Her fingers raced across the keys on her laptop. Even from the flickering reflection in the window of the bus, it was obvious that she was hard at work. Brows furrowed, deep in concentration, lips twisted in a way that showed that whatever was showing up on her screen was far from good news. After half an hour of pounding the keys and somehow balancing the laptop while the bus jerked along the puddle filled roads of Bombay, she gave up and gave in to the nagging headache that had been wrecking havoc for the past few days. Even packing away the laptop in its case seemed to require too much energy so she just let it sit in the seat next to her and stared moodily out of the window into the incessant rains outside. Monsoon was certainly at its peak and she was caught right in the middle of it. After a minute or so when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she became aware that she was far from home, it would take atleast another hour to get there and then she had an appointment with the gym. She groaned at the prospect but she had promised herself that the next three months nothing would stop her. She was to be married come December and she wanted to look her best and the thought of that made her smile sleepily before she drifted off into exhausted sleep..
And that is where it gets interesting, for you see, this is where I am lost. I can set up the picture perfectly and make you feel like you're actually there, its so vivid but when it comes to imagination, feelings, thoughts, there is very little I can do. That is probably the reason why I have half a dozen half finished stories lying around somewhere or the other, I kept telling myself, its just a problem of mine of mine, I just can't write stories. Essays? Monologues? Speeches? Anecdotes? Interpretations of events? Philosophy? All those things but never a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. I had resigned my self to the fact but that’s where apparently I was wrong. I read a book that told me otherwise. It said that the only thing that kept me from writing a story, which I clearly wanted to, was my fear of what people might think of it. Having read this a few times and digested it, I set out to figure out what it really meant. I had always prided myself on not caring much about what the world said and thought, indeed on occasion I have deliberately gone out my way to do things differently and questioned things that ought to have been left alone. So you would think I wouldn't be afraid of what people might say to a story that I may choose to write, right? Wrong. The book went on to tell me that the more the things are dear to us, the worse this fear of failure gets until we're so paralyzed by it we can't even bear to think about it. Well that made a lot of sense and again I'm not just referring to writing here. The fear of failure and rejection is always there tapping on our shoulders until we crumble and give up. The trick is to just not let it do that. Sounds simple doesn't it? Yet it is the hardest thing to do on earth, it is actually probably easier to pull the trigger of a gun! But just think for a moment that if instead of giving in to the fear we learn to accept failure as a part of life, knowing that we'd be richer in knowledge because of it, life would certainly be different. I like to call it the 'practical power of positive thinking'. I used to be skeptical about the theory that if only you would believe and imagine the best would happen, it would happen. It sounded too idealistic to be true. But lets just twist it a little bit. 'Think Positive' needs to be more interpreted to mean that whatever happens should be used as an opportunity to learn something new. So now instead of naively saying, 'Oh I'm going to think positive, I am going to be rich someday' and expecting to sail to the finish line; we would be a position to learn from the mistakes we make, hurdles we cross, ridicule and criticism we attract and because of this learning, we would be rich in more ways that one!
So here is a solemn pledge to shut out the fear and make the best use of the life I've been given to learn something and do some good in this crazy world! And I think some stories might see the light of day after all!
Cheers!
When you search online for the greatest achievements in human history, you find under the category of greatest explorations, the following:
• Columbus's discovery of the New World (America)
• Lewis and Clark Expedition (They traversed the uninhabited territories of the USA from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast in the early 1800s)
• Marco Polo's journey to China
• Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe
• Amundsen's journey to the South Pole
Before these pioneers explored beyond the boundaries of conventional thought there were vast parts of the earth that was absolutely unknown to man. Seems inconceivable today doesn't it? The Atlas as we know it today has been there forever or so it would seem. Every child in school has been made to learn the names of countries, their capital cities, the principal mountains, the chief rivers and lakes, the distribution of forests and deserts and even the crops that grow in the different parts of the country depending on the climate! As children, we have all cursed the very existence of the book of maps and on more than one occasion even changed the face of maps when memory evaded us, but if we could travel back to a time when the maps were being created, we might see the beauty in it, the sheer joy of watching the shapes come alive for the first time. Of course it was not without its own problems with society being so firmly entrenched in their own notions about the world and further back in history, in the age of kingdoms when maps were regularly redrawn to reflect the might and power of the kings in question. These explorers in fact had their work cut out to convince the people in power that their journeys would reveal anything at all! So now when we may even a casual glance at the map of the world, it is with the secure knowledge that there is little else to discover. Every piece of land and water body is neatly demarcated by multicoloured lines; which goes to show just how far we've come. Of course we're far from being sure of what all goes on beneath the surface but even that, with today's technology is not that hard to project. What we're forgetting however is that no matter how advanced things are now and how easily and carelessly we can access information, we are still poorer than our ancestors in knowledge. This day and age is wasted on us. Once upon a time, people with much less information on their hands, were more hungry for more knowledge and they made sure they got it, the scarcity of it making it all the more precious so that every last drop had to squeezed out of it. People ‘read' languages different from their own instead of merely learning and forgetting them; people read books to know about places, things, people and cultures that they had never seen; society was a closely knit community where people looked to each other in times of joy and in times of need; there was time for work and there was time for play and last but not the least, there was an appreciation for all of these things that is missing in today's life. The word culture was originally coined to mean the cultivation of the soul and mind. How many of us can honestly claim to doing that? Or even attempting to? It isn't easy mind you, even if you did decide to wake up one morning and start enriching yourself. We are limited by our own passion for speed and anything that doesn't quite match our pace gets left behind. The internet, that wonderful platform that literally brings the world at our fingertips is rarely used to discover something new unless circumstances demand it. We have become a servant to the technology, blindly following glitter instead of gold, instead of technology serving us. We have the means to read about anything we wish to; visit almost any places that we may wish to and find entertainment in any number of ways but how often do we actually do take that crucial step towards the unknown. It gets easier every day to arrange for anything to be delivered straight to your doorstep but it gets harder and harder to break out of the comfort zone. Its like having an entire ocean at your disposal and being content to live in the bottom of a pond of stagnant water. For that is exactly what our lives have become: stagnant. Of course one may argue that we after all are not completely at liberty to always do as we please and that we have responsibilities to fulfill but unless you put some passion into it, nothing you ever do will feel like worth it. It is heartening to hear about people who have broken the mould of ordinary and ventured into the unknown; we follow their lives with breathlessness and wish we could be the same and yet at the end of the day, we scoff at their foolishness and lack of wisdom. I'd say that people had it much better when they knew little and thus wanted to know more. They would journey across the world by the only means available to them which took them months to reach their destination (such cruel waste of time I hear you say!) but they used their time to enrich themselves like we never have. Think back to the years spent in school, how often have you sat in class and strained to hear the bell ring that would signal the end of the lesson? Did we ever even then think about learning something new, get excited about knowing something more than you did yesterday? We didn't and reason for that is just that the world and our society has made us that way, looking out into the world and seeing only the present (and an exaggerated version of the future!) and nothing else. So, sometimes, we should take the time to cast our eyes back to the time when explorers set out to discover the world (in every sense of the word) and then drew the maps which in a sense was almost like creating the world all over again; and then when we come back to the present, find some way to bring into our own lives, a passion for discovering something new and extraordinary.
PS # I am going to be practicing what I preach. When caught in the middle of a conversation about the Philippines and having only a very vague idea of where it was, I actually used the erstwhile internet to pinpoint the exact location and a very helpful website also enlightened me about the capital city, the principal mountains, the chief rivers and lakes, the distribution of forests and deserts and even the crops that grow in the different parts of the country depending on the climate (Not that I remember even one tenth of this, but it was good to know that I could know anytime I want). Cheers!
Today morning was the most brilliant example of ironies. After an entire week of dark cloud cover over the city, suddenly there was dazzling sunshine everywhere. Pale blue skies, patches of white clouds with no hint of rain and miracle of miracles, pleasant breezes and no humidity! That in itself is an aberration in Mumbai. I'm told it didn't last all that long and eventually it did rain but the early morning impression stays with me, fresh and clean, like what I imagine spring would be, if we had one. The trees and grass, glistening with last night's rain and their colour shining because the showers have washed away all the dust from their surfaces; the swings in the children's playground looking like toys with their bright colours and of course the bright yellow sunshine everywhere. It was too lovely a morning to leave curtains shut and as I went around the house drawing them back and throwing open windows, I could hear the music and the singing in my heart. It was a beautiful feeling and all the useless worries just drained out of my head leaving me feeling peaceful and content. In a minute I would have begun to sing out loud and then the rest would have been history but having recognized the signs, I made an effort to come back to reality and hurried over the mundane tasks of everyday as I was by now running late. On the long journey to work, I finally gave in to impulse and began humming along with the music on my phone. Another thing that pleases me today is that I have finished reading the novel 'Gone With The Wind' for the seventh time. It has become a tradition really to read this book every summer since I was in the class 9 and I am yet to get tired of it. Every time I read it again, I see something with new eyes, which I hadn't seen before and thus the exciting mystery goes on. The vivid descriptions of the scenery, the way of life, the war and the characters that come alive over the course of the book all contribute to the pleasure of reading it yet again. Moreover, wound into the beautiful and intricate embroidery of the story are the home grown common sense observations that hold true even after a hundred and fifty years since those days. Society will always be averse to something that is different from the normalcy that they have defined for themselves; wars will continue to be fought because orators fill people's heads with foolish notions; there will always be people on the lookout for a quick buck by twisting circumstances in their favour; money at the end of the day will not buy you happiness and human beings will continue to be baffled to see changes around them that they never thought possible except for a handful who learn to see which way the wind is blowing. An interesting thing to note here is the place of women in society in those days, they were held in high esteem no doubt but it was inconceivable that they should think for themselves. Apparently sheltered from the harsh realities of life, these women were far more intelligent than they let on to their men folks but their greatest wisdom lay in the fact that they allowed their men to continue believing them the helpless creatures who needed protection from the world. It was this wisdom that ensured that the society was peaceful and life went on smoothly, never changing even in the face of utter destruction of their world. It just make me curious to think what it would be like if it had remained that way. The world today has seen women striving towards the same things that traditionally been strictly the domain of men and nobody would dare suggest that anything was beyond their reach but if we step back and think about it, things are not as pleasant as they seem, there has been a large price to pay for realizing our potential. Women now are faced with the prospect of managing the home (a full time job in itself!) and proving themselves at the workplace; which they do admirably but I can't help wondering if its worth. At the end of the day, wouldn't it be easier to just let men think we're fools and do all the work for us? :P
On that very twisted note, I think I'll end this post which has traveled light years from where it began and await the wrath of womankind. Cheers!
It rained last night. With a vengeance. Sounds like a horror movie or atleast an action flick? Nope it was just Mumbai on 2nd of June 2011. There is something about the first rains that is absolutely spectacular and completely transforms the city which for so long has been ravaged by the summer heat. It was nothing like the usual storm and light drizzle which normally characterizes the first rains, it was magical and ferocious all at the same time and it threatened to bring the city to it's knees right away. A bus ride which normally takes an hour, took two while the streets (even the highways fared no better than streets!) slowly flooded with muddy brown rivers of rain and slush (I really don't want to name the kind of things I saw floating around!). The sudden change from day to night, growling thunder and flashing lightning all took on the appearance of a drama that nature was enacting for us lesser mortals; only it soon ceased to be merely a drama and threatened to turn into a full scale battle. Nature is wise however, for it reined itself in and decided to spare us for yet another day. It knows that it is capable of complete and utter destruction and also that with great power comes great responsibility! But jokes apart, I love the rains, always have, always will and its making me realize that by extension, I quite like this city too. Its been two months since I have been back here, the city I used to detest so much finally redeeming itself in my eyes in the strangest of ways. I find joy in the simplest of things like the fact that they have installed TVs in the newer buses, which actually air some good stuff, believe it or not, I've been watching a black and white serialized version of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Cunningham Inheritance”. Of course the serial is interspersed with advertisements on everything, ranging from 'Save the girl child' to 'Say no to drugs' and 'Join our computer institute'. All in all a very enriching experience I think :P. There are other things too, I am fascinated by the increase in the number of bus routes all over the city, where earlier there would be one, there are now atleast five buses going the same route, again a point of redemption, I get to pick and choose the emptiest bus while going to work :). The millions of new construction sites may cause a riot of dust and noise but it just shows that there is no end to growth and development. Of course the streets are more crowded than ever before and there are more people taking the train and it takes longer and longer to get places but strangely I feel more at home now than I ever have. There comes a time when you get tired of finding faults and nursing grudges and then you begin to accept things for what they are and appreciate the best in them instead of trying to change what you can't. This is true of human relationships as well. The more you get to know a person, the more you find things you don't like about them (lets face it, there are no saints any more!). So what do you do? Shun them for their faults or learn to live with the good things and leave out all the rest? (love the song by Linkin Park!).
I remember a quote from Julius Caesar:
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
Why let that happen? Let the good that men do live on after them and let the rest be gone with him. Life gets a lot less complicated and who knows, by accepting someone wholeheartedly with no reservations, you might just bring out the best in them. With that thought I'll sign off and wish a warm welcome to the impending monsoons and while you sip some coffee on a rainy day, take some time to see all that is good around you. Cheers!
The eternal battle between Mars and Venus will remain just that: eternal. There is absolutely no way for one gender to win this proverbial war, if there was, well where’s the fun in life then? I believe that the reason for this tug of war lies in the very essence of how we are differently wired. Men and women are just different in the way they look at the world. It’s in the very nature of men to not let things affect them in the way that women just don’t understand. The seeming indifference may be a disguise for a lot of turbulence but they just have that knack for pushing it away, a trait which is both admirable and at the same time pitiable. For what is life without experiencing every kind of feeling that there is, even the most torturous of them? While women are often seen as the weaker sex simply because they choose not to hold their emotions in cheek, they are actually stronger for it. Men may scoff and say that it makes no sense to allow oneself to go through an emotional roller coaster, much better to be disconcerted about things that cannot be helped. I can't help thinking that in this way, though they may spare themselves the pain, they also rob themselves of the simple joys of life, the light at the end of a dark night is not for them. Having said this however, I have to admit that this world would indeed be a crazy place if men and women were all alike, the very fact that they are such opposites of each other helps maintain the fine balance, which also explain why we turn to each other to find solace and happiness. She feels for them both and he protects them both from the harsh world. He goes out to face the challenges and bring home the bread while she is content to be home and make it a paradise on earth. Alas, those days are gone and indeed nowadays the notion is almost primitive, but I can't help thinking that it was how it was meant to be, designed to be. But human beings being what they are, will never be content with the status quo, set about destroying this balance and hence we have arrived at a point where we have invaded each others' space and given birth to a battle which shall never reach an end. But at the end of the day, we aren't all that different from our primitive ancestors; we still turn to each other for comfort, be each others' shoulders to cry on, be the person we share our joys with, and in each other find happiness, the kind that makes all else seem insignificant (even if for a little while). Cheers!
When sky blue gets dark enough
To see the colors of the city lights
A trail of ruby red and diamond white
Hits her like a sunrise
She comes and goes and comes and goes
Like no one can
Tonight she's out to lose herself
And find a high on Peachtree Street
From mixed drinks to techno beats it's always
Heavy into everything
She comes and goes and comes and goes
Like no one can
She comes and goes and no one knows
She's slipping through my hands
She's always buzzing just like
Neon, neon
Neon, neon
Who knows how long, how long, how long
She can go before she burns away
I can't be her angel now
You know it's not my place to hold her down
And it's hard for me to take a stand
When I would take her anyway I can
She comes and she goes
Like no one can
She comes and she goes
She's slipping through my hands
She's always buzzing just like
Neon, neon
Neon, neon
Who knows how long, how long, how long
She can go before she burns away, away.
She comes and she goes
Like no one can
She comes and she goes
She's slipping through my hands
She's always buzzing just like
Neon, neon
Neon, neon
Who knows how long, how long, how long
She can go before she burns away
I just spent an entire week immersed in the world of Harry Potter (reading not watching!) and I have never appreciated the genius that is J.K. Rowling more. It is one thing to have a splendid imagination, but to weave it into a tale that is so thrilling that you actually forget meals! That is something. I had read all the books before, but this is the first time that I read them all one after the other and thus truly realised how intricately each detail was planned so as to fall into place like the pieces of a puzzle. There are incidents that happen throughout the series that may not even register to the conscious mind but ultimately come together in a manner which leaves you completely floored. Hats off to J.K. Rowling! It really makes me wonder though, what is it that some people have that just sets them apart from others. Rowling with her pen is just one such example. Is it talent? skill? intellect? determination? or something quite apart from all of these which is as yet undetected? I know it is a popular tandem these days that "Winners Don't Do Different Things; They Do Things Differently" but I beg to differ. I really believe that fate has a lot to do with these things and some people are just lucky. Now I know that there are a lot of people who get to the top by sheer grit and determination and I'm in no way denying them the credit for having done whatever they have but it's just not the same as the work of a genius. Their work comes across as simply marvellous and quite effortless. And most often than not they are unaware of it. However since the world would be a crazy place if it were only filled with geniuses, I'm glad that they are few and far between and numerously interspersed with us lesser mortals. I guess it's nature's way of maintaining a balance. This reminds me of a common refrain of kids saying, "If everyone comes first, then who will come last?". I've always said that kids have a knack for hitting the nail on the head. On that note, I think I shall take my leave...
Eggs...The world's most heavenly breakfast and I hardly ever get to eat it! Sometimes when I'm half asleep on a Sunday morning, I almost expect to get a whiff of the smell of sizzling fried eggs before I remember that I'm stuck in a godforsaken pure veg hostel. Not that I have anything against vegetarian food, but honestly dosas and uttapas for breakfast every Sunday for a year and I'm ready to put a gun to my head. Okay, it's not as bad as that, it's just that when I think about all the omlettes, scrambled eggs, fried eggs and boiled eggs I've had in my life and now nothing, zero, zilch...sigh. I think its time this rambling ended. Until next time then.
During the course of the past one year of my life, I have become acutely aware of the fact that an altogether too large population of people love MAGGI. Why this fact should be so unsettling, I don't know. I personally detest maggi (I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this!) and I really don't see how people can be so crazy about it. I've had my share of maggi while growing up but at some point of time, I just got too sick of it! I am quite willing to cook it for someone else but lets just say that I will probably only eat it if it happens to be the last bit of food left on earth. Anyway, the point of this blog is not to express my opinion (however strong!) but to narrate an incident that occured last Sunday. Now, having lived in a hostel for a year, I have discovered that maggi can effectively become breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention an evening and midnight snack. Believe me, I have been witness to a scene where after an evening of clubbing (and getting no dinner in the process) a bunch of girls eating oceans of maggi and calling it the perfect end to the day! Anyway, after seeing endless maggi advertisements, it was quite heartening to see a real life example the other day on my way back from Bombay to Pune. The bus was stopped at the half-way point between Pune and Bombay, and I saw this girl eating maggi from a styrofoam cup! The setting was just perfect, pouring rain, chilliy breeze and a steaming bowl (cup) of maggi. I don't know what it was about the scene that touched my heart and almost made me forget my dislike for maggi. Just a thought though, I wonder what she would call it, if it got selected for one of the maggi ads? "Meri bus waali MAGGI" perhaps?
When life throws you lemons, make lemonade...I just love this saying. It just encompasses in itself everything that you need to know to survive in this world where, lets face it, you never know what life will throw at you. Make the best of every situation, no matter what, simple isn't it? Yet, we are all too often prepared to quit at the slightest hint of trouble. It's human nature, I guess. Anyway, not wanting to preach, I shall get to the real point of this monologue. Vacations are over and yet another new semester has begun. A lot of people would like to believe that it actually begins from Monday, so hope to see them in class then. Let us all take up the challenge, to make the best of time we have and have a bright and sunny semester ahead (especially since the monsoons are setting in!). Oh I almost forgot, kudos to all our erstwhile toppers, keep it up guys. Cheers!
Yesterday, I saw a beautiful sample of Bengali cinema, although I was ill-fated enough to have to watch the Hindi version (no offense but I much prefer the Bengali language, it's so much more soothing to the ear). Anyway, as the name suggests, the movie is all about resonance or in layman's terms the matching of frequencies (or is it wavelengths I forget which). But that doesn't really matter because the term is used strictly in the non-technical sense, ie, resonance of minds. The fact that warm and close relationships can be formed on the basis of meeting of minds and yet remain platonic is something that the film explores beatifully, through it's central characters, Rahul (Rahul Bose) and Preeti (Raima Sen). Though married to different people, they come together based on their mutual love for literature and appreciation of the finer aspects of life. There is a stark contrast between their respective marriages; while Rahul and his wife are completely and utterly devoted to each other, Preeti is stuck in a house with a husband who remains forever immersed in the stock markets with no hint of companionship. It is for this reason that Preeti is very much of a cynic while Rahul brings with himself all the qualities of a vibrant life which she admires immensely. He shows her life through new eyes and dispels her notion that life always betrays us. But just when she is inspired to visit the site of his project in the Himalayas, to see for herself the beauty of nature as he had described it, tragedy strikes, leaving Rahul dead from a heart attack and their friendship is misconstrued as an illicit affair and Preeti is left to bear the brunt of it. What follows is a tragic fall from grace, with her husband abandoning her, her mother ashamed of her and society shunning her until she can bear it no more and resorts to suicide. She is saved however and asks to meet Rahul's wife Noni who in the meanwhile has been floundering in painful waters trying to cope with her husband's death. In the poignant final scene of the movie, sitting by Preeti's bed in the hospital, Noni consoles Preeti and gives her hope to live again while finally accepting the truth of her husband's death and breaking down herself.
