On the journeys of my life

I remember travelling a lot. Every two or three years, we would pack our bags and set off for a new destination. Not all of them have been awesome but I grew to love them nevertheless. I loved the places and more than that I loved the preparation, the journey, the anticipation before knowing where I will be next.  I have never stopped boasting about it. Even today if I get a chance, I do that. I tell people that the number of states that I lived in is more than I can count on my fingers, I tell them that I have lived the life of the drought prone villages as well as the national capital of the country. I tell them I had travelled in trains, buses, flights, jeeps, and even trucks before I was even 10. I never, never regret those journeys or places. I am not in touch with any of the people from there. I don't think I will recognise them if I ever come across any of them. I don't think I remember the places much either but only in bits and pieces, the amazing journeys and the feelings that came with it. 

But I was young then, intrigued by the idea of new people, new places, new stories, new friends. Later in life, I have wondered how different would I have been if there were no journeys. I have wondered how is it to grow up rooted in a single place with same neighbours, with friends whom you know from childhood throughout your life. I have wondered if it would have been much the same. Perhaps not. Today I know that transfers are different from travels. That it is possible to travel and still be rooted to a place. I don't know how different that would have been or how similar. I know that if I have to choose for today, I will choose travel over transfer but not for yesterday. 

The yesterday's journeys have given me a thirst for novelty, curiosity to know more, travel (a little), to try and know people, to be a little more sensitive to differences, to be open to ideas, to be comfortable with solitude and more than that to love books. But perhaps it is also because of travels, that the idea of settling down unsettles me.To be in a place with no thoughts of ever leaving it, frightens me. The journeys have also made me detest cities. I like the calmness of towns and villages better. I probably miss out the fact that there are less luxuries and opportunities there, that my line of work allows me to stay only in big cities (That's not true at all. Never believe that no matter what your line of work is!). But the cities scare me and I continue to live there. (Such is life!) 

They say the towns are no better these days. But how can they say, when they don't know what is it that I am scared of, when I have no idea what is it that I scared of. We are shaped by the journeys we have taken and also the ones that we have missed. A person can be known better by the things he or she evades than the ones he or she is ready to confront. How much do I know myself?

In Search of a Lost World

Before I was out of kindergarten, I had already tried falling into rabbit holes, getting inside mirrors and climbing up trees, none of which led to any different world. Before long I realized that the only thing that entered at night through my open window was cold and sore throat but never any one called Peter Pan nor any flying object that remotely resembled a fairy. I should have given up at that time but I didn't.

Before I started my high school I was sure that the charming prince that all the stories kept talking about was somewhere  out there but in a different country or place, certainly he couldn't be from the same place that I stayed in. There was nothing charming about the boys I knew. By the time I went to high school, I had no interest in the prince anymore, charming or otherwise. There were other worlds of mystery and adventure that occupied my mind. By the time I finished my high school, I was so impressed by these imaginary worlds that I wanted to make one of my own. I believed everyone has a story and I believed each one of them are worth telling. And so I took time to listen to those. A friend once accused me of being a story stealer. The thought made me a little proud and I hoped with each story I stole, I was making my own story richer and better.

I wanted to tell my story. But I never did. Not after I finished high school, not in the college, not after graduation, not while I started working, not when I joined my post graduate course and not after I finished it, not when the corporate world sucked me up for the second time and not even now. Because, I don't have a story. At least not yet or rather not anymore.

By now I have lost even the fragments of my imaginary world. I don't have the thoughts or the characters who kept my childhood alive and colorful. Nor do I remember their features or presence. In fact I have started having doubts if they ever existed. They probably didn't. It is just that up until then, I believed that they did. Now I don't. I have heard, seen and read many stories. They all are still worth telling but perhaps I was mistaken. In the course of listening so many stories, I forgot how to tell one. And so now I no more want to create a world of my own. I just want to roam about or get lost in all those other created worlds. May be, just may be then I will find some of the fragments of my world back.

String of Pearls

Ever wondered what keeps us going? Millions of people wake up everyday to go about their daily routine. What would happen if one fine morning everyone decides "that is it!" It's not really an uncommon question. Most of us have wondered about this, if not for personal reason then surely for professional reasons but have we really found the answer?

On a day like today

Dear Silence,

Most of the time I love rains. And I have really cherished memories about them be it in the school days, college or work as must be evident from my numerous chats with you regarding rains. Although sometimes the muddy puddles in the middle of the road are a cause of too much inconvenience specially after rain has left. And yet the early morning drizzle like that of today often fills me with apprehension and gloom. If I wake up to rain, the most usual thing to do is to go back to sleep and wake up a little later hoping that I have successfully shortened the gloomy day to some extent. Unless commitments of the day render such a plan completely useless. In that case I just give in to my feelings.

Haunting Words

Do words haunt you too?

I know it sounds weird but I have been haunted by words for some time now. Now there are different kinds of words that haunt.There are words that someone else told you and you liked them so you keep remembering them and feel happy. Now that would be a 'good' words-ghost. But it could be the other way, something you didn't like, something that hurt you or shook you to the core, something that you never expected and you had no reply to those. Those words might make you feel angry or weak or betrayed or just sad. And each time you remember them, that feeling is renewed, may be even magnified. Now forgetting would be an apt way of solving the problem but memory is often treacherous and mostly too independent. So the next thing to is to set out to prove those words wrong to yourself if such a thing is possible. If not, then as they say, time is a great healer.

Colored Vision

If all like the colors that they are looking at, they would like others too.

Imagine a bunch of children at a fair. Now fairs are very colorful places with lots of people and lots of things to see. Suppose each of those children in the bunch has a different colored glass. Then of course, no two of them will agree on what color a particular thing is because they see it differently. What is green for one is blue for someone else or even red for another. Interesting don't you think? May be not because you already know that they have different colored glasses which perfectly explains their perspective but suppose this knowledge was not known, wouldn't it seem a very unlikely situation except perhaps if the children have learned their colors wrong.

I think any group of people are like those bunch of children each with an intrinsic colored glass for himself/herself.

On Chasing Dreams

When I am done chasing everyone's dreams that I think are mine, will I chase mine?

Privileged are those who know what they want but blessed are those who know what they want and never had to rethink that. If I were to ask what is it that one wants from life or career, most of us will have an answer ready - money, fame, luxury and so on. Are we not limiting ourselves? There is so much more that we can get! Some of us will shy away, not sure if their dreams are worth sharing and important, some have never thought about it because there was always someone else who did the thinking and some only have a vague memory of where they had started. And yet when the so-often-asked question "Where do you see yourself 10 years from now" comes, we all have an answer.

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.

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. ###

Past, Present or Future?

Once upon a time, a very wise friend of mine declared with utter hopelessness that I live in past. She accused me of getting so busy trying to re-live my days of past that I forgot everything else. That day I almost questioned her but then kept silent considering she was wiser than me. The accusation did not really make me glad. I must have spent some good hours (you see, during those days I had ample time to waste) pondering on why she told that and if at all there was truth in it. I must have then wondered that considering what she is telling to be true, was I doing something wrong, and if there was a better way. If not then whether I would like to change (I am sure I must have had answered this particular question in negative). But anyways and after such analysis for hours, I must have forgotten the whole thing and reverted to my normal self i.e the self whom my friend accused of living in past. (You might wonder 'what was the use!'. I wonder that too.)

If I were told the same thing today, I wouldn't question anymore. I wouldn't even disagree. She was correct, although only 33.33%.  You see, I live in past, present, future all at once! And trust me, there is no better way. :)

You could live in past entirely, analyzing every single moment of your life and waste away your present. But I don't do that because firstly I don't have such a great memory and secondly if I waste away my present, somewhere in my future all my past would get exhausted. What will I ponder upon after that?!
You could live in just the present, making the most of it, doing the best you can but then how you will you ever appreciate your best efforts if you never look back? You could completely ignore the future believing that if you took care of your present, the future will take care of itself. It might be true. I will not argue on that part. But tell me, where will you get all your dreams without living the future? And what a barren life that will be with no dreams to follow!

No thank you. I am quite comfortable living in past, present and future all at once. It gets a little hectic at times, and at moments I mix them all up but trust me what a life it is!

How do you live?

-Anki

#PS: Forgive my frequent not-so-meaningful, insane blogs. Currently this is one of those things that is keeping me sane. :)

The Road (not)Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 ...
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 "The Road not Taken" by Robert Frost. He wasn't probably talking about just one choice he made.

In fact, I think, it is at every moment of our life that we are faced with a set of choices. Sometimes we make those choices willingly, sometimes knowingly but unwillingly and sometimes unknowingly. What we forget is that those choices we made willingly, unwillingly or unknowingly  do make 'all the difference' in our life. It is not chance really, it is all about choices. The job, the place, the career, the time we spend, the friends we make, the foes that we gather, the love of our life or even all those things that we hate, in short everything about our life is made of our choices.

And yet, we always find ourselves cribbing, crying, complaining. Is that because we never realized while making those choices that we will have to live them too? Did we never realize that we design our own life? May be we never made them, may be we did not design our life. It feels a little demeaning probably, to take the credit of everything that went wrong in our life. It is easier to blame somebody - the system, our family, other people, boss, company, if no one else then God or Fate. Whatever you call it!

We are never taught to do that. Take credit that is. Probably it will be too much if people started taking credit for everything that went right as well. Where will rest of the people hide their lives then? And hence we do neither. We live a life in which our choices are m by others (not necessarily people whom we know). And then we cry, crib, carry on, accept, forget, and finally die. Easy life. Tried and tested for ages. No qualms.

There was a line is the movie Take the Lead:  "I look around this room and all I see is choices - choices waiting to be made."

We stand at different points of our life and cry, "What else can I do! This is fate. This is how I am supposed to live". We close our eyes to all those choices waiting to be made. We forget what we have in our hands - our ability to decide for ourselves. It is difficult to say what makes us close our eyes - the dread of the unknown or the love of the known. May be neither.  How do we then sit in cubicles and decide for our clients, our juniors, our friends, our family but cannot decide for ourselves? It doesn't matter how small or big the choice is -  the food, the job, our career, whether to fall in love or not, whom to fall in love with, whom to marry, how to live or rather how to die...

After all if something goes wrong, there should be someone to blame! Why take the risk! Isn't it?

And it is morning already!

Insomnia is a wonderful thing for someone who knows how to utilize those extra hours. Not really for people like me who realize that there were a few extra hours at hand only after having wasted them.

Every night like a good girl I go to sleep at a normal hour (or rather an hour that I consider normal). Needless to say, in spite of that after some few good half hours, I still find myself staring at the black void of night. The moment I realize that I am still awake, various thoughts emerge from the same void that I was staring at. The thoughts vary - my office work, something I was reading, the last phone call, the book I was planning to read, will I have headache next day, will I reach office in time, what will I miss if I do not, when did I sleep last time, my next blog (it is altogether a different thing that I might never write it)... rewind... events from some 5-10 yrs back... fast forward ... something about the future. No wonder after some pondering, I sit up, switch on the light, boot up my laptop, connect to the internet. Internet is a wonderful thing, no? Sit back and the entire world at your finger tips. Read, watch, listen, chat and get lost.

But sometimes that is not enough. And during those times, I play that one single song (which has recently caught my attention) in repeat mode, pick that half read book and try to drown myself. If it is interesting (if it were really interesting, it wouldn't have been half read) then probably those thoughts will leave me alone for a while but not really for a long time. And soon they are back each one trying hard to get my attention. And I am still staring, my eyes wide open. Where does sleep go!

A few hours later, the sky has started to uncover itself from the shroud of darkness. The sun is almost up. People who have an early start have already woken up. I can hear the noises in the streets. The car that is kept outside my window is getting washed. And I am still wide awake. A glance at the watch frightens me. I stop the music or may be let it play. Set a realistic (but not late) alarm and go back to sleep. I keep the lights on, may be that will help.

"Oh please please get me some sleep. I didn't even sleep after coming back from office. Why am I not asleep! I should have done something more productive than simply staring. I should have blogged. I haven't blogged for like an year. I should have finished that book. It has been with me for months. That last book I read xyz wasn't that good. Wonder for what it got the award. May be I am not good enough for it. Oh well but I liked the other one. I can read it all over again. I have that thing to finish tomorrow. I hope so-and-so turns up or else it will get delayed. I had a meeting. Did I have to prepare something for that? May be not. I have those bills to pay. When is the last date? And I had to go to bank. I forgot again. May be this Saturday. I will wake up early. Oh but I have to go somewhere else that day. May be next then. I had some other work also, I am forgetting. Did I get the tickets. Oh I haven't booked my return tickets yet. Tomorrow first thing. I won't get them otherwise. I didn't call Mom today. She will be worried. And I had to call that person. But the office is closed tomorrow. I should really set reminders for all these. I am kind of hungry. May be I should get up and eat something. But I won't get any sleep after that. Not that I am getting any even now. I wonder if I was like this in my schooldays. No I slept a lot those days. Actually I still do. Sometimes. Why not now :( It is raining outside. I love the sound of rains :) May be I should go outside and feel the rain. Let me make a paper boat. No let me not get up. Tomorrow... I should stop behaving like a kid. May be a few more years... Where was I? No I should stop thinking now. How does one do that? Stop thinking that is... Oh no! Today was 12th. I forgot to wish! She is going to kill me. There is one more coming this month... and then there was that.. what was it? I should have completed those.. I haven't been studying for days... may be tomorrow... "

And then the alarm rings.

"Oh is it morning already...Oh so I did sleep finally. Nice!"

Snooze.
"Just 5 more minutes".

Zzzzzz Zzzzz zzzz

"Whats the time?" A glance at the mobile. "OH NO!!! I am LATE!!!"

Good Morning ;)

Through the Kaleidoscope

In my two decades of life, I had the chance to live in various places of my country. I have run in the dusty lanes of villages, lost in the maze of old towns and found my ways in the busy traffic of cities. I have grown up amidst people of different languages, religions, cultures, and states. No, I do not claim to know all of real India but I did have a glimpse of it. Thus, when I shifted to Bangalore for my job, I did not quite understand the problem that my ‘north Indian’ friends faced – the uncomfortable feeling of having to hear people around you speak a language you do not understand.

True, there were instances of differentiation and moments when I was confused but ultimately I was always fascinated to hear so many languages in the same place, each flourishing by its own right. Think of all the dead languages! Indians have done quite a job to have preserved so many of them. And it is not just about the languages, there is so much more to see, learn and experience. I envy all those people who have travelled all over India, tasted each regional cuisine, learned those languages, and seen the cultures from close quarters. In comparison, my bit is a miniscule.

Naturally, the incident in Maharashtra shook my entire belief on the ‘unity in diversity’ of my country. Most of us who have travelled to a different state for the sake of our career would at least wince at the thought of being discriminated and treated likewise. If we react to such a thing happening in a different country with anger, then a similar situation in our own country must have instigated a much stronger reaction. Once, in a lunchtime discussion, a colleague pointed out that this was expected. To quote him verbatim – “Who told them to leave their states and go to Maharashtra?” The person himself was from Maharashtra working in Bangalore. I wonder, if that was his belief, why he is working here.

But then, is it justified that we refrain from experiencing the rich diversity of our own country in fear of some narrow-minded hooligans. And by doing so, are we not helping them in their nasty endeavors? But, the problem is not just the absence of assimilation but also the presence of isolation. We as a set of people are not ready to adjust to the culture of some other set of people, both in our own and a different state. To adjust is not to give up your own culture but to enjoy your own set of rules and let others enjoy theirs.

In today’s world of Globalization, the need is to understand that diverse cultures can and should co-exist. It is diversity that opens up new opportunities, ideas and solutions. It ‘highlights’ our uniqueness and curbs the monotony of the world. After all, the colors in a kaleidoscope are much more pleasant to view than the white-washed wall.

Note: This is a brief version of the original write-up. The original write-up had more than 1000 words and filled with personal experiences. I had to reduce it to half. :(. I may edit this one in future to upgrade it to the original version :D

Small updates

I know, I know, I know. I know what you all have to say. I really have abandoned my blog!

Small update 1: I am going HOME :)
That will be after 6 months. It is not much may be but trust me it feels like years. So end of next week, I will be on my way. And this time it will be a long train journey to home. Frankly though, there is something about train journeys that I had been missing. It replaces the hurried moments of everyday with a lazy lingering essence. Especially when the journey extends from one day to another. Then again the journey in itself could give some mighty memorable moments.

All in all I am looking forward to it. And I have a lot to finish before that at my office as well as home.

Small update 2: I am shifting apartment (if i can call it so). That too as soon as I return. So I will have to finish all my packing before that. Now if you thought I don't have lot of things to pack. You are right. Except that I seem to have collected a good number of books.

This is how it was a year back. If I have added even half of this in rest of the time, you will realize I am not joking.
(In case you are wondering, no, I haven't read all of them. There are one or two that I have saved for dry spells. )

And of course there are clutters that I have to go through and decide which are the ones that I should keep. Now I understand why my Dad always insisted on me to go through my stuffs each time before we shifted. I always did. It is altogether a different thing that I never threw away anything :D. I can find long-lost-half-written-mostly-forgotten scribblings even today somewhere among them even though we have shifted 8-9 times. (I must be exaggerating! #Note to self: Ask Dad how many times we have shifted# ).

I guess that is all the update that I have. Hopefully I will have something more to write when I return.

Ciao

My idea of holidays

I like travelling although over the years the frequency has dwindled but given an opportunity I will be almost always ready. It was recently while talking to someone I was asked "So what are the places you would like to visit?" and I was stumped, in a way because there are so many. I thought I could categorise them and list a few. So here are those that made to the top of the list in random order:

1. Sea Beach: Any clean pristine beach with not a lot of crowd, rocky or sandy. For a moment, close your eyes, imagine a beach, what is it that comes to your mind? Is it breeze, or the waves, the sound perhaps, or the sun, may be the sand-castle? For me first and foremost, it is the sound of the breaking waves, the waves rising, falling and splashing. Sea beach has been my most common retreat. I have lot of memories from them and yet I crave for more.
2. Andaman: It was a long time ago when I was in school that classmate once brought a coral back from his holiday. He had gone gone to Andaman. I have heard a lot about the island, 'Kala Pani'. May be it has little to do with the history, location, the idea of it being a separate island altogether and the its natural beauty that I have heard/read so often. Somewhere in the same category even Lakswadeep comes.
3. Kerala: It is the lush green picture that invites me to it over and over again. I haven't been there althoughI have been planning for I don't know how long. It is the longing for its untouched pristine beaches that I have always heard of. It is the nature ultimately that calls me to it.
4. Hill stations: I have fascinated by the idea of watching a snowfall always. I got the opportunity when I went to Rohtang two years back. And somehow, snowfall still fascinates me. The idea of making a snowman. Watching the snowflakes may be even catching them. It is told that each snowflske is unique in its crystal formation. I would really like to see that. Think of all the patterns!! Brrrrrrr its cold but its fun too!
5. Trekking: People look at me and wonder I wouldn't survive a trekking trail. I will tell "at least give me chance" I haven't done much but the ones I did actually surprised a few people and myself too. There is something great about walking the trail of nature, of letting nature lead you. Give me a place that isn't too hot, where sun is not burning me, where the road is natural, where I can look around and express a sense of wonder and amazement, where there are not too many people blocking my view, and I am with someone who can tolerate my constant chatter, trust me, I can walk the way. :)
6. Cruise: Ok so I have already told that I like the sea. But I have never been in a ship, so I don't know how well I will take it. Well, but I wouldn't know unless I do. So it is one of my 'things-to-do'. However another point to note is I don't know. I also think I would be a bad match for the sea even if I knew, so it hardly matters.
7. Fishing: It is not just the idea of fishing. It is actually the entire pictue of a place where the river is flowing close by, there are trees which I can try climbing. Sitting beneath one of the shady tree, I am trying my hand on fishing and reading a book. The weather is cool, soft breeze blows, may be I even nod off somewhere in between. And at the end of the day, I can cook a fish that I caught. Now that would be a perfect holiday :)

On setting them free

No one can re-live a feeling. One can only remember and assume what it had felt like.
You can remember that fall you had when you started riding a bicycle, that bruise on your elbow, that cut on the knee, the drop of blood trickling from the cut, the stream of tears that washed your face and how you wanted to run home but could not. Why? Because it hurt. How much was the pain? You don't remember, but it made you cry so it must have been a great deal. You wouldn't cry for nothing. That is were assumption works, imagination comes and in our mind we try to reconstruct a feeling that we don't remember. Yet if you had to go through the same situation today, you would not even wince. Worse still you would probably laugh at the whole thing!
Memories trick us. Through them we live those feelings which are nothing but gross exaggerations of reality.

Old feelings are all like old wounds. You don't remember how much it had hurt, likewise you don't remember how deep you had felt.

One such ancient feeling haunts me.. no, 'haunt' will be a wrong, it doesn't frighten me.
So, one such ancient feeling looms over me for no reason. Actually, there is a reason. If it would not have been for the reason, the feeling would have died in some locked corner of my mind. Of course it would have left its traces on the pages of my diary that was noted down in a form of a poem some 2 years back.


So this ancient feeling, it was more than a decade back. The town where I lived had a common big(don't go on the adjectives I use, since they all come from memory) market. Just at the entrance there was this man who used to sell birds. You know, small colourful birds, the sight of which is bound to make you smile. Birds that never got tired of chirping, birds kept in cages, birds that seemed to shout for freedom. I often thought how much would it cost to buy them all. And if my pocket money would be enough to set them free. I never quite got to ask my parents in fear that I would not be able to explain why I wanted to buy and then set them free. So this fancy somehow never made to reality.

I left the town pursued my studies and then landed here.

There is a shop here on the main road where my house is. The same kind. And as I cross it, that feeling comes back or rather the memory of that feeling comes back. And probably memory has magnified that feeling to an extent that I deliberately brood over it now and then. I could put an end to this brooding thing by simply going there, buying them and setting them free. Why spend so much time thinking about it, why write a blog entry on it!

Do you think their wings are clipped? Do you think they will be able to fly? Do think if I set them free, they will come back to that man? Is that not their home? Were they caught or were they bred? Have they ever been in the sky, known the world for which they are meant? If I take them out of their secured cages, do you think they will be able to survive? Having been fed all their life, will they be able to find food for themselves? Will they adapt to the vastness of sky after they limits of the cage? And what about predators? Can they save themselves from them? And if they die after being set free, would you say this life was better than that death? At least they were not dead, or were they?

I do not know or rather I know that I cannot know.

Essence and Essentials

AfterI joined my engineering course, there were times when people told me that I was on the wrong place. Not that I was bad at studies but they thought I would have been better in one other field. Somehow I didnt think it that way. There is always some difference between avocation and vocation. After joining the numerous s/w people I realised that it is not really always what you see. The deeper you probe, the less you seem to understand. Unlike my earlier belief of this place being a creative hub, I came to know how much important it is to know different sources of solutions. Unlike elsewhere (or so I think) when we get in some problem we don't try to be the first one to solve it but hope that somebody else somewhere must have faced the same problem and solved it. (I don't blame anybody. I myself am a part of this) So at some point of time you actually start thinking that if creation is not way to job satisfaction, then what is!
I was jolted back to reality from this thought by a particular conversation today. We don't work for job satisfaction. We work for hike, promotion and then again hike and so on.
That reminded me why I did not pursue my hobby as my career. There were two reasons actually -
1 I was afraid to fail there. A somewhat sensitive area.
2 I didn't want to convert something that I enjoyed to something that was a part of the monotonous everyday life.
Job was never the endpoint. Job was something that would give the independence and means to pursue somehting that I enjoyed. It in itself was never the end.

The Kite runner - some thoughts.

I read "The Kite Runner" today. How did I like it? It is something you cannot dislike. It rings like reality.

Yesterday someone was asking why I prefer fictions to non-fictions. She asked if it is fantasy that I look for, do i try to run away from reality. To tell the truth, I was caught off-guard. It actually is a truth. Books always give me a way to move around in a different world. But I didnt see it as 'running away' atleast not until she said so. It was something I didnt want to agree to. I'd rather have agreed if she had used the word 'escape' and not 'run-away'. I replied that its not fantasy of the fiction that fascinates me, its the creativity of the author, the ability to create characters, world, situations in his book. Yet when I read "The Kite Maker", I felt it ring like reality, no make-believe world there and that fascinated me more.

It is a sad story. So I was told. So I found. But actually it is much more than just a sad story.

Here are aome thoughts that I found in the book.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too. [Page - 48]

It is difficult to know which is harder, to think everyone means what they say or to think nobody means what they say. To decide who means and who does not is probably the hardest. Yet this should be the way. Isn't it? How do these people react when they discover the superficial world around them? Do they break down or do they too get drowned. Is it possible to live genuinely when everything around you is superficial? For Hassan it was. He moved away, or rather was moved away, far way and finally farther away. But what happens when moving away is not one of the options? Or may be such people don't exist, are not let to exist.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life.
Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it. [Page - 315]

This gives a new perspective to "silence". I never thought it this way. I may have been wrong. We do sometimes shut down our windows. Pull their shutters down. In some way or the other everyone does that till we need that sunlight again, till we want to feel the wind again. But not forever, not forever. Yet do you think it can happen that we just forget that shutters can be up again?

Running after butterflies

When I started blogging, I didnt intend it to be my online journal - the ones that say 'i went to office today, we had a lot of work... etc'. I wanted it to be the window that would connect my thoughts to outside world. I wanted to catch the momentarily fleeting thoughts and pen them down here. May be that precisely is the reason why my post count has dwindled over time. It will be wrong to say that thoughts don't fleet anymore. They do but I just don't get to pen them down.

It is something like, you see the colourful butterflies, you smile but you don't run after them like you used to. It has nothing to do with the absence of butterflies, nothing to do with your growing up, nothing to do with your not being able to catch them - because catching was never the fun, it was always the running after them- yet today you just don't run after them.

Why do you think, we stopped running after them? Was it that we realised the futility of it? Or is it that we forgot to have fun or may be we just changed our ways to have fun. Then again, what actually is 'funny'. So often I find the distinction between humour and sarcasm blurring. I realise laughing is not an indeliberate effect anymore but actually a deliberate action. We laugh because we are supposed to. We smile for the same reason.

I wandered away (as usual). I was talking about blogs. Sometimes I wonder there are so many blogs in this blogsworld that have been abandoned, lost, left unfinished, forgotten, ... dead. Its all like phases you know, we get crazy about something for sometime. One month, two at most then forgotten. Then I look at my blog and think how often did I come close to abandoning it. Yet what is it that brings me back again to run after the butterflies!

May be its not futile after all.

'Transit'

Most of the time, like most of the people, I find 'transit' periods awfully boring. Waiting for the results of an important exam (ask the 2007 CAT-takers :D), the duration between getting a job and leaving the college, the duration when you wait for your interview, the time when your preparation is mostly done and the examination seems to arrive too slowly, the time when train/flight gets late, the time when your work is done but you still have to wait in the office because its just too early to leave, traffic signals, long queues (for the movie, in the stores, bill payment, mess, etc), and many more.

Yet to think that the trip to home this Diwali had longer transit duration than the journey duration! The 'to' had a transit duration of 6 hours and the 'fro' had 9 hrs that makes a total of 15 hrs while total flight duration was at most 10 hrs. Both of these transit periods were spent in the Mumbai Airport. In the 6 hrs one, I had company so it was not at all irksome. But the 9 hrs were spent alone (mostly). The question however is 'was it then really tiresome?'. Well, not really.

I reached Mumbai at 9.30pm. Went on to the departure lounge and waited. For company I had phone, book and fm. Not bad. Once in a while some airport officer would come and ask if I was fine , tell me where I could find snacks/tea/coffee. The couple next to me had their flight at 5.30am. They left early but while they were there we had small chats about how bad the waiting lounge was, that Mumbai airport should have some kind of waiting room, and that it actually used to have. Other than this I was continuosly talking on phone (having arguments actually) during the early hours when it wasnt time to go to sleep for them. For the rest of the time I was busy probing into Orhan Pamuk's "My name is Red" and listening to the songs played on fm. (This finally discharged my cell and I had to stand and get it charged --> this too took some time :D)

Before long it was already time to get up and get going.
I didn't feel the passage of time. May be I didn't take it as a transit but rather as a part of the journey. Sitting there while I was observing the surroundings I thought it is stupid to think that our life stops during transits. Why, there was motion everywhere even in the 'waiting' of passengers, their loitering, reading, talking, and even dozing off.