A walk to remember

“The journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
So does the journey of a lifetime!

It all started with that walk, at least for me.

It was the month of June, 24th June to be precise. The year was 2007. He dropped in to Bangalore for a quick visit (that is how I perceived till then.) You can't do much with much with your friends on an unplanned weekend. The options are pretty much the same - movies, shopping, museums/places to see in the city or just sit in the cafe and talk/gossip. If it is not a girl, the option of shopping gets almost cancelled unless of course you have something specific in mind. We had the whole day in hand - sitting in the cafe for the whole day - doesn’t make much sense. I was new in the city, didn't have much idea of where to go. So we opted for the first option - movie. It was a Sunday and actually I had already watched a movie the day before (with him) – “The Fantastic Four”. But still, a movie was the preferred choice. I had reasons -

• I hadn’t seen a movie (other than on comp/TV) for a long time.
• I was still a broke (it was my first month of job) and he was paying.
• I was saved from one of the most dreaded activity - talking about me! Its not that I am bad at conversation, I just don't prefer initiating.
• One movie would mean at least 3 hours taken care of. Then there is the time in the queue and the transport time (with the traffic). So I don't have to worry what to do the whole day!

But I wasn't that lucky actually. We didn't get tickets. I was hopeful considering the last day's luck. (I got to know later it had more to do with his 'skills' than luck) So we came out of the complex and started considering our options once again. If you ask me, at that precise moment I was wondering if there was a way I could just go home. I knew what was coming - the cafe thing! Oh no!

"Let's take a walk" - I blurted out. "May be we can walk home." It wasn’t a small distance. And I actually didn’t consider that ever. But it was a spontaneous action to evade sitting and talking. Walking is much more fun. He was reluctant. He considered for a few moments and asked if I was sure that I wanted to do that. I was persistent. It was probably his disbelief that made him agree. He was sure I wouldn't last even fifteen minutes. I was in my sports shoes; his footwear was actually unfavorable for such a task. I hadn't noticed. He could have told me. He didn’t. To my surprise we started. Yes, to my surprise! Although it was my suggestion, I was hoping he would disagree and try to convince me that it was a foolish idea. It was actually. Even I knew. But I still wanted to do it because it was so spontaneous and out of the normal things to do.

We didn't know the way. In fact I didn’t know and he wasn’t expected to know because it was his first visit to the city. So we walked randomly. He asked directions sometimes in the local dialect (he knew that because it was a part of his work). And we ended up walking in the worst parts of the city. You know the slum-kind of areas that are hidden from public view but still exist, those parts. We talked while walking. I was enjoying the conversation mostly so much that I failed to notice the surrounding areas. Or I noticed but they failed to make any impression. Occasionally he looked at me. Or may be he did it always, I noticed it occasionally. It is difficult to notice if you prefer not to look directly. I enjoyed his fleeting glances. Sometimes he will ask "Are you sure you still want to walk?" and I would reply back "Sure. I am fine. Are you ok?" He would say "of course". He wouldn’t say "Let’s take an auto" even if he wanted. Something to do with male ego I guess. I wouldn't budge, he wouldn't budge. So we walked. And we walked for a little more than three hours until we reached a main road and I found a place to sit. He said 'let's take an auto' and we did.

I enjoyed the walk, although probably it wasn't the kind that one enjoyed. Walking through the slum areas, past the drains, the dumping grounds, dodging the piles of garbage is not one of the activities one enjoys. I did not enjoy because of these rather I enjoyed in spite of all these. I enjoyed because of the company, because I was doing something spontaneous without any worries of what will happen (after a long time), because I was happy (and surprised) to see him agree to a foolish idea for my sake (or so I think), because I was enjoying his fleeting glances without looking directly at him and because it was fun to see him walk with me (it was my idea) even when it had turned out such a bad idea.

In fact it was only after the walk that I became comfortable in his presence, laughed and talked to him without inhibitions. In the end of the day when we parted, he said he wouldn't forget the walk, that it was a 'walk to remember'. I smiled knowing that for me it was much more than just a walk...

Happy birthday sweetheart. :)

And... it rained

I glanced at the watch once again. It was getting late. I walked to the window, placed my face against the glass, cupped my eyes with hands and stared outside. The sky had darkened to another shade. The trees ruffled wildly. I couldn't hear it from this side of the glass but I could already make out the sounds in my mind. It almost felt like I was daring the clouds to rain before I left. Any other day, I would have left long ago. What was I waiting for today? I stepped back and looked at the watch again. There was no way I could finish the meeting before the phone rang. The phone was not important. It was a routine call that meant to remind me that I ought to leave. I walked to the cubicle of the concerned person with whom I had the meeting. He wasn't there, so I left a message for him about rescheduling the discussion, packed my bag and walked off.

May be if it were not a Friday, I would have left my laptop and walked back home without worrying about the dark clouds but Fridays are different. I signed out and reached to open the main glass door. A cold gust of wind struck my face and for a moment it took my breath away. It is on one of these days that I am glad that I decided to walk down to office everyday. The traffic was at its peak. The main road in front of my office was roaring with life or rather honking with life. The lights of the vehicles danced against the darkness that the clouds had enveloped the city in. The Leela continued to stand majestically above all the hustle bustle on the other side of the road. It was difficult to catch every aspect of one single moment. What did I miss, I had no idea. I looked up at the dark sky. There was nothing ominous about it but rather a feeling of celebration filled my heart. The wind was still blowing wildly and noisily - the noise rising with the roaring traffic. It was almost like they were competing against each other.

I took my usual way and walked down the foot-path. The familiar waft of freshly fried bhaajjis and roasted peanuts hit my stomach. They stood there everyday, but the weather today made it impossible for me to ignore them. Too lazy to open my backpack and find my wallet, I satisfied myself with the smells alone and continued to walk. When I reached the over-bridge, I looked down at the stretch of dancing lights on the road. I had always been awed by the sight. Stretching beyond the horizon the lights always looked like a parade of colorful stars, or may be reflection of the sky. But not today. Today the stars were not visible and so this stream of lights spoke for itself. I was still awed as I walked down the stairs and reached the familiar lane that reached the place that I called my home for now.

The sky growled once, and I looked up at the sky. It wouldn't be long. I increased my pace to reach my gate just as the first drop of rain fell on my face. Once beneath the roof of my room, I opened the windows to welcome the long awaited rain. The sound of the rain and the smell of the freshly wet ground intoxicated me. I looked out of the window. The flowers had already opened up to drink thier fill, the grass had soaked up to turn green and the leaves were dancing to the beats of the rain. What was it about first rain that I loved -  it was too difficult to make one choice.

Give me rain, the sweet intoxication of the first shower of rain... and it will fill all my senses.

Addiction?!

Monday morning
At the office

Swe: So how was weekend?

Me: I finished the book. The series actually that consisted of 4 books.

Swe: 4 books in 4 days?

Me: Hmm pretty much, I started on Wednesday night and finished on Sunday afternoon and there was office and outing on Thursday and Friday.

Swe: I stopped reading after college because I was getting addicted.

Me: May be I am getting too. 

Swe: You already are!

Me: [thoughtful] May be...

I wonder if there is such a thing as reading addiction. When does an interest become a habit, a habit a hobby and a hobby an addiction? I don't quite remember why I started liking reading. During the early days of school it was more so because we had a separate period for library and issuing a book was a more or less mandatory and since I never disliked reading, I always finished them before returning. It is not really that the books I read all belonged to library. Books were something I could buy anytime - no questions asked. :) After Xth it wasn't mandatory but we still had the period and I still issued books and I still read them before returning. After XIIth it boiled down to availability and choice. But I didn't much though. I guess I just enough found books never to have really run short of them.

So why do I really liked reading? I don't know. May be they were easier to keep than friends while I moved around. May be they helped me look at the world in a different way, provided me a way to escape. May be there is no reason. May be I got it from my parents or my brother. I don't know why I started but I know why I continue even now.

It starts as an effort to distract myself from thinking something. Something that makes me furious or sad or confused or scared. Something that I don't want to think about, something that I don't want to talk about, something that I don't have control over, something that makes feel helpless or hopeless. Something that keeps me awake when I so badly want to sleep. Or may be starts as an effort to drown the silence when I don't have anything to think about. And so I pick up a book. A book where I can drown myself so completely that I do not hear the voice or the silence anymore. Somewhere the story-line catches my interest and I read for the story itself forgetting the reason why I had picked up the book. Sometimes one book is enough and sometimes I continue to another and one more till I have exhausted myself. Till I look beside me and find a pile of finished books. And then I don't have anymore books to read. And I try to find one more. Buy, borrow or simply re-read something from my collection.

So would you call it an addiction? I don't miss my office or food. Sleep, I might miss sometimes. Although I can't guarantee that I would have slept soundly if I had not been reading. Friends or society - whatever you want to call that I would have missed even without the book. Or so I think. So... am I addicted?

And yet I don't think I have read a lot of books. So how can I say that I am addicted? If your answer is yes, may be I should start taking reading a little more seriously - just to comply to your opinion.

Life of (a new) Pi

As the world is moving towards a paper-free living, Idea came up with its new ad - 'the ped bachao ad'. And it makes more sense that Amazon should have tried to launch Kindle in India just a few months back. Although probably it did not click as expected.
And while iPad and Sony reader are yet to make way into the Indian Market, it seems India has come up with its own ebook reader - "Pi"

Read more here

The introductory price comes out to be 10k. You can pre-order it here for 999/-.
And in case you do can you please drop me the review after using it.

My brother bought a kindle long back (been more than a year now!) and ever since then I had been waiting for something like that to launch in India. And now finally the day has come.

But here is a list of my concerns:

• Does not support internet. I think it should support the USB driven net connections.
• Books are not part of the package. Will have to buy them separately. At least a few should have come with it.

That being said, it has some interesting features too

• It supports Indian languages but I could not find any regional language book in the site. (May be I missed them)
• Supports an array of formats like EPUB, PDF, EPUB, HTML, TXT, MOBI, DOC. So finding ebooks should not be a problem.
• For all those music lovers, it supports a music library of MP3 and you can plug in the earphones while reading.
• Says that battery life is 7 days. Now that is a lot of books for my kind of person!

And for any other specifications, please help yourself and find it on the net.

So now all said and done, I understand the concern of saving trees and hence a paper-less world but a book is still a book. What do you people think? How successful will Pi be?

Who Am I (Not)?

In one writing exercise we were given 10 minutes to write on the topic "Who am I?". We were strictly prohibited to write our resume i.e. name, designations, academic qualification, in short any of those things that we (and all others) use to identify us. We were also told to be honest. I was in a fix. How do I define myself (honestly)?. After pondering for some time, I ended up writing about "Who I am Not" instead of "Who I am".

Here is what I wrote:

Often when I am asked who I am, I respond with a mechanical answer consisting of my name, qualification, designation, and such things. But then, I wonder, had my name been something different, would my identity have completely changed?


My earliest memories of my childhood are of different places. As my father hopped from place to place for his job, I found myself amidst different surroundings - from dusty lanes of the villages to the concrete jungles of cities. Somewhere during those journeys, I lost my regional identity and although I learned the language, custom and traditions of all places, I cannot identify myself from just one of them. No, my identity is not confined to one region or one state.


School and colleges bear the responsibility of shaping a person. It is there that one finds one's identity and yet, I would not say that doing an engineering course has made engineering my complete identity. My job takes up 8 hours of my day, sometimes more, but it is after that, that I search for myself in something different, in a book, in a poem, in a new language to learn, in a new idea that will complete the missing part of me.

My identity is still in the making and as it spreads, I find myself renewed everyday.


It so happened that my 'non-identity' turned out to be a good piece of writing.

College Chronicle I - The Skit Disaster

It was our first year of the college.True to the traditions, we were done with the "intro" sessions with our seniors. Now was the time of "fuccha skit". Every year the "fuchhas" i.e. the first year-ites were supposed to present a skit. This was done branch wise, and the first prize was really coveted. A lot of preparations were needed. Ours was a branch that was always in the top. The year before it was first and so the same thing was expected from us as well.The branches with low girls:boys ratio (read as zero) went about trying to convince girls from other branches to join their skits. Ours was one of the luckier ones. We were 6 girls in a class of 28. (That I think was the highest ratio. Correct me if I am wrong.) We were strictly instructed not to entertain any such offers. "Okay Sir as you wish."

So one fine morning the entire branch (us "fucchas") and a few seniors assembled in the old building in front of the hall where this event was to take place on the D-Day and we had the our (for me the first and the last) auditions. We were given and character, dialogues and then told to carry out the role. Then on the basis of that we were given our final characters. I don't think there was anybody who did not have a role. One or two may be. So the audition did not have any rejections. All of us were accomodated in the skit. We were told the story. It was written by one of our seniors and I must say he must have given a lot of thought and time to come out with such a story which had everything from the "hoors" of heaven to the remake of sholay to the 'dance of fire' (or something like that, I am forgetting the term.). And then from then on, our mornings were no more fine. We had to wake up early (oh how i disliked that!) for the practices session, then we had our class. I don't remember but I think we had practice sessions after the afternoon classes also. By the end of the day we were not really left with either time or enthusiasm for anything else. There was the secrecy part that we had to take care of. Other branches should not be aware of our story and we had to make sure that there was no one else present during our practice session or else the place of practice was changed or the timing and so on. I don't think it was ever cancelled.

Once we were all comfortable with our characters (which I never was!), the costumes were decided. It really needed to be innovative and relevant to the character. Few characters had to have different costumes at different part of the skits and so on. You know the usual stuffs of skits. And then we had the music at appropriate places. It was really thought over. I know you all must be wondering what the story was but really, it was a little complicated and I am sure I wouldn't be doing justice to the story if I tried to narrate it here so... , in other words, I am not telling. What was my role? I was playing Basanti, in the 'remake of Sholay' part. The scene was the part were Gabbar says to me "jab tak tere pair chalenge, tab tak iski saanse chalengi" (I think that is how the dialogue was). And I had to dance (ohhh I disliked that part so so much. I lost the count of how many times I tried to change my role. I still wish they had changed my role!!!). And that was not the "dance of fire". Well anyways, I was never prepared for the dance or the role or the skit for that matter but I wasn't prepared for the disaster that was to come either. To tell you the truth I was doing okay when we practiced. It was never great, I am not really cut out to be great in a skit.

The D-Day came. All of us stood there nervous waiting for our part to come. (I am not sure about others bu I was certainly nervous). When my part came, the audio system failed. There was not dialogue, just a song in background and my dance. So finally there was no song, just my dance, and probably the audience yelling at the disaster (which I thankfully don't remember). After that I had another small part which I completed. And then coming out of the stage I broke down and cried. I still don't know why I cried. But a lot of people did try to console me and I finally did manage to stop my streaming eyes. At the end of all of it, we had photo sessions. I don't have the photo but I remember looking horrible with my face completely blotched because of the tears. I also remember having being given chocolate to compensate for the disaster. ;) 

I never had the courage to face the crowd again after that


Btw we did win 2nd prize even after my disaster. And in case you are wondering the song to which I had to dance, it was ... "teri har ada sitam hai jaanlevaaa..."  ah never mind if you haven't heard it before

The year has just begun...

--- Random Thoughts ---

I am not a writer although I do aspire to become one, some day. I know I have a long way to go. I haven't really written much, just a couple of blogs posts. And yet I am not even sure whether I will call myself a writer after I have written a hundred stories or articles. How do I know? Once upon a time I was sure I could call myself a poet. Poems used to come easily to my pen. I could just sit anytime and write. Now I am not sure if I can still call myself a poet. Although yes, I have crossed the 100 barrier. It seems like such a long time today. But then how long is "really a long time"? After how much time can I say "I think I have lost that gift" or do we never lose it? Can I actually work on it so that I don't I lose it? I think I can and I should. At least give it a try. Thinking of those times makes me feel so..."old"?. It may not be the appropriate word but you know what I mean. Although just a few weeks back the lady at the parlor asked me if I tied my hair while going to school. "While going to school" ??? What do I answer to that? Should I have said "Sorry but I left school years back!" or may be I should have let her think whatever she thought. So the "old" I was talking about is not the old that we commonly say. You know "old" as in it was very long back, like my grandparents would say about their "old" times. You get it? Never mind!

A friend of mine, an acquaintance really accused me of collecting other's stories. He has been saying that for sometime. I don't mind really. I never actually tried too hard for it and I really don't know how much I have retained. But his accusation did give me something to think about. It is true that I have met so many people, I have heard, seen, and even been a part of so many stories. Why don't I just write them then? I don't know. I have been told that a writer's first story is about himself mostly. Something that he can relate to easily, something that he takes out of his own life. I don't think I will do that. Firstly because I won't really be fair to my character, I'll be too biased. Secondly it will be too hard for me to pick up the parts of my life which I want to write about. Thirdly I am not even sure, it will interest anybody. (Well, it certainly won't interest me because I already know all about it and must have gone about a hundred times through each event! ) So yes, writing about others would be easier, more interesting and perhaps better for me. Or so I think.

I have been thinking a lot actually. I tend to do that when I want to divert my mind from something, from the everyday routine or from the problem at hand of which I am not very sure of. It is in these times of thoughts that I get inspired to pick up a new hobby or renew an old one. Like last to last year I learned Spanish (and forgot by now) or last year I took up sketching (and am planning to do so again this year). May be this year I will do something else, get a dancing lesson or something like that or may be go for some writing workshops. I haven't thought yet or may be I have but I don't want to reveal as yet because I don't know if I will carry on the plan or not. Why do you think we make new year resolutions? Whats yours? Why do you think we break it? What then is mine? I did make a list actually. I haven't carried out even one yet. There is time. The year has just begun. What about those I made last year? I don't know. I really don't know if I had even made any resolutions last year. So this year I have written them down. At the end of the year I wouldn't be saying "I don't remember". So come December and I will let you know how many of them I could keep and how many I broke.

Oh well, did I wish you Happy New Year? The Year has just begun. I am not late yet :)

Happy New Year to all of you!!!

### Oh by the way this is my 100th post in this blog. ###