G for guilt?!

Today, which was as ordinary as any other day in my life, I was travelling back home after completing a few regular tasks for my mom. Barely half a kilometer away from home, a beautiful cool drizzle falling upon us from the heavens turned into a heavy downpour. It appeared as if God wanted us humans to come to a halt and enjoy the transition from evening to night. Standing there with all those strangers - men, women, children and elderly all included - and waiting for the rain to slow down or stop altogether, we were, for that short moment in life, tied together with no options but to wait, or at best, curse, worry, enjoy and appreciate as the disposition of an individual may guide him/her to do.

And I waited, and waited, and waited, and I so resisted, but when a fellow ‘waiter’ finally brought one finger-long for himself, I got tempted, thanks to all the emptiness in me, and lit a short stick of Golden Flakes for myself.

And as I smoked, I looked around. The sky looked beautiful! Not that it did not appear as beautiful ever before, but that God himself made me stand there and appreciate it. The golden yellow turned to orange, and slowly into darkness. The black clouds covering the horizon provided a splendid backdrop for the fluttering national flag, which despite being soaked and heavy, reluctantly gave way to the flowing and youthful energy of the wind. Water started collecting and draining close to the pavement. Bikes and cars sped past with people strangely eyeing us and probably thinking – “Oh I so wish to be a part of that lot!” or maybe asking - “How long do you think you want to stand here in hope of a better weather?” Frankly, none of us knew, and few cared, in those moments of bliss and leisure.

I got a high! Yes, I still do get high, and immediately, when I smoke Gold Flake. And I loved it. There were two groups pretty close by, both having kids and their mothers looking after them. I tried being as far away as possible from them to avoid inconvenience, and would appreciate how normally they reacted on my preference to take this chance of smoking one cigarette.

Just after, one of those kids, about 5 years old and standing upstream to me, made a boat out of paper and let it go in the flowing water. It made a small journey, and stopped a few paces from me, held by an obstruction. He was anxious to get it back, but his mother won’t allow the little sailor venturing into the storm to get it back. I hesitated – the stick between my fingers made it a bad time for me to join the group and have fun. But I overruled my dilemma, picked up the boat, and handed it over to the kid in return for a magical smile that spread from one of his ears to the other J. And then we repeated, for a couple more times, till the boat got soaked. Minutes later, he appeared with another fresh piece, and we did another round! It was great fun.

And then the rain slowed down! As others started leaving, I bought mint to get rid of the cigarette smell. Chewing on it, I started contemplating about the smoke and about Shantaram! And I realized that carrying a little guilt helps men – it helps them to be better than they usually are. A small guilt of holding a cigarette in front of a kid made me much more anxious to help people around me in any way I could have. Moved one scooterette out of the haphazard parking set, entertained the kid for a while receiving appreciation from his mother and paid a rupee extra to the cigarette vendor who was well above 65 and has probably spent most of his life selling that stuff at that very same place every single day!

It is the guilt of committing a sin, however big or small, that brings you back to the goodness and the humbleness in you – things that you leave past you in all selfishness in your day to day life. Is that probably why every person with a first hand mafia experience talks so highly about the honour and nobility of gangsters? Is that probably why those filthy rich entrepreneurs wish to die after making all possible contributions to humanity? Is goodness all about guilt and shame! I feel sorry for my self that I now need that guilt to bring out those moments, but I wonder if people looked around themselves to find such “not so real” sinners being so good to you otherwise. And did they ever took time out to once appreciate such a lot overlooking their original sinner self, or rather, accepting it as a reality!

Well, that took my thoughts to Gita, which deserves another write-up. Will leave the readers with this – if there are any :D.

Mess of randomness

Nothing breaks you down worse than getting defeated by your own self, over and over again. I wonder about the road to recovery, and whether its already time I started traveling on one!

Sight of a sleeping women or child would probably qualify as the best sight in the world. There’s only one thing that makes it better – knowledge of the fact that somewhere their sound sleep is reassured by your presence!

Mistakes are like bad loves of your life; the more you learn from them, the more you wish you shouldn’t have committed them in the first place. - Shantaram

In love, suffering is the pleasure you love to engage in when emptiness threatens your heart!

Vices are ought to be rooted better in our brains by the Almighty! Doesn’t make sense otherwise that humans find it necessary to teach ‘moral sciences’ to their offsprings.

God couldn’t have made it worse for us humans – a intellect just so good that it’d never solve anything we’d really want it to!
The secret is, only faith can do that job...

Fantasies of an unusual kind :)

Well, I have this habit of landing in trouble. Primarily attributed to my habits of negligence and forgetfulness, particular situations have landed me in real tense situations at times. Thanks to a trip to Puri, that happens no more – not the trouble, but the tension :). In fact, forceful or otherwise, I’m quiet amazed at my ability to see things differently and very positively these days.

Take for example the current situation I have at hand. I received my offer letter from Schlumberger in my mailbox on the 21^st of May, 2008 (more than 50 days from today) which clearly instructed me to send the acceptance in 7 days. When a job pays you 36lpa, you’d expect people to respond real quickly, right? Well, I did not. I sent across my acceptance today! And two minutes after I hit the sent button, I got a call from the HR manager’s assistant of my company threatening me the job position may not be vacant now. Oops! Wasn’t that just supposed to be a formality. Guess not :P.

Well, so, here I am, seemingly in deep shit. I would have made a very bad name of myself in the firm’s HR now, may have delayed my joining (further still!) and worst of all, may have lost the position altogether! And here I am – suspended in mid air, waiting for the sun to rise tomorrow when I’ll hear from the HR manager herself the course of my destiny.

Though anxious, this time is unique. For quiet some time in life, thrill and fantasies have been missing. And though you see yourself on a footing very loose indeed, if you let your imagination loose, it sounds very exciting.

Say, for example, that I loose the job. I’m immediately back to the slab of income youths of my age find more realistic. Free from all obligations and long term planning, I can now imagine my life to be much more full of struggle and energy. I can hope to work in a stream of my choice, with people of my choice. I’d rent a small flat in Mumbai/Delhi, travel 1 hour to work and back each day, I’d be saving pennies wherever possible and relating more to how my friends are living each day. Above all, I’d be living closer to my mother for longer! The world seems so different, but it’s not a terribly bad situation after all :P.

Then, should I see this as a nightmare that hit my life and changed it forever, and burden myself with learning from the incidence and ensure it never happens again? And even curse my fate later for a lost opportunity in life! Or do I remain my real self, keep feeling it was sure a formality which was blown out of proportion, and assume God wanted to place me somewhere else??

Suggestions invited. And wishes requested too (I really don’t ‘wish’ to be kicked out of Schlumberger if one gets that impression reading this blog :D)…

Cheers to life!

Bangalore diaries

Day 1:

- Flying over Mumbai yet another time, I promised to come back :). Got a pretty warm good bye from hostel mates and a surprise visit from a new acquaintance.

- Bangalore rocked @ night. The weather was nice, antiquity was good, and two friends high on nostalgia even better :D.

Day 2:

- Wake up late, pass time, check mail and get ready for lunch. Ideal morning :P.

- Time pass @ Reliance Time Out after lunch. Get to know of Pol Pots and Edi Amins.

- Get bored, settle down in a coffee shop, and write to your friend on coffee tray mats in absence of paper :P.

- Meet new people, special people :P. Watch a bakwaas movie and roam around the near dead city in night… Time to get to bed.

Day 3:

- Repeat day 2 as much as you can.

- Try doing something wild, ask a girl out for coffee. Accept a ‘no’ and try recovering from the treatment :P.

- Listen to “Hallelujah” and get rejuvenated. Prepare a blog entry sipping the Kashmiri “Kahwa” tea.

- Find a firangi babe sitting alone in the same café. Ideal setup for a ‘chance pe dance’, he he. Oops! It worked :).

- Chit chat, and just when you don’t want your friend to show up for 10 more minutes, expect a surprise visit. Curse him later, but it won’t help :P.

- Get hurt on the foot, no problem. Pay a compulsive boring visit to your kin – get thoroughly bored and sleep like a devil.

Day 4:

- Get ready for fun. Shave your head, and take a decision. Offer more than hair to the lord. Work towards the commitment.

- Join in the running trail. Pass an ordinary night. Sleep while others turn in their seats :D.

- Join in the line of the lord. Support sleepy falling off friends.

Day 5:

- Indistinct transition of the day, coz there happened no night. Morning did happen though, at a lodge which offered an hour’s sound sleep.

- Miss breakfast, rush to catch a bus about to leave you stranded :D.

- Pretend to feel fresh, and keep dozing off at every opportunity. Wake up, make and crack jokes at every opportunity, sleep, and repeat.

- Wait in line for an hour or more, get a glimpse of the lord for a minute. Not that it was less, because nothing will fill your heart staring at that majestic site.

- Cool breeze, nice view, four friends and laddus. Made my day! Get late for the bus yet another time :P. Who cares by now.

- Shuffle seats and exchange wish lists. Get to know better, and enjoy the company.

- Get down, get wild. Eat, roam, drop back home. Get senti and all, and cut the crap. Reiterate we had fun – we all know we had fun – to make it even more lasting and positive :P.

Day 6:

- Face a power cut all day. Sleep, sleep, sleep and suddenly wake up to call Prafful.

- Get into a bar, share past and choices. Regret not being more with a guy of your tastes and views. Deny getting high on 7 beer glasses :P.

- Repeat silly and redundant phone conversations. Make the lady at the other end listen to you, and thank her for the concern she expresses :P.

- Sleep at some hour without realization, and thank your friend for being around.

Day 7:

- Wake up and tabulate events. Enjoy time, wait for internet access, wonder if the parcel was delivered, and when to meet Shishir, and what all interpretations last night call left to that special someone, and when to give a call to Chitra.

- Look forward to another great sunny day :).

Signing off!

Happy Ending...

There’s something with death that brings me to it again and again. Probably because it defines life, in a way, just like every other thing is identified with its boundaries as much as with its characteristics…

I sit here in a tea-bar sipping the Kashmiri ‘kahwa’, dejected by a rejection of an unkind lady to accompany a stranger to a coffee for some fun time, and quiet unaware of the moment of success and sweet memory to follow. And as I write this, a statement echoes in my mind – along with “hallelujah”- “When I’ve completed that, I’m done”.

I’ve thought innumerable times over how people, blinded absolutely by the way others live, just keep on imitating, or at best innovating. They have the exact same definition of being ‘alive’, but they believe strongly they are ‘individuals’ making their choices and controlling their lives. I say men innovate – they do change the way they spend, the way they earn, the way they sleep, the times they weep, the promises the break, and those they keep. But they are – at the end – innovators for an alien eye, or an eye of a philosopher.

Explaining how an inventor would be better (or even different) than an innovator is difficult – and I’m certain I carry a personal definition, so I make here no promises of delivering this to you. And as I scribble this, I’m very aware of being an innovator myself. With ‘hopes’ of a future, and ‘responsibilities’ of a kind, and with the ‘borrowed’ world view I have, I feel almost incapable of being an inventor.

And as the echo hits my mind again – I recall there is a certain someone who knows when he’ll be done with life – or at least, he claims to. Not that I’m going to drive the same point home – but the same bottom line – death AT WILL.

How many times have you wanted a trip, an examination, a meeting, a movie, a moment to end at the exact same instance – and leave you with that feeling forever! And how many times did you repent to stretch it – and showed desperation to get it back?

Yes, at times life’s good, and at times it’s bad. But at times it’s high! And don’t you live for those moments!? What if you identified the highest point of your life? Would life be worth more? Would you remain hopeful of feeling higher some day – would you still look out for futile purposes (assuming God made you for one specifically) and pleasures – would you still want to keep exploring more – would you give in to your redundant responsibilities and the cycle of life – OR would you, even for a split second, decide of surrendering yourself to nature, to end your life on this best of moments where you’d have nothing evil on your mind to take back in heaven?!

I know it’s a tough call – listen to Hallelujah, Fade Out, and more – pay a visit to Ajanta, Puri or Varkala – sip Mochachillo/ Kahwa @ CCD/InfiniTea – spend an evening with the best of your friends – contemplate – make plans to earn millions in an evening (for women: making plans of spending all of it the following evening :P) – dream of rearing a child. And you certainly realize there’s never a highest point, atleast not an identifiable one – hope carries you, pumping you and making you live for more.

But then I go back and compare proportions of times that left me with good feelings to those that left me with the bad ones. (Trouble, tension, EMPTINESS, monotony, boredom, greed, craving, fear, loneliness, compulsions, unhappiness) vs. (Bliss, fun, joy, excitement, anticipation, thrill, happiness, others…). And then I find large parts of it go plain and dry. And I wonder what hope gives me?!

When you write something like this, and you really don’t expect people to welcome it/ appreciate it/ even comprehend it, do you really blog it? Is an idea as ridiculous as – death at will; even worse, suggested at the highest point of your life – even worth consideration? I don’t know.

I’m not sure what death will bring me. But I’m sure it’ll release me of the pain of being an innovator, and being aware of it. I’d wish to live, invent and fall off the globe… And as sure as I am it probably won’t happen – one can't guarantee :D.

From a free man... :|

For the first time in my life, and finally, I realized in a contemplating, beautiful sea wave environment what being independent was! My blogs kept questioning this in subdued sense since long, and I’m happy to have an answer finally :).

Personal space, freedom, independence have all become a fashion amongst youths these days. It is so easy to proclaim yourself independent and shoo away people when you do not need them around, but so painful to whine about missing them when they are not around in times of need – trying not to curb your utmost important independence.

Yes, dependent we are! On money and security, on those small moments of happiness, on events which generate the wide spectrum of emotions, on support and care and love from our loved ones – and ironical that it leaves us dependent and sad – more often than not because selfishness is in design of humans.

Are we so weak, so incapable of entertaining ourselves that a group to talk nonsense about, a circus and movie hall, and a lover to support each of our actions is all so necessary! Lions and cows lie peaceful all day (atleast I’ve never heard them complaining :P), but it looks utterly impossible for humans to reach that state! Guess they’ve made more progress in the field that matters… Independent is what GEETA wants you to be – but it certainly looks difficult youths! Stop fooling, start living :).

Sudan calling :)

Lots of things to take note of! And I’m anyways reading short stories, so let’s adopt the format: Short is sweet, afterall! :P

• Hasan Manzar is a phenomenon! I’ve finally made a good purchase as far as books go :D.

• Beatles rock! I’m hungry for more good music.

• Mumbai Indians keep going! We’d win the rest three in style, and uproot Yuvi in the more important game ;).

• Restricted, slow internet is the worst thing that could happen to an individual. (Some people would rather say working in Sudan is worse; I would quiet disagree :D)

• This friendship thing is getting difficult everyday! Don’t blame me if the idea starts to suck pretty soon…

• How do you differentiate between ‘being neglected’ and ‘genuinely not being contacted out of business”? Maybe they are the same – you have to neglect something when you are busy at others, don’t you :P. Well, keep minor issues aside. (When you’re moderately sure you’re doing and thinking 95% of all that’s happening, it has to be a minor issue for the other party :P)

• ‘Hating’ people is a fashion? Or a necessary emotion? Please help me learn that act – at least so that I can hate people in return.

• Security my foot! I wish I’d opted to be a sage early in my life. Having no duties and responsibilities may be the best condition for a man to live (Or so one can claim easily sitting in the comfort of a home brought to you by the family who care for your security :P)

• Having discovered there’s possibly no good greater cause of human life (or I’m probably not brave enough to acknowledge there’s one), how do I convince myself to live? Do I base my life on those moments of electrical impulses my brain registers on every emotion – that’s the opposite of what Buddha taught and that way sucks (so what if it is exactly what drives most of us in our youths!)? Or do I behave as a dead person – following my duty to live devoid of all control and let the Almighty take over? I’m thoroughly confused, and I hate God for this! You better end this well :).

Jerk off emotions, and happily ever after :D.