it in a new avatar, for the movie "Om Shanti Om" and it was good, but the fact that it came as it did, 27 years after the original was made, demotes it to the level of nothingness.

3. O Saathi rey (Muqaddar ka Sikandar): I love this song. I totally do. One, because of Amitabh's emotional dialogue-delivery and two, because of the song in itself: I, at least, am touched by both. Songs for heart-broken lovers are being written today as well, but can you see the beauty of simplicity shining through in this one? As if an honest heart's poetry in play.

4. Aap ki aankhon mein kuch (Ghar) and Phoolon ke rang se (Prem Pujari): "Romantic" is the word for these ones. I particularly love the second one out of them. Very poetic. :)

5. Pyaar humein kis mod pe le aya (Satte pe satta): This is my childhood favorite!!!!! It's fun, it's slow and fast, it's serious and light, it's good and best, it's sad and happy. Isn't that so damn amazing? "haaAAaye!!" Epic! :D :D

7. O mere dil ke chainn (Mere jeevan saathi): No one can match the ease with which Kishoreda pulled off every single song so amazingly that it'd seem easy to a layman, when it actually wasn't. There were just too many elements that he added from his side: humor, fun, romance, purity, honesty, clarity ..just too many! No wonder, he was truly magical.
And this is another such rendition. Kishoreda, romantic as ever.

8. Aane wala pal, jaane wala hai (Golmal): I love this song. The song can tells us the right the spirit of life without sounding dead serious. "Aane wala pal jaana wale hai, ho sake to isme zindagi bita le"...

9. Rim jhim gire sawan: Lovely music, lovely singing, lovelier lyrics. Certainly one of Kishoreda's best. This is what you may call, poetry singing with classical music. I love.

10. Dilbar mere (Satte pe satta): I love the movie. I love its music. This is another beautiful piece. Oh come on, I don't really have a hundred reasons to love these songs. They are all simply..awesome!

11. Mere naina sawaan bhaado (Mehbooba): I personally find it funny seeing Rajesh Khanna playing guitar in this one. :P But it's a very emotional rendition on the whole.

12. Aaj rapat jaaye (Namak Halaal): It's such a fun song! And undoubtedly, the best Hindi rain-song too.

13. Pyaar diwana hota hai (Kati Patang): This is such a soulful song. R.D Burman's association is like icing on the cake. Another popular romantic number from the legend is: Hum bewafa hargiz na the. (With due respect to the man, I so damn hate the tribal's coded lyrics and jhinga-lala-hurr-hurr portions in it)

14. Thoda hai, thode ki zarurat hai (Khatta Meetha): Another personal favorite. The song is an inspiration and a very important, yet forgotten, message too.

15. Musafir hun yaaron (Parichay): There are some songs that can bring a smile to your face in the worst of times. This, I believe, is one of them.

16. Choo kar mere man ko (Yaraana): Simply lovely. :)

17. Kuch to log kahenge (Amar Prem): A very very very important message. Deep. From the same movie, Chingari koi bhadke—very sad, very intense. Much heard and loved too.

18. Ke pag ghungro baandh meera naachi (Namak Halaal): Comic! And classical at the same time :D This, along with Ek Chatur naar bring about our beloved Kishoreda's funny streak so funnily, no? Sheer fun. :D

19. Inteha ho gayi, intezar ki (Sharaabi): Kishoreda and Amitabh—what could be better! The rendition is unique, lovely and gets onto the tongue so easily. Plus, Kishoreda's ever-so-unmatched oodling in the beginning! Another adorable song from the same movie: De de pyar de. Love the music.
Then there is Manzilein apni jagah hain from this movie. A magically intense and touching number again. Superb lyrics, great music.
Damn, did my vocabulary shrink or am I really so short of adjectives?!

20. Rote hue aate hain sab (Muqaddar ka sikandar): As a kid, I loved the film. Even more, I love the song. Every word is so damn true, I say.
(Isn't Mr.Bachchan on that bike looking way cooler than our Mr.Abraham?)

21. Zindagi ka safar hai ye kaisa safar (Safar) :And I conclude the list with one of Kishoreda's most poetic, philosophical songs. Intense.

Kishore Kumar ji has sung hundreds of songs, and more. Certainly, what I have got to hear out of them may not even constitute a fraction. The fact that I started with the aim of enlisting 10 songs but very helplessly, ended up with around 26 of them, that too when I haven't enough been fortunate enough to hear "much" of this legen-don't wait for it-dary voice , very well reflects this. These were the songs I could think of at the moment. There must be others that I missed. Share your favorites from the legend's rendition in the comments below.

A final bow of to one of the most, most versatile singers of not just India, but the entire world.
Magical, emotional, honest, gifted, poetic, romantic, adventurous, unique, fun and MoRe ...the entire combination, thy name is—KISHORE KUMAR!!
A final bow of *RESPECT* to the most celebrated voice of Hindi Music. And justifiably so.

Finally, as Kishoreda says ...ruk jaana nahi tu kabhi haar ke, kaanton se chalke milenge saaye bahar ke, O raahi...

Oooodleyy...ooo! :D