Koi Na!

The Mother's Mother

2011-04-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

The funeral’s over and most of the people have left. I see the closest ones alternating between laughs and sobs as they talk about the lost one but I don’t feel emotionally overwhelmed. I just feel empty…

Running top speed from one city to the other, just to feel empty? That’s weird. Has life really taken me so far away from my family? I don’t think so, I hope it isn’t so!

Its not the lack of love that’s making me feel empty, it’s the blandness of memories.

I keep searching for the moments hidden away, the moments that would hopefully let the feelings out but nothing, still nothing. Weird, considering that my fondest memories of childhood are from the place where I am sitting right now, the place my sister calls ‘the Nani Ghar’.

When I finally understand why, I can’t help but smile with amusement. Wondering how many people would be able to live like her. She was always there, in the background, enabling us have a time of our lives, never complaining, never demanding, just happy being the foundation around which her family flourished.

That selfless love will forever be missed…

The Drinker, the Trader and the Reckless Rider

2010-12-15T21:56:00.000-08:00

Risks and the accompanied rushes have always had a history with the male fraternity. Be it the jungles of the Stone Age, the wars of the later eras or the more recent economic depressions and World Wars.

Traditionally, while the male had to go out and deal with all the shit that was hitting the fan, the women (and rightly so!) were left to manage the household, the relatively less risky and highly monotonous affair.

As thousands of years went by, this behavior took root in the basic persona of every male and female. Then another kind of shit hit the fan!

Today, the overly structured “professional” environs with all the processes in place where everybody knows their jobs (and is supposed to do them) has that one vital ingredient that suits the ladies but irritates the not-so-never-supposed-to-be-gentlemen – Monotony.

What now then?

Well, I see colleagues thrilled at making 5 grands at an IPO as it keeps them occupied, I see young kids racing down the road without helmets and who hasn’t had a few drinks to break the grind.

For me, I am trying to keep myself from the first, done a lot of the second and can be found indulging in the third.

~nashe mein kaun nahin hai ye batao zara…

Sati Pratha and Karwa Chauth

2010-10-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

Blessing bestowed upon a male in a Hindu religious ceremony…
Ayushmaanbhavah – May you live a long life.

Blessing bestowed upon a female…
Sada-suhagan-raho – May you never become a widow. Means: May you drop dead before your hubby.

Ayushmaanbhavah was never said to a female lest the blessing turns into a curse. The life of a widow in pre-20th century era (maybe even now in rural parts of India) can be summarized as:
Step 1: A bald headed life spent in the temple room worshipping Lord Krishna till accused of seducing a younger member of the clan who probably had abused her multiple times.
Step 2: Sent away to the pilgrimage in Varanasi which also happened to be a big brothel.

No wonder Sati Pratha found takers and no wonder it got abolished when the social scenarios changed. (Although I have personally come across villages where a widow has a broken down hut on the periphery of the village. The trucks parked outside add to the darkness engulfing their lives for 20 bucks or so.)

Context set, I hereby argue that Karva Chauth is nothing but an extension of the same social stigma. Scaring females to go through a day without even water (of course, some modifications have been made to suit the upwardly mobile career woman but the deal is still more or less the same) to pray for the long life of her husband.

It has been carefully camouflaged as the portrayal of love and dedication but that portrayal does not stand by the acid test of fairness and equality we so claim to believe in.

What else to say...
Oh yes, the wife hasn’t eaten all day. Gotta go and follow the process. Disagreements in beliefs take the back seat when it comes to fairness in love. Being starved tilts the decision in her favor. More importantly, it significantly reduces temper threshold! :P

God and his HR!

2010-08-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

Lets assume God does exist and quota of prayer approval per day looks like this
1000 Easy Prayers (not missing the bus)
100 Medium Prayers (getting the call for the job interview)
10 Hard Prayers (getting the job!)
1 Impossible Prayer (a wife that doesn’t nag!)

Believers get the easy ones (retention cost).
Atheists get the miracle (conversion cost).
After all, God does love a following!

You decide!

Next time you are getting late to work, if you must must pray, ask for a hike :)

~this atheist is closer to the miracle :)

Random Thoughts 2

2010-06-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

Kalyug Kyun?

Because we do so many things exactly the way they shouldnt be done?

Office or home, the seniors/parents rather than reprimanding the insane ones, asking the saner and obedient ones to 'understand' and 'ignore' as they are intelligent enough to be able to do so.

Result 1: 20% people doing 80% of work!
Result 2: Life being unfair to especially these 20%.

Assuming a hit ratio of smartness as 20%, offices are still safer but for nuclear families with one child or two, the numbers just dont add up!

The Curse of Patience

Mumbaikars boast of being the calmer of the lot when it comes to traffic. I figured I had also become one after a while as there seems to be a limit to impatience in limitless traffic jams.

But rather than looking at Delhi as road-rageous even after superb roads and Mumbai as calmer even after the bumpy as hell roads (my back is all fucked up!), can it be the other way round?

Will roads be better if Mumbai started giving some shit to especially the BMC? Sadistic/perverse it might be, but can some nasty road rage cases create enough political momentum for smoother roads?

Note: its not about widening, its about not letting a 1m dia pothole cause a 10km jam.

Random Thoughts

2010-06-14T03:15:00.000-07:00

FINDING PROXIES

Grenade on the right, gunfire from the left and voila, the sniper shot did me in.
I look at the killcam (shows how you were done for) and curse at the leisure with which the guy aimed and pulled the trigger.

Lesson: Don’t drink and drive.

A multi-player game score is a good proxy for what your behavior can be on the road. After all, in both cases, a split second is what matters. Rather, in the game you are at least monitoring your performance and trying to improve it.

On the road, you don’t respawn!

TWO MONTHS

And you have settled in the new house... and you are again missing your hometown.

And you have inducted yourself into the new job... and are still workless.

And you have met friends and relatives you hadn’t for long... thrice.

And you have the new connections for the phones, for the laptops and for the loo (ToI).

Two months… and the sounds again a monotone.

LIFE – A BITCH THAT HATES DOGMATISM

2010-03-11T01:08:00.000-08:00

Falsely believing myself to be rational individual (ironically enough, I also know I am not), I have always used the “cause and effect” logic to explain things to myself and to a number of other people who are mostly not willing to listen!

One of them is “Not To Be Scared” as it can only make things worse. Be it the JEE or CAT aspirants who ruin their chances of getting through by panicking at the last moment thinking “what if I don’t get though?” or be it those in romantic relationships whose fear of messing the relationship (dumpophobia) leads them into getting dumped as they became too possessive for their lovers to handle.

What I have come to understand is that this phenomenon transcends logic and ventures far into something subconscious or luck or whichever might be the right way to define it. Somehow we end up getting precisely the things we did not want even when we see no logical connection on how we ended up getting them.

I will explain this with a few examples, all not mine but observed and heard while discussing the same:

1. Desire/Fear: I do not want to work in South India

Preventive Action: I ran away from Infosys in Hyderabad in two months flat.

Irony: Working for 15 months in Chennai while media discussions about Telengana mention it being more a part of North India than South!

How I got there: Delhi to Kolkata (MBA) to Mumbai (Job) to Chennai (Transfer)

Logical Connection: None that I can see!

2. Desire/Fear: I do not want my son to marry someone from UP. Also, I do not want my son to marry outside our caste (especially not non-veg eating communities)

Irony: My son married a Kayastha from UP.

Logical Connection: When has love ever been logical? :P

3. Desire/Fear: I will never marry a Scorpio. I will never marry a Tam Brahm.

Irony: Happily Married to a Scorpio Tam Brahm

Logical Connection: Again, when has love ever been logical? :P

4. Desire/Fear: Will never work in XYZ company

Irony: Moving to the same

How I got there: Got a worse job + location combo that the XYZ seems like a saner choice right now.

Logical Connection: Nil

I shall stop at 4 for now.

Conclusion: Life’s a bitch that hates dogmatism!

So, be open to whatever shit is thrown at you.

Smile! It could have been worse! It can get worse! It WILL get worse if you keep on fretting about it!

P.S. – Dogmatism might not be the exact word but I loved the sound of it while calling life a bitch J

Differentiate to Integrate

2010-03-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

Lets try a mathematical approach to Unity

We were all doled out the “Unity in Diversity” crap when in school. Okay, on a personal level we might be caste/region/religion-agnostic but on the whole we all tend to take the “proud of being a XYZ” a bit too far (come on, Jats are awesome, aren’t they :D).

Now on top of all the Marathi-manoos, telengana, hindu-muslim, gujjar-meena disputes, we will have to deal with the Men-Women debate too. Like we men were ever winning anyways!

A difficult, rather impossible, solution to the bloody crisis can be:

1. RESERVATION FOR ALL! (Differentiate)

Split the damn thing as much as you can. Base it on sex, religion, region and economic status (even “intellectuals” will toe the line then). Add more if conditions if you wish! The more the merrier (remember the X approaching 0 :D)

For e.g., 2% reservation for a Hindu Male Brahmin from UP with annual family income of less than INR 20,000.

2. ADD RESERVATION UP! (Integrate)

The more diverse a background the parents come from, the more reservation the kids get.

For e.g., a Hindu Male from Karnataka (1.5%) married a Hindu female from Bengal (2.2%). The male kid gets in total ~3.7% reservation. So after a family has maximized the Hindu option, they will start marrying into Muslims and so on and so forth.

100 years down the lane, those who care about reservation will get the best reservation for their kids but will be too mixed up to create a fundamentalist danger. And those who don’t care about all this, they will mix nevertheless.

Will I hate Me?

2010-01-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

If I were to write a story about 5 completely different strangers meeting up on a train arguing about anything under the sun and thereby mapping out their personalities, I could very well do the same by writing about myself at the different stages of life I have been through these 27 odd years of my life. I can blame the society and its tangled web or I can blame myself for just going with the flow but the truth remains that I have changed. I am not the immensely naïve schoolboy or the insanely reckless college student anymore. What baffles me is that I curse the parents of the 17 year olds who zoom past on their bikes when I myself started smashing up my dad’s scooter at 12!

We change and we get used to our changed selves, so much so that we ridicule our past personas. Nothing wrong with that and in fact, this being the human behavior proves all those fundas that we should do what our hearts tells us lest we regret it while on our deathbeds wrong. We by that time would have changed so much so as to accept our “present” selves to die peacefully thinking “who doesn’t have regrets” or “I did ok” with regrets if any pertaining to what more we wanted to do. It’s human nature to move on...

Having said that, there is one thing I feel is much more important: What do we want to turn into?

If we accept that we will have no or little regrets at the end of the day, does it mean we should just let things be and flow with the flow or do whatever we want to? No, the decision to make here is whether we want to turn into someone whom our present self will hate or not. After all, your future hating your present means your present will hate your future. The feeling is mutual to say the least. The reckless biker who lived for today would definitely hate the risk-averse driver who always wears a seatbelt. And this risk-averse driver will definitely hate the professional who works 6 days a week and doesn’t have enough time for his family.

The older we get, the more trapped we become. It hardly is that our nature becomes rigid; it’s just that our constraints forbid us the flexibility to undo. And then we get used to it all...

Step ahead with caution!

P.S. - This is written for someone and by someone who doesn’t generally regrets his decisions and sulk at “what could have been”. For the full of regret suckers, nothing can ever be done. And yet again, they are used to it :)

No Stress! No Regret!

2009-12-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

The three simple rules:
1. Think
2. Act
3. Face the consequence

Thinking comprises of taking into account not just what is practical but what we want, what the ones we love want and the emotional nature of the consequences. It includes scenarios both of honesty and of white-lies. It comprises thinking with a clear head and not revolving around the same set of thoughts with the dumbness causing confusion of a moron. And more often than not, it is about getting your way (something that turns you into a dominating know-all of sorts). It’s about thinking hard and smart. And it takes a 1000 times less calories (if one can count) than worrying or wishful thinking.

Acting comprises taking action and in fact more importantly TAKING INACTION. Inaction is something we are taught to hate since childhood. When stuck with a nasty situation or decision, we ache for action. We feel the suffocating need to do something. Even in the face of certain failure we want to “try our best” so that we do not feel ashamed for not having tried. We have apparently been fed a little too much of the “At least you tried” curry while growing up. How ridiculous will it be then to “give up” simply after calculating the odds and concluding “it isn’t worth the trouble”. Doesn’t sound so ridiculous to read, but try doing it and know firsthand the reaction of not just your loved ones but yourself.

I have had my share of ridicules thrown at me, ranging from “if you had just tried” to “you didn’t because you couldn’t” and after all that I have been through, the only conclusion I can make is that inaction has served me well. But the most difficult and most important learning to be acquired before inaction can do you any good is learning to “Face the Consequences”.

Facing the consequences with utmost shamelessness (synonym: humbly), in my inconsequential opinion, exists only in a certain breeds of people. One of them would be the breed which has gotten the precious and rare exposure of highly competitive environments filled with intelligent people without the direct and tangible reward in terms of money. This exists in premier education institutes. The certainty of a job, uncertainty of pay-offs, inexperience of luxuries and abundance of stubbornness gives birth to the “irresponsible, wasted and lazy” persons who go on to live a life sub-optimal as judged by popular wisdom.

Like any other disease, it affects to varying degrees. Some get completely wasted, some slowly stumble back to the regular path as they grow out of it. But one thing is certain, the true ones never regret a bit of it.

Maybe the epitaph of one of them would say:
“He achieved nothing in his life but he lived and he died a happy man.”

I think the first part would anyways be true for almost all of us…

Sail along… No Stress! No Regret! And take the few decisions you actually can!

I’ll Know I Thought So

2009-09-14T21:01:00.001-07:00

How do we capture a thought, a feeling? We word it and store it in our cupboards and mailboxes. We record it verbatim in videos. We even attach it through memory to snapshots of the past. But mostly, we don’t capture it; it embeds into our being on its own…

Not all thoughts and feelings get captured, nor they linger on forever. Only a few, limited number survive. Some of them we can recall while thinking back, some come alive from triggers attached to them. But the most interesting and perhaps the most important I feel are the ones that come up when we are neither recalling them nor can we locate the trigger.

A laughter would fall in the first, a smile in the second and a tear in the last…

How regularly have we have sat down with friends and family whiling away a good number of hours laughing about the ludicrous things we did (knowingly/unknowingly/drunk). How often we have had those smiles when some songs remind us of fabulous times spend a long time ago. And how rarely have we been glum of a sudden pang running through our bodies for reasons unknown.

Reasons unknown become reasons known and the pain dissipates. We look for the why, we get the reason and we reason the reason. Be it the obvious “Death is Inevitable” or the obscure “He is gone to a better place”, be it the factual “Nobody can see or experience everything” or the illusory “He is still with us right here inside our hearts”, they all serve the same purpose. They move the feeling from where it hurts the most to a more comfortable reasoned place where it stays till we forget and it resurfaces some other day.

My experience tells me the feeling is more potent that we give it credit to be but the reasoning serves its purpose too. Once bitten, twice shy might be overused but that is how our defenses function. The next time we aren’t taken in by surprise, the next time the walls are up. The next time death gives you lesser tears and more humility, for when you see another of the souls-you-know missing, you know it will all come to pass and so will you…

But that August night, that sinister smile, that insane advice, that useless fight… It remains etched in stone. A stone which never weathers, at least I think so... at the least I will know I thought so…

The Trek – Part 4: Money Best Spent

2009-09-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

One hour to dusk and no clue as to where to head. I mean, we knew we had to go downhill. After all, we were almost atop a Himalayan mountain for crying out loud! But that was all we knew. We walked around trying to find a trail, not with the detective seriousness of course, with the laughing chatter of what a mess we are in, the kind of lunacy that takes you over when you are royally screwed with or without being responsible for it… though the lunacy is much stronger when you are not the reason for the mess!

Finally the dude remembered of a place where he thought was a trail and although we (including him) could only find one stone that looked like somewhat cut by humans of eons ago, it was a good enough for us and we headed, like I said before, downhill. I have never really climbed down or up any hill in a completely random manner (that is without a trail to guide) but considering moving down this newfound “trail” meant we had to sit down and push thorny bushes aside with sticks meant it was pretty much the similar to having no trail to begin with. Anyways, an hour and some scary wild sounds later (one of which we were pretty sure was a bear’s), we came down to the valley. And the relief was much increased when we saw a shepherd tending to his cattle. We were still not lost to the wilderness!

What the shepherd told us was the plain and simple – you city-dwellers cannot make it to Kareri. We have wondered and discussed quite a few times since then whether we would have been better off if we had just ignored his advice. Nobody has a clue. In fact, I have even wondered if it would have been even more adventurous…

So we took his advice that we should head to the village about a couple of miles south and started walking single file on the narrow comfortable path towards the village. By the time we got there, we were starving strangers coming in from the darkness with a single flashlight (yes, we still didn’t have the sanity to buy more at Mcleodganj) with huge bags on their backs and sun burnt faces that couldn’t be seen. In short, it was dark and we were hungry. The village was as primitive as I would ever see, that is, it had no electricity. Am not exaggerating and I can’t explain more, after all we didn’t really get a chance to explore it! The guy we stopped gave us even better news, namely – “This is harvest season and everybody is busy. We can get you a place to stay but apologies we wouldn’t be able to give you any food”. We had a tent for crying out loud! One we just hadn’t used all these days! But he didn’t budge and said maybe the next village a further down the path. And we didn’t really have a choice.

I was a strict vegetarian back then (now a vegetarian by choice) and the most difficult part for me on that entire trip was when we found a dead cow in the middle of the only trail we had. No, we did not try to cook it! The bad and stinking part was that she had been dead at least a fortnight and the pungent smell from her rotting body was filling up the nose a hundred yards away. And you really can’t hold your breath that long, especially when you have to run and jump over a dead cow with a rucksack on your back. It was indeed the worst experience of the trip for all others turned into good memories once we were past them, this one didn’t.

The conspiracy was widespread. Conspiracy because I still can’t understand why they couldn’t take pity on us and give us anything to eat. We were offering to sleep in the fields! Anyways, the next village had the same offer and we had no other choice than to keep walking south. Even our so-close-to-the-heart-by-now torch was taking her last breaths as we walked on hopelessly… and then we saw light!

It is difficult to understand the feeling of relief that a bunch of guys feel upon seeing a tube light after being in the darkness for a few hours. I am not exaggerating and I will not exaggerate when I say even the dismay was tremendous when we found out that the lights were of an inlet station of a dam. The dreams of shops and food disappeared as we sensed nobody might be there at all! But thank god for making burglars burglars because had they not wandered our society, nor would have the security guards!

The two guards at the station were good human beings. They didn’t have any food (it was still eluding us) but they made tea for us and gave us the good news that there might be a way out. All we had to do was to ask the driver of the vehicle which came in during shift change to double back and drop us to the town. That was our only hope for the night and when he came, we should have fallen to his feet if the need be and given him as much money as he asked for but what we did (and I will remove myself from we here) was to try and negotiate with him to come down from 300 bucks to 200 bucks. Imagine getting stuck, hungry and cold (and maybe even dead) for a mere 20 bucks per person! And that too, Indian currency!

Good sense prevailed amongst us and the driver didn’t get too pissed (although we thought he had when it took him more than an hour to come back) and we reached back to Mcleodganj an hour after we boarded the jeep. Nobody had imagined we had crossed so many mountains and covered so much road-miles that even I was filled with guilt about thinking of the driver as greedy when he had asked for those 300 bucks. Sixty bucks well spent indeed… best spent indeed…

The Trek – Part 3: It had just begun

2009-09-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

Bullying mixed with reasoning creates a deadly inescapable cocktail that one has no option but to drink. Having woken up with aches in almost all moving parts of the body, I was in no mood to relent to the insane request of another day of trek and I stood (rather sat) my ground for a good half hour! After all, it’s difficult to argue with someone who had already been to the place when he was all of 11 or 12!

It’s not as bad a climb as the last one, we will stop whenever you would want us to, don’t chicken out now, this is a much better place, be a team player, don’t act like an ass… Imagine all that thrown to a guy with a broken body and spirit. All probability is that he would either run away and never see the buggers again or give up arguing and fall in line. Am glad I was not a quitter, for what lay ahead would be one of the best days in my life. Alas, no pictures because the bastards decided on a budget cut!

So the five of us took off for Kareri via a temple called Gauna Devi with nothing but two loafs of bread and a bottle of jam. Something we would soon regret. The trek was steep in the town but afterwards, it became an easy walk on the shady side of the mountain with a nice breeze and good views all around. We moved much faster than the previous two days, passing by villages spread across the terrain. Once warmed-up, even the body was not giving me any trouble. A new lesson about its function but one I haven’t really utilized it ever since haven’t really been able to even gym regularly in the past 8 years. We stopped in the shade of line of trees and had our brunch of bread-jam and that was the last of it. The two loafs were ravished with the calm certainty of at least finding a shack where we could have our regular maggi or at least a bread or at worse anything!

I wouldn’t call it a waterfall, it was more like a pond with running water and huge rocks to create barriers that made it a stepped pool. We plunged ourselves in, playing in the ultra-cold water coming straight from the glacier. Later on, lying on the rocks to dry ourselves and the clothes we began contemplating the next. The real fun was still a couple of hours away…

Our hearts sank, especially mine, when we learned that it was last of the nice walk in the park and the villager pointed us up! Yes, it cannot be defined as an incline. It was up, straight up! The kind better done for a very short duration; the kind just short of needing to drop the rucksacks and use ropes. It took us around an hour to crawl up but thereafter it was the usual arduous trek snaking around the mountain, the only difference between previous days – direct sun, no trees, and landslides. There were parts where the trail had been lost under the debris of broken stones and we risked moving ahead step by step because we had decently screwed-up egos, the risk appetite of lunatics and a hope of food at the temple of Goddess Gauna.

I usually keep my blogs nameless (maybe due to the ingrained belief of “What’s in the name”). It’s natural to me, I have to make an effort to write down or even use a name in the stories I keep retelling to whoever would listen but this time I want to make an exception and scream out the name of the bugger who had weaved tales of the beauty of the temple! But I will stick with calling him The Bastard!

One cannot imagine, or maybe can, the looks and curses we threw at him when we found that the temple was in ruins and abandoned maybe months or maybe years ago. An eerie absence of anyone else was ok, lack of food still fine and the fact that sunset was an hour away would have been fine if we had a way ahead. There was no trail! It ceased to exist… Simply put – We were screwed!

If you put this situation to a bunch of people doing a survivalist course (describing it much more vividly than I could manage), they would inevitably say that the best and the only sane thing to do is to turn around, retrace your steps and if you are lucky you would reach the town before midnight! But we of course did the opposite, the only saving grace being that we were lucky… extremely lucky…

The Trek - Part 2: And I thought it was over

2009-04-24T03:05:00.000-07:00

Gravity and evaporation – two basic concepts. We all study them in primary school but the magic of it all became apparent to us only the next morning when we lingered out of the cottage. Water flows down faster in the hills and the stronger the wind and sunlight, the faster it all dries up. This simple fact had eluded us engineering students. What lay before us was a rejuvenated landscape and an invitation by the snowline. Rucksacks left with the shack owner, we began the best part of the trek.

Ilaaka was around 5 km from Triund, set right where the ascent for the mountain pass began and the trip there was nothing less than awe-inspiring, and risky. The awe-inspiring part was the constant view of the snow-laden mountains, cool breeze and wilderness, the risky part was the 2 feet wide trail and the valley waiting to feed on one missed step. The rule of the game was to keep watching your feet as you go. You curse, you laugh, you scream, you sweat, you tire but you keep watching your feet. We would stop from time to time, gather around and enjoy the view but while walking the only thing we could appreciate were the small pebbles on the trail. Look at the big picture? Hell NO! In places like these, life is in the details…

We did have our share of moments. Dipped our fingers and one walkman in the ice cold water coming from the melting snow, clicked someone dangling from a tree trunk and casting his droppings like a bird in the valley below, climbed up to a cave only to chicken out lest there really was a bear inside, prayed to the lord when it seemed impossible to climb down from the cave, lay down on the edge of a rock barely supporting itself on the edge of the cliff, dived to catch the Frisbee only to realize it might have been the last dive, tried to take a shortcut from the already short path only to get stuck and scream for help. And more than all this, we evolved from acquaintances to friends…

All journeys should end in a circle. You go from one route, you come back through another. Else, it becomes kind of boring as the landscape has nothing new to offer and just in case you happen to be coming down a hill, it’s damn hard on your legs! Long before we had reached the town, actually more like halfway, I was done for. My legs were shaking, my toenails hurting with every step. At least on the way up, the frequent stops used to act as refreshers. Here, nothing helped. But climb down we did, for we obviously had no alternative. A long shower, a good dinner, a relaxed hour later I lay down to sleep, happy to have completed the trek, to have had so much fun and looking forward to just recuperate for the next couple of days. That was so not to be…

The Trek - Part 1: Triund and the Thunderstorm

2009-04-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking!

The feet screamed, the lungs sighed and the mind cursed as I dragged myself up the rocky trek which would lead our gang of five to Triund, apparently a nice place. The rucksack made things worse and it sure was not my idea of fun, at least back then. It’s not like I would be satisfied with just sitting at a foothill restaurant taking in the view while I wined and dined but I could definitely take things a little slower! Alas, being the youngest member of the group, I was being bullied into pushing myself to the limit. Thank god they realized that it would be simply impossible for me to carry the 20 extra pounds (in the form of a tent) and I was to drag myself and my rucksack with a hateful bottle of rum, shoved in at the last moment, to the top. Every extra kilo mattered and I didn’t even have the capacity to claim my fair share of it!

Slowly and not so steadily I managed to keep pace (by reducing theirs at times) and approximately an hour before sunset we reached Triund. That was one hell of a first impression! After the rocky climb, sweet green grass welcomed us atop the mountain with the huge one-piece rocks giving it a pre-historic feel. Amazing would be an understatement for the beautiful sight and the relief of finally being there combined to raise my mood to the extreme. Standing on the green lawn and staring at the ice-laden mountain right in front released an adventurous yet peaceful smile from deep within. The country’s nearest snowline that felt so far away while sweating on the trek now seemed just an arm’s length away.

There were just two small shacks which served basic food and a mini-cottage of the tourism department up there. Most climbers apparently trekked up in the morning and went back towards the evening. There was just one more tent on the ground, a brother-sister duo. We finished our tea and started our amateurish attempt at erecting our own. The wind was a bit strong but with the help of stones we were almost finished (after all, amateur we might be but we were 5!) when the brother-sister pair started dismantling their own. On enquiring we found that a storm was coming. What? We didn’t see any sign of it. The wind was strong but not so strong! And we were anyways erecting our tent in a safer place. But since we also knew our expertise on the matter, we decided to undo all the hard-work and dismantle our tent lest we lose the tent and with it the security deposit. And then it came!

The storm was fierce and it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to reach full strength. We ran and took shelter inside the smaller-than-a-car shack, laying our rucksacks one on top of the other and huddling together in more or less the same way albeit horizontally. Then we finally realized that after all it might not be that most climbers “liked” to go back in the evening, there was only one cottage and hence only one tent when we reached. The cottage was an alternative, a very important alternative, in case of a storm. So essentially, we were a stranded lot. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying our soup and maggi and laughing out loud about the situation we were in. I don’t know why but it has been a habit of the gang to laugh harder and harder with every increase in the degree of screw-up we find ourselves in. I guess we find the “what a fool we are!” realization quite amusing.

By god’s grace, the brother-sister duo was nice and they took pity on us. On the other hand, considering the mess we had landed ourselves in, it would take a monster not to help us. Anyways, they gave us a small room where we could drop dead for the night in our sleeping bags. So we struggled through the rain to the cottage and lay down our stuff. The night set in and brought with it another realization – we had just one torch and that too good enough only to find a matchbox during blackouts in the city! For the dinner (dal rice at the shack) we had to again go through the hard rain and strong winds. Imagine walking amidst this weather on a rock strewn path when all you can see is the faint outline of the person ahead you and that too intermittently. It does build trust, well at least upon successful completion! So one person with the torch in front, we charged towards the shack, reached, had food, and charged back. We were going to get a lot of this trust based walk on a thin line of the trek in the next couple of nights…

Fear is one thing, free-riding is another and I just hope people don’t act like how we did that night in apparently emergency scenarios and rather give priority to the fear. The cottage was all of wood and through the window all that the 5 sleeping-bagged exhausted guys could see were signs of a fire – bright red flakes of ash fiercely kissing the window. It was cold alright, we were tired alright, all of us might also be afraid but we spend quite some time debating who would get out of his sleeping bag and check out what’s wrong. After a few rounds of pleading and cursing and what not, I finally gave up and rose only to find the wind playing in circles with the leftovers of a campfire. But what if it had really been a fire and even I didn’t give up in time? We were one hell of risk-takers. Grown up we have, hopefully…

Thanks to the storm and slippery terrain, we would not be able to trek further up to the snowline. And so the first day ended and with it the adventure. At least that’s what we thought…

I Just Meant I Would Like To Be In Touch

2009-04-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

‘You do not stand a chance! It has been months since you had a haircut, days since you shaved and there’s quite some beer on your breath! These Brazilian folks aren’t gifted with the strong sense of smell that Indians are when it comes to liquor but they are a hundred times more concerned about looks!’

The logic of the voice in my head was right and I sunk in my seat with resignation. The bus was taking us to Rio, an overnight journey from Curitiba, from where we would take our flight home, to Nova Dehli. We hadn’t even crossed the city limits and Shukla was fast asleep. Me? I was listening to the voice from the seat behind. Listening to just the voice as the spherical words of Portugese were still giving me a miss.

She was travelling alone, nothing unusual. She was gorgeous, nothing unusual. She was tall, nothing unusual again. Then why did I get attracted towards her when nothing seemed extraordinary about her by Brazilian standards? Maybe it was the absence of cleavage which so often takes a guy’s attention away from the face. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the country the day after. Maybe it was simply that she was travelling alone and that would make any single man at least wish what I was wishing. It was probably something I will never figure out. I kept listening to her voice and then she too fell asleep and so did I.

The beard and hair weren’t much heavy to carry considering the weight of the confidence I had in me. I had never approached a girl, let alone a stranger. I felt my teeth would fall out of shame for uttering incomprehensible things if I ever dared to. So I slept thinking of the homecoming, of the new experiences in the last one month, and occasionally, of the girl sleeping in the row behind.

The pit stop and the noises that followed woke me up from my slumber. I headed out and in no mood to eat anything, I sat on the bench outside and lit a cigarette. And as luck would have it, she came and sat beside me. Was she eating something? I don’t know, all I remember of that moment is I suddenly managed the courage to ask “Fala Ingles? (Do you speak English?)”. I was so astounded at myself and so delighted when she replied, “A leetal” that I suffered a temporary loss of sanity. Not just that I couldn’t decide what to say next, I stubbed out my cigarette to hand out the lighter when another girl approached me to light her smoke. (In retrospect I have often wondered whether I had a chance with this other girl. She was also alone and it was obvious she deliberately chose me in the midst of so many smokers. But I was uninterested to say the least!).

Her “leetal” actually meant very very little for I would have given her 1 on a scale of 10 for her English skills. But that was better than zero, right? So I struggled through the conversation for the 20 odd minutes we were there and then boarded the bus again. As I was about to settle down on my seat I had another bout of valor and asked her if I could sit beside her. Boy, I was on a roll!

I am a liar. I prefer to call it White Lying. The kind that doesn’t hurt people and yet benefits you. I used to use it so much that friends and family could probably see through them but strangers weren’t that well-equipped. And that night was the one when I probably lied the most ever. When she told the story of her guy cheating on her, I fabricated my sad failed love story. When she told me something about her college days, I had a similar story ready. I was an expert in the Indian way of life. Heck, I didn’t just read her palm lines, I also read the ones on her forehead. Boy, that was intimate! Holding her hand, looking in her eyes and forecasting something that would make her laugh or smile.

I told her I liked her and she took the compliment pretty well. (Only if she could know how much effort it took me to say that the end might have been different.) I told her I liked her, we chatted about something else for a while and then I again told her I liked her. This time she got the cue and then the bubble burst, the light faded away, the hope sunk. She said something in Portuguese. I knew she was saying a polite No but pretended I couldn’t understand and repeated a third time….. “I like you… and would love to keep in touch.”

And then I flew home, bringing with me the image of her face which I drew in the two hours I stared at her while she slept so peacefully right next to me. The eyes, the nose, the hair, the lips and the bangle-sized earrings.

It was her face, yes. It was her face…

P.S. – the one (translated) email I sent never got a response. I am no expert now about how these things work but back then in 2003 I sure was an amateur. What makes me believe that I ain’t one no more? The fact that now I have a real love story to tell and that too with a happy ending.

The Moment So Ordinary...

2009-03-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

A moment, a glance, a look, an expression can get etched in our memory forever. It makes us think, introspect, philosophize and at times, it makes us smile. I do not know how many fleeting moments like these one experiences in life. I myself can’t recall many and the most profound of these few was the spark in that child’s eyes. I can still see it, I can still feel it lifting my mood, I can still feel the regret of not stopping the car. But had I stopped, it wouldn’t have remained such a special moment. A conversation, a minute or two and the moment might have lost its sheen. It is the noiselessness which keeps such moments pristine and unforgettable even after years have gone by.

The trip itself was nothing less than an unusual experience. Being god-neutral (not an atheist), I did not travel towards the holy places of Gangotri and Badrinath as a part of a pilgrimage. I was assigned to get the topographical surveys done of three airstrips in the vicinity of these regions so that our firm could advice the state government regarding the mountain airports they wished to build. I didn’t even volunteer for the job. I was simply the only undergraduate available at the time who could be thrown around under the pretext of exposure and who didn’t really have either a privilege or a reason to say no.

So off I went, with two Bengali surveyors from Calcutta, on what would be a weeklong trip. Upon reaching the first airstrip at Chinyalisaur (near Gangotri), we lodged ourselves in a Motel with the cleanest beds and least bedbugs. The sum of INR 200 per night without even negotiating should give you an idea of the place. The electricity being moody, the market closing at 8 PM (including the STD booth with a real long queue which I thought of as impossible in 2005) and no mobile network made sure I had no way to stay awake beyond 9 PM. Essentially cut-off from the world, I for the first time was voluntarily waking up at 5 in the morning and by 6 the Bongs would be at their job. What would I be doing? Having an experience of a lifetime… day after day… for three days.

Sitting at that plateau of the airstrip, with cool winds blowing and even that small market miles away, I had nothing to do. No book to read, no music to listen to. It still bugs me if I am all alone and it was much worse in those days. I couldn’t stay alone for an hour without getting uneasy if I came home before my flatmate. I was worse than a wife calling up her husband to enquire when he will be home. But in those mountains, I was at peace. I was in no rush, no feeling of ‘doing something’ came to me as I sat there looking beyond the stream of water at a lone house sitting in a fold of a hill. I loved that house, wondered whether I will ever have one like that, and wished I have one like that. I still do. I imagined how life would be in such a case. Walking down to the riverbed, crossing (the most elementary) bridge, getting groceries from the market and retreating back to my own paradise. A little farm accompanied the house, which would continue inside the fold of the hill. What a secluded place! I would wonder the issues that would come up in living such a life. Even if I managed a way to earn a living from there, the education of the yet-to-be-born kids (wasn’t even married then), the healthcare especially in case of emergencies, the losing touch with friends and relatives. But despite it all, it attracted me immensely, it still does. Someday… I wish… though the hopes are fainter, almost gone… but still I wish…

I had never thought I would feel so much at peace with so few people around me and it astonished me. It amazed me that I sat there one night in the cab chatting with the driver while he drank a beer. It hadn’t really happened since I started drinking and hasn’t really happened in similar situations after that. The three days flew by, like they always do when we are having a good time and we packed our bags and headed for the next site near Badrinath. The road that would take us to the main Rishikesh – Badrinath road was one not often travelled and we saw maybe a dozen or so cars in the 30 km stretch. The villages on the way were beautiful. Not beautiful the way a foreigner would describe almost all villages in India. Beautiful in a sense someone who had seen so many of villages and had become indifferent would stand up and notice them. Even amongst these, one village stood apart. The weather I reckon, and maybe the vegetation too, gave it an almost ethereal feel. The shade by the low clouds, the red hue by the trees, the whistling sound by the wind and the left-alone by the tourists gave it the majestic feel it had about it. So now I had the perfect house and the perfect place to build that house. What was missing? Nothing really. A dream complete. And then with these dreams in my eyes I felt that moment, I saw those eyes…

In the middle of the road in what can be called nowhere (as an insult though), even some distance from that village, stood 3 kids. Couldn’t really figure out what they were up to so far from home. The car honked and the silence was pierced. It irritated me but the kids smiled and became more enthused. As we passed them, I saw what they were up to. They had these fruits they must have collected from nearby and they were playing and waiting for a vehicle which might pass, which might also stop, and which might buy their fruits. Also, I saw the spark in that little boy’s eyes which gripped me and we had gone too far before I realized maybe we should have stopped.

That spark was not of hope of selling a few bucks worth of fruits, it was of excitement which he felt when he saw the car, just the way we used to feel in our childhood when we would rush out waiving in our balconies and scream “Airplane Bye Bye!” It was of innocence… of immense innocence…

It has been four years and I can still see those eyes… I don’t remember the face but eyes, I can never forget…

P.S. - Why did I feel so gripped by it? Almost enchanted? Coz I personally feel the kids half the age of that one in our cities know how to change the wallpaper on mobile phones and what’s worse, they know the price of the phone. The information overload of the information age is ripping off the innocence from these kids… I wish I can save mine. The chances are slim… but still I wish…

The Stories So Far…

2009-03-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with a couple of new friends last night, without a few beers either in hand or stomach, and telling stories about our own yesteryears, I realized there are so many of them I remember so vividly that I feel reliving them every time I narrate them.

I have no qualms in admitting that I have spend the better part of last 8 years (excluding the last one year as a married man) in a haze induced by alcohol-based beverages. The haze lightens the mood, frees up the conscience and you end up doing stuff which even your sober self considers ridiculous… and that at times does create stories worth telling

But these stories weren’t all lived with Old Monk filled bellies. Most people won’t even find them ‘up to the mark’. These aren’t even stories that changed or shaped my life. These simply are simple stories close to my heart…

Cutting the wire...

2009-03-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

I find it amusing, the fact that we behave (and portray ourselves) differently with different sets of people. We take on different roles based on our interest, our image in a specific circle, the situation or (mostly) on the guidelines of our beloved society. Picturing my well-mannered father sitting and cursing with his college friends brings on a wide grin. But all this multiple-personality role-play is something we take in our stride, it is something we grin and bear or we simply do not play at all. What all of this does not do is tear you apart. But there is something that does tear you apart, makes you numb, creates illusions, and causes nightmares…

And that is when your heart and your mind are completely out of sync.

In sync is good, in sync is awesome. In sync makes all decisions so easy and for someone with a strict no-regrets policy, in sync makes life a bed of roses. And when they do behave a little out of tune, I have found it better to follow the heart. After all, it controls the damn emotions and those are the main culprits which cause regrets over things that you really had no control over. A few thousand bucks are nothing compared to a happy day spend with friends and family. Even a hundred thousand bucks… Nah, here the mind takes control!

So you either follow your heart or your mind (rarely in my case) or both of them and life is not so bad. But what when the “completely” out of sync scenario plays out? It’s not pretty to say the least.

Mind it, it won’t really make a difference either ways and regrets would not haunt forever but the equal pull from both sides does make you go through hell until a decision is made and acted upon. The acted upon part being more important as you keep swinging between decisions till it is done with. External factors like parents or wife can help or worsen the situation. Hmmm, not really, coz you agree with them one moment, disagree in the next.

The only solution I guess is to close your eyes and cut the red wire, either the bomb will go off or won’t. Either ways, you pick up your baggage and carry on, in this life or beyond.

Dabas

Jehadi - The Terrorist

2008-12-01T23:22:00.000-08:00

How come almost everybody seems to start with the basic assumption that these terrorists or all the other terrorists are maniacs out to kill and get killed?

How come so few (if any) seem to think that there should be a reason behind this madness that makes a man become a Fidayeen? "Society prepares the crime, the criminal commits it" seems to be out of everyone's memory in the pain and anger caused by the terrorist strike.

Of course the politicians have messed it all up, of course the security forces are ill-equipped, of course it hurts to see so many die (and it hurts even more to see people visiting the Trident and Taj as tourist places!) but then when I look for the reasons I see nobody going beyond the presumption that the terrorists did it because they were sick human beings not capable for caring about human life and brain-washed into committing this ghastly act.

Men may want to kill, may LOVE to kill but I don't think Men really want to die. The soldiers on both sides of two countries fighting a war think they are doing it for the right reasons! Nobody would sacrifice his life for a cause he doesn't fully subscribe to! (Only if right and wrong were universally definable!)

It's the circumstances that cause behavioral modifications in humans. Didn't the 20+ old brightest minds scream and curse during the World War at our own IIMC? And most realized only 2 days later of how ridiculous they were acting and got amused at the fact that they almost (if not actually doing it) hit the friend from the other hostel in the enthusiasm and patriotism of a hostel they knew for less than 2 months.

Systematic brainwashing of the future-Fidayeen does happen. The loudspeakers in PoK might scream 24 hours about hundreds and thousands of their sisters getting raped by the Indian Army in Kashmir. Of course the data given is manipulated but I would not believe that not even one Kashmiri female has been raped by the Indian Troops.

I have no proof whatsoever so I would definitely not call it an allegation. What I know is that when we had hired 5 local boys in Srinagar to do traffic surveys at major intersections in the city (with all necessary permissions), they were picked up by an angry young Officer of the Indian Army and could only be traced after a few days because the guy searching for them was from Delhi. The fact that this colleague of mine was a Muslim himself speaks that the anger is more regional than communal.

I traveled on the Leh-Srinagar route by road (through the Kargil and Drass sectors) and I vividly remember the smile of the lone (or at max two) army jawan safeguarding a bridge in the middle of nowhere (heavily outnumbered and even maybe a sitting duck for militants if they decided to kill him, and lonely!). I also vividly remember the smile on the Kashmiri children's faces when they saw us ride through their village. But more vividly I remember the melancholy and hopelessness on the faces of the youth and the old of those villages who lived everyday under the fear of being thrashed by the army personnel for an offense as minor as not giving side to the military vehicle in two seconds flat! And that too in their homeland where they have lived for ages!

I must reiterate that I am not taking any sides. All I am saying is for me the likelihood of an angry Kashmiri youth treated like scum in his homeland taking up arms is same as that of a jawan's (stuck in a hostile environment) irrational venting out of anger.

The media mentioned "the first such attack of such scale outside Kashmir!" The last time I checked, Kashmir was a part of India. Seems like we only listen to the gunshots when they are fired close enough! Did I accidently find the reason behind the attacks? I won't claim so. I don't think so.

To get a better idea of what's happening, maybe it is possible for us to take an unbiased view of the Chechen's struggle against Russia or try to go to the opposite side of things by remembering our own freedom struggle against the British. If I remember my history lessons correctly, even our great Shivaji employed Guerilla warfare against the Mughals.

I am a common man and so are you and so are the people anywhere in the world stuck in violent conflicts all around the world (whatever the reasons). Our so called pursuits of happiness have taken a hit and my hunch is that it is only going to get worse.

What can we do? I have no clue!

Yes, we can and should be more directly involved with the governance of this nation. Yes, if our numbers are large enough, we can bring on a change. But to be really effective in doing so, I feel we need to detach ourselves from the notion of patriotism and think as good, rational and sane human beings. If it sounds ridiculous, even the NSG guys who fought for us all live on the same lines.

"We don't die for the country," one taciturn officer explained. "We die for our mates".

(http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Special-Forces/Mortal.html)

To put it another way, being patriotic does not mean to just say that Kashmir is part of India but treat Kashmir as part of India…. and fight for it like it is part of our nation… and fight not only for the land but for the people who live there. That would be a start on the right note….

Apologies if I hurt anyone. I didn't intend to.

P.S. – I for one am too young and too insignificant to understand the real reasons and the real culprits of it all. And I am definitely not suggesting they were suppressed Kashimiri youth who attacked Mumbai! Am just trying to put across a thought that I feel many people have missed. We should try diagnosing and treating the disease than keep on taking meds for the symptoms.

My Selfless Lover… I don’t love you anymore

2007-11-30T00:16:00.000-08:00

I don’t even know if I ever loved you at all or I just used you and your kindness and your selflessness. Thinking about our 7 year old relationship, I can’t thank you enough for so much you have given me. You were the intelligent one, the humorous one, even the charming one and what did I bring to the table when the relationship began? A teenager with limited experience beyond his family and friends, a naïve kid who needed so much to learn! Yet, you accepted me with open arms, taught me, and loved me.

You were the better dancer at the parties, you were the intelligent one at intense discussions, you were the funny one at gossips sessions. You helped me make friends, mostly male and few female. You were the one who brought us friends together. I don’t think you even have ever asked to be loved as much as you love. Maybe you should have asked. Maybe you should have demanded. Maybe you should have pushed your hand down my throat and pulled out what was your right. But it just wouldn’t have been you.

I ran away for someone else but when I came back crying, you accepted me with open arms. You gave me solace. You gave me company on what otherwise would have been lonely nights. And what does this selfish lover gave you in return? Nothing! And now he is running away again, never to return. He is getting married to someone else and the girl doesn’t really approve of our affair. She for sure won’t allow us to carry on. We will meet but only as friends. Friends, who meet, catch up, laugh, smile and then before it goes out of hand and we find ourselves on the same bed in the morning, I will be gone.

Remember those mornings when we would be lying on the jetty by the lake? It felt like bliss. I felt happy. You have made me happy more times than anyone else has and I don’t think I would ever be able to repay your debt but, and I know this will make you happy, the girl with whom I am getting married to has made me happier. We haven’t spent a lot of time together but there’s a long road ahead.

And now that this is confession time, I would tell you about something else too. It’s the only thing that can actually hurt you but I think I should come out clean once and for all. I think I have used you but I also think I might have been in love with your sister. Not coz she is fairer and weighs less and has an amazing figure. I just happened to have funnier, light and stress free times with her. You do know that our relationship has caused me quite a lot of headaches, right? Lets just suffice by saying you are the marriage material while your sister is the stuff you take out to parties, show off to friends and have fun, non-committal relationships with. She would never force herself on you and you would never get addicted to her either. You would just go to her when you have the time and when you feel like going. I am definitely not undoing all the good things I have said about you. You have been better than her in more senses but yeah, I might keep in touch with her more than you in my life post marriage.

We will definitely meet once in a while. Can’t really help that can we? We do have a lot of common friends. But I would try to behave myself and you try not to seduce me with your charm coz it after all might not have that charming effect on me anymore.

Whether I did love you or just used you, I leave it to you to decide.

Take care and have a great life ahead

Adios amigo.

Dabas

P.S. - Now if you haven't really been able to guess till now, I am talking about Rum. Now would I even have to tell you about the sister! Read again and tell me what you think :)

Run!

2007-05-08T01:46:00.000-07:00

Most parents tell their kids not to gain satisfaction by looking at those who are behind them in the race but look ahead and make the envy motivate them to run faster and leave even more behind. And so children start running as soon as their parents teach them this lesson and sadly, most keep running for the rest of their lives. There is nothing wrong with this lesson for it motivates individuals to excel and society to grow but is it worth it to keep running all our lives? Wouldn’t it be nice if at a point in life we could just stop running, look at those we have left behind and smile with relief at our good fortune? But instead, we wait for a while, look at those misers and for the fear of them catching up, start running again. It all would be fine but what happens on the run is we can only look at a few who are close behind and forget about those millions we have left so far that they can never catch up. These few we can see make what used to be the excitement of running, the stress of keeping ahead. And the few who are still running coz it gives them a kick forget that they cant outrun everyone and the run is taking a toll on their health, their family, their life.

I have been fortunate enough to experience one of the best institutes of education in India and be friends with the brightest minds. I have learned more from the non-curricular activities (not even extra-curricular) than what they teach there. I don’t boast that I have the intelligence nor do I externalize it to good fortune which most of my friends happen to firmly believe. Maybe it’s a mixture of both but the biggest reason I got through those entrance examinations was that I kept my head cool when others panicked at the thought of all their hard work going down the drain. They thought, they panicked and thanks to them, I got ahead. So, its not just me, its them to whom I should attribute my good fortune.

Graduation was an awesome time. Most weren’t competing with anyone. Some coz they thought they were the best, some coz they thought they were the worst but most coz they thought ‘Who Cares!’
PGDM (in a more understandable term, MBA) brought with it the first winds of continuous and stiff competition which I had escaped so surprisingly during those entrance exams. A close friend called me a psycho when I didn’t submit a project worth 20% marks in one of the 34 courses I would be doing during the 2 years. Even I had changed, from that permanent absentee at lectures to the permanent sleeper in lectures, from the guy who would take voluntary Fs just so that he can go party with friends to the guy who would free-ride on most of the projects but still do the individual ones. I had gotten sincere, I had gotten committed. But this was as far as I was willing to change. The relative grading system had hit most of the students real hard. Its funny to see people act like kids, crib, cheat, get depressed, even cry for grades which won’t even matter a few years down the line. Yes, they might (not definitely) land one with a good start of the career but is this GOOD start worth ruining the two years that can be enjoyed and their memories cherished for life especially when all of the firms that come for placements are good? But as I found out, you give someone the best and the next thing he wants is ‘better than the best’. No one seems to be satisfied with the fact that the minimum starting salary from campus placements is at least more if not double than a middle-class government servant with 30 years of experience (in most cases, their father). Even most fathers want their bright young kids to push even harder and bring home even more glory.
It was amusing to witness all this but it’s always sad to see friends depressed. No amount of persuasion would help and they would still see themselves near the bottom of the 300 students and not near the top of the whole bunch of their generation.
‘Failures teach more than success’ seems the only explanation behind the attitudes of these ‘successful’ youths and call me a sadist if you want but I do want them to taste a bit of failure and the sooner the better for I would love to see them appreciate what they have got rather than seeing them RUNNING at full speed.

Die Happy!

2007-05-07T02:08:00.000-07:00

“Son, what do you want from life?”

“I want to die happy.”

“What! I am talking about life, its purpose, your goals, your desires and you are talking about death!”

“Father, I believe that being able to die happy is the most difficult thing to achieve in this life. Its the most difficult task. It’s the ultimate goal that I wish I can achieve.”

“And will you care to explain?”

“With pleasure. Though most of us tend to live as we will live forever, we all know that we are going to die one day. Living forever is just an illusion we create so as to not feel depressed at the thought of everything we treasure and love being snatched away without the slightest fault of ours. And when that day will come no one knows. This definitely is for the good of all or else we would become complacent, reckless, and irresponsible. The sheer fear of death makes most of us behave within the social norms and not unsustainable selfishness.
Now that we don’t know when our final hour will arrive or whether it will feel like decades or seconds or what lies beyond that frontier, what we have is this one life to, simply put, enjoy.
Because of this uncertainty associated with death I said I want to die happy coz to achieve this simple goal I would have to be happy most of the times if not always.”

“But this again might turn people into hedonists and anarchists. What about that?”

“With due respect father, I said this was my aim, my goal. I can’t be stupid enough to generalize it, for hedonists don’t stop to think of what they want at the end of their journey, they think of what they want NOW, on the way. Even I, for that matter, am not sans my sins. What I am talking about is what I want from life, I might not get it for it might require sacrifices beyond my capabilities. Sacrifices are essential as happiness is often derived from the people and things we love and are attached to. That is why I must add that to die happy, it’s not just necessary that the happiness is continuous but it should also be sustainable. What if I keep doing things that make me happy and one fine day realize that I had been wrong all this while and then am filled with remorse and regret? To avoid such a thing from happening, the only thing one can do is be responsible for those who depend on him, admit mistakes when made and never have regrets about opportunities lost and mistakes made.”

~don’t mind u hedonist bastards, am on of u. for the time being atleast J

Ramblings of a Committed Bachelor

2007-04-30T02:21:00.000-07:00

Am changing, drastically indeed. A part of me is resenting the change, fearing the loss of carelessness would mean losing the identity that I have created over the last few years. The awe of having achieved so much with so less stress where others have tumbled and lost it. The respect of putting my foot strongly only when and where its important and letting life flow as it wants to otherwise. It remembers the transformation of the 'taken for granted' person to the 'carefree lucky guy who seems to have everything coming his way'. It also does not want to let go of the hedonist which has guided the decision making all this while, the recklessness which has created so many freaking memories. Times which have gone by, times which have been so often called the best times of my life, times which have taught me so much, times which have made me what I am, times which have landed me with the qualities which made the girl-who-will-be-my-wife fall in love with me. All these times warn me not to change and there's this voice so loud in my head that screams 'I DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE, I WONT CHANGE!'

But then there is this subtle voice that whispers, 'its going to be better, and its going to be beautiful'. It says, 'Those times were awesome but they are gone, you try to prolong them and their beauty will fade, the memories might even turn into regrets'. It says its time to head onto the next stage of life, the stage of caring for someone, the stage of sacrificing, and the stage of pampering someone else for a change. The voice smiles and says that I don't need to be scared for its time the laughs to turn into smiles, the creation of past to turn into creation of future. But I am still somewhat scared of venturing into this unknown with so many beautiful promises for its unknown after all and the past is cozy and comfortable. The comfort zone retarding the pace with which the dreamcatcher in me wants to go dive head first into what will be the rest of my life. The comfort zone shouting at 100 decibels that if it's going to be the rest of my life then why not wait for a while.

Am confused, majorly indeed. Confused about which voice to heed to. I feel I can't listen to both. I know the change will be subtle and I won't feel a thing, it wont hurt the old me. He will die a slow death by what he calls slow poison and others call love. I know the change is inevitable as it's less than 9 months to the day I will be tired and bored as hell while my friends will be dancing drunk and my female relatives will be dressed to their best. But the dilemma is not about the life after the 19 th of January, it's about the way I want to lead it till the date when she takes over the reins of this life well-spent/ wasted. Should I live it to the full as my hedonist half desires or should I tie my shoelaces and start jogging towards the life sans life-threatening lifestyles? Should I laze around all day or should I groom myself to be the perfect groom?

The confusion is coming to an end and just like everything has its price; it's taking its own. I feel uneasy if I act selfish. There is this sudden urge to apologize if I have done something wrong whereas earlier I would have had justified it (successfully). I don't feel lonely anymore as I feel comfortable just being with myself whereas earlier the loneliness would start killin me and I would be on the prowl to find a friend as soon as possible and get drunk to escape the reality filled with responsibilities and expectations.

Am amused, with relief indeed. Amused that I don't have to deal with all the confusion and don't have to think about the change as the gentle slope towards the final me seems well defined and if I deviate from it, the uneasiness pushes me back onto it.