Priorities and options

Diwali is a great time really. Apart from the obvious joy of lighting up your homes, splurging on new clothes and gorging on sweets, I think it’s a great time to clean up the mess from our lives. I haven’t been really active on the clean-up scene at home but this time it was different. I took up the mantle of organizing the cupboard and my book shelf. Herein the problem lies. I am a clothes freak; I consider it to be a major disaster if I repeat my clothes more than once a week. It was quite a task to clean up the clothes section and I finally managed to sort them into the following – clothes which won’t ever fit, clothes which will fit if I gain a few pounds and clothes which I am using presently but won’t fit if I gain a few pounds. The section of ‘old clothes’ is avoided for the simple reason that my wardrobe gets updated with alarming regularity.

But I think cleaning up your things is therapeutic. Seeing things sorted urged me to take hold of my own life and fix it up. You see, my life has been quite eventful especially after I took up engineering. During the course of time I got rid of a ‘friend’ with a perverted bend of mind, struggled with studies and dealt (or rather still dealing) with nasty politics All of these experiences required immense emotional strength on my part and sometimes I couldn’t even sum up enough courage to narrate them to my close friends.

The reason why I was apprehensive to confide is that somewhere I am partly to be blamed for the circumstances that befell upon me. Being a complete emotional fool, I ended up trusting the wrong kind of people who, at the very behest, had listed out the advantages of being my friend. When you trust someone, it is a natural tendency to turn a blind eye to their flaws while going out of the way to help your ‘friends’. You end up supporting them during every situation even when you know that this will create enemies for yourself.

All is rosy, you are having the time of your life and after so many years you start feeling you have got a friend for life. Now comes the reality part. It hits you hard when you get to know what’s going on in their lives from someone else just because your ‘friend’ didn’t trust you enough. If that was not enough, lies, deception and back-stabbing come to the fore and this is when it hurts you badly. Then your mind goes back to all those words of advice from your close ones who had asked you to stay away from this person and you chose to ignore it…. Thankfully they have forgiven me and continue to hold my hand every time I stumble.

So now I know I have no right to blame someone else for this condition of mine. It was my decision to trust and believe the wrong kind of people. Even after all the misgivings, it is still painful because shunning them is like bypass surgery. You don’t want to cut open your heart, but it is essential to do so if you don’t want it clogged with greasy traces of someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.
‘Never make someone your priority when they consider you as just an option’……. I realized the meaning of this quote for the first time. Meanwhile, I am bracing myself for another round of bypass, but not before a promise to self that this will be my last one. I need to guard my heart a bit strongly to make sure that any Tom, Dick, Harry or Sally doesn’t grease my arteries. Say NO to junk food. Woohoo!

Twilight review

I have now begun to sympathize with all the office going women who are my fellow train commuters. I often see them peeling off or cutting veggies in train and I often used to wonder how someone can find twenty four hours as inadequate. This was until I arrived in my last year of engineering. From what I know, those in B.E. rarely meet the requisite attendance of 75% and it is not without a valid reason. Juggling between company interviews and preparing for numerous entrance tests while at the same time completing innumerable assignments is a mean feat to achieve. But then I realized it is not that easy to bunk lectures without risking a trip to H.O.D. Sir or Principal Sir’s office and listen to an hour-long battering. So better sense prevailed and I decided not to get onto the wrong side of college rules and the outcome is that I have little time for myself. It is a real struggle as I try hard not to resemble an undernourished kid with sunken cheeks and a constant expression of listlessness pasted on my face.
In all this, my reading habits have gone for a toss. I was lucky enough to read Twilight by Stephanie Mayer. After the Harry Potter series concluded, Twilight was expected to replicate the success of the book on The Boy Who Lived. Though it did not produce the expected frenzy, but still the book is good enough to be recommended. I got to admit it now that I am sucker for love stories. I was under criticism for praising Love Aaj Kal movie, but what the hell! I loved the love story in it. So I can be a bit biased towards Twilight because of the romantic angle but the story is much more than that.
I won’t give away spoilers but my friend described the story with a really interesting example ‘It’s like you have got a pani-puri in your hand and can’t eat it’. I mean nothing else could describe the situation this well yaar. The guy is a vampire who drinks human blood and the girl is a human being. Worst of all, the girl is crazy about him. Having a pani-puri in your hand and not eating it is bad enough, but the situation gets worse when the sumptuous meal is chasing you… So all you got to do is open your mouth and yum….. Poor guy. Must be possessing a lot of willpower to resist her.
All in all, Twilight is a must read. With the relative lull in the literary scene, this book makes for some good reading.

Quarter Life Crisis

Ok, so I haven't been really regular on the blogging scene, but I guess you all might have got used to this phase of mine where there is absolutely no sign of life on this blog.

I have heard people going through a mid-life crisis, but I am going what I call a quarter life crisis. So all thoughts have a trigger, so this is what triggered my chain of thoughts. You see my friends had bought their guitars to college. They are guys who are really passionate about it and I have seen the struggle they have gone to play that guitar in their hands. When they were strumming the masterpiece, I could feel the soul in the music... It was just so passionate. This is exactly what plunged me into a mini-depression. I realized that I didn’t have anything which I could be crazy about. I did love dancing but couldn’t continue because of parental pressure.

I strongly believe every individual must have some means to de-stress. For my friends, it was the guitar. The strings help you to entangle your complicated life. But what about me? I have been desperately searching for an outlet to vent out all my negativity and frustration, but unfortunately reach a dead end.

So now I will try to search up a good hobby to pull me out of my depression- like state. As of now, I can't just stop getting jealous of my string-happy friends!

Festival time = License for hooliganism

I have always loved festivals. Apart from the obvious reason of a holiday, I love the preparations that go behind making any festive celebration a grand success. And this goes without mentioning that I Have always been rather active on this scene.

So it was Janmashtami on Thursday and due to unavoidable circumstances, I had to step out of my house and leave for Ghatkopar. In the train, I took necessary precautions to maintain a safe distance from the train windows, lest some moron hurl a water balloon filled with slime and dirt and what not. But nothing prepared me for the truckful of guys out on the streets. Then I realised that some people will never learn to mind their own buisness. I mean I am fine with the fact that they are all charged up because they are going to break the handi, but can't they just SHUT UP and reach the venue? Why the hell do they have to throw water and pass lewd comments on unsuspecting young woman on the streets? That was exactly the scene that occured with me. Not once, but thrice. I was just hoping one of them would fall out of the truck..... that ought to teach them a lesson.

If that was not enough, I had to listen to countless comments on the mask I was wearing to avoid swine flu. There was a row of bikes, with three baboons on each, and every single guy yelling at us from across the street. I just hoped they all would come under some truck ahead. Really now, I am not an evil person but such people bring out the worst in me.

If that was not enough, I saw these same people on television breaking the handi at Ghatkopar. And I felt nothing but disgust. Disgust at the thought that there were thousands of people to cheer such cheap guys.... disgust that all this was done in the name of Lord Krishna, who incidently saved Draupadi from similarly cheap people in that era. You know in biology I had learnt that sometimes nature skips the gentically bad traits so that it would not be passed to the future generation. What went wrong with us? Why do we have to put up with such people when we know they have no right to inhabit the earth? Any answers?

Kids no longer.......

I am a classic proof of having an idle mind but a devil’s workshop. I was fortunate (?) enough to have a month long break from college, but in my case it was more of a curse. The only good thing that happened to me during my previous vacations was that I gained a few kilos and hence when the college resumed, I did not resemble a malnourished kid. I really don’t know what went wrong in this vacation, for I have lost weight. I almost fainted when the needles tipped at 46 kilograms-that’s 7 kgs underweight. So in short, I ended up doing nothing constructive, instead scheming plots to survive my last one year in college.

I never realized when my thoughts veered towards my future. I am 21, so it is quite natural to think about the future which seems pretty bleak because till now I haven’t yet got a job offer. And I am still confused whether to opt for an MBA or go for M.Tech degree. As if this was not enough, my mind entered into really scary territory-marriage. It is only a matter of few years before I get booted out of my own house. Hehe. So my idle mind wandered a little more and I conjured up a list of things which my kids (What? Of course I am going to have kids. According to our society, you get married to have kids…) will miss out on growing up. In a broader sense it applies to our next generation. Here it goes kiddos-

1. Waking up one fine day and your mom allowing you to bunk school. No, no, no sweetheart, you can’t bunk it because your parents have spent an obscene amount on getting you educated at some neighbourhood school which incidentally is the mecca of rote learning.
2. Instead of asking for buttered paranthas, you ask for money to have transfat laden pizzas, samosas et al at your canteen.
3. Spending your vacations at your native place because you will be busy preparing for your next class. Duh.
4. Getting a scratch, bruise or gash and being proud of it. Because you will be clad in helmets, knee pads and what not while you are cycling thanks to your overprotective parents.
5. Waking up one fine noon to the sound of advertisements or announcements blaring on some over-amplified speakers passing through your street on an auto. That was some way of publicity I tell you.
6. Dancing like hell during Ganpati viserjan because you think it is too wild for your senses.
7. Climbing fences and stealing mangoes because the farm owner has installed electric fencing.
8. Enjoying roadside stuff with an iron-clad stomach while it’s pouring.
9. Being able to stumble upon your parent’s wedding album and being elated at the discovery. Because the photos nowadays are digitized and stored away at the mercy of your hard disk.
10. Solving a Rubik’s cube with insane concentration because unlike us, you have already seen how to solve it on YouTube. Damn.
11. Feeling the thrill of reading Champak and Gokulam (which you smuggled from your friend) under the covers when everyone else is sleeping. That’s because you have a monthly subscription of the same magazines.
12. Wading through ankle length waters. Instead the water will be neck deep because some moron at BMC failed to give orders to clean up the drains.
13. Hearing a cuckoo or spotting a sparrow.
14. Wolf-whistling roadside romeos. They are too busy in counseling sessions. Hmmm…. A good thing at last.
15. Having I-pods surgically attached to your ears because you can’t bear natural sounds.

Phew, that’s quite an exhaustive list I guess. But I guess the most important thing they will miss is being humane….I just hope our next generation has enough of compassion and honesty left in them because it not easy being all goody-goody in this world. Kalyug hai bhai, kalyug.

Morning Glory

I have started loving mornings. It’s true that I was always an early bird, but that was because I had to attend school at 7.30. It was more out of compulsion rather than choice. I can't even call myself an owl because I have never stayed awake except when it is something life threatening like my exams or when I am reading Harry Potter.

For a week, I decided to get up early in morning and just sit at the sliding window. No thinking, no contemplating whatsoever. Just picture this- sitting peacefully at the window with piping hot tea and all that you get to hear is……silence. I enjoyed how the wind howled and rustled away the leaves ever so gently. The leaves swirled in harmony, rising and falling in rhythm with nature’s heartbeat. It was their secret dance and I was more than thrilled to have discovered it.

I seriously thought cuckoos are an extinct species at least in cities, but here there was one cuckooing in all its glory perhaps to attract his mate. Seriously the kind of efforts the male species put into wooing……

Well you won’t believe it, but it was so quiet that I could hear the announcements at the railway station! That was the only artificial sound invading the surroundings that time. I am yet to miss the calls of aaji every Sunday morning. She sells Nashik kurmure which she carries in a large plastic gunny bag. For all these years, she has not missed a Sunday and over the period of time I have seen her wrinkles become promienent and her eyes becoming cloudy. I always used to wonder if she had kids or not because it pained me to see her carry the load on her head and hawking in the streets when she should be playing with her grandchildren. Looking at someone else's life, you realise how sorted your own life is.....

The most irritating sight and sound early morning is the Ghanta Gaadi or the garbage truck. All I can see is an overloaded truck ringing across the streets with flies and stench announcing its arrival way before you can see the truck. Not a pleasant sight at all.

But seriously all those late nighters must give this experience a shot once. If you omit the garbage van arrival part, most of the experience seemed to have a pretty calming effect on me. Never knew getting a piece of peace was this easy.

When we risk it all

I have always loved the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series. The books are a collection of short stories and poems but this poem struck me because of its simplicity. Never before have I read a poem so straight-forward and heart-warming. Kristy Glassen, wherever you are, just want to say- U rock! Thanks Nikki for lending me the book. Pagu and Alias, this one’s for you…………………

WHEN WE RISK IT ALL
We can’t blame others when love dwindles away,
For we knew from the start it never promised to stay.

It’s just one of those things where the stakes are high,
And sometimes it’s forever and sometimes it’s good-bye.

When you love the right way, you will never lose,
No matter what path life may force you to choose.

You may end up with tears or a broken heart,
But you knew what you had signed up from the start.

You can only give what you’ve got to give,
And if that’s not enough, then you must continue to live.

Life will go on and broken hearts will heal,
You must continue on your quest, for that’s the deal.

Throw your heart into life and never stall,
For the greatest risk is to risk nothing at all.

You see, love is the only thing that we know,
That can be divided and divided but continue to grow.

And life isn’t long enough to lock away our heart,
Just because life may have forced two people apart.

We will continue to love and continue to lose,
We will continue to pick and continue to choose.

And then one day we will risk ii all,
Take the chains off our heart and dismantle the wall.

The last time we love will be the forever,
And never again will our hearts be forced to sever.

Will never have doubts that it’ll go away,
Because this time, it’ll be here to stay.

But until then, we must endure all the pain,
For we only see sunshine if we can wait through the rain…….