TEMPEST

Stupid and Smart - Where we meet saunf stealers, romantic superheroes and common people..who lead simple lives

2012-01-26T15:33:00.003+05:30

I robbed all the saunf in a tissue paper from Discovery the other day giving it to auto driver because at some point I realised it was too much for me...I also realised i am eminently sane person with bouts of madness, but when it comes to standing up for me..I can do it (which makes me so proud of me) and really serious discussions make me laugh inside..secretly, like i want to detach myself from my body and just point a finger and laugh, laugh till my insides burst..becase honestly I don't find anything worth soooo much discussion...I would rather have music in my head and sand under my feet and the ocean and dance to the waves....there are times when I just want to escape to do that...Living is important...Living and enjoying even more so...

I write..Sometimes it's the only worthwhile thing to do..it seems like the only thing that I can do and would want to do...But what to write? Because censors exist everywhere, you can't write what you feel really really really deep down, because people think it's morbid, too cynical, too weak, too emotional and end up going "sheesh" so weak...But at times, when no one listens and even if they do, they're too busy trying to tell you what's right and wrong that they miss the silent plea..of listening to me..really listening..to what you have to say. So i write.

I really do believe that love exists, that people find people and live with their fights, comforts, tears, angers and jealousies...they eventually fight hard enough to overcome their problems, because the bigger picture is important, ultimately the coming together back again and smiling and looking forward to a next day is important...You don't have to love someone the same way everyday or even love them at all everyday..I'm sure there are times that we hate even ourselves, then how can you expect people to love you everyday the same! And how boring would that be...

And while it's important to not judge and compare, somewhere a sneaking doubt sets in and comes back to haunt you...and I don't know what i'm writing, or what I want to write or what are the words coming back...How do you know you're fighting a losing battle or that suddenly something will change? That this time around things will be different and they are for the better..do you stick on and wait..or do you not stick on but still secretly wait...for the unexpected third act, for the miracle, for the grand gesture...

And what is it about love that makes you want to stick by and do weird things, go out of your way over and over again...which makes you want to hang on inspite of all signs, all friendly warnings, threats, dire predictions...it's not over till it's over...Till the blinkers come off and the lights turn off..

The smarter, stronger ones leave it halfway before it turns into a war or a holocaust...the even more smarter ones go all the way...surviving the holocaust and coming out stronger than before.

The stupid ones merely get into the war again and again and again...

Or maybe they're actually the smartest..because for that point..till that time, they absolutely believe.

Stupid...To not stand up and know that you deserve the very best and nothing less than the best will do!

Perfection

2012-01-18T23:33:00.002+05:30

We're not perfect..all of us...We cannot be. And while we try and be honest about things...it's mainly the barriers we create that stop us...from knowing what we have. I mean c'mon you think your friend has the perfect life...no she doesn't..she just works hard to keep it that way..to maintain that illusion...but maybe eventually it's what you did..and you've done it..ab kar liya..ho gaya uske baad bolke kya fayda?!

I feel like writing deep and long..but i find myself questioning me..am i too harsh in my judgment of people!? Do i judge people with the same measure that i judge myself..with such exacting standards..so that i have no value of them in my lives..everything is about strong and weak...who is a good person..or rather what is a good person? What is weak and so what is strong? How do we judge? Words hurt...they have power..when said or shouted or just spat out..

I feel like talking like Henrietta from "The Hollow" (Agatha Christie) who says " What will i do now? I'm so tired..." and Poirot says "Courage"...When things are very dark...remember that you helped...(The mystery of the blue train)

I always turn to books in times of trouble, pain, stress, love, life, happiness..all emotions..there are some which are feel good books, there are some which are meant to be read, there are some which inspire you...there are some with stories so poignant they make you cry...

I feel tired..and aged...so old that the lines feel like a string stretch too thin...I suppose it's a part of being grown up; to pretend...

sticks and stones

2012-01-18T19:20:00.003+05:30

Funny how harsh reality can snap you back from delusion more than anything else...sticks and stone may hurt my bones..but words will never hurt me...sticks and stones are easier to bear..words keep on resounding in your head..and haunt at the most inopportune moments...like when you're just popping off to sleep..and in comes a stray thought, and you try to push it away but it manages to sneak in all the same..and you lie wide awake thinking and thinking, your mind jumping from to the other to the other...and you know you will be late to go to office again the next day

I was looking at my blogs today..all of them and I realised how many great words of wisdom have i written in these html pages over the last 4 years...so today when i need all the gyaan i can get..what better way than to look back at what you have written and make yourself feel strong again..

Romanticise life, it shows you have an imagination (Original original original - Anu Mallick style)

Dear heart,

Him!

Sincerely,

Brain (Taken from some website)

Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all. (Princess Diaries)

There is so much more to life, travel, see the world, fall, cry, laugh, meet people, eat, go down a river.. (Original original original - Anu Mallick style)

I do not yield. I choose. I decide.

I am not rigid. I am strong. (Original original original - Anu Mallick style)

Mixture of creativity, dreams, vision, passion n craziness is wat makes u an artist.. (Original original original - Anu Mallick style)

But that was a different time

And those were different people ( (Original original original - Anu Mallick style))

Sometimes friends get stuck in a time warp, or it's you who's moved too fast. The ones you feel worth waiting for, or who wait for you....last a lifetime. The rest are just phases (Original original original - Anu Mallick style)

You should give yourself more credit than others..that way you're always ahead of them..and compliments rarely take you by surprise.

And I realise that I have more courage and strength than I thought I was capable of. How I judge people with lesser harshness than I judge myself....and how while I may be stable and steady doesn't mean that I am cold...and any sign of emotion doesn't mean weakness for what would you be if you were a poker faced statue all your life..

And lastly, my queen of inspiration and woman who can charge me up

“If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.”
― Nora Roberts

Talk back

2012-01-12T10:55:00.004+05:30

People have told me what not to write....Friends telling me not to write...But then if i don't how will i live? How will i move on if I cannot pen down what I'm feeling and if i don't how do i get it out? For i am emotionally challenged...how do you say things to people when all you can say is big deep words and poetical lines which look like they've been lifted out of a book...how do you say it when you know that when you face people eventually, you have your "matter-of-fact" tone in place and not an emotion out of place...all very straight, sharp and strong. Correct posture - check, hair tied - check, hands clasped - check, voice straight and even - check. Now you can talk. Action.

And why would people want to be burdened with you..with what you feel? Everyone has enough of their own already..besides you would feel like a child, defeated and whining if you say such things...and if they slip out you apologise...for being so weak and saying such things...so i write. because words can't talk back, because words don't need apologies and words don't judge or put me in slots....i can be who i am.

Courage and strength - I wonder if these 2 are synonymous? Can you have strength but not courage? or vice versa....and then people say i'm tired of being this...being that...everyone is tired..but like someone told me...we all act. At all times, in office, at parties, at home, in front of friends, lovers, policemen, in the train... it is lifelong. And like Saif says in Love Aaj Kal "Main defective piece hoon paaji, zyada der dukhi nahi reh sakta..sachmein..maine yeh notice kiya hain apne baare mein"..which is true ..people do go on living don't they? There is so much to see...every moment, so much to do, so much to plan (which never gets put into action, but the fun is in the planning) and so many instances of people all around who will if you just stop and stare...amaze you every time...like man in lokhandwala wearing cowboy boots (god knows why!) , the hot chick jogging along carter road (how i envy her), the hot guy jogging alongside her (I envy her even more!), the child who sneaks out and runs away from his parents to pet the roadside dog....the friend's fighting and sharing hot coffees, idling away time...

I feel like shrugging my shoulders everytime...I mean it isn't so bad...you take your choices, you do what you can and in the end you live...free will..you cannot ask what people do not want to give you...and you cannot help where people refuse to be helped..and beyond a point it is their journey alone...friends can only be there till a certain point..after which all they do is stand in line, waiting for you to come back or to catch you if you fall...the lucky ones escape with just an "I told you so...now let's go shopping and forget about all this"...the unlucky ones get the lectures of their lives...But all ends well. People don't die. However much you want to or you feel like, the will to live conquers all.

I remember what Nora Roberts wrote

“Broken hearts healed. Maybe the cracks were always there, like thin scars, but they healed. People lived and worked, laughed and ate, walked and talked with those cracks

For many, even the scars healed and they loved again.”

Music at the edge

2012-01-07T13:46:00.000+05:30

Sometimes the music dies..

Or stutters and stops..fading to silence

And while we hate it, we still welcome it

Don’t tell me of tomorrow and what it may plan

Or what is not to be…tell me about today

Because today is all we have

But at the edge of hearing…I can still hear a faint sound

And music still abounds…forever after

Sometimes it is I who stopped listening

Sometimes it is the music that went far away

Far away but never out of sight…never out of touch

You look around and you see…all signs of being

Being me…being me…being me

And the words that come out of your mind surprise you

But if this is who you are…then why not accept it?

Dance in the moonlight with shadows falling on you

Sing in the wind with the whistles echoing around you

Walk in the twilight with the light fading around you

Smile because it makes you…smile because you can

Smile because the music at the edge has lifted into a song

A song so bright it will lift you with joy and make you spin

The compounder

2012-01-06T18:15:00.002+05:30

He always took a long time in giving medicines. A friendly smile, a little chit chat, enquiring after the health of mister so and so and how is the little baby today? Does the new AC work well?...Till the other patients would come out and one by one queue up outside his counter waiting to take their medicines…and still he wouldn’t be done with the first one.

There was always a list of regulars whom he remembered…Mr. Patel, Mrs.Jhariwala, the dhobi from across the street, the little girl who would wander in for a digene to suck on…he always spoke and spoke a lot. Many people complained to the doctor about the compounder’s incessant talking habit, he would spill the medicines while talking, scratch himself in weird places, pick his nose and generally take ages in dispensing them even when he knew there were many patients waiting in the line.

The doctor would duly scold him and he would be quiet, for a day and then his self imposed punishment would break through and he would be back again the next day. But still people came to the doctor, because he was a good one with a nice manner...probably his compounder should have been in PR or events or a talk show host, his extensive talking talents seemed to have been wasted sitting in a cubicle shut up all day long amongst the Cetrzines and Metafloxes and B Compounds. But he had a knack, even if you didn’t want to talk or were too ill he would end up making you chat with him for 5 minutes atleast till you woke yourself up and managed to escape…Fat ladies with irritating children and thin ladies with listless children and aging uncles with hernia problems and young people with their aching problems all of them would be talked to by him and would talk back.

And so the years passed, and the hair on the compounder’s head turned grey, but his tongue grew no moss, it kept on rolling as ever.

This is the first part..I don't know what to write next...

Changes

2012-01-06T17:07:00.001+05:30

So today began in a snit...with me making my endless lists. Every list has leftovers of the previous one..until each list looks like the previous ones. But people say these are testing times...And while I should enjoy and look upon it as a passing phase, it's difficult not to be depressed when you're very freshly 23 and wanting to do something out of your life..fast and asap and in your mind you fluctuate between being 21 or 25, so at the best of times you don't know who you are!! It is a rare blue moon day indeed when you're 23..like the sun..the revolutions keep on going.

I love stories about people...sad ones, funny ones, inspiring ones, devious ones..makes me wonder at how much people have done...something about trying to imagine and feeling the second hand pleasure in listening to such things...Makes me want to add mine till all there is an exchange of stories and moments..each zipping out so fast that you're in a hurry to finish them all and not miss out on anything...zip zip zip...words pouring out in a tumble and rush

Exploring the city feels nice..something I always wanted to do and I never thought i'd be doing it with anyone apart from my vela friends. Sometimes self doubt can kill you and others too..anything new necessarily doesn't mean it's wrong or fatal..maybe like the new parts of the city..it's just there waiting to be explored..even if it happens in a roundabout way..the journey matters as much as the end. And then you wonder..oh damn...oh shit..it's there all along...didn't see it at that point.

Words, signs, quotes, songs, movies, moments...all these things matter so much in making you live each day after the other...like riti who sums up her entire day in one line...and wonders at the end of one month at the various moods she put herself through...I do that when i read my old blog posts or my old diary posts..

I read somewhere that people change every 7 years...apparently the cells of your body undergo a change...and everything right down to your spirit changes...so who you are at 7 will not be the same at 14 or 21 or 27...seems like such a philosophical thing to say...but in a way its true...but i think it applies to every year..who you are every year changes...I'd like to be a child once more but I can't, I've gone through that and i'm me now...The best part being that i simply cannot be bothered about a lot of things now...which probably a year ago would have made me sit on my toes (breaking them in the process) and start talking at 32x speed (which i still do)

I'd like to stand on a mountain top and look at the valley below and breathe in...deep deep deep and feel the air slice through my lungs...Alive and fresh and just a little pump of adrenaline

2012-01-04T18:35:00.002+05:30

So why do humans fight?? What do they fight for? What is the motive?? Some will say why give up? Others will say love of the game..of being constantly fighting against the odds...yet others will say hope...for some miracle...that the fight might bring...that it might help them.. yet others fight because they want that thing so badly....many others fight because they think that its stupid to let go without trying....

But many others will say to know when to stop...before the staleness sets in...in your career, personal life...family, anything and everything...

But people lead such monotonous lives then...dull dull dull with such safety precautions you'd think they're protecting a cache of gold...

Shock Therapy

2011-12-26T09:58:00.003+05:30

So yesterday was therapeutic...where I cried like the world would end...and worst of all is that I cried in front of ankit who poor guy had no clue why I was crying...neither did i actually when it comes to that....All i know is that i bought tinkle and a nora roberts and then i met him and next thing you know the heaviness in my stomach is actually not gas or indigestion and the tiredness is not due to actual work...it just came out in one big waaaaaaaaaaaah...waaaaaaaaah...and sob sob..with hitches in my breath and ankit standing in the middle of the road looking helpless, dashing back to the car to get tissues and people looking at us as if we are having a breakup...giving suspicious looks to the guy...(Hmm..Breakup..wowowowo - what has he done.They look normal...must be a jerk..she must be pleading with him to not end it..) And then i composed myself, realising that the 10 kilo kajal that i had applied to my eyes would smudge and make me look like a racoon if I don't stop now...and then back in the car..with ankit still warily eyeing me like a bomb about to explode...and when i sit back it starts again..with a little sob sob escalating into full blown covering your face with your hands and rocking yourself back and forth with the pain and crying as if you want to empty your soul...and poor ankit is still helpless...so the conversation goes like this

Rucha - sob sob...mumble mumble (my face is in my hands so even i can't get what i'm saying)

Ankit - Rucha...please stop...(ineffectively trying to hand me a tissue) is there something else that is worrying you??

Rucha - waaaaaaaaaaahh...wahhhhhhh...(I sink even lower in my seat..i think at one point i even touched the floor..almost)

Ankit - Rucha...

Rucha - Ok..ok..right..I'm ok (At this point i spot a guy looking at me..and I make a face at him and he walks off...and this snaps me back to normalcy) ..I made a face at that guy..he was staring at me

Ankit - Rucha...you're mad...are you ok?

Rucha - Yes yes..nothing..just let's go home...reaching home from the 8th platform shouldn't take 45 minutes (I haven't told my mom i'm meeting ankit..my train stopped at the 8th platform and it takes ages to reach my house...but never 45 minutes)

So we go home...on the way Ankit driving his car (very badly) with jerks and stops and much pressing of the brake...while we talk, about life, love, pesky ex girlfriends, how to live and studies...such a normal conversation...And all the while my hands are itching to reach out for a pen and paper or my keyboard..so i can finish what i started with crying..the therapeutic purging...which will only end if write all my deep, dark, cynical thoughts and lock them up...never to be seen or used.

I love movies and books and songs, they help you get out of phases, or get into them! At times every word seems to mirror your life or every sequence seems to be a deja vu of what has already happened to you..and you try and search for signs..such a human thing to do...searching for signs...thinking hope is eternal...which to my mind is...everytime that we go back and do something or let go of something and look beyond the petty things is hope...and that's howwe operate or we wouldn't have lived as a race at all... (I'm reading too much of LOTR)

So my xmas plan was to watch Love Actually...laugh at the funny scenes, cry at sad ones, sigh at the romantic ones..eat lots of food, spaz out like a vegetable in front of the TV and get up hours after the movie is over...with the TV screen flickering in the background and me lost in my world..But i had an even better one spent at Mrinal's house where Ankit bowed to my superior planning and acting skills...Mrinal indeed was surprised that we actually came :)

Even better was xmas eve..with so much socializing that I felt like a jet...jumping from airport to the other...work meeting, lagna and su, harsha and gang, sudipta's party and much more... 4 sets of people..I'm so proud of me...but more than proud I feel so incredibly lucky to have all these people as part of my life..Lagna, Su, Sanaya..the constants who will tell you you're being an idiot and when you still continue to be one..will wait for you to come back and offer their unconditional love and support...(with an added "I told you so")...Harsha, Mrinal, Riti and Ankit each one of them so patient with bearing me and my moods for the last 1 year...and now finally all of us on Harsha's terrace on the 24th floor...looking at the twinkling lights of the city below us...eating pizza and discussing our goals for the next year...with the wind blowing through our hair and songs being heard just on the edge of our hearing.faint enough for us to discern what song it is...I haven't been to her terrace in the last 8 months...or maybe a year..I barely remember now what was...

But as I came back home..I realised that while I was sad... I was also happy to have such people in my life..to be a part of theirs...

It's like looking out at the lights below and just feeling nice..no thoughts, nothing...just you and the endless world to delight at

This year..soon to be last year

2011-12-23T12:05:00.002+05:30

The year's ending and now when I will look back maybe this time next year I will laugh at things....and be better evolved than I am now...more grown up..which is a pain...I would have loved to be 18 forever or 21.....The discovery of being in BMM at 18 and the joy of being an independent working woman with a steady salary and half a year's experience behind her...both important phases...both so special...One so hates to be grown up.

But all said and done...it's been an interesting phase and I've moved back and forth...said many many many wise things...some as a result of realizations and personal experiences, some quoting others..simply because they said it too nicely and i didn't want to pass a chance by to show off. Found out that half the things that worry me at 4 am in the morning or when I wake up are not even a part of other people's list...and half the things that worry them at 4 am or in the morning are not in my list...and will never be...worriers are a class apart...maybe we should join some classes where we can show off our worries...oh so u think making ends meet is a worry...well big shit..I broke my toenail and now it'll be ages before it grows back..

I've forayed into new forms of work...tried to fight with myself time and again to get into writing full time...gone to the edge...but come back too scared to take that leap...I'm taking the leap now...im in mid air actually...so I just have to see how hard i fall..or if there are any airbags waiting for me below...if not..I'll have to get up and start walking...in the hopes that i can run one day...and the above is so typically me...writing about my writing efforts using leap as a metaphor...confusing :)

I've worked like a maniac for 5 months...learnt a lot of hard lessons for which i'm very proud of...shaped myself up into a hardened person..stronger than before..got jaundice..which sucked but the weight loss and consequent empty hours forced me to think...and out came a lot of things piled under the carpet...and i feel like I've achieved a good 50% of those things...hence no more scary worries at 4 am or when i wake up...till the time new ones are formed.

I've been getting a lot of patience lessons lately..by friends, parents, on Facebook, random quotes which seem to jump out at me when i least expect them...It's like being 18 and looking for love signs..all the while knowing in your head that things aren't going to work out....Patience quotes are that way..they try their best knowing it's not going to work out...I have the patience of a hummingbird...

But the best part is that i feel more content in me....the mad rush has gone (Patience...you should keep this in mind!) I find myself opening up to new avenues..like i did before with the whole "Chal try karte hain"..attitude which is good...i wouldnt want to be a stuffy old woman at 23...which some one told me is "old"!!

Sometimes things don't work out...and i realise it's just wrong timing and even here if i am "patient" enough ..i shall see results..I just need to be with me...rediscover and love this new me...more like permanently rather than the whole "hmmm...is she for real"...

On the whole, it's been an interesting year...how do you say good when you cannot define it for the entire 365 days...some were good, some were bad, some are "let's not even go there" while some are plain blissful...

It's important to keep the ones that matter in a glass box...so that i can dig down and watch them whenever i want...and feel the warmth envelop me like a cocoon....and smile...

For isn't that courage??

Fairy tales

2011-12-16T18:16:00.005+05:30

Kiss a thousand frogs

Go round a wishing well

Before you find the man

who rings the bell

Catch fairies by moonlight

Make love potions in the twilight

To find the man

With love so bright

Wish upon a shooting star

Chase the wind bare feet

And wish for love

on a road where both meet

Look for leprechauns

Catch them for their gold

Hold them tight and ask a wish

Before they disappear quick and bold

Peel an apple skin all around

And throw it over your back

The letter formed might be the one

Apple skins have that knack

Make a Celtic knot for love

Evermore and beyond

Wish upon the sea waves

For that strongest bond

Magic is what it takes

And the will to believe

For what is love then...

But the strongest magic of all kind

This time around...moving on

2011-12-09T23:12:00.005+05:30

So people aren't supposed to remind you that you have to write...It's a thing which comes from within....But lately it's been more of the writing with a pen...on an actual piece of paper in an actual book...than on html...with edits.

Sometimes silence works...and not in the "says a lot" space but more in the I know you're there and you know i'm there..and we're both enjoying the quiet without wanting to speak about anything....It's been a rare thing for me to be this quiet...I can fill silence with words at 32x speed and even if i wanted to be quiet...then i daren't...with the thought that it's not me...I can't be this quiet..I need to fill in space...But I realised I can be quiet...(which i am secretly...when I'm

near the sea..or at a resort...I escape out and go for walks with my hands in the pockets of my jacket...thinking and talking to myself...or just enjoying the quiet..) But the fact that i could be that secret person upfront is a new discovery...like a good weird wala feeling....

I find myself getting more and more annoyed at my parents these days..and everytime i do that i have a sneaky thought which creeps its way in saying "your kids will do the same to you...karma is a bitch"..and I know i'm wrong..if i can be understanding and sorted with friends then why not with parents...truth is sitting at home for 2 months and being home bound makes them feel like im in school again and makes me feel caged...so i flutter around hopelessly and helplessly...every little thing needs to be crosschecked, asked permission about..which is

cross questioned and picked apart so many times that by the end of it you have a headache and you wonder why did you ask for it in the first place...and by the time you leave the house you don't want to enter it till everyone's asleep so the questions don't resound...My fault..since i have no patience with questions...the third question usually makes me lose my temper and start shouting or raising my voice or snapping...selfish when i can take shit from other ppl...so yeah...that needs improvement.

I've been getting this tight feeling in my chest and neck for the past couple of days....like i'm going to cry but the tears won't come...like the last bit of morsel stuck in your mouth...before it goes forever and though i do not know the reason behind this ..

I know it has to come out...

The best part is me...I can feel the madness coming back..and along with it the spasticness...with more spice, more spine and more sass thrown in...I no longer remember 5 years ago...I no longer feel the same...and when i think it no longer brings me pain..that little tight squeeze around your heart everytime you see the person or speak his name...or talk about him..I don't even remember what caused me the pain...the words, the things, the events...they're washing off..finally. gradually and it's been this way

since a good 3-4 months now...like bits you which were washed away are finding their way back to the shore...and all that is left for me is to piece it back together...so fine that the cracks don't even show..and in time..they too will fade away..

For what is the biggest achievement, than to forget and move on...not because you have to..but because you can..and you want to..for you

Confessions

2011-11-07T22:39:00.003+05:30

So I let my fingers type...Because I don't think I can express what I feel....23 is going to come soon....and I have no countdown...no plans....no birthday wishes...No need for gifts....I feel strangely content....the kind where you don't want people to be there...you know they are there...Where you want to do your own thing...achieve your own targets...buy your own gifts...I don't want anything...Except to just be...And I do not know why I have reached this weird limbo...Like Varun Thakur said...It's like andheri east...Inception was made there...

Because what i do best is write...And type...Im letting my mind wander...my fingers think...as i so often do....My nephew will turn a year old tommorow...On my birthday..and I cannot remember loving anyone so much....I used to sit up at nights..just to watch him sleep...and see his tiny fingers curled up...He is very smart...he can speak the alphabet..parts of it..and he crawls and makes my sister's life hell....That's the best part...He's going to grow up to be a nuisance...and I love such people...22 was spent in thinking...at fortis hospital...wondering when will the baby come out...and then back to work...21 was spent in planning...and then the constants..the ones who mattered...turned up...rest didn't and i realised later why...20th was the best...because I wasn't on the change of me....I wasn't on the brink of what I call boring....serious....thinking too much....

But one cannot go back....while I am more serious now...I do know that I am also more careful...a careless word....a loose temper...all under control...(My tongue refuses to be tamed...inspite of my best efforts) I feel like peter pan and wendy...A little sad for a part of youth has gone...But you know Neverland exists...and it's always there..on the edge of belief...Blink once and it's gone...But on the whole I'm proud of the new me...because I can take no...I can say no...I can be depended upon...even if I don't want to be depended upon...(I do my best to be out of the limelight) and I can write..and read and laugh...

Besides who says that you cannot be sad on your birthdays...It's not a hard and fast rule...I've always been irritated with rules...while they do bring order to chaos...a little bit of organised chaos never hurt anyone...I was walking on the street and thinking what to write...and i realised i was muttering and smiling to myself....

So i decide to give myself a chance...To give myself the benefit of doubt..and actually see..not think, not judge, not analyse...I have all the time in the world...and if people want me...the real me..they will wait....because all the good things are worth waiting for...For the first time..I want to take it slow...and decide for me...All said and done...I have to take care of me..

But I feel like smiling and making a countdown...and leaning and letting go...and letting life sort itself...not being in control (and trying to not get panic attacks for not being in control) I feel magnanimous..like telling my friends and society and parents to go take a hike...and do exactly as i feel....no preconceived notions...Nothing...No baggage...Just free...like flying...I'm going to fly....And I feel like taking all the money and going off to musooorie or coorg..renting a bungalow and writing...spend my days writing and going out meeting the locals...chatting with them...drinking coffee from the roadside stall...collecting milk and newspaper early morning....sitting down to a lonely breakfast and enjoying the music of silence...just me...sitting at the table with the morning sunlight falling on me...going out for long walks...tramping along the countryside...and coming back home...really living... valuing...seeing...

I love walking barefeet in the wet grass...I love flowers...And I love fountains...I can sit by for hours with the rain falling on my face...writing in my head...and away....watching the clouds make mist...Lonavala

What I want...if someone were to ask me that...I would say peace...Or to cry....The freedom and the space and the catalyst to cry...just cry till I feel empty...the nice wala empty...and god knows why...

Intense...After ages...But one of the most honest things I've written...

That's me in Silvassa with Mrinal and Vanessa...trying to jump the water sprinklers and avoid getting wet...One my best times...

Mental tales - In which we see too much of jaundice, added with insane parents and insaner siblings

2011-10-24T02:43:00.001+05:30

Mentalness runs in my family....It's a streak of madness which surfaces in all people....Lately the humor is stuck onto the hospital theme...and falling ill theme...And it seems to be ill timed...

My mother - My sweet, often scary mother who laughs at all the wrong times...and every time in between...People falling down make her laugh...people being silly and losing things and crying over it make her laugh(This means me...when i lost my first phone) and so when she is at the hospital...she wants to laugh at people who have hurt themselves...because a slab fell on their heads..but then she'll also sympathize with them and indulge in what I call hospital banter...the budding of hospital buddies....Where they communicate from one bed to another...one invalid to another..comparing illnesses...the more fatal, the more popular you are...And then there is the mini NGO unit which my mom runs...which is part time counselor and full time fruit provider to the nurses and patients alike.....She knows who's been divorced, who's been engaged...who has a problem with her mother in law...she's like Jedi that way..or professor Xavier...all brains...

My dad - Whose idea of hospitals is to roam about...bug the nurses....shoo away people and listen to bhajans...on the loudspeaker...when he is admitted...So we never find him in his bed...When we go with the food...and of course a horde of gujrati relatives who insist on coming with you...(many come because they want to save on the individual auto fare) and voila...we don't find my dad where we left him last..on his own bed...we press the bell and a harrowed nurse enters and says "please control him....he just walks around the hospital"...so we get him back...and after 5 minutes he gets tired of all the people around and shoos them away....

My sister - She is the best freak show of all....She loves being in hospitals...even the prospect of drip..which makes me faint...is a thing she loves...she loves chatting with doctors...using big words like expectoration for cough....and generally ensuring that people come and visit her...get her books...food and she is happy....doctors come and go..and she chats...gets out her own files...talks in medical jargon while the poor husband (Read my brother in law who is an ex drummer and now mktg expert) is watching helplessly by..not being able to understand a word...and then signing the bills and patting her hand...

My two others sisters are going to take it down in writing...that even if they are super duper ill...they don't want to go to the hospital...in my case...they make me annoyed...coz i get scared and wen i get scared i get annoyed...because i hate being scared....and they make me want to sleep...everytime that I've gone to meet my mom...I have slept in the chair next to her..while she watches over me...

So far the only insanity I've been accused of is of talking nonsense...non stop at 4 am in the morning...and washing my hands at the popley and son's fountain...and trying to walk up an elevator which is going down....

Weaknesses

2011-10-24T02:03:00.003+05:30

So then there are ethics and ethics...Would you rather have your pride and live alone?? Or would you give people a chance to explore...To be what they want? The benefit of doubt? Does it mean that you feel too alone and hence you welcome the attention...does that make you needy?? And if people are giving you attention...and you do take it because you like it and you want to give some back...does that make you desperate?

Tough questions...and tougher answers indeed. I have friends who will say put things in black and white...and I do trust their judgement..while the others will say that it's ok..do what you want? What do i want? That's the toughest of all....I want to be in a position where I don't have to think about ifs and buts...and not hurt...at the end of it all not be vulnerable...just think of it like bungee jumping..something new and at the end of it, feel happy that I've tried it...Not thinking about yesterdays or what will be or what will people think...

But then the burden of having a conscience...and a well placed head is that you don't let yourself fall....into a trap...but then the wild gypsy side of you will sneak in and whisper...What if..you let go? Just fly? It can't hurt much.......So i don't know...i'm caught in the middle as always...sometimes I wish I could let go..and then be all ok...afterwards...Lets see

Jaundice Tales

2011-10-16T23:04:00.003+05:30

I've come to the conclusion that my jaundice has been caused due to my neighbour's yellow wallpaint...He has painted his house mustard yellow...and in the night it looks like the color of my puke..because I've been puking a lot lately...jaundice doesn't let you eat and what you eat is puked out because your liver is too fragile to digest it..

My mom is convinced that the reason why I've got jaundice is because of my trip to Goa in June where I had consumed a chock full of sea water and innumerable mint mojitos (she doesn't know about the mojitos..only the sea water) and she thinks its an effect of the same..dormant for so long which has come about...But moving back to my neighbour who has a penchant for weird colors..his kitchen is painted lavender and the living room yellow...I can imagine the passage to be painted pista green...I can't see that from my house..But I can imagine. I wonder what he feels when he is ill or tired and he wants to rest and sees the walls painted yellow...I would have died...due to color shock

And the worse is that before this he had a neon purple as his color and just as I was getting used to looking it at peripherally...when he got it painted yellow..right in the middle of my jaundice...His father had a poster of madhubala stuck behind the door...so that people from the opposite windows (meaning us) could view her picture...and his mother and my mom communicate via windows - school marks, whose kid is brighter, who got married in our building and in theirs, who ran away with whom...

So we have a relation of sorts....But my jaundice isn't getting any better with the mustard color in front of me....

People do what they want to...and while I agree that age is supposed to bring you wisdom and also strength..I wonder if in the case of men, age also makes you more cruel and valueless...I like to give people the benefit of doubt...But these days I find myself blurring the lines between the past and the present and everything reminds me too much of what has already gone...what I have tried so hard to rebuild....It's wrong to lead, to expect and to be when you know you have been in that place yourself already...and it takes ages to rebuild yourself..piece by careful piece...being stripped naked of all that you have...all that you trusted...simply because it just didn't happen...Life doesn't come with guarantees...I'd say boundaries...to keep out people and keep me in check...from being too gullible, too vulnerable...Kindness with mercy, justice with compassion..even when you know it's you on the line...because that's the price you pay for being responsible, for knowing, for having a conscience...

But you still crave for it...It's a weakness to be overcome...to be nipped in the bud...for what you do comes back to you a hundred times over...

Kaun kehta hain ki zindagi khali hain

Har ek ke paas koi na koi hain

Hasane wala, rulane wala, phasane wala, fuslane wala

Toh kya tum jeena hi chod do...Kyunki zindagi tumhe wo na de

Jo tum chahte ho, wo sampurn tohfa

Jiski tumhe chahat ho..Toh kya tum apna muh pher do

Intezar karo jab tak zindagi thak kar, chali jaye?

Ya phir tum wo tohfa le lo...yeh jaankar ki bhi tum usse sambhal nahi paooge?

Agar zindagi tumhe uda le jaana chahe...toh kya tum uski udaan rok paoge?

Kya wo udaan rok paooge...Agar ha toh phir apne dil ko kaise samjhaoge?

Damnation...I'm falling into the trap again

Time has slowed down

2011-10-15T00:50:00.002+05:30

I stare at my keyboard...My fingers typing a rhythm

I already know how to end this, what will be the end

But then I'm also trying hard to rhyme it...

When all that comes out is free verse

Unfettered, unbound, unashamed

Words that cannot be squeezed into any shape

Or be made to follow an order

Where is then, the fun in them?

The good and the bad, the fun and the sad

I take it all, with a pinch of salt

For when time comes to you, slows down

And wants you to introspect

That is all that I have these days,

Time, so I make plans and lists

And try not worry about much except the next day

And what comes after that and after that

I've been told all my life to make myself useful

How then can I be useful sitting tied to a bed?

But then words cannot be shaped or beaten

So I make them up in my head

And I dream....and write

Because time has slowed down

And I can think of what was, what is and what will be

Without thinking about tommorow

Because that is another time...

Yellow woman

2011-10-05T22:58:00.000+05:30

I'm a horrible patient...I have no patience...and I hate the sick food..pisses me off. Especially when I have something like jaundice where my entire body is yellow and upar se...the food i eat is also yellow, because i cannot eat spices...and spices add color to your life!

My liver is fucked, and the general opinion is "tress" which is actually stress, my doctor pronounces it that way...and snaps at me for snapping at him...like i said, i behave like a 5 year old. I whine about the meds, the food, the color, the sickness...in short, i whine. Maybe one of these days, inspiration will strike me and I will be less moody, less snappy and less 5 year oldish. But till then, i whine and i have a feeling that there's only so much my family will take, post that, they'll snap back. I'm not snapping coz i hate them or anything..I'm snapping coz i've never had jaundice. EVER. And i do take care of myself. I don't eat station food. I drink bottled water on the sets, i never drink fizzy drinks..then how?!!

My mom blames it on my work style, which i think is all gas, coz a workstyle cannot make you have jaundice. Exhaustion - yes, stress - yes, jaundice - No!

So I have an alternative, which is to whine my month away, because i do have to be at home for a month...unless i want to sit in the hospital....or chill it out and do something new...like chocolate making...and then get married, coz that's what girls do after learning chocolate making...I could actually learn how to sew...i only know running stitch..and that too coz i stitched my uniform to my needlework cloth by mistake and i had to cut the stitches myself.

All in all, i know i should take this better...but my birthday is coming up and i hate being sick...which like my ever so wise sister pointed out "No one likes being sick", so I guess i'll have to brave it out, sick food and all and get well soon...

But the food seriously gets to me

Death comes as the end

2011-09-28T00:12:00.002+05:30

So well, that's death...You eat drink, live and you die anyway....and then you have a whacking great funeral where people come...and refuse to leave you alone. I wouldn't want anyone on my funeral..except my parents (god bless them to live that long) and my sisters and my friends...who cares about people you meet once a year anyways..I don't!! And then it's the money...and gentle probing..what will happen of possessions...people cry while accepting them..a year down the line..no one cares if the dead man's possessions have been drowned in gambling or debts or bought new tv...

And then the people come..for 13 days...wear white clothes, don't cook food since you get free food and you sit in a corner with your hand on your head...you are expected to, what if you don't want to stare at the body for 10 hours..what if you want to do what comes next and next and next and so on till one day you simply cry....cry like an animal in pain...with great racking sobs which make you feel empty..and you know you'll feel a little hollow forever and your throat will ache with too much pain...and your chin will wobble with the effort of holding tears back...

Agatha Christie wrote in her book "The Hollow" about a woman who is so dysfunctional that whe n the man she loves died...instead of sobbing she makes a huge sculpture of grief...all the while crying and still sculpting...I feel the same...My uncle expired today and my dad's in the hospital...and I don't know what to do except write...write as I cry...and feel weird...and dysfunctional....

And then people want to be sympathisers...sit next to the bereaved family and look important, suitable sad...trying to offer meagre comfort...while the others stand with their heads bowed..each thinking "when will this end"..I need to go...and then comes the rituals...no women with periods allowed...no writing with black pen...no wearing chappals when you take the arthi...no women allowed at the crematorium..no talking certain things...no having a bath, no cooking food...wearing white.. All trappings..made to make us fall in line...what If i don't want such things on my funeral...All the while sobs breaking out like melody in the room...

And then comes money..property...you realise that you need it...and you have to behave so you do...and you let people arrange for you...And you worry about what your "share" will be...how much did you do? how often did you come and visit the man?

I hate hospitals...the IV injections make me faint...so does the whiteness...and the patient who is so helpless...to watch them wither...day by day...and see the life being sucked out...To watch people and envy how healthy they are.. how they don't have people in the hospital...to not see and think...and endlessly think...what next..what will happen..all the while avoiding the inevitable "if it happens..then what?"

Pity is what everyone has..."Why me?" is so inevitable that it becomes boring...like mba..or foot in the mouth disease..oh been there...done that....

On 8th november 2010 at 6.30 i was waiting in fortis hospital...waiting for a delivery..like fedex and my sister gave birth to Arin...my nephew...today at the funeral i was watching his photos and looking back at the dead man...and i saw life...and death...and I know it exists..and I know people go...what affects me is that im more worried about the people who are living..since i dont want them to end up the same way...not about the dead....coz the dead don't speak..or shout

I want only few people on my funeral...only the ones who genuinely care...rest all i'd rather give a big pizza party and ask them to chill...

I keep seeing life in the two twinkly black eyes of my nephew..with his lopsided, not so many teeth yet but getting there smile...his movements and his voice...And i remember...

Maybe it is ok after all...maybe you do want to cry...It's not that you're dysfunctional, maybe you have a different way of expressing it...

Lost and found - In which we see too much train travelling, mothers, worrying signs, makeup, moody friends and endless stories

2011-09-22T00:15:00.006+05:30

I think certain places should have signals, or warning signs - Beware, phones will be unavailable from here on..or Beware, creepy men ahead..wear only sarees and don't wax or do your eyebrows..

I've gotten lost before, in andheri, in bandra, but never in Bhayandar...and that too at 10 in the night, definitely a freaky experience...And then journey back home where there were only 5 of us in the entire compartment..and the lights going on and off in dahisar...Freaky.

I realised how old my mother is after a long time today...how climbing stairs for her is an issue...so is getting down them, and even though she used my umbrella, i had a distinct image of 2 years down the line...with her holding a stick and walking..and i find it hard to believe.. that my mother - the champion of so many battles, the woman who walks to buy sabsi and has cooked for us for almost 22 years..is not so strong as i thought she was. In my head she is the same as last year, or the year before that..till all the years are just burnt in my memory and i can no longer distinguish between them. Time strikes us all...

So i plan to be a good daughter, which means doing all that medical science and prayer can help...but what about the change from within? Will that be too late? Is it too late? I'd like to think no, that every day counts and i can help her....

Funny how we get so caught up in our lives that we forget the constants..the ones who change without never seeming to...

I've been talking to too many people about my relationships lately...23rd bday is approaching..pretty soon it will be 30 and then 40 and then life is over..not in terms of relationships only..but in terms of what to do...how much to live..when to live..

We spend all our days in planning....trying to find that one moment which will make us feel alive..trying to create it..what if that moment is passing you by? and you know you can never get it again!

Be a meteor, blaze out before you strike..the crater is the next generation's headache :)

Of dreaming and wanting

2011-09-19T00:26:00.002+05:30

I think it's got something to do with growing older...You walk lesser, you forget, you take small things more seriously, coz the smaller things mean job, money, the power to go out and do shit...But what if it didn't matter? Would that make you a drifter? Or would that be the license for ppl to call you unfocused, childish...I'd like to think of myself as being more patient than last year....hence with people who don't really hold down a steady job or just study endlessly..As long as they're ok...I shouldn't be too worried.

But then I bitch...coz I like to...coz I’m a girl (though i know that boys bitch too, with more gaalis) Sometimes, or rather lots of times, I feel that life is passing me by...when I see people going out doing their shit, and the travel and the places they've been to or the exciting things they; ve done over the weekend...And i feel so second hand alive..Like this is it....one of those things where memory just takes a backup photo which you can keep on referring to again and again and again

I felt that last month when I got wet in the rain...and I could feel each drop fall on my face and I felt alive...like wow...this is bliss...or when I was waaaaaaaaaaaay above the sea in goa...trying hard not to think about falling while taking in the view around....I want to fly...like genuinely fly..at times I imagine I’ve got wings sprouting out from my shoulder blades, like eagles and I’m flying up up up...it's like a place in my head I go to when I’m stressed out or too tired or bored..

I feel like blowing up all my money, like going to London or travelling to places like coorg, Ireland, Sitka...exotic places which we only get to see in films....and coming back and starting all over again..To risk all...in one throw...which also means living like a beggar...

I feel tingle tingle...like I want to do something big and say wow...dude I could have died out there or my heartbeat is just not slowing down...but let’s do it all over again! And I want to do it with my college friends, whom I’ve known for 5 years now...and all of us are in very very serious danger of going apart...and I don’t know how to fix it...partly coz I can’t be bothered half the time..Partly coz the rest half is spending in worrying over it...And when I do try and do something, I get angry coz no one listens to me...

I heard this in the movie O - All my life I always wanted to fly. I always wanted to live like a hawk. I know you're not supposed to be jealous of anything, but... to take flight, to soar above everything and everyone, now that's living.I feel restless, like the winds are changing again...And I want to live...like every day, be that mad person who lives every day for herself...for what it is, there's no "later" time...all there is, is "now"

What's in "there"!

2011-09-14T01:56:00.002+05:30

So sometimes things make no sense...

But then if they had to, would you still do it?

Where is the thrill, the sense of unknown, the little mix

of fear and adrenaline and trying out the new

Sometimes it's the cat, sometimes it's the cat on the doormat

And I do rhyme...once in a blue moon....

Which comes 6 times a year

I wonder how people can live

emotionless, rudderless, anchorless...

just a plain mask..to last their days

And the endless agony resulting from it

When was the last time , you did something for the first time

When was the last time you did something for you...

and something in my opinion means something silly

which you wouldn't want the others to know about

Jump, skip, hop, jive, jig and sway

Scratch your hands, pick your nose and pluck your hair

Don't listen to people, they pull you down

Listen to that voice in your head

or your knee or elbow or your ear

Which says go for it buddy

That little vo soundtrack, specially designed

The most effective of wake up calls

Lean out, feel the drops, wash hands

Close your eyes and feel

The absoluteness of it all

This post came out at 2 am, with no other intention except that my fingers took me on a path of their own...

Rhyme Scheme

2011-09-12T01:05:00.003+05:30

Grand pricks...chudailon ki fauj, pauncho and many other words...Snap...a fragment of time and things change, snap snap, more flashes , what you think is just a simple thing actually turns out to be more complicated...

I've never been good at looking at things from the other person's perspective...but I'm trying to do that...making me more pedantic and geeky but I'm trying nonetheless, might jst help me become a better person...Cause and effect. Yin and Yang...Balance is all....

I love Terry Pratchett, and I sometimes feel that he writes only for himself, which is a very good thing and bad..as a writer it's a great thing since he allows himself to follow only one person. Him. But as a commercial book writer it's a wrong move...He includes footnotes which i guess he puts there only for his private amusement. But I know his books sell like hot cakes and so do his footnotes.

Ganpati, nose boils, mad hours of shoots, too much drinking, too much stretching...like a band stretched to its breaking point....sulks and a few revelations.

Life is what you make of it. Choices are your support

You fall, you win, you lose, you choose

No one can make you "live" without your consent or without you not wanting to

If you wait all your life to be rescued by someone,

Its going to an impossibly long wait...

And the price is priceless, the value of you

Your life, your immortal soul

So wake up and smell the flowers

And try to think of bigger things than rhyme scheme

Trains, shoes and hair

But damnit, I sometimes wish I could rhyme...which I can't for the life of me.But then i would detest the orderliness of it...for in my chaos is my answer :)

Work and play

2011-09-07T01:55:00.002+05:30

It's been a crazy last month so far, from working like a mad dog...to partying like a mad person...to crazy schedules and crazy people, to crazy reasons and even crazier contestants!!

At times like these I feel like giggling like mad or talking nonsense like singing out harpic ads or nirma ads...And when people ask me to shut up..I cannot..it's all the frustration coming out.

I've realised how things can be rectified no matter what, that no situation is beyond our control...shoots of course teach you that...But even in personal life...what you thought is no more salvageable can be salvaged, with a little help from friends...How a little grown up behavior on everyone's part can lighten the atmosphere and brighten up the day..

I've gone from work to partying then another party and then back to work the next day, after 12 hours of shoot, where I've got the living daylights scared out of me...I thought the stuff would haunt me for days...but after that was a 3 hour quiet where I enjoyed, thought, listened, laughed, watched the sea waves crashing against the rocks, wondered about life...thought deep thoughts...and the best part was that all of us were in our own world. Everyone with his thoughts, being helped along by the sea..and the peace..Slept for 4 hours and went back to the seaside...3 water ruled beings....

The best part of humans is that you can never predict them, they surprise each other all the time...

So random

2011-09-03T01:37:00.002+05:30

Coherent thoughts...How does that happen...So much has happened in the past 1 week..so much of it has passed my by and so much of it I have been a part of...

My nose boil post my nose ring refuses to go away..even after copious amounts of haldi every week...part of my nose is permanently tinged with yellow...I check myself in every reflecting surface..and it just seems to be getting bigger!!

Like I wrote on FB, september is a month of many goodbyes...My sister is leaving, Sanaya is leaving and it's suddenly too soon and I haven't got any time...I wonder at times, did i take on too much, should i have spent these months with ppl...then i shake myself..coz they're not dying they're just moving ahead...

Moving ahead is nice...every once in a month I cut my nails super short..so I can't hold things properly then...i just snip them off..same goes with my hair...super short and then long...

An important insight I got into myself today, which explains why people go all uhhh..what did she say around me..I'm so busy trying to get over my shyness that I talk a lot to fill the silence and in my talking a lot , my speed reaches 32 x and no one gets me..or i give out random nervous answers...

Many goodbyes..I said one three days ago. I sometimes think that i will explode one day, with all that I'm carrying inside...How do you behave, what do you say, how do you say it!!! You are supposed to live by your wits and smarts, being nice and honest doesn't help always..But i disagree, you be what you are, it's upto the other person to take him as much as they can..Men can be such pricks sometimes...All they have is porn films for brains!

I've been longing to write poems but my head won't form them

Boundaries

2011-08-27T01:23:00.002+05:30

:) Here I am thinking about how painfully limited life is...And how much there is to do....to live to dream to breathe to love to fight....

I've had too many thoughts this week....most of all are not connected...but they all have something to do with telling me something..over and over and over again...To do what you love...what you like doing...Which is completely different from what you are good at...I may be good at a lot of things, but I love doing only a few things, so I ask myself? What is it that I love? Ergo..I love reading books...that's what I love , deep down..

Writing is a way to express it, but books are even better...so now I have to find a way to merge my writing and my book loving...Sometimes I feel like leaving TV altogether...doing something else..related to the book world...The thought of lesser salary, starting out on something new etc etc scares me..because for all my wordly wise words...I do so love money and the power it gives me...

Airports - That's the first place i went to this week...to see Avi off..Funny how I've always been there to see him off, but never really met him the time he was in India...Avinash is my on off friend..the lab partner who bugged me throughout from physics to chem to bio..who urged me to copy and finish my piece fast..who took away my chem journal and returned it wrapped post the diwali holidays and was down two floors before i cud shout and throw it back at him..avi who turns up on my 20th bday with coconuts as a gift..and carrots :) he's been the constant who kept on changing...Whenever i meet him...i can start on anything but my mile wide smile won't go

Love - Funny how people who claimed to be so famously in love with you in college hate you now..or act all cool...but now I do realise their plight...If it's not returned and you've tried your best..all you can do is withdraw..maybe u can't really forgive the person for not choosing you..over others..

Children - How everywhere they are pretty much the same..the other day a child in the train was playng with the stars on my chappals...and the same day my nephew almost tried to pull my nose ring off...breaking my nose in the process...almost...How a child at Khar station can walk with his pants on his head...while another will stamp his feet and roll on the ground in a mall, much to the chagrin of his parents

When people don't let beggars touch them in autos..or don't give change to a woman selling trinkets in the train...in exchange for a 100 rupee note..I get supremely pissed off...All my anger which is never far away simmers out..it's not like she's begging or stealing..she's asking for money in return for money...these are the same people who will walk past injustice thinking it has nothing to do with them...

I sometimes get disturbed when i see the amount of exploitation that tv does to people...Nishchay even asked me if I was okay...there are times when I get pissed off..mad working hours, madder deadlines..no respect for human worth..there are millions to toil and take my place...only if someone somewhere puts a stop and tries to put things in time...so many people will have decent lives.

I meant for this post to have some lightness..but im guessing too much angst has been building up

Sensex graph

2011-08-22T01:33:00.003+05:30

I can sense the change..Or maybe I've been reading too much of Chocolat...Winds, signals, wandering feet.

I feel like a gypsy today, a; little wild eyed and nervous...A little reckless and bold. Thinking only of what tommorow may bring. But the patterns are changing, I find myself taking a chance...I find myself being more sneaky and conniving, more determined to succeed, to live...

September will be a month for goodbyes..My sister, my nephew, Sanaya...Avi...A new world for them...new paths to carve...I wonder if I'll get the time...so like a greedy child I hoard the moments...collecting them hastily before they leave.

I've learnt that even friends forget, if you aren't there enough number of times...You need to remind them of your presence at times...I've learned that my mom cannot handle a con call...she simply doesn't get the technique..

I;ve learnt how ppl whom you may hate at one point..or not care for can be your really close ones

Kids are young adults and they hate being treated like kids.

Men will stumble...not by looking at you. But because they tripped over an unseen stone.

Lastly, taxi fares are like gold prices..pretty soon I might have to sell my kidneys to afford a cab..

The blog title refers to my state of mind...sensex graph...highs and lows :P

Changing winds

2011-08-15T00:07:00.002+05:30

I may say it's purging of a kind...Or the fact that I have simply come to terms with me...Myself and my restless mind. And my dad interrupted me..hence the flow of words have stopped. To write, interminably, till mind and hand both cry out in agony..Or boredom. Such a scary word. Boredom.

I feel light...after many months of hatred, anger, annoyance. I feel light, strong enough to accept things and yet sometimes I feel the need. But I know better now.

Life isn't simply working. It's about feeling. Feeling is the essence. I read books as an escape.. plan things in my head and I dream. And my dreams have come back. With color, dialogue and even feelings. I can sense. Touch.

I'm not a true guju, the mighty thepla blood doesn't run in my veins...since I cannot hang on to money. It runs the water. And each I make a pact to myself. Today I shall save. No, nahin, naaa...Can't..Little trinkets amuse me. Make me happy. Nothing major, I just like to look, browse, watch the sparkle and tinkle.

So I take a few minutes and watch. I like watching, people, trees, buses, animals...sometimes I rudely stare, unaware that I'm doing so...till people catch me. In reality I'm only looking at how their features are...determining how they are as people...their personality, their character.

The feel of wind, carrying with it the scent of rain and earth, which blows through my hair, makes me want to jump and break out into a song...or the lovely view of the railyard, green, cool and mysterious wih big sprawling trees and desolated outhouses. I always want to go there.

Today I asked myself a very important question - what is a bad friend? Or rather, what is a good friend? The one who tells you everything, who takes an active part in your life...and tells you when you're wrong?

And like always I come back to my argument - "Preconceived notions". A friend can be someone who is only interested in you till a certain level, beyond which he doesn't care for you...same goes for you and someone else...So what is a good friend? And a bad friend?

Lastly the puzzler - Who came first, the saas aur the bahu?

In the longest time

2011-08-01T12:45:00.002+05:30

In the longest time,

I finally got wet in the rain...All by myself

In the longest time,

I found solitude and peace...

In the longest time,

I got my nose pierced, after ages...

In the longest time,

I spent a saturday with friends...old ones

And followed up with coffee later on...

In the longest time,

I had a night out, where I saw 2 movies back to back

In the longest time,

I did absolutely nothing...and yet I didn't mind it

In the longest time

I did what I always wanted to do.....what I planned to do.

In the weekdays, when I got bored with work...When I wanted a break

When I wanted to fly, looking at the grey clouds gathering...

When I wanted to just be by myself....without all the noise around

I did a lot of things this Sunday...All of which I had imagined doing...And I just wanted some time to get around to doing them

I know the feeling...It's called being content

Turn back time

2011-07-12T21:10:00.000+05:30

We are no longer the same, the two of us.

Different people, that time was our time

And we are no longer in that time,

No more the same people, no more the same emotions

But that was a different time

And those were different people

Cheesy

2011-07-03T23:43:00.003+05:30

It's been 5 days now and I've been eating chaat at the same stall at around the same time in a row...The stall guy thinks im mad. Coz I order only pani puri and sevpuri regularly like clockwork...for the past 5 days. Maybe I should get a membership card. Maybe he can give me some discounts, best customer so on and so forth...

I looked at my old blog posts today...and the pattern looked the same, the treatment the same and the tone help me god was the same. The fun has gone, so has the will to write...to amuse, to get amused...to wonder and to question.

Society, this is the way to behave. If you need money, if you need fame, if you want to live. You can't tell people to go fuck themselves, you can't question because it's disrespectful and rude, and you cannot have a mind which allows you to point out what is wrong in the system...Spirit is quenched because before you, their spirits were crushed and countless others's before them. Young blood, young blood....and in their minds is a big stopblock..do not speak out of turn.

Smiling is so important. Makes you feel human, sometimes the whole of your day goes by frowning at the computer screen, till suddenly someone makes a joke and you laugh your guts out....and it seems so alien, yet so right and suddenly the line between your eyes is gone..

So people forget and have their moods and while you did try, maybe they don't see you as a part of their lives, if its happening too many times in a row..something's wrong with you boss and you need to change.

Getting tired for the wrong reasons is not allowed. Mental tiredness makes you feel like butter stretched too thin....weary and old. I feel old. But I am not and I see it in my eyes....So i'm going to resolve to not feel it. It's all in your hands...in your control. Worry when you have to, rest all is free will.

At the risk of sounding demented and mad, I shall say that life sucks..but i'm working at it. It's not so bad and If i keep on working like a dog and lamenting i have no life and i didnt enjoy it...or watch movies or go to lonavla in the rains..It's all upto me. To make it happen.

So I shall..And my writing has become pathetic..so post a day to get my writer to sway.

Sheesh :)

Drama

2011-06-26T23:56:00.003+05:30

And so it begins,

another poem to end the circle of the previous one. I feel like laughing at myself, for such tragedy, for such tiredness, for such exhaustion. I'm using my brain, like a weight lift, the more I lift, the heavier it gets.

So,it has been a month of changes, of endings and new beginnings that finally happened. I'm working on a show which teaches me to survive, to be poised and to live. I'm meeting people who teach me to work, to laugh at them and with them (2 different breeds entirely), I'm learning that TV work in the "outside" world is not rocket science. It's just work and the rest is someone else's headache.

What have I done? is the most redundant question which has no answer which will suit you. Because what you want to hear will never be told to you. Guilt trips make me feel 40 and I've started looking 26 rather than 22, so I will need to work on that. Working on me means giving me a break and seeing life from what I saw it in BMM.....

So what if something is twisted, it will untwist again at some point. And when the light breaks free, may all raise their hands to shield eyes from the glare.

I love drama :)

AHA..Nailed it

2011-05-16T16:27:00.002+05:30

I'm bored with actual writing, hence it will quotes today

-All babies are aspiring nudists (My nephew being the champion)

- Motherhood is part slavery, part bravery

- I can rhyme, but only once in a blue moon. The rest of the time, I'm rapping

- "I love you " is the most delusional, conspiracy theory ever

- The day you wear your best shoes will be the day it rains

- I am not so fat is a phrase used to put you into a trance, till one day you wake up and realise that judgement day has arrived. Sneaked up on you infact. You are FAT.

- Girls are mean bitches, boys are even worse

- Sometimes friends get stuck in a time warp, or it's you who's moved too fast. The ones you feel worth waiting for, or who wait for you....last a lifetime. The rest are just phases

- When you look nack and say, "What a fool I was"..It's always true and the realisation is mortifying and funny at the same time

- Never ever mess with people in central and harbour line trains

- Never stop at one pair of shoes, what if they run out?

- It's all always about choice. You choose, you decide, you fall, you win. It's you

-

What I am

2011-05-06T19:12:00.003+05:30

I look in the face of temptation

And now I'm strong.

I look at its shapes, its varying nature

And I feel, sense and I'm strong.

I endure it's allure, it's scent

And I am in control. I am strong.

I go to its place.I feel. I remember

I look back and I smile. And now I'm strong.

I do not yield. I am not rigid

I am like wind that blows through the rain

Strong enough to knock you down, yet exciting enough to face more of it.

To crave more of it

I am like the water that leaves trails in the rock

Gentle, yet insistent

Carving a way after many many a time

I do not yield. I choose. I decide.

I am not rigid. I am strong. I am strong.

Now what?

2011-04-10T23:56:00.002+05:30

I haven't written since ages. But I don't feel guilty. It's not because I couldn't, or didn't want to. But because I had no time to write. The music has come back in my head. Stronger than before and my head all but bursts with the light of it. With the strength, the intensity and the flow....the words which don't stop.

And now I realise while it's silly to stop or have so much pain that it stops, I know it won't hurt so much again....or maybe it will. But the music will come back. The words will flow.

I've changed, become weaker, spineless and more vulnerable. More assurance seeking, less confident. But I've also become calmer, less temperamental. Infintely more boring. God knows why.That drive to do new things has gone...So gone. No new take the day as it comes and explore and do mad things. More like, days come and go..planning is important, slotting is important. Boring is important.

I am a geek, always was. I don't know any other way to be. I like control and I love putting things in their place in my head. Which is when I can face them and talk. But random things....need to start being random.

For my own sanity and overall health. Life doesn't stop. While the greatest of scars remain with you forver and remind you of the battles won, they also fade with time..Until they are no more but a memory.

I have or rather had a HUGE wishlist, when I was a child. Astronaut,deep sea diver, explorer, engineer, doctor.......

Here I am, not even a writer. Mediocrity has me in its grip. But I'm going to escape. And live, for me. Fully till all my energy is sapped and it's time for sleep.

I exist, I work,I live

For me.

WE

2011-03-12T14:29:00.001+05:30

We the chutiyas

We the abused

We the losers

We are the underpaid

We are the underdogs

We are the ones who have no life, no love and even nothing

....In between

We the ditched

We the bitched

We the work whores

We the ignored

And when all is lost

We the crying shoulders

We the tear erasers

We the secret bearers

Ultimately...we the brunt bearers

THE MONTH THAT WAS

2011-02-26T23:50:00.002+05:30

The past 1 month has been scary, tiring, exhausting, challenging, mind fucking, travelling and many ings.

I'm glad it's come to and end, though the last week was fun with some of the best memories of my nephew and...elphinstone station which should be bombed...for not having exits.

Lessons were learnt, taught and reflected. Hearts were broken, heated words and civil exchanges, laughter and sadness, tears and rib tickling moments. I feel as though I've passed through the marshes of mordor and entered the land of the dark lord.

But now I can see the white tower and I can sense the trees growing..

It;s funny how much children can give you hope, and make you free, from everything. I feel that if Arin hadn't come, I would have died of misery and tension, every day. Being with him, talking, playing and taking care made me feel free in a way that I haven't felt in months. And I know that when he leaves tommorow, I shall miss him terribly. But then, I have the joy of a nephew and the convenience to visit him whenever..my own personal very much own stressbuster.

Office politics are a way of life..It's when you keep your head clear and your heart clean that you can look people in the eye and tell them actually what you think is the problem. No accusations, just suggestions. What you feel shouldn't be discussed, it gets perceived as opinions and opinions can make opinions.

Stress adds to your waistline..In my case I think it adds everywhere. Including my hair, which is steadily turning grey.

Numbness cannot, should not be perceived as lack of feeling. Sometimes, things take longer, and it's ok coz we can survive and live day after day.And when all is said and done..It's never right to blame one person..You can't force people. Free will.

Things don't work..sometimes temporarily, sometimes not at all. But that's ok, all we need to do is find a substitute for the things that don't work and be happy with that.

Imagination can go a lot into overdrive and imagine things which are at best a flash in the pan. Never depend on imagination, always verify it with a cross check from the brain. And don't watch too many chick flicks.

Everyone is serious these days, it's a way of life. Intense, sad and practical on the outside. Dying of drama inside. Sometimes I think the whole world is a reality show and the ones who win are the ones who are sad and mad and do crazy things..Just like Dolly Bindra in big boss. The ones who don't have much intensity get dropped out.

Tears come and go, prickling at the back. But mostly they're from tiredness not sadness. From frustration and not from pain. From self pity and not from courage. Not from character. It's best to shed these alone and be happy and yourself when you meet people. No one can take you that way.

I miss my friends..all of them. I have become strangely anti social in the last 2 months. Work even though it keeps me busy...really busy. I still do have time to do my thing. But I don't and I fear that I will lose out on all my friends if i behave like this and continue to be in hibernation. But I cant bring myself to call anyone up or do anything.

Family, house and domesticity. It's a providing game and no one who tells you thats it not enough knows what you're going through. So i'm giving myself some slack on that, since I know im trying to take it all in. As much as I can.

Career, and some serious introspections need to be done. I feel hesitant even writing about this, since I know that it will serve as a reminder for me to not push things under the carpet. But some new horizons that I have explored which I have liked. Lets see. What I need is focus and less of faffing and more of concentration and ambition.

All in all, I'm glad that the month is over. Especially last week. It's been one of my toughest journeys so far and I cannot imagine how I could get day after day with that cloud hanging over me. It still does..but i chose to overlook it, till i can blow it apart. And now my sister is interrupting me..so i cannot write in peace.

It's been a first since many months that I have immediately penned down any though that has come to my head.. and that too from my house, not my office. And that too in prose form. That means im happy. I write in poem when i'm sad...

I'm still restless in my mind about this post, I don't know where and when to end it, I still feel like rambling. But i know i will be disturbed.

Peace then. Till the next time.

Silence will stop and not resound

Not anymore. For I have arrived

The night the bed fell - James Thurber

2011-02-24T19:05:00.002+05:30

This is a story I found in my 8th std english textbook. I fell in love with it.

THE NIGHT THE BED FELL

I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father. It makes a better recitation (unless, as some friends of mine have said, one has heard it five or six times) than it does a piece of writing, for it is almost necessary to throw furniture around, shake doors, and bark like a dog, to lend the proper atmosphere and verisimilitude to what is admittedly a somewhat incredible tale. Still, it did take place.

It happened, then, that my father had decided to sleep in the attic one night, to be away where he could think. My mother opposed the notion strongly because, she said, the old wooden bed up there was unsafe- it was wobbly and the heavy headboard would crash down on father's head in case the bed fell, and kill him. There was no dissuading him, however, and at a quarter past ten he closed the attic door behind him and went up the narrow twisting stairs. We later heard ominous creakings as he crawled into bed. Grandfather, who usually slept in the attic bed when he was with us, had disappeared some days before. (On these occasions he was usually gone six or seven days and returned growling and out of temper, with the news that the federal Union was run by a passel of blockheads and that the Army of the Potomac didn't have any more chance than a fiddler's bitch.)

We had visiting us at this time a nervous first cousin of mine named Briggs Beall, who believed that he was likely to cease breathing when he was asleep. It was his feeling that if he were not awakened every hour during the night, he might die of suffocation. He had been accustomed to setting an alarm clock to ring at intervals until morning, but I persuaded him to abandon this. He slept in my room and I told him that I was such a light sleeper that if anybody quit breathing in the same room with me, I would wake Instantly. He tested me the first night-which I had suspected he would by holding his breath after my regular breathing had convinced him I was asleep. I was not asleep, however, and called to him. This seemed to allay his fears a little, but he took the precaution of putting a class of spirits of camphor on a little table at the head of his bed. In case I didn't arouse him until he was almost gone, he said, he would sniff the camphor, a powerful reviver.

Briggs was not the only member of his family who had his crotchets. Old Aunt Alelissa Beall (who could whistle like a man, with two fingers in her mouth) suffered under the premonition that she was destined to die on South High Street, because she had been born on South High Street and married on South High Street. Then there was Aunt Sarah Shoaf, who never went to bed at night without the fear that a burglar was going to get in and blow chloroform under her door through a tube. To avert this calamity -for she was in greater dread of anesthetics than of losing her household goods-she always piled her money, silverware, and other valuables in a neat stack just outside her bedroom, with a note reading,: "This is all I have. Please take it and do not use your chloroform, as this is all I have." Aunt Gracie Shoaf also had a burglar phobia, but she met it with more fortitude. She was confident that burglars had been getting into her house every night for four years. The fact that she never missed anything was to her no proof to the contrary. She always claimed that she scared them off before they could take anything, by throwing shoes down the hallway. When she went to bed she piled, where she could get at them handily, all the shoes there were about her house. Five minutes after she had turned off the light, she would sit up in bed and say "Hark!" Her husband, who had learned to ignore the whole situation as long ago as 1903, would either be sound asleep or pretend to be sound asleep. In either case he would not respond to her tugging and pulling, so that presently she would arise, tiptoe to the door, open it slightly and heave a shoe down the hall in one direction, and its mate down the hall in the other direction. Some nights she threw them all, some nights only a couple of pair.

But I am straying from the remarkable incidents that took place during the night that the bed fell on father. By midnight we were all in bed. The layout of the rooms and the disposition of their occupants is important to an understanding of what later occurred. In the front room upstairs (just under father's attic bedroom) were my mother and my brother Terry, who sometimes sang in his sleep, usually "Marching Through Georgia" or "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Briggs Beall and myself were in a room adjoining this one. My brother Roy was in a room across the hall from ours. Our bull terrier, Rex, slept in the hall.

My bed was an army cot, one of those affairs which are made wide enough to sleep on comfortably only by putting up, flat with the middle section, the two sides which ordinarily hang down like the sideboards of a drop-leaf table. When these sides are up, it is perilous to roll too far toward the edge, for then the cot is likely to tip completely over, bringing the whole bed down on top of one, with a tremendous banging crash. This, in fact, is precisely what happened, about two o'clock in the morning. (It was my mother who, in recalling the scene later, first referred to it as "the night the bed fell on your father.")

Always a deep sleeper, slow to arouse (I had lied to Briggs), I was at first unconscious of what had happened when the iron cot rolled me onto the floor and toppled over on me. It left me still warmly bundled up and unhurt, for the bed rested above me like a canopy. Hence I did not wake up, only reached-the edge of consciousness and went back. The racket, however, instantly awakened my mother, in the next room, who came to the immediate conclusion that her worst dread was realized: the big wooden bed upstairs had fallen on father. She therefore screamed, "Let's go to your poor father!" It was this shout, rather, than the noise of my cot falling, that awakened Herman, in the same room with her. He thought that mother had become, for no apparent reason, hysterical. "You're all right, Mamma!" He shouted, trying, to calm her. They exchanged shout for shout for perhaps ten seconds: "Let's go to your poor father!" and "You're all right! " That woke up Briggs. By this time I was conscious of what was going on, in a vague way, but did not yet realize that I was under my bed instead of on it. Briggs, awakening in the midst of loud shouts of fear and apprehension, came to the quick conclusion that he was suffocating and that we were all trying to "bring him out." With a low moan, he grasped the glass of camphor at the head of his bed and instead of sniffing it poured it over himself. The room reeked of camphor. "Ugh, ugh," choked Briggs, like a drowning man, for he had almost succeeded in stopping his breathing under the deluge of pungent spirits. He leaped out of bed and groped toward the open window, but he came up against one that was closed. With his hand, he beat out the glass, and I could hear it crash and tinkle on the alleyway below. It was at this juncture that I, in trying to get up, had the uncanny sensation of feeling my bed above me. Foggy with sleep, I now suspected, in my turn, that the whole uproar was being made in a frantic endeavor to extricate me from what must be an unheard-of and perilous situation. "Get me out of this!" I bawled. "Get me out!" I think I had the nightmarish belief that I was entombed in a mine. "Ugh," gasped Briggs, floundering in his camphor.

By this time my mother, still shouting, pursued by Herman, still shouting, was trying to open the door to the attic, in order to' go up and get my father's body out of the wreckage. The door was stuck, however, and wouldn't yield. Her frantic pulls on it only added to the general banging and confusion. Roy and the dog were now up, the one shouting questions, the other barking.

Father, farthest away and soundest sleeper of all, had by this time been awakened by the battering on the attic door. He decided that the house was on fire. "I'm coming, I'm coming,!" be wailed in a slow, sleepy voice-it took him many minutes to regain full consciousness. My mother, still believing he was caught under the bed, detected in his "I'm coming!" the mournful, resigned note of one who is preparing to meet his Maker. "He's dying!" she shouted.

"I'm all right!" Briggs yelled to reassure her. "I'm all right!" He still believed that it was his own closeness to death that was worrying mother. I found at last the light switch in my room, unlocked the door, and Briggs and I joined the others at the attic door. The dog, who never did like Briggs, jumped for him assuming that he was the culprit in whatever was going on and Roy had to throw Rex and hold him. We could hear father crawling out of bed upstairs. Roy pulled the attic door open, with a mighty jerk, and father came down the stairs, sleepy and irritable but safe and sound. My mother began to weep when she saw him. Rex began to-howl. "What in the name of God "s going on here?" asked father.

The situation was finally put together like a gigantic jig-saw puzzle. Father caught a cold from prowling around in his bare feet but there were no other bad results. "I'm glad," said mother, who always looked on the bright side of things, "that your grandfather wasn't here."

Lights

2011-02-22T10:15:00.002+05:30

The lights blur..Misshaped edges

Pinpricks of lights..blue, yellow, green and red

I blink once..twice, thrice

They still remain the same

I blink hard, trying to focus..

And the lights come into view

Still a little blurred around the edges

But clearer now...

I peek out...Looking through the window

At the other houses in between

Faces upon faces, etched into memory

A slice of life..at every window

Babies crying, parents howling

Lovers shouting, siblings fighting

Peaceful dinners, blaring televisions

Intensive chats, sleepy shoulders

I look at them all, blinking hard

Trying to clear away the mists

The lights go out of focus again

Pinpricks of yellow, blue, green and red

Blink once, twice, thrice

The lights come and go...Like waves in an ocean

And I'm sitting by the window.

Waiting for someone to switch on the lights.

UNDISCLOSED

2011-02-04T11:35:00.002+05:30

Expectations can kill you, till nothing is left

How do you deal with people who expect things from you?

And whom you expect things from?

Cycle..circle within a circle

A likes B likes C likes D

Very often, A & C match

B finds someone else, and is content

But what about D, is he the loser

Does he in scheme of variables become the one who loses out?

What happens to D then?

D is shut, locked from the world

To not hurt and not live

But the cautious do not live at all

At least the foolish have fun while they live

And end it..through their own means

Who loses out? Or do they?

Does losing mean not having?

Or does it mean living alone

Who defines losing and how do we judge it

The grass is greener on the other side they say

But only the grass knows its actual color

Patterns

2011-01-17T19:08:00.002+05:30

It's like male pattern baldness

Keeps on initiating

No matter how many times you get a hair weave

Either go bald or keep trying

Get a wig

Get extensions

Or extreme

Chop your head off

Into the heart of fire

2011-01-12T23:33:00.007+05:30

The wood smoke burns the eyes

And the sharp sting of it smells

Yet is roomy, home

y and smoky

Sensous with its heated promises

and unspoken warmth

The men camp around it,

Looking into it with their hands stretched

out

To the casual observer, it seems like

It seems like a group

But only they know the secret

Each man stares, as if looking into his demons

His inner secrets and desires

into the red heart of the fire

where flames burn the hottest and brightest

And one can get lost trying to trace each pattern

Each man stares, looking, seeking, deriving

One by one, the people drop away

Their answers left unanswered

Their bodies warm and minds cold

The few remain seeking

Staring into the very heart,

As if staring into a mirror

And unbidden, a spark leaps out

A leaf catches fire and burns itself to ash

And the man has got his answer

Revelation

2011-01-03T18:58:00.002+05:30

Shattering and scattering

And a world comes back

Into itself

World within a world

Memories flood back

Karma or fate

anyways it's the same

And one to die

One to break

To be thankful later

And weep in gratitude

But the ego is a fragile thing

And cracks can be taped up

But their marks remain

Etching and re-etching with fingers

Till the tapes break open

And cracks gape open

But people learn

Things change, we grow

Older, wiser, weaker

For strength is sapped away

When you are a child

When you don't need assurances

When you have your own

World within a world

Shattering and scattering

What comes next?

To do what needs to be done

And live, freely, fully

Not taking advantage,

Not judging, not promoting

Not assuming

A world within a world

A search to find that core

Of contentment, of love, of work

Of focus, of power and will

There is, simply is more to life

Than just this

No need to hide

Or to judge

Or to lie

Or to cry

There is more to life, like hammocks

And the play of afternoon light against trees

And the laughter of a delighted child

And the way an ocean sparkles in the light

How fairy tales exist, if you believe

And the wonders never cease

And treasuring is more important

Than judging and hoarding

Like a miser, analysing and blaming

Work on yourself, since you are

You exist, for you

Therefore you must live

Or die in the pages of a book

Immortal but sad

The Boy and the orange

2010-12-20T23:20:00.002+05:30

A sharp tangy smell filled the air..sweet and sour...everyone was quiet. But the smell pervaded everyone's senses..so much so that the woman standing at the door..leaning out into the wind..sad and pensive also looked around for the source of the smell...no one. Everyone was lost in their own world swaying with the motion of the train. When she suddenlsy spotted her..A solitary wman, purse at her side was slowly peeling an orange...this then was the smell that had been tickling their noses.

The boy looked at her with a istful exoression...the orange seemed like the last morsel on earth..and he saw it dissapear piece by piece into the woman's mouth..He swallowed..thinking of the time when he had last eaten an orange. Nothing came to his mind..even his spit had dried up at the mere sight of the orange.

Bright and succulent, it tempted him, antagonised him..till he thought he would die if he didnt get a bite of that orange..he tried persuading with his eyes..for he was no beggar..he was an honest worker..selling combs in the trains., he kept himself clean and presentable..But right now he was willing to beg for a piece of that orange. The woman kept on eating..spitting out seeds on the floor..the smell tantalizing him at every step ..he prayed for a miracle..maybe she had another one which she would give him..but he wanted this one..this orange.

And suddenly it happened, the train gained speed and gacve a terrific lurch. The woman slipped, lost her balance and the slice she was eating fell onto the floor and rollled where the boy was sitting. Fate, providence, luck!! She looked at the fallen piece in dismay but then seeing she couldsnt do anything about it. She shrugged and resumed eating the rest of the orange...qhile the boy slyly crept his hand out and stole the orange slice..from there it reached his mouth in 5 seconds and within 10 seconds he was slowly relishing the tangy flavor of the orange seeds in the his mouth..Bliss in its purest form had pervaded him.

He spat out the orange seeds into the moving night...and rested back..Home would soon be coming

Snip Snap Rituals

2010-12-07T18:41:00.003+05:30

When you cut hair, its a process. It's as good as going to the dentist or to the doctor for a routine checkup.

Stylist - "Do you do drugs/ consume alchohol/ smoke?

Me - (In disbelief and righteous indignation) No!! Of course not.

Stylist -"Then how come your losing hair so much? And you have an endless supply of grey hair"

Me - (Ummm..how do i know?) I don't know ..stress maybe

Stylist - (In bored resignation) Ok..watever

Me - Ok..so I want a short and new look...Ok something which i can tie a half pony with

Stylist - (Half pony!!!!! How downmarket) Umm No, I dont think so.. No half ponies. Just short free flowing hair

Me - (Sigh..she's the boss) Ok..But it will look nice right

FACT - Here i am forced to deviate from this discussion to add that whenever you tell a stylist that i want a fuss free, no maintenance hairstyle. TRUST ME that is exactly what you ARE not going to get. A certain amount of fussing, styling will be required every day till you decide to fuck it and not bother with your hair (This usually happens to me by the end of one week post the new haircut)

So coming back to my haircut

The Stylist conducts strange rituals with my hair, while her assistants flit about trying to collect hair from the floor, pass her the surgical instruments and I'm sitting in one position stiff and bored to death while she snips, takes stock, measures, snips again. She is tired, I can sense that, cutting long hair to a bob is not easy, especially when you have a disposition like mine where I can't sit still for a minute

Stylist (After requesting for a chair) Bobs are not easy with long hair

Me - (Too tired to even more and plus I can't move) umm hmm

Sytlist - Just 15 minutes now

Me -(Thank God Thank God Thank god. The crick in my neck is awful) Weak smile

15 minutes elapse, but do i get to move? NO!

Stylist - Just one last minute clean up (while snipping my hair at the ends)

Me - Ok..(And suddenly she snips the scissors too close and leaves a cut on my neck)

Stylist - Oh shit oh shit oh shit..Im so so so sorry

Me (Should I walk out?The haircut;s done and make a scene and refuse to pay? thus saving 800 bucks)

Me - (Sense prevails) It's ok, just be careful

Stylist (relieved look) Cool I'm so so sorry..there we're done!

Me - (Checking if my neck can still move, my legs have cramped up) wow..I need a minute to get my organs working here. (I look at the mirror finally with a better angle)

Me - WOW..i love love love it :) Thank you so much

So, it all turns out well in the end, I pay 880 bucks after a discount thanking her and hoping against hope that the haircut is worth 880 bucks. She tells me to come again for hair coloring..subtle and bold. I thank her but I think not. She's a very sweet lady, and she's happy that I'm happy.

I walk out swinging my bob from end to end checking out my hair in my shadow.

I feel good..I feel good.

CREEPY MEN

2010-11-27T10:30:00.003+05:30

10 signs of creepy men

- Checking out your number when you go to pay your fone bill and saving it in his phone. Calling you later just say "Hey..found you very cute: - The guy behind you at the Kiosk

Instant Action - Don't reply! Stay far far away

- Meeting you at some random party, striking up a conversation. Then stalking you on Facebook and consistently adding you, in spite of ignoring their friendship requests.

Instant Action - Add them and then after 3-4 days, sneakily delete them!

- Men who try to come on to you after they have just randomly met you just once, through common friends/workplace/party etc. They will source your number and then call you randomly and "expect" you to remember them. What is worse, they talk to you like you're long lost buddies...while you go "ummm..I still can't attach a face to this voice"

Instant Action - I have judgement reserved on these as of now...But I would just say talk on the phone..sms..and see. If the conversation becomes too creepy and nauseating..Cut it :)

My special theme song (Lyrics by Rituja Sawant & me)

Creepy man, creepy man

Over friendly creepy man

Here comes the creepy man

PS. - Further inputs will be added post discussions with my girlfriends

Anchorless

2010-11-26T18:37:00.002+05:30

I will write convoluted today
The end of the old and the start of the new
Rudderless and anchorless
Or maybe that is just imagination

Who will understand what I say?
But isn't that what makes writers?
People who write because they can, because they feel
Because they know and because they know no other way

The end of the old, and what always was
And how it was and little things
It zero dependence, zero despondency
2 months, 3 months..how long will it take?

How do I judge? How do I gauge?
I don't, I just let it be
I imagine myself strong, hair tied back
Bag at my back, all neat and professional
Not an emotion, not a thought, not a hair out of place

We all go through processes
Tried and tested methods, chicken soup, music and hugs
No more vodafone calls, no more routine
No more of the old, the old has ended
No more of the new, the new hasn't begun

How does hope still spring eternal?
I seem to have an endless reserve for it
Or I am just a victim of the novels
I refuse to be cynical
Or jaded or weird

I just want to be...and be graceful
Dignified and me...
Strong, neat, professional,
No more pleading or justifying
No more force, just be

Free will..
As for destiny, we shall see

ACCEPTANCE

2010-11-11T21:06:00.000+05:30

Sad sagas are made of broken hearts

and failed love stories

and unsuccessful career attempts

When you go bankrupt,

Emotionally and financially

When you shatter in pieces

Feeling like you can never gather yourself again

When every thing makes you bitter

and cynical, reminding of failure every time

When you know that you have to start at the bottom

Laboriously, going up till you reach the very top

But very few have the vision and clear sight..

Or should I say the courage and the strength

To do what needs to be done

To break away from the poison ivy

And stop the leeches

And do what needs to be done

I write of such brave things

And feel like reading a brave new world

Where light dispels darkness, every time

But the light needs to be conquered first

It is a dangerous path, with failures which need to be faced

And to live with them..and accept and be

I wonder if I have both? Courage and strength?

Can I look inside me and accept the leeches

And pull them out to accept the raw pain

And live with it till the wounds heal

Such morbid stuff I write

I need more of summer moonshine

And P.G Wodehouses and Faraway trees

My personal art of living class :)

Plain rubbish

2010-10-04T02:22:00.003+05:30

And what does one write at 2.00 in the night? Stories of love, horror, friendship or just plain rubbish?
I think I'll settle for plain rubbish

My poems start with questions...complicated ones
Answers to which are things I already know..
But I choose to be blind or bury my head in the sand
Oblivious to what keeps talking in my ear all along

For I already know, it is what to do with that knowing
Accept it and live..or fight and go upstream all along the way
I'm of divided opinion...my mind swaying like a pendulum

Rarely do I believe I have the courage to accept what is..
And what will be, and what was...without any illusions

Mere mirror and smoke...an essence of solidarity
A hint, a glint..but you puff at it and it's gone
Is the knowing then better? For clarity and sanity?
Or is too bleak an opinion, devoid of light and positivity?

Introspection, which always scares me...I leave it halfway
Always, to never go back on the same point...till it bumps up again
And I have to sort it....as best as I can..which isn't much
It's silly how I crave what others have, while denouncing the same

If someone asked me what I want right now...I would say the power to live
With my choices, half baked ones, bad ones, good ones...the ones I will make
And be happy...just happy without endless agony over the if's, but's, why's and I don't think so's

Arteriosclerosis

2010-09-15T00:49:00.004+05:30

I always found the word "Arteriosclerosis" very interesting..It means hardening of the arteries due to cholesterol accumulation...I think I have arteriosclerosis of the heart and brain..hardening of both due to over information, over exposure and a hundred experiences and mistakes to choose from...depends what you choose though..positive or the negative..

I like wikipedia and the fact that all the different links can take you from one place to another to another...till you go like wow...I didn't know that this existed..Like I came to know that Lokmanya Tilak wrote an entire book on the life in the arctic in the last ice age..and he said that the Aryans lived there..In the same way David Sassoon was a jewish spanish banker whose family is closely connected to the Cholmondely family and the Cholmondely family I think is similiar to the Cholamandalam family who are also into finance...I am sure there must be some connection between the two

I thought this would be about how relationships should be and what is sacrifice..what is adjusting yourself to make others happy..But those points barely come to me now..What comes is the fun time I had with Lagna and Siddhi...And the adlibbing we did for those silly serials...It's fun to be a girl..and more so when you two people to share it....No judgments..No comments...except silly ones, just fun

We speak of allowing people to live their life...and we do the exact opposite by passing judgements and putting them in slots in our mind, I know I do that..I like pegging people and seeing if they fit in with my description of them..If they do..yay points to me...If they don't i end up feeling like a jerk and dumbo

Tommorow I have fiction ideas which I shall pitch to Anil, not exactly original but interesting enough..I will just have to pitch them hard enough to sell them to Anil..Once he is sold..the channel will follow....I like TV..After a year and 6 months..it is still interesting

Birthdays just keep on coming...so do gifts and the process of buying them. I realise that the being together matters...Not where you come from or what you do...So much is at stake that running it is hard work...And while too many comparisons can kill a person...Too much silence can wound and fester doubts where none existed before..Balance is important, so is not pointing fingers

I am a contrary person..I say and do things very differently...Hypocritical isnt it...But it is not conscious..And while i will make amends.. I will also not bow down and be quiet

ummmm....no name?

2010-09-14T00:38:00.000+05:30

It has been a crazy week or let's just say a crazy month throughout...But there was work..so much so that everything else did blur in comparison. And there was love which I could still feel while working.and there were fights, petty rivalries, pressures and pleasures both...with a lot of funny moments in between, I remmeber living the forst and second schedule of raaz with a tissue up my nose and small bottle of vicks in my had..a wlalkie in one ear and the other had a up of cofee..long gone cold..badly made with milk powder...

I felt important and nice..to walk around with a walkie..to be behind the scenes..to be the one who makes things happen..to be a part of sa team who made things happen...My hand is aching from excessive typing i guess...Truth to be told i think it is excessove typing on fb not at work...Meanwhle career guilt still continues to haunt me..but I have lost weoght/ a noticeable amount..so there are times when i am at my worst best and i look like an emaciated rabbit..at others i look like a failed 70s actres and many others i look like a cute girl (these days are extremely rare)...the after effects of cutting your own hair

I had many poiints to make in this blog now that i have finally started back and many things had/have caught my attention which i wanted to taslk about..but unfortunaely i cant recall any of them..except the 21 story..the 21 story is my story...A coming of age observation where i oberserved how happy and free and i am...how i am getting a lot of freedom to choose, live, spend and I like this age, this phase..I dont worrry about tommorow too much or the fact that i wont be 21 more than once in my life..once is enough and im happy...To roam about at 9.30 in dadar..or catch a train at 11 or meet friends at my fancy or take out my mom shopping...or take decisions on major things...It's an incredible sense of freedom that I feel and I enjoy and revel in it...

I realise that while people may be cynical, practical, defensive and all that synonyms you use when you dont want to be in love...Love is...simply...it just is and nothing on earth can stop you from making a fool of yourself..and I see no reason why you shouldn't be a love fooll.atleast once in your life..we all of us make mistakes..and there is a sweetness in that...And nothing is ever perfect than the moment you are in now

I wonder how people manage to survive abroad..In the past year i have seen a lot of ppl go abroad, a couple of friends..and while it is a great, mind opening experience.sometimes i feel why do i want to leave the relative safety, knowledgeability, familiarity of my surroundings and shift to a new place and stay, at other times i barely wonder...just live and meeting many new people is slowly changing my perspective

And now im tired and while there is lots to write..there is lots to type as well

Till now

2010-08-10T22:59:00.000+05:30

I feel grown up all of a sudden, grown up , cynical, sad and wise...to say the least...the whole I know-have- been - there-done-that business is happening way too many times...But there are days, when I feel as old as the sea...and others where I am a precocious 5 year old..jumping about...being reprimanded for too much masti

It's been a crazy, focused, in some ways mechanical week so far.....worry, tension, constant move and love have all blocked my head..leaving no space for anything else..

I have learnt a lot in the past one week about..insecurities, jealousies, rivalries, the apparent side of good and bad and the judgement as to who is good and who is bad...learnt about the power of human mind...but not enough to make me beleive in PLR and RAAZ...It's a place where you learn more often than not from the mistakes that you make..rather than the clear brief that you are given..which is none...you learn how set food sucks, how much effort has been put in by every single person..you wonder why they do what they are doing now...what possible joy can there be in the same thing..over and over again...and I've learnt that sanity means traditional, sticking to the box...Hurting people, taking them for granted is a given plus..so god knows how many paaps have i collected uptil now for St.Peter to count...if i ever reach heaven that is...

I have learnt/ read/accumulated & experienced a lot of things about love..the most of all being...Love doesn't cling ..and it's not love if you have to be reminded of it every time...No on can force it...if they do then they're silly and your silly for not respecting them...and letting them be

I've learnt that old songs give me peace...I've learnt to keep my mouth shut...a feat impossible before..but its true..I have learnt that friends come and go..but the precious few that stay..and worth all your money ands savings + the money that you owe him....from looooooooong before

I;ve learnt that my brain shuts down faster these days, due to exhaustion....

Adjectives

2010-07-31T21:58:00.000+05:30

It can be so dangerous, when people jus think and think and expect and expect and they get nothing....except a few token gratifications at long drawn intervals...

Weird when people think that change is for the good, when it is actually many times just constant. And that constant is perceived as a negative change....People don;t change..they just grow on you...and you realise that you can also get bored or tired or both with them....since it's beyond a point to tolerate them...or to even take shit from them

Funny when people go to find a waterfall, they find that majority of it has been overtaken by some over rich stinking loser..who has cordoned off the area...so what you are left with is a little piss like flow of streams...downriver where the water is full of mud from soil erosion

Silly when people ask the same questions again and again and again and again...

Frustrating and nagging when people don't treat you well...And don't give a shit eitherways

Irritating and mentally relieving, when people preach a lot...but follow exactly the opposite in their dealings and you can give it back to them...in their own preachy words

Funny how the same thing again and again which is really really important to people...Is just a matter of "I will think about it.." to others

True, how you can depend on no one...Only you can do your job and do it well and only you can live your life and live it well

Interesting, how people try so hard inspite of repeated actions and litmus test results...

Strange, how they lose track of who they are, coz they are too busy trying to fit in...or create a zone or to filter their words...

And silly, how they let this happen to them...every single day

Crazy, how they want to overthrow it...

Killer, how they have no heart, whatsoever...they are machines..built for the purpose of mechanics and heartless work

Funny how you are right Prateek, people do die of a broken heart, due to depression

JUKEBOX

2010-07-23T02:44:00.001+05:30

I have been planning this blog in my head...while im in the train, while im in the bus, while im bathing etc ect

Its like a downpour of words waiting to come out...

Jukebox since a series of realistions, spawning from many incidents have made me type this

Realisation 1 - My friends are smarter than i give them the credit for...and they are all equally focused on their careers..so im not the queen amongst them all simply coz i have been working the longest

Realisation 2 - It's funny how things can sound perfectly plausible when you talk it out with your friends, but seem totally childish when said to your boss...whom they were meant to be addrressed to him in the first place

Realisation 3 - Maybe it is time to let go and accept things. And save what can be damaged

Realisation 4 - I think too much

Realisation 5 - I think too much

Realisation 6 - Tact and diplomacy is needed above all..need to control my facial expressions

Realisation 7 - Shit happens, politics happen, people bounce you about...you decide whether you want to let them and if they have the authority then do it and come back....being amused since someone has no work except to check in your times is a great sign of madness

Realisation 8 - I am mad. I think i suffer from OCD...since i tend to get obsessed

Realisation 9 - Crying every night,..wont help na...

Realisation 10 - Life can shatter in a second and leave us with ages to spend..when noone is left anymore

Realisation 11 - Typing a mail at 2.30 n the night is tiring...

Reaslisation 12 - Growing, investing, working...a part of your life...and unless you are really really really
really rich....So the pushing is lifelong

Realisation 13 - Writing at 2.30 is making my eyes shut. And my head is jammed together...

Realisation 14 - No one... no one dies of a broken heart

Realisation 15 - People in trains will hang out..even if it is raining...doesn't matter if you are also getting wet in the process..hey you're enjoying..so i'm cool with being soaked to my skin

Realisation 16 - I am never getting pregnant...after seein my sister's plight

Realisation 17 - The feeling of rain on your face is nice..very very nice. Especialy when you see the wind blowing about and the you are dry and watching it

Catching up

2010-07-12T00:47:00.001+05:30

A hundred thoughts have been coming to my mind these days...But I simply didn't feel the strength or motivation to write...My fingers have itched and my mind has formed a hundred stories to pen down...certain interesting ones and many sad ones...Funny ones where I see a slice of life which amuses me to no end...and certain thought provoking ones where I cry like a wounded animal in pain....dumb and mute....

So I thought, today I'll write about so and so and this and this...But it never amounted to anything...So today here I am writing whatever comes to my mind...And let's see where it goes...A line from Lord of the Rings comes to my mind -

"The road goes ever on and on ...
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

The first thing that comes to my mind is that blogger has changed its template...so im finding it a little odd to type..My cough has yet not gone inspite of repeated medicines..on the other hand some of fat has gone...so tshirts which fit like second skin earlier now look good on me...and I feel less paunchy and fat than before...that definitely is one plus...

I am realising how much I can push myself if i actually try everyday..I danced in high fever and cough, gave a decent enough performance and actually lived to tell the tale..I consider that courage and strength to not back down and finish what you had to do...no matter what the circumstances

I have been in love and out of it...in the past couple of months and again in love and again out of it...Like waves in an ocean..coming in...and going out..I have taken care of my pregnant sister whom i wish has a a normal delivery so that she can be happy...Pregnancy is painful and im going to adopt kids..I have decided that...

I learn that keeping your mouth shut and working steadily sometimes gives you better results than talking all over the place...I feel like a machine that is well oiled and has sudden rundowns due to low maintenance and zero care...I feel like investing in myself and growing...even if it means trying not to get angry at every small thing and learning to let go...even if it means fake networking and smiling to people who can be of use to you in the future. I have learnt tha however precise and long my task list...it will never be over unless the day is endless and the amount of new tasks that "have - to - be - done - asap" reduce... But my efficiency has increased and i feel that...

There are times when i wish i wasnt working and there was someone to take care of me and my needs...then i realise that i should be happy since its very few people who can live their life almost 85% the way they want to...spend their money on good food and places and still have enough to support their parents...and im managing this for the past one year..so its ok if i dont get commerce and banking and investments..I will learn and i will be good..the thepla blood will come out one day...and reassert itself (Im just lucky i wasnt name kinjal or sejal)

I have learnt that I can be a control freak and a pushover...but i have learnt that i deserve nothing less than the best..so if I am a control freak...my reasons behind it are purely selfish and im ok with them

I have learnt that sometimes..some people dont care enough and even though it pains...like a constant chronic ache..you have to accept it and live. In the past couple of months i have seen the toll on my family especially mom and i realised that she isnt growing any younger and she has been doing the same thing - taking care of us for the past 30 years and more and if im tired after one month or one year, she has 30 years of tiredness to let go off...and it takes time

I have reconnected with old friends..tried to keep in touch with the ones who matter..calmed down..kicked men who trying to act fresh...had train fights...realised that whenever i wear good clothes that day it rains like the wrath of god...and my dresses are ruined...rejected one more proposal, made a couple of new friends...worked like a dog and not partied like one...thought of ideas which can be path breaking...and have bought a levi's jeans for 800 - my first real expensive "not - really - thought - out - need - based - shopping". I just saw them and bought them...damn my money schedule....

And I have learnt that nothing can be forced...That i can cook rice and dal at 1.00 in the night which are actually edible the next day ..i proved it by eating them...even though the rice showed a disposition to fly out of the cooker and straight onto the ceiling.

I have learnt to live with pain and its constant aches...realising that love simply isn enough...at the end of the day you take your chances..and do your best, the rest is out of your hands..I have had several discussions which made me ponder and contemplate..the best of all being

"Never live life in a straitjacket...live enormously and love passionately..damn the consequences" - Bulbul Ma'am

And above all...I believe i am finally making peace with myself...truce..for now :)

What is?

2010-06-17T23:44:00.004+05:30

Being in love doesn't really help
Since it doesn't mean absolute dependency
And answering to or being answerable

It doesn't mean doing everything together
Or even expecting to..and if you do..shake it out
Love isn't behaving like siameses twins

Who sets the rules? What is protocol
A dreaded word, which makes my hackles rise
Every time I hear it...or read it

And what then, is it to be?
To adjust, juggle, readjust and fall
Catch all of them or they all fall

Miss one and they all come
Tumbling down on your head...like deadly arrows
Scheduling, rescheduling, working and planning

Then comes chaos and shattering of all decisions
And comes tantrums and cold shoulders
With much consoling and cajoling

And its all ok..we're friends again
Or wait a minute...Are we? Truly
Then what just happens? Like maggie in Runaway Bride
People view you, judge you and take shots at you

And in the word's of Veronica Shoffstall
Love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security

What then ..is it to love?
A mere companionship fulfillment
Or the things that you don't do with anyone else
Like using them as punching bags, not doing small talk
Not making plans..but being you

Even if that you is morbid and just wants to be left alone
Or is tired and bored...Is love a meeting point
A platform for all these emotions?

Or like Maggie..is it simply realigning your vision
And liking what he likes..eggs of his type
And his kind of music, without losing your real essence

Attraction is the reason for stupidity
And without it...we would never be happy
Orve so many drunken stories to pass around
Or friendly nudges and teasings to make

I can't end this, you know
Can't find a conclusion...So I end it here
In the hopes of an answer..someday
Or the charisma of mystery..which will continue
Till forever fades into oblivion
Or till my fetish for using big words stops :)

Sitting with my nose pressed to the office window - Part 2

2010-06-10T10:29:00.004+05:30

One of those days when you smile, laugh and cry

But yet, feel sad and missed

There's something about the rains which

makes me want to run around

A zap in the air, a ting, a sparkle, a zing

And I'm new again

I miss school, I miss college

And the orderly life of things

The menial worries and the general camaraderie

And the no politics and no pressures

No following of norms and protocol

The rains make me nostalgic

And I'm here sitting with my nose pressed to the window

Sitting with my nose pressed to the office window

2010-06-09T18:06:00.002+05:30

It 6.06 in office right now and im sure as hell not liking being stuck up here when there's so much fun that can be done outside...I'm loving working inside..the ideation session jazzed me up...but the weather is so much fun..all dark and shivery and cold..with clouds blowing and the anticipation of rain and the bright smell of the earth along with the sharp smell of leaves and all other monsoony things

At times like this, i feel like a child who's been forced to give a test at school when all he wants to do is run out and play, but the emergency test is important and can in no way be avoided..im sure there will come a time when i'll be like..it's raining so much, i want it to stop...but right now, i feel like a wayward child who just wants to run away..and shout at the top of my lungs

I want to lean out of the train and experience the rain on my face and feel that little clutch in my heart when i see black clouds looming over and all the colors stand out so sharply in contrast..

At times like these, my favorite place is the Borivali Train yard..I see it from my train window and it is the most beautiful place...the tracks all go inside one rickety gate and there;s a small warehouse beyond...but the best part are the trees..huge and spreading the kinds you can make a treehouse in..the whole yard looks so remote and inviting like its just dying for me to explore it..

I haven't ever gone there, since it stands right outside the station...hence walking along the tracks is the only way to reach there..but its one of my hidden wishes to go there and walk along the paths...and the railway tracks

National park too is beautiful at this time...the entire place feels like something out of a Robert Frost poem..all deep and dark and lovely with hidden promises...I feel like taking my book and my backpack and just walking there the whole day, the regular sunday haunts with my parents have made my feet accustomed to the path...even though the facade has changed..

It's fun to stand on the small bridge and look at the fishes..and see the small pond stretch out on either side..and imagine myself 10 years back..scratched at the knee and elbow (always since i was a clumsy child who fell down everytime i came to national park..i would either fall or trip or get bitten).. the loveliest part of my day was walking around throwing pebbles in the pond which seemed like a river back then..walking with my cousins..more often than not, one of them would be walking a bit behind or ahead since we would have had fights ...walking along the path to the sand garden and playing there, pouring sand in everyone's back..waiting for that silly child to finish playing on the swing so that it would be your turn next...(I always hated that child..i wanted her to just jump off the swing so that i cud play)...and when it's your turn..your again pushed and bullied by your cousins since they want the swing...

I remember trying to climb a fallen tree and never could manage it..without embarrassing myself..i preferred walking quietly and looking around...or rather coz I wasnt too sporty a person to begin with...Vanilla ice cream candies and lots of homemade bhel eaten on newspapers with a little bit of everything that the parents had got...

And finally walking back home..swatting away flies and limping (in my case)...and sleep

I miss childhood..I miss curling up with a book on my huge broken bed in the inner room and listening to the increasing sound of thunder..I miss the slowly creeping darkness which makes me scrunch up tighter under my rug..and squint to read (since i still wouldnt switch on the light..the fantasy would go away)

I miss myself...as a child..and all the broken little things which made me happy..

Now I need flowers and reassurances and deadlines and ambitions

Now I need rememberance and confirmations and calls

Now I need to be told I matter , that I exist

While previously, I didn't mind..I was happy with me and all the things that I did

Regardless of anyone else

Protocol

2010-06-08T10:56:00.004+05:30

And what does one do?

When there is protocol

When there are rules

When there are boundaries

Don't expect

Don't try, don't think

Don't fly

Ruins and spoils

perfectly good moments

And conditions bind

Till only the scars remain

And when one questions

there is hedging around

And distractions

and change of topics

Who needs such conditions

Better to live and live the way

you want to, you wish to

And "keep your options open"

Or rather, keep them closed

And live..since others can't dictate that

Or steal that right away from you

Illusions

2010-05-19T16:00:00.003+05:30

What does it matter what I do?

What does it matter if I bleed

The question is whether I understand you or not

whether I care for you or not

whether I can make you happy or not

Illusions, that what they are

Mere smoke and mirrors

Words as such used to express feelings

Which hide the monster within

But words are fickle

They can be twisted to suit one's purpose

After all lawyers do just that

And say that this is not what I meant

What I say and mean

Essentially is not one and the same

In this world and another

But as long as I have lived

What I say and what I mean is the same

and increasingly there is no space in this world

for the likes of us

The manipulators

The connivers the smart ones

The elves

The fair folk

who weave dreams

made of smoke and nothing

And you are thankful that you get that much

And you can't demand for more

Can't ask can't even try

Since the words will be used

And come back to you

Sharp as needles

Little pinpricks of pain

Till guilt and remorse eat you up

And what you have is just sheer emptiness

But such people live

and live better

The scared ones

Who will not take a loaf of bread,

since its against their self respect

For nothing that comes free has value

And borrowing is only a term for being weak

Better alone yet whole

Than damned and together

Hurt no one and keep faith

Trust and honesty

Edifices of humanity

And the apple eats its way

sooner or later

And eats away to the core

And the maggot raises its ugly head

And takes a bite out of you

Poisoned, burnt and damned

Ice cold yet hot

The fire of the cursed

Then comes healing

With acceptance

and strength

Of mind, of heart and of body

The pieces join back

And together is achieved

Yet flawed like a diamond

Madness like a broken mirror

Beautiful yet eerie

The madness of the sane

Th kind that speaks to you

While you speak to others

The kind that shakes you up

And makes you grin on the outside

But when you raise up

And shout back

The echoes dissapear

And the silence is back

Better than the lies

I welcome the silence

Since I trust it

It hurts, a pressing on my ears

But there is learning and truth

And acceptance

I embrace the silence

Since I can grow there

Like a rose in the dark

Penning down

2010-05-15T14:41:00.003+05:30

It's been long since I wrote and I am so tempted to write " So sorry my dahling readers...But I was simply flooded with work and plus my creativity had taken such a big hike..this writer's block I tell you. But, there is so much to catch up on ...My sweethearts! So don't fret, since now I am back with a bang"

But the fact remains that the day I write or talk like this, I shall be literally kicked by all my friends and family for being a complete and utter loser. Another fact being that I barely have any readers so it doesn't make a difference If i write or not..But I was so tempted to write like this...imagining myself as some silly, prissy, high society gossip columnist.

Hospitals are depressing places, this supreme truth comes from the fact that I have had the chance to live in one for close to 36 hours and while my sister wasn't so unwell ..a little boy as thin as a ruler sitting on wheelchair bumped into me up and down twice. And while I don't exactly know what his condition was, the pitiful pink and white checkered uniform did nothing to cheer up the place or him..He looked bad and his eyes were huge in his face. And I realised that I never ever want to be sick enough to be admitted in a hospital and undergo Intravenous treatment..The very sight of the plastic tube pumping into my body is enough to make me die and go all tight inside.
In adddition to that, they remarkably draining out too..I felt like I was sick. I wonder why they never have bright paint for the walls..instead of the depressing blues and whites. Im sure the patients will also feel better and brighter.
Life is going great otherwise, got a raise after one year...will get an increase in job profile and work responsibilities. Need to work harder and push myself though, just like Lagna...Can't afford to laze around. Need to plan for the future and not be content..Need to be on the move.
It would be too much to say that everything is ok now..Though there are times when the world seems engulfed in a big shiny white bubble...all safe and sweet and perfect. I want perfect. I long for perfect.
And there are times when the perfect irritates me and bores me and makes me feel inferior. Since I know I can never be that way...so I guess perfect isn't perfect after all. I remember Harsha telling me.."Happiness is such a state of mind..isn't it" and I walked quietly for about 5 steps before I burst into laughter...It is hard to see Harsha this profound and deep. Though she is very easily satisfied...and hassle free. Give her food, give her clothes..and she's happy.\
If I go to see, I think Mrinal is the best amongst all of us...since after we're all long gone..and submerged in our different paths..She'll still be there, remembering birthdays, anniversaries and parties...She's the sensible one..the stable one..and no wonder she's found stability. It takes two after all to create that magic. And she deserves every bit of it.
Meanwhile romantic novels still continue to turn my head, thought TWILIGHT is not amongst them..It is the most crappiest novel I have ever read with loads of rubbish and totally unbelievable characters. Nora Roberts still continues to be my favorite in that genre..Her Mia's and Laura's and Cybil's are more real than any character I have read.
She makes love seem like sucha big deal..Though I'm sure thats what earns her food. But the most smallest of things, like expectations and details and heartbreak...how she doesn't disqualify them...she explains thems..justifies them and then makes her characters move on and face the world..day after day, reach out to their dreams and open boutqiues/bookshops/agencies etc
That to my mind is living, and living victoriously...by giving it all out..and simply knowing that in the end, you do what you can..after that you simply live. For you..coz no one else can live you life..and if they try and do so..then it's a shame.

Needy

2010-05-06T23:06:00.002+05:30

Hold too tight...And it's gone

The essence and the core

Grasping. groping, greedy hands

Forever needy and demanding

Never getting, since they nag so

Others do, since they matter

Since they try and have no ego

Since they don't think too much

Since they just let it go

No child like stubborness

Or adult type grief

The kind that makes you stamp you feet

Or revert in stony silence

That hurts

Since you want to sit up

To be taken notice of

To matter

Needy and desperate

The essential words here

Let it be..Let it be

It's evanescent after all

Anger and control

2010-04-29T11:01:00.003+05:30

Anger - A white hot spear through my body

like a lance keening through me

So much so that focus is sharpened

Made clear and visible till the point of accuracy

Like a needle

Like a cross hair

and I draw it all within me

Gathering, collecting, hording

Like a secret knowldege

and unleashing it out

With unwavering focus and steady hands

Which don't give away

And at last comes the tiredness

Oh so blissed

With weary heart and feet and hands and mind

I ache for home

and my bed

and my books and reading in the night

My time, no thought for anything else

Like my dance..where I focus on me and my body

and I know it's working

Priorities..Like a bow

and arrow,need me to finish

And I cant take time off

To do what I want to do

To do what i wish to do.

Expecting and living..

Not receiving..never getting

But living, since I have survived

And will do so...One can't be petty

And endlessly, foolishly optimistic

One has done what needs to

But at the end...it's the knowing of when to bow down

And give up and move on to better people and better lifestyles

Coz what they take is everything and what they give you..is less than nothing

But you can always say no...NO..no and fold your hands

And be the stubborn child you are

Growing up pangs

2010-04-26T11:41:00.002+05:30

Childhood wouldnt be childhood without such characters and incidents..Im sure these span the length of childhood across the world...For while you are growing up, there will always be

One or two irritating cousins - I had a whole horde of them who would score better than me, were smarter than me, less clumsy, more neat, never dropped ice cream or dal onto their clothes, didn't hog too much, were always perfectly behaved and the best part is that they fell into the category of getting 80 + in maths..a subject which i sucked at. While I am grown up now..They're still there - Only difference is that now either they are married or earning better (no actually studying) and can cook perfect round theplas and rotis, can make a meal for 10 ppl during an emergency while my expertise only stretches to making tea, ice tea, pav bhaji and other such assorted items

Unknown aunts and uncles - These will be the ones whose names you NEVER remember , simply cos they are too old/ irritating/smelly/frankly mental. But they will be the ones with the most money/power/old age etc so that your parents have to behave properly which makes u also liable to behave properly with them. And there will always be 3 standard statements

- My god, she's so grown up!! (did you expect me to be stuck in a time warp lady)

- Hello (insert touching feet here) do you remember me? (Blank expression)

- And wat are you doing now? Studying ..Oh BMS/BMX/BMD ? What is that (Rucha gives a long explanation of what she's doing by the end of which the relative is drooling in his seat or tells you that u were better off doing a CA)

This list is incomplete..will add on to it ..Right now, this much is enough for my frustration to come down :)

WOMEN AND SPORTS

2010-04-20T16:51:00.002+05:30

Sports..and since the IPL fever is going on..one wonders if it is just a MAN thing..u know all adrenaline, macho and foolish and scantily clad cheerleaders. My sister loves, adores and breathes IPL..but rest of the time..she will watch DID and ignore all the test and ODI matches.

IPL is like a bug and not that i am complaining, i mean hey, we're pumping in millions of black money into our coffers, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and Shashi Tharoor chooses this time to have an affair and Lalit Modi has run away..with a bunch of cheerleaders probably. But then, I am hardly bothered..all this opposition to the IPL is probably funded by opposition parties, just like the singur and nano issue.

But my blog here is about women and their reaction to sports of different kinds..

Lagna - " Uff..I just don't get the idea of 11 men running behind one ball and hitting that ball and going wooo"

Lagna - " F1 is so stupid, just a bunch of cars going round and round and round...all the time wats the fun in that"

Rucha - " i just simply dont get the funda of men running behind one ball and doing ballet in air..by kicking the ball, like jeez...I wudn't want to bruise my ankles or die under their armpits

Shivani - How many balls in an over?...umm..let me see...24? no? ok..then 26?

Rasika - He scored a 4....he scored a 4.. wooohohooo (when the guy has dropped the catch)

Rucha - Isn't table tennis a lighter and more ground version of badminton..oops..ok the ball isnt supposed to go over the area and into the bushes?

Rucha to Dyu - Wat is the funda of golf...hitting a chotu ball into a hole..just like cricket..only that u dont score sixes and fours..it's just on the ground.

Rasika and Rucha at the IPL match - "woooooohoo woohohooh..we scored yaya..go Mumbai Indians. (AFTER the guy has dropped the catch or he has scored a no ball)

Rucha & Rasika - During the match " I like your t-hsirt..where from? Oh i want ice tea.. (someone scores) ok wat wat..wat happend ? Did we score...? Yyayayaya

Result - Women should stick to shoes and intelligent things & let the men play their mindless "games"

What is

2010-04-15T15:07:00.003+05:30

Randomness is happening..I haven't written for long..actually done nothing which makes me human and not a machine lately..Need to unwind and like how

Sleep is such a necessity and it just can't be got on without..responsibility makes me serious and focused...and politics make me helpless like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

The fact that it is for the better of a common goal and we're all working towards it..just can't apply..Egos and internal issues clash and how...and you're left, a pawn in the game of kings and queens..where everyone is waiting for one weak link, one opening to pounce and be in the game.

Love on the other hand is ridiculously simple...infct so simple that it is made complicated so as to acheive "fun" in life..It isn't that one can't live without it..it is simply that one can't die without it..

A world within a world where all that is good (acoording to me) exists and its only in that world that things go the way you want them to..rest of the times.. ur just following orders..

It is easy to say and give fundas..more difficult to live..but then if it werent for such things..then life would be boring and dull

When people say the word evil.. i think it applies to all of us..since we can all be evil at some point or the other..or even while im typing this i am evil..to someone

The person who ignores you..just coz ur not important enough

The hands you miss and ignore..since you have no time

The words you say..and mean since you want to move on

Evil..that's nature

Now that I agree I need to lighten up

2010-04-07T10:45:00.003+05:30

If i count the words which describe my life and the things in it there shall be many many but the most common ones being

- Intensity : Meaning me..Need to lighten up a little

- Money: Need to save, to give, need to spend (always a happy thought)

- Amway: No comments

-Dance : Yes yes yes

- Work: ummm...fight bureaucracy, get ahead, get more so as to spend more, improve and focus

- Attitude : Not much, except a boost

- Mushness :Always required to keep me human

- Forgiveness :For healing

- Love:Lots and lots to give away and receive

- Spring - A concept which i have never understood since I dont think it exists in India..but i love reading about it

- Patience:Need it in abundance like bounty's horn

- Laughter: Something which is contagious and needs

- Stinker Mails: A process which is tedious and involves much scrolling of the mouse, till you feel that your life is one endless chain mail list..I have learnt the knack of writing an email and have also been accused of being too formal

Clothes and accessories : Basic necessity

- Books : I haven't bought one since the Strand sale

Bureaucracy

2010-04-05T11:58:00.002+05:30

The fact that people tend to ignore you, since you are a junior says much about their personality and character type.

Also, the fact that since you are by nature a tactless and non diplomatic person, every word you say has to be weighed with a tiny tiny scale so that nothing appears rude or harsh or derogatory..hence emails are written taking thrice as much time and read and re read till every word is burnt in your memory.

It is a good practice in diplomatic speaking and writing and makes you aware of how stinkers should be sent..subtly worded. But the whole thing seems so pointless to me since all of it can be said equally nicely..directly. But then, people don't always see things in black and white like me

Chafing is the word i am looking for. This whole business chafes me and chokes me, since rules and too many of them make me feel claustrophobic. But then there is a certain stability in following rules and norms..a certain rootedness since you know that everyone is more or less going the same path as you are and the chances of going wrong lessen down..it is a like a dull color like a pista green or a greyish brown..stable and nondescript..but terribly dull.

I do understand that chaos cannot survive and organising helps you achieve better since timelines are only meant to test your survival and output skills and personallly i agree with timelines since a thing can't go on forever, there has to be a start and an end..and when people say i like to work in my own time, i mentally label them as losers since for me the challenge is to achieve the maximum and the best within that timeline..Indeed that i where the skill and magic lies..to achieve smthing within a limited space.not rushed but carefully executed, since it gives me the pleasure and relief of a job well done ..within time.

Perhaps that is the reason I don't like filmmaking, a process that goes on forever or is shelved halfway.not my cup of tea..since i need to move on to new challenges to work in..boredom and a sense of doing the same things for ages makes me mad and tests my sanity to the limit

But as of now, I have to achieve my goal by Wednesday and there is only one person in my way..and she will have to bend or break since i mean to do this

What lies beyond

2010-03-31T17:35:00.003+05:30

I find myself googling up random songs on youtube and then googling up the movies which they were sung for..the latest one being Uninvited by Alanis Morrisette and At the beginning from the movie Anastasia and i find myself giving deep sighs....

The way Alanis has sung Uninvited, it seemed like a song from some betrayal, dark movie..but i was really surprised to find it as a soundtrack for City of Angels which is as mush as you can make them...with lovey dialogues like.."I wait all day, just hoping for one more minute with you, and I don't even know you" with Meg Ryan saying her piece and looking so true, so genuine that I can't help but feel like crying. And Nicholas Cage at his romantic best with "I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One."

And I sigh again...and I laugh with the sheer mushness and romanticism that is filling my heart, mind and soul right now...imagining such dialogues said to me..or even said for me..in real life...and then i realise how incredibly funny and fake they would sound...since at the best and most intense of times when your feelings are so jumbled up and dying to come out...words are just not enugh..so poetry is rather a far fetched dream...But while I am dreaming I mite as well travel to Ireland...sleep in a hammock, walk barefoot in the grass...take pictures of the old stones and hear tales about elves and leprechauns...

When people talk about perfect dreams..I wonder how can that be...since half, actually most of the times I can't remember my dreams...they slip like sand from my fingers...Maybe they day dream..while sitting in the loo, while travelling, while even reading (this happens to me when i find the book really boring or when im too restless to let my mind think and read), while having lunch..and then i realise that everyone lives a lot in their own mind..so when people say, he always lives in his own world..i think that applies to everyone..each one of us take shelter in the world we have built in our mind..for some of us it is a refuge, for others an escape, for some a haven, for others it is simply a place you visit from time to time..but it is there..it exists. For me...I wonder how it is for me..It is at times different things..like the room of requirement in Harry Potter.

At times it is like a gate..an entry into another world..where there's all things that are right..and everything goes according to my way...till reality comes in and knocks..and I jerk back..with a little sigh for what cannot be. At other times, it is simply a refuge..to go and barricade myself..until help comes calling...at other times it is simply a little world with green grass and waterfalls and a shady tree to read a book under..I mean i have never read a book under a shady tree..the entire insect population thriving there would have killed me...

I remember this dialogue from a movie called the mighty where the kid says " there's a place in my head I go to sometimes...there's no one there, just me and the endless sky"

Deep deep sigh :)

strength and weekends

2010-03-28T23:15:00.002+05:30

This is one of those random posts where my words will range from sad to happy and back to sad to happy..with all the shakiness of a thermometer.

One of my words today is strength - the strength to do what needs to be done and stick by it and the strength to live and be happy each day..without succumbing to weakness. Morbid, I know but it's true

I realise I am a very silly person in a lot of ways...and I am especially silly when it comes to not shwing my silliness..some perversity of mind and soul makes me not want to take an effort..simply becoz the ego says - I am what I am and u need to accept me that way.

I am tired I guess, of bowing down (again this is my perspective and highly self pity oriented) of being there and of just being..passive i guess...for all my sharp tongue and even sharper ways..I am pretty regressive wen it comes to me and my decisions. Need to change that..no more negative publicity allowed.

But on the other hand, i also hate feeling dependent on anyone..simply coz it doesnt work..coz sooner or later ppl wont do as U expect them to do..hence the best person to depend on is yourself. U need to work hard, excel and do what is to be done day after day, dream and suceed..but in the end only you know ur mind..hence depend only on yourself...that way wen you let yourself down. u have no one to blame except yourself and you are your only support.

Obligations make me feel like noose is choking me ..self sufficiency is my name or im trying to make it my name...and now i am tired..terribly so..but happy coz this weekend has been one of the most fruitful so far, except for the times wen i thot i wish i had no brains, no mind, no heart...or actually just a minimal of all 3 - so that i cud be qualified as a dumb blonde..

I met up with my old classmates and it was funny and nice to see how we'd all grown up..inspite of it being only 1 year since graduation...nice to catch up with lagna on family and all our issues...and how families and their decisions shape us..shape who we are..but at the end of the day the choice is yours...after a point i feel one must stop blaming family, and upbringing for one's shortcoming..

Meeting harsha, mrinal, riti and aanchal felt so good,so right.. and then i realisd that i need strength above all..to be strong enough to conquer myself and my weaknesses

What to do when

2010-03-23T11:54:00.002+05:30

When you have a cold in the middle of a crazy, heated up summer

Nothing. What can you do? It's hot, but not hot enough to melt the mucus forming inside your brain and nose..u will still sneeze and feel like sniffing. While you're sweating outside!!

When your auto wala asks you about the number of kids you have?

Again nothing. Hope and pray that the auto ride gets over soon and you get away from this lunatic as fast as possible. But seriously, my auto wala was discussing the evils of population increase in India and how he'd never married for this reason..was i married? How many kids do i have?

When your sister is a control freak

You hope and wish to God that you stay invisible and don't come in her line of targets. She'll pick on you for not picking up your plate...AFTER AFTER u have just gotten up from the table and stretched yourself..(while u had full intentions of picking up your plate)..possible options - stay invisible, talk as less as possible and distract her by commenting on how fat she's become..this works always

When people get sadistic pleasure in irritating you

Avoid getting irritated..however cute and nice such ppl may be..and realise that you are not a pressure cooker purely in earth for other's sick pleasures

When you feel like writing deep, really morbid stuff on your blog

Get a grip on yourself and probably slap yourself internally for being such a fool. Shop and eat a lot since this always is a mood lifter. Dance and imagine boiling all your failed expectations, worries and sorrows in a hot pot and then dumping it into the sea

You hope and wish

Letting go

2010-03-21T13:34:00.002+05:30

It is harder..To do the right thing and let go

To not say and to quench

To not do and feel

Since one cannot be pushy

One cannot be so intense

One cannot, try as one might

Engineer love

No need to be morbid or depressed

There's so much more to life

Than that one person and that one feeling

A world within a globe

All protected and safe

But the fledgling must leave its nest

And look out for lands beyond

Must learn to sever the ties that bind

And learn to live...And live happily

Since, life cannot be cocooned

And lead sheltered

It is not the end of all things, or the

beginning of a new one

It is simply learning to accept, to live

And live happily, so that one can be sane

To live, and take things in your stride

To live, like there's no chance except today

To come home to blessed sleep...which befits tiredness

To be so weary that it blocks out all thoughts

To focus so much, that everything else blurs

in perspective,...in reality...in life

To fall at last with weary feet and mind

With no thought for what tomorrow may bring

To sleep and sleep

To live and live

To not hurt, not die a million deaths

Every single day

Push and shove

2010-03-19T22:26:00.003+05:30

I choose, I decide

For now and ever

My will, a hammer against your face

A fist, against fate

No romanticising, no criticizing

No tragicness, no agony

Life isn't meant to be this way,

It's meant to be fun, to be cool

To be in front, be what you want to be

It's ok, if people don't try

And it's ok..coz one won't die

For nothing that is broken, cannot be repaired

And the bridges built, once again

I must stop, romanticising, tragicising, analysing

I must stop, I must

Weakness and Courage

2010-03-17T11:09:00.002+05:30

Weakness - What defines it? What in your mind is weakness? or

Courage - What is courage? The ability to do what has to be done inspite of all odds or is that merely following of duty..or is it facing all your demons and accepting them and saying them out aloud

What happens when you put all your courage, all your wishes and all your dreams into someone else's hands...Therein lies great power. For the person can use it, to twist you, play games with you and mold you...and string you along like a puppet...which is what i am not scared of, becoz at one point the chain will snap and the tables will have turned, but even more so, what i have learnt to believe in is.....

That you tell all the truth, all there is to it and when you put them in someone's hands.. they now have the responsibility to hold your wishes, your dreams and your hopes...that scares them and in a way makes you free...since you have no more defences left, your all open and fresh....no more fighting, no more poking and no more circling around

There's freedom in that kind of unburdening, because i can raise my head and look in the eye, without feeling ashamed or guilty.

But I have to be careful to not let that whole quest for truth (And i dont mean to sound like gandhi) turn into a dogmatic, nagging furiousness. It has to be a choice and i cant push it.

I have tried to and realised that after all is said and done, my intensity and passion for right and wrong might be my undoing again..I dont mean to be content with what I have..But i dont mean to push either. I will simply choose to live my life...and see where it takes me

Morbidity is a part of all us..and I am discovering that I have more than the required quota for it

Goodbye

2010-03-15T22:29:00.002+05:30

Yesterday, I was dreading, a nebulous, eerie feeling that came upon me as i stood waiting for the train at parle station...I coudnt place it, couldnt even control it..

It was when I reached Harsha's house and was in the company of warmth and friends, that it subsided...

The last 2 days have been a revelation, a new opening of sorts that i have never seen. Rahul is leaving for Assam to join his dad and im really proud of him. But i miss him so...and I feel more lonely

Meanwhile, I am trying to cure myself and see light that is so abundant around me and dispel the darkness that i use as a cloak..my romanticism is at my highest today and my mood swings are as unpredictable as they can be..and I'm pmsing

So much...So much to bear

To think and feel

So much...that it seems all comsuming

FREEDOM...

2010-03-15T16:59:00.002+05:30

Freedom..And when i least thought and expected it.

I had expected to be angry, to break things..or I had expected to be calm and detached..What I didn't expect was to still feel and break into a million pieces and that I could still break, that I could still feel enough to break.

What I didn't expect was tenderness and the absolute need and loss of control that followed. The total exposure of self..the vulnerability, when I didn't get any confirmation in return.

I refuse to beat myself up for saying and reacting the way I did. I'm sorry for what can never be and what I can control

I am happy that I can face myself now, and learn to live with myself and my follies and look them in the face and still laugh.

I am happy that I am not mad anymore, not sad anymore. I am happy that I could say everything...without feeling the loss of truth and the openness of vulnerability. Both which can have the power to hurt if taken wrongly. For each has power in its own right..but now that i've given it I can't take it back.

I don't trust anymore..Since I know, and while I like..I may never be that way again

I stood up and took a step back. I chose and I decided and hell if that makes me weak

Routine

2010-03-07T16:47:00.007+05:30

I can cry, I can laugh

I can try, I can succeed

I combine,I mix,I experiment
I fail,I explode,I fall

I taste,I yearn,I feel
I choke,I lick,I cough

I travel, I fly, I run
I trip,I fall,I wheeze

I type, I think, I bang
I hover,I wander, I snap

I feel joy,I feel excitement,I feel nerves
I smile, I grin, I frown

I choose,I decide,I buy
I balance, I weigh, I let go

For each of these expressions, I am a human
For each day...A million times over
I am a human

This is for you Prateek, Thanks for believing :)

Glimmer

2010-03-06T19:41:00.002+05:30

There's something really amazing about the ocean at 5.00 p.m..when the sun is just on its way to setting down..And i remember how as a kid we all thought that the sun went into the ocean, hence bringing in darkness. Funny, how was kids we make up our own stories which when we grow up are labelled as lies or "Storytelling"

But coming back to the ocean, it is beautiful how the sun just lights up one part of the ocean and everything else which is standing against it seems like a silhouette. Twilight time...when the ghosts walk it is said.

It is one of my favorite times of the day when the sky is slowly turning from blue to shades of mauve, red and orange..it just seems the description of autumn that they give in books

The light bounces back from the ocean and everything is a soft sepia..bathed in soft yellow light.

There's nothing more i'd like that to be quiet and just absorb that moment and think of some poetry....But my restless soul calls me and wills me to do some activity and make the most of it

I wonder what Wordsworth must've felt when he wrote "Daffodils"..did he, for instance feel like walking away and taking pictures or just splashing in the river?

Either ways, it's a wonderful feeling, when you scrunch up your eyes against the sun and watch the ocean glimmer..like a million stars

LOSING IT

2010-03-02T22:58:00.002+05:30

It's been a long long time since i have lost control like the way i did that day...The whole "angry- shaking with fury - throwing things" anger.

I need a solution, a way out of this endless trap in which i have enslaved myself. One cage to live and die...and endlessly flutter in the hopes to fly - This is by far my best written lines.

I'm scared of what i will unleash, im scared of what will come out, since i dont know it myself..i'm scared of the implications of the breakdown and the baring of truth. Truth - A word. Just 5 letters and yet i have run away from it..and now when i can face it, since i have the courage to, i dont know if i have the courage to do what needs to be done after i let out the truth.

I feel the need to be free, literally free of this choking web of conflicts and emotions...where i am endlessly going deeper.Noone else is affected except me. The anger needs to go...only then will i be able to live without pain

Pain - I wonder whether that's what i knowingly seek? since it is easier and better ti be angry than to accept wat is and forgive.Anger helps to cloud your judgement.Anger helps to mask your conscience. Anger teaches you not to cry.And i wonder wether i like being in this state since it means that i have not yet lost touch completely and there might still be hope.Whatever it is...I know it's wrong, it's maddening and i might just end up becominng like those old ladies who only nag and who have a perpetualf frown between their eyes.

Sometimes's life's a bitch..And then you die.

I spoke to someone who help up a mirror to me today and his words were " u seem to revel in the fact that you're mean and u cause discomfort to other ppl", really harsh but true and it made me feel like a worm

A really tiny one..But i have done my good deed for the day..so i guess i kinda quit

I know a girl...

2010-02-27T20:44:00.001+05:30

I know a girl...Who lost touch
Didn't call...Didn't bother
Just absorbed into her own world

I know a girl who didn't care..Who didn't share
Didn't love...Didn't forgive
Just hated and burnt from inside

I know a girl who emerged...Lost and tired
Didn't think..Didn't introspect
Just hurted and hurt

I know a girl who lost...Defeated
Didn't understand...Didn't try
Just too narrow

I know a girl who emerged...With hope
Didn't judge..Didn't calculate
Just loved

I know a girl who's happy...With love
Didn't hurt..Didn't turn away
Just gave

I know a girl...with light shining ever so bright
Within her...Without her
And the darkness dispelled

Anchors..

2010-02-25T10:15:00.003+05:30

A word..An action

A thought..A reaction

A signal..A gesture

A day, a moment..A fist in time

The wheels turn..And the mind reels

Cycle within a cycle within a cycle

Endless road..One decision

One lifetime..One promise

One anchor..to chain you..

To bind you... suppress you and break you..

A cage..to live and die..

To endlessly flutter..in the hopes to fly

One key..to turn them all

To free them and rescue them

One decision..One action..One thought..

Courage..Hope and action

Fore freedom..for a new cycle

CLUTTER CLEARING

2010-02-24T18:28:00.002+05:30

There's a certain relief in cleaning away clutter...In performing menial, down - on - your - knees labor...it keeps you on your feet and leaves space for your mind to go on autopilot.

Thinking..Thinking..Thinking..It just goes haywire and suddenly, SNAP!!! Shattered, numbed and annihilated..the mind. Enough, it says and you ignore it, still pushing on weary feet till finally it just breaks down.

Scrubbing floors, cleaning loos, dusting and ruthlessly organising books or anything that is disorganised, simply helps..Coz your hands know where they have to put things, as sure as the day you were born, but still the mind is on, filing away, thinking.

It's only biding its time..waiting for your hands to finish so that it can take over.

We're shifting our office...And I have been endlessly staring at the computer screen, cut -copy - paste. cut -copy - paste. cut -copy - paste. cut -copy - paste...My life so far and today i took a break. I know I have to finish the presentation, I know I have a huge backlog. But if i don't take a break now and do some back breaking work...i'll surely die or brain fever.

So here I am, stacking away cards, labeling,sorting files and arranging papers.All the while, my mind is lying in wait..I can't even say quiet..since it won't quiet down.

But if a day comes when I have no chattering going on in my head or when I my mind is as quiet as a dried up well..I think i'll just drift along..an empty husk.devoid of life..like a puppet. It's a scary thought.

"I shouted to them..Silence
I want some peace

Quiet, I said...
And then I paused to listen

And only the silence echoed back...
I have arrived

And the voices faded into oblivion

TRUTHS BY ME

2010-02-22T10:37:00.003+05:30

Considering that an influx of events and close contacts with humans has made me aware...I thought it better to write them down

Shyness isn't hereditary...It just means that your socializing skills are rusty

Directions are meant to be followed wrongly

The days that you come early, chances are your boss is either out of town or he comes in late

The days that you come in late...Your boss appears with the milkman...LAW OF UNIVERSE AND GENERAL UNFAIRNESS

There will ALWAYS be one specimen in the local train who has never travelled before...and will proceed to be a royal pain for everyone around (And she will be fat)

Life before mobiles phones was infinitely simpler and hassle free

The amount of money you earn is inversely proportional to your taste

While you may delude yourself by saying " I am not that fat"...You are well on your way to becoming fatter and fatter. Comparisons with EVEN FATTER people doesn't help

Mothers are the necessity of invention (Calvin and Hobbes)

REMEMBRENCES

2010-02-18T12:04:00.002+05:30

When i wrote the blog on my friend Nida...I realised that all my friends have classic quirks and incidents which we all talk about when we meet, But we don't do anything to record it down..So today i take the oath to write down the chronicles of "What the SHAT?" (Harsha, Mrinal, Nida, Rucha and Kapil)..Other in line include ( Neha, Siddhant, Riti, Aanchal, Ankit Mhatre, Yash, Devanshu)

The case of the sex starved Ankit Pandit - (With UNO cards, robbed glasses & Silvassa)

On a college trip to Silvassa (where all of us managed to come together..for once) we also had Pandit with us...At night while playing UNO and having unwelcome people dropping in on us. While all of us are deeply involved in UNO..Pandit appears to be making out with his UNO cards...he feels them along his arm and thrusts them closely into his face (he doesnt have specs) and then finally with great care...(as though he's placing a bomb) he puts his card down..Next card..same process repeat.

BOILING POINT

2010-02-10T10:41:00.002+05:30

Endless conversations are ones where the topic is exhausted and still the other person tries to continue with it...By means of persistent questions or hints. (I also fall into this category lots of time..But most of the times,I am smart enough to shut up)

This happens in the case of

A) Endless SMS's - I absolutely HATE, DETEST & LOATHE typing message after message after message after message. I mean, can't you just pick up the fone and call me and get it over with in one go...Typing is a pain..especially when you are stuck at the computer for 12 hours a day..It is nothing but a series of typing..a vicious cycle. And it's ok if you limit it to a "hey, wats up" and end it at that...But no..People want to go on and on and on..till your bloody inbox is only filled with mundane messages like " Oh", "hmmm", "yeah"

B) Random people in the train - This is when absolutely random strangers and the most ugliest kinds sit next to you in the train and proceed to give u advice (Higly unwantd) on "how to travel in trains", " what kind of shoes to wear", " safety precautions of travelling in trains" and on and on..they're one of those silly do -gooders who think that everyone needs their advice.. in spite of the other person not even listening to them. I generally start by nodding and smiling at them..and then I proceed to nodding at intervals and FINALLY i ignore them altogether

It is funny how many people in the world can piss you off..Or actually how much of a pressure cooker are you to let them get to you (This is purely a self thought)

Intensity like a helmet

2010-02-03T10:33:00.002+05:30

I sometimes think that if i am anymore intense, then people will need a helmet to talk to me. To keep away the glare of the intense thoughts...

Do noble deeds...Not dream them all day long

This is my motto of the day - To stir me into action and not just randomly spout big words

INDULGENCE

2010-01-28T15:00:00.004+05:30

A bookstore is what I have in mind right now...A bookstore with the perfect light, where you enter and feel the warmth envelop you automatically. Where nosy volunteers don't breathe down your neck and harangue you to buy a book, but at the same time they should be within easy reach for you to ask about.. in case of doubts.

I envision shelves, long rows of them, but not arranged so as to scare or give the impression of a library. Books...so many of them that the mind will boggle, but all arranged lovingly and with care. Ruthlessly organised, but yet relaxed

A bookstore where i can ask a fellow reader for advice without being termed as uncouth or ignorant and the best part, where i want to buy a book, i mean i can't imagine leaving the bookshop without buying a book.

My ideal bookshop with books clubs, book readings and profit...All of it mine...built brick by brick..genuine honest to goodness books...no faffing like cd's, bags, stationery etc

Sigh..I know i shall build one someday

ETERNITY

2010-01-27T11:55:00.003+05:30

I can't think and not feel
Can't detach and not cry
Can't live and not try

Ignorance makes me jealous
And attention makes me angry

Balance needs to be restored...Somehow and somewhere
Eternity is just a word...And forever lasts for ever

Scatterings.....

2010-01-22T06:09:00.008+05:30

I've thought long and hard about this, and i realised that i have no topic to talk or write about. Like birds taking sudden flight, I too am all over the place. So let's start

Geek - Till I reached college,i was never aware that anyone would term me as a geek. Hello, my vanity was enough to make me believe that i was better than those " nerds" who sit in the library all day long. Coz they never got good marks neways, inspite of being stuck in the library for so long. (I didn't know then, that libraries were also places for making out)But i was termed as a geek. Not aloud (coz no one dared to, i was an angry little bugger then), but they did. Then came BMM, where i realised that I was technically a geek (Though i still term myself as an "intellectual"), but that was coz i topped, read books, went on and on using big words and i used to write. Does that make me a geek...NO. That makes me an intellectual. But more recently Sagar, Siddhant and many others have also termed me as a geek. I simply put it down to the fact that they don't know the correct english term for geek - Intellectual!! (But really really really deep down, I know i am one, and im kinda proud it..deep down)

Local Trains - I love travelling by local trains (especially during rains, early in the morning), exception being when i'm pmsing and some lady from virar starts fighting. Neverthless, I love them coz they epitomise our adaptability. Ladies (since i am talking from a purely feminist point of view) carry mini buffets, to have parties with their train buddies. Venue - end row seat of the second class compartment of a churchgate local. Be there or be square. They carry their vegetables and chopping boards and cut veggies on their way back so as to save time on cooking. They sell gowns, stationery, sarees, dress materials, cosmetics, food, chocolates..It's like your small time mall rolled into one heaving, brown colored compartment. Who then, needs a mall. But you also get cat fights, arguments, much blood is shed over the seats, and then it gets personal (and i LOVE this part, as long as its not me involved in the fight), sworn friends become jaani dushmans, and strangers carry solace, add to that the ruckus of other ladies giving their "personal" opinion...and it's a perfect recipe

Judgmental - Now, I've been told im judgmental..again by many people (sometimes i wonder wether the whole world is out to get me by commenting on my flaws...and that too one at a time, like silly insurance salesmen)..But in an attempt to be broadminded, i try and take it calmy (Like i dont give a damn and it is all soo amusing) but actually i do...a lot and so i write it in my blog in the hope that someone will call me and say, " No Rucha, you aren't judgmental at all"..(hehehe I love being mean) But, i do care and i'm trying to improve..by keeping my mouth shut

Forgiveness - NOW this is what I am REALLY REALLY PROUD of, I have learnt the art of forgiving and moving on...for a while i thought that i had developed a thick skin, till i realised that there is no such thing as " thick skin", we're all equally sensitive to criticism and our flaws..it's how we choose to react to them..that's they key. So my key is to carefully listen and then go over things in my mind and then forgive..it's a routine i follow every day. Hear - Mull over - Forgive - Move on

Talking too much - Now this is something i can't do anything about. It is a family trait..and i've honed it to madness. I talk to people on roads and i talk to people in the train, i talk to myself when there's no one to talk to (I hold imaginary conversations in my head) thus inviting looks of " omigod - she's - mad- or -on - drugs", i talk to people i meet in the mall, give them advice on their choice of tops, and within generally 5 minutes, they're telling me their life story. Or when i get really really nervous, i keep on talking..so fast that you can see steam coming out of my mouth. But that's just it...I love to talk and i can do that all my life...it's like reading books, like breathing and like eating paani puri and chowpatty

My will

2010-01-21T10:26:00.003+05:30

I was just wondering...that if i have to die right now then who will inherit my things (all my jaidaad)These thoughts came to me when i was reading Agatha Christie, and all that shady business about intestate wills got me thinking.

Anyways, If i die (And i know i want to die in an interesting and cool manner) then all my worldly possessions will be divided thus,

To my sisters - Hetal, Shivani & Mayuri - All my books and clothes (which can fit them)to be divided amongst them equally

To my friend Harsha - All my BLACK clothes shall be given to you

To my friends Nida & Mrinal - All my train jewellery to be divided equally - The clips and hairbands go to Mrinal and the earrings and rings go to Nida

To Kapil - Lifetime recharge of my mom's theplas and dhoklas

To my Dad - My 4 GB and 2 GB pen drives (since he hounds me day in and out for them everyday)

To my mom - All the chocolates and ice creams in the fridge (since we have fights everyday about them)

- I Rucha Shukla write this will in full possession of my mind and body and have witnesses to vouch for it. And I would like pizzas to be distributed at my funeral along with orange tang

P.S - To the weak minded and prudish - This is purely a joke and I am NOT IN A SAD CYNICAL STATE AS TO THINK ABOUT MY DEATH...

Courage

2010-01-15T00:01:00.002+05:30

I guess it takes all forms and shapes and sizes. I'm reading a book where the protagonist requires courage to finish a quest...She needs to delve deep inside her to find that courage in everyday life, in her decisions, in her ways and means...

And I realised that it is such a rarely used word...Courage - It spells spine, grit and determination to me.

The power to do anything, to believe and to go for what you want, while keeping in mind what the world says about you. It is also facing everyday with a smile inspite of knowing what awaits you is in your point of view, your own personal hell...and besides it is true, what do I care about banks, corruptions and earthquakes...They aren't happening to me..For me, courage would be in looking deep inside myself and accepting my flaws and being truthful, really truthful to myself...and Kapil once told me that it requires great courage to be able to be completely honest to yourself, with yourself.

I remember in college, we used to tease and make fun of many girls and a couple of guys, but 1 or 2 in particular...And I know now that when people they that they are thick skinned they are simply faking it...to prove that they are not vulnerable...because as human beings, we are so tuned in to every small emotion, gesture or thought that it would be impossible for us to not know and feel.

But the point is, I wonder and admire how they woke up and came back to college everyday..Courage, I suppose and the belief to look it through. I know I couldn't have done it and I'm equally sure that they knew that we were making fun of them..I don't know what to say, I am sorry but that is too lame since they aren't here to know it anyways.

My inspiration, courage or thought came from 3 points - I had once read a story called " Life has no erasers" and there was one line " A group of self rising girls decided to judge a peasant girl and throw her mercilessly to a pack of wolves...and we forgot that life has no erasers and now however much I want to rub that incident off..I can't"

The second one is this story called " The Hundred Dresses" where a polish girl called Wanda is teased mercilessly just because she's polish and wears only one blur frock everyday...because she's quiet and doesn't make trouble"

My third inspiration is a book called " Key of Valor" where a woman has the courage to strike out on her own and raise her child at the age of 16, make a home and cherish it...and make it warm. The courage to do what needs to be done day after day after day, for survival, for her son...but more for her urge to live and live it the way she dreamed of...and make it work for her...

We're a unique set, we humans...cruel, instoppable, humble and foolish, ridiculously so...all at once

LATELY

2010-01-07T16:24:00.005+05:30

I am experiencing a sense of freedom in these past few days, as though things which earlier required permission, things which were not even thought to be possible have suddenly, subtly and swiftly come to be possible.

I have in the last month, blown up all my salary (and i dint even keep a tab, so i dont know where and how did i spend it), have gone to innumerable (which means around 3-4) parties, crashed at someone else's house,been a DJ for a party which mainly consisted of 40 pluses, broke nothing..absolutely nothing which can be breakable, have invented 2 new dance steps, travelled alone, danced in heels (a feat hitherto unimaginable), have had 4 guys to propose to me (actually its 3, the 4th one had already proposed way earlier), gone out to a fair on the last day, hijacked a stall and literally browbeaten the shopkeeper into selling me his stuff, worn my specs and contrived to look serious,been told i look pretty, ate cheese maggi (which was yum), bought yellow spongebob sqaure pant boxers for my friend, given innumerable love advice (maeen...this one's for u), ideated on many new concepts, didnt have a fight with my mom (in a long long long time), am generally less rude and more tolerable,made many new friends, broke a nail, then again broke many many nails,auditioned a pyshcologist (and faffed her into believing that i know all there is to about Karma, chakras, past life and all voodoo)

I have also, lost 5 bucks at fame cinema, not yet done anything on my job front (which i swore to do so like last year in september), tried to control my facial emotions,learnt how to pillow surf, thought (for the nth raised to nth time) about joining dance classes, realised how much i love lagna, cursed siddhant,had a heart to heart chat with my cousin (where i confessed how much i hated him 5 years back)

But one thing that gave me a high - Actually i cant remember, there's been so many things....It's been a good year and promises to be...with all its ups and downs

Quote Unquote

2009-11-30T00:11:00.003+05:30

Lately I have been meeting many people...Socialising..Partying and generally at work...And I realised that all of us have these mottos or words which we like to say...Like our personal trademark.

Here's a list of a few of them:

Anil Sanjivan (The BOSS)- Those monkeys will never understand

Sudipta Dhruva (The Creative Head) - Heyy Sweeetiieee (She'll extend the hey...for all its worth)

Saritaa Joshi - (The other Boss)- Acha sun baby..Mera ek kaam karde

Neha Kandalgaonkar (The colleague whom u can gossip with)- Cartoon u are

Viren D'silva (The client whom u've been rude to on the very first day) - It's a bloody 12 rupee set or babe, can u please send me that email

Ankit Fadia - (The guy with whom you check the credibilty of 500 rupee notes) - Basically, it's like or Bahut simple hain

Chirag Makwana - (The idiot with whom u have fun in office) - English mein sunne ke liye "ek Dabaiaye" or "Good morning sir, main MNRE quiz ki taraf se bol raha hoon, kya main principle se baat kar sakta hoon"

Anand - (The "Stud" peon)"Ha madam" (In complete angry young man ishtlye)

Atul Shah - (The accounts guy)- Chirag, please pass my printouts na

Anusree Bonnerjee - (The events head with huge eyes) - It doesn't fit into my costings

Simran Puri - (The funny colleague) - Nahi sir, my name is not Chandan it is Simran, S-I-M-R-A-N Puri.Ha..Kamina

Kapil Daryani (The bouncer friend)- Chepli...Dekh Rucha

Lagna Das - (The hilarious career frd cum soulmate) - Ugh, bastard, bastard, bastard

Regressed and depressed

2009-11-24T17:57:00.003+05:30

Deep sighs give vent to your feelings
I can't write poems with me
Unless I am really depressed

Or lovesick and broken hearted
With no hope but paper and pen
And the solace that words bring

Like right now, when I am low
And the causes so muddled
The reasons so complicated
And the solution so vague

I can't discern through the mists
And I have no patience..sadly
To live it through

Work...Makes me happy
Indecision...Does not
And that very fact has been killing me

Silently all these years,
To be , but not see
To feel but not experience

What is it that I want to do
At 21, I surely ought to know
I can't switch off from jobs
And run from one place to another

In search of momentary peace
And absolution..and new thrills
But to find that one thing

That one holy grail of work
Which you love..That which you find solace in
Where you grow,learn and love

I can't see, can't think
And I'm scared to introspect
To delve deep and see the secrets
The fears, the issues, the shortcomings

Sheesh, something tells me that this will be one whole night of introspection. And my temper which is threatening to burst all boundaries and come out in full force. And it is something that I have worked really hard at to control.

Sigh..As I've said before...Ambition can be such a big bitch sometimes.

Mind Fucked

2009-11-13T18:07:00.003+05:30

The word is mind fucked..when ur supposed to hunt up irrelevant details of irrelevant men..and women who dont affect ur life in ANYWAY.Dead or loser men and women who want to know (for SOME STRANGE REASON) about their past lives..I mean why the hell would you want to do that anyways!!!

Isn't your PRESENT life enough for you?? Or u really are so vela in life that you have no other work except make up imaginary situations for which you want to know some silly answers to.

And for that matter why would you think that what u see is ur fricking past life???? It can after all be an extension of ur mind. The mind playing tricks on u ..so u can see what only ur mind shows you!

Highly suggestive and bogus is my point of view..while there's no denying that many people go back much more lighter in their hearts...but to what end..u still have ur this life to lead..and u lead it as best as u can withhout any silly trips to ur past imaginary or true

God..help me

Dance Pe Chance

2009-10-31T22:10:00.000+05:30

In this incredibly filmy world that we inhabit..I too am influenced highly with the power of the motion pictures..and hence the post's name is "Dance Pe Chance"

My recent list of movies include " Prince Caspian" where the Prince looks highly gay and wimpy. My personal favorite is Edward...coz he's cute and reminds me of the kind of guys who wear converse sneakers and play basketball in their neighborhood..in short the commonplace guy who's pleasant...can dance (a lil bit) ..can sing (again sometimes it can be quite nice)..and can play the guitar (really well)

My recent list of activities include dancing on the song "Desi Girl" ..coz it's sidey's brother's wedding and all of us frd's are going to dance at the sangeet. I'm dancing on desi girl and lucky boy (IF sidey can't find nebody)..and a few other songs.. as an extra in the background to fill space.

Ir's quite exciting actually to see the kind of planning and preparation involved. The whole enthusiasm and hard work put in by friends..I mean komal's writing the script..Neha and komal are hosting the show..we're all dancing...not to mention going for endless dance sessions (which include drinking lots of tang and gossiping and bitching)...reason - I dunno..coz we all love weddings and we all love our friends.

It's always been a way with me..that whenever i am angry, i try and keep out of everybody's way (so as to not lash out) and i occupy myself with work. Recent cases include cleaning my entire office correspondence and ruthlessly clearing backlog and pending paperwork. Menial, physical labour sometimes brings such a lot of solace..coz ur hands work on autopilot while ur brain's already running and working itself upto a frenzy. What also dissapoints is when people take your being young..for being inexperienced and naive. I mean why can't humans be fitted with an internal judgement meter like probably our ears go red if jerks are around..or we start puking everytime an asshole passes by or tries to strike up a conversation..oe imagine being able to judge people with just a handshake..i'm sure the idiots wud probably have paw like...groping hands, while nice people will probably have baby soft hands..

Either ways..i gtg..and rely on my superior judgement

FOR DDLJ

2009-10-18T23:24:00.000+05:30

I just love this movie...I think Raj is the ultimate lover. And everytime i watch this movie i realise how terribly cliche all the dialogues sound. But i give full points to Shahrukh Khan though for sheer intensity. He can probably look as though he's intensely in love with a skunk...if he had a chance.

It's quite a jolt to realise how terribly, hopelessly romantic I am at heart. Whenever I watch any romantic movie..I can't help but go all "awww" and give a deep deep sigh of wistfulness. How every cliche dialogue...however cheesy it may be..always brings a smile to my lips. I have my list of my all time favorite romantic movies (and i adore romantic comedies) and my favorite dialogues - Here's a list

- You had me at 'hello" - Jerry Maguire

- Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she walks into mine - Casablanca

- And at Christmas, you tell the truth - Love Actually

- Mere tumhare beech kuch hain toh nahi na, Aditi - Socha Na Tha

- "Bhaag jaana koi option nahi hain" - Socha Na Tha

- We're aam janta, mango people - Love Aaj Kal

- After all... I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her - Notting Hill

- It's as if I've taken love heroin, and now I can't ever have it again. - Notting Hill

- Don't cry, Shopgirl. Don't cry. - I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly - You've got mail

- Look, I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, because I know, in my heart, you're the only one for me. - Runaway Bride

- I love Eggs Benedict, I hate every other kind. I hate big weddings with everybody staring. I'd like to get married on a weekday while everybody's at work. And when I ride off into the sunset, I want my own horse. - Runaway Bride

- Otis always told me love is a leap. Lamentably, I was never inspired to jump. - Kate and Leopold

As of now - this is my ongoing list..which I shall add to as and when I remember

Days when you feel like crying

2009-10-13T21:24:00.000+05:30

For there will be many...just random days where you'll feel miserable and down..and want to cry and cry and cry. For no particular reason..or actually for no particular ONE reason. It'll be like a whole horde of reasons, times and moments which will make you want to cry. Doesn't matter whether you've partied hard the night before..or seen an amazing movie (NOT HIMESH'S) or whether you were alright yesterday. You know you'll be alright tommorow and not even a trace of the sadness (mysterious and unexplained) will remain. But for today..When you feel like crying - Just go ahead and indulge in a good wail...It's actually quite therapeutic and plus makes your face go all funny and red...which makes me want to laugh at myself!

So here's to all such days..when they just jump onto us. Reason could be many - from PMS'ing to heartbreak to general feeling of "i- am- a- loser" and stuff.

Chin up and let the tears flow :-)

Live..for today

2009-09-16T20:51:00.000+05:30

Where the mind thinks a lot

Where you can hear the wheel turning,

Confusion abounds there

Simplicity is often the way out

Too complicated makes for tough living

Too easy means lowering your standards

Love isn't easy, and it changes definitions

With every new person that we meet

Like maggie in runaway bride

I end up liking new eggs

for every new person that i meet

Work is god..God is work

And people are here to yell at you

You run, sprain your ankle and you walk and you jog

But it's not enough..not enough

Coz somebody, somwhere ...everyday is much better

So you try harder and push yourself

Till there's no room for mistakes

Till your heart and mind are focused

On one and only thing

And you try and try

You fall back and get up

Coz with every fall, you know you won't do it again

And you learn and learn...till you feel you know everything

And then....you start all over again

Still more..and always more

And one fine day, you say " Enough"!

I want to explore, I want a break

I want time out

And you mean to go..you really want to

But there's the bills to pay and kids to feed

And the car insurance and home loans

And you stay where you are, saying

"Mebbe next year"

And the years keep on adding on

So if you're smart and life loving

You take a day off..and discover

Even if it's your own city

And you feel the simple pleasures

And life's little moments

And you cherish them

Along with the old and new

The bad and good

You dream..and for that moment

You live...for you

So that when tommorow comes

You can go back

To being a provider, a father, a keeper

A machine

But for today - You live

TO DO LIST

2009-09-01T10:11:00.000+05:30

I just realised that Life is all about working hard..so that you can ensure a life after working hard.
I realise a lot of things..what i do about them is next to nil
It gives me the creeps to see somebody so high, so fast and so successful..makes me feel like a worm

But then its all about what i think and what i do about it...and like people say, anything is possible if we stick at it hard enough and focus long enough.

Important to have a focus
A direction
An ambition...burning one..
A zest for life and an ability and innate love to live life to the fullest
And of course..smartness and the guts to take your dreams and plans through
That whatever happens, life goes on and YOU are more important than anybody else

But in between all this, my whole tendency to act like a tortoise and settle down in a groove and not move till the next earthquake or tsunami is proving highly detrimental..All that while i am thinking i should do much better, i shuld be out of this place..but day by day i settle in deeper.

So now, i think its high time i hoist myself out and stop harping about my intelligence and my smartness and my success plans (highly vague in the extreme) coz all of it will not help me if i dont roll up my sleeves and push myself harder and harder till i know i can...and it'll be amazing what i can achive

Unless, there is something fundamental flaw in my character or my life plan. Bt that's defeatist talk and like i keep on spewing..Its all a matter of perspective

So i need to change my perspective and be on the move..all the time

i need to..i need to ..i need...i have to..but its not a duty and the day i realise that..i 'll be sorted