This piece speaks for me :)

http://vartikab.blogspot.com/2008/04/together-in-solitude.html

Death

Death… one of those things we rarely want to talk about. There’s a dark side to everything, or so we believe. To life, it’s death. Looking at every single movie, reading every single piece of literature and poetry, death appears to be the bad thing, something which humans would love to come over, and live life, fearlessly.

Death. What does the word bring to you? People call it the only truth of life. Everything sums up to death. It has too. You have 100 options to exercise today and they keep narrowing down forever. From alphabets and numbers to basic sciences to physics and maths to civil engineering to transportation engineering… It has been narrowing down, and it will continue to. We’ll get choices and we’ll choose. Good or bad. But it can lead us to only one thing. There will be a time when we all will have no options. The 100s today will dwindle to 10s and to 5s, and then God will one day serve us death!

What would it be like looking back from that point - exciting, memorable, agonizing, regretful? Would you like to change back some parts, or relive the whole thing? Would you be proud of what you achieved, or would you worry of what you’re leaving behind? Only time may tell (for some, they even don't get a chance to do that bit of thinking).

Here, however, I’m wondering of something else. How would life be if we are constantly reminded of this end? What would matter then? Money, success, faith, love, vision, joy, happiness or something we even never think of may be important. Maybe that we realize nothing indeed is important. Maybe, that we may look forward to death more than anything else, after all it’s the only thing we don’t understand fully and would look forward to exploring, won’t we?

That’s the beauty of death. It makes life so meaningless! Resulting from my curiosity and optimism, I promise myself of embracing death when it comes, as it comes…

Today

Today, I thought on why I try to do things that are probably never destined to happen.

Today, I thought of two people I credit for making me more stable emotionally, knowingly or unknowingly; and I cursed and thanked them for doing that!

Today, I went back to ‘Taare Zameen Par’, listening to the soft soundtrack played by Akshay, and thought if my destination is elsewhere, rather my preferred route is some other alternative?

Today, I tried to decipher why I place people so important in my life. The events/persons debate cropped up yet another time.

Today, was incredible, and was the first time I wrote in my undergarments (I thought all the above while bathing, and couldn’t wait typing it down :P)

Today is GALA dinner! And it’s time for the same.

Happy Kite flying world :)

Orissa- part 1

Orissa – arguably the best of outings I have ever had. No no, I’m not discounting the fun I had in Kerala and Aurangabad and Europe. However, Puri had its charm. And it excelled that of all the above places for the mix that it offered. With things turning out exactly like I did not plan :P and the most unexpected of places giving such immense and intense feelings of pleasure and bliss, this trip certainly is better than I can describe in words (that on account of my low vocabulary, and the fact that if a picture is worth 1000 words, I would have to be an essayist to do justice in describing a whole trip).

Lots of things to write, I’ll try and organize, but excuse me if I’m messy and can’t hold the reader for long. Reason - the events themselves never classified, and it indeed probably was their random order that made them look that good.

The spontaneity

In Bhopal, it was a perfect winter morning outside, but a little jumbled up in a flat above Dena Bank, Kohefiza branch… A train got too late to keep me interested, and an sms informing me of ill health of my sister’s friend combined with a nightout effect triggered a spontaneous reaction. In two hours time, I and my mother were ready to leave on the 30^th of December, 2007 for the land of the lord, the lord of the land J. The spontaneity thrilled!

The journey

Tension loomed (probably for the last time in my life :), later ) when I realized our boarding point was not specified as Bhopal in the tatkaal ticket, and though worst could have happened, we managed to claim our seats at Bhopal. It was either my mom at work (more on this later in my next chapter) or a long chain of messages and phone calls. Sometimes, relations and friendships work miracles in India, I love and hate it for that :D. Sometimes, faith works, and I just love it!

Hang on, the journey’s just started. On our way to the destination happened to be Nagpur. A big town in literally and factually a ‘big state’ of India, this town houses the zero mile mark of the country along with two very important relations in my life. One, which my mom gifted me – my sweet, pretty mausiji which brought us dhokla and tea at the station. Second, which I chose, and wisely so – my sweet, darling sister who managed to get on to the platform only when my train had already started its journey ahead after waiting anxiously with me for this stupid latecomer sister for one long hour at the station. No matter, we exchanged glimpses of love and affection successfully, though in materialistic terms, I was the luckier one to hand her over a gift. I missed those sweets sis, I love Haldiram!!

Rest of it was boring, and the train was filthy. More later...

Happy new year!

This new year is special. It’s one of those rare nights of my life when I’ll be hitting the bed with 3 hours to midnight, and to add to it, it’s a new year eve. And I feel this day is really special, probably for the first time.

Lord Jagdesh, the ruler/owner of the world, owns all land, water and air that surrounds us. Now, he owns me, rather, a part of me. I gave away a part of mine to the almighty today (it’s a tradition over here), and I hope it never gets back to me. Feels good to leave it behind and go ahead all carefree and confident, relying on the One which inspires people all around to globe to live, and to be good.

A philosophy classmate of mine gave a presentation on the existence/ non-existence of ‘God’, and concluded saying it is not important which of the two options is really true. Rather, what is important is the existence of ‘belief in God’. For me today, there is a ‘belief in God’, as true as my own existence. Hope it goes on, and makes me happier each day :).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

But!

“Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either; just Fuck off and leave me alone.”

"Once upon a time, there lived in the woods of northern India, a witch (Khalnayika :P) named Artihc. A witch alright but with a strange and oddly attractive character. A witch who rode the Nimbus 2000s, loved the world of fiction, the Lord of the Rings, the Harry Porters & those who shall not be named (at least here :D). A witch which never got tired of caring for the people surrounding her, which never got tired of thinking about them. A witch which never did an evil, which never wanted to hurt a soul!! And equally interesting were her set of choices, her predictable unpredictability, the ‘conflicts within’ and a select few of her ghostly and witchlike friends :D.

By the way, the story is not of old, & nowhere near an end! You may find her just round the corner someday, and with her charm around, ‘beware’ or ‘bewitched’!;)

P.S. Excuse me for the use of whichs in place of thats. It's a witch story afterall!"

Well, I recently learned there’s a ‘but’ to every story. Yes, a BUT. So what’s that but in here. Umm, well, to write it down, and as creatively and with as much of an impact on the reader as I did for the good part (I believe :P) would be both unfair and impossible. Unfair, because it SHOULD be boring, boring because I’ll not like a karela to be wrapped around in sugar juices to make it edible. Impossible, because if you look at it carefully, you’ll realize every story has a but, but that but is different for everyone who reads the story.

Well, having said that, here’s my but of the story. Na, I’ve decided I’d rather not write, and leave for the reader to interpret his/her but of the story.

Cheers to life!! :)

48 hours

48 hours of anxiety

48 hours of tension

48 hours of retrospection

48 hours of enmity

48 hours of jealousy

48 hours of pretension

48 hours of desire

48 hours of faith

48 hours of ensuring a good future

48 hours of proving yourself to the world

48 hours of proving yourself to yourself

The last 48 hours were weird. 48 hours. They summarized our stay at IIT, almost.

Some got what they wanted.

Some never figured out what they wanted.

Some wished everything.

Some kept learning.

Some remained silent.

Some remained watchful.

Some left bad for good.

Some lost good to bad.

Some didn’t have the skill.

Some never gathered courage.

Some remained confused.

Some only cursed.

Some emerged happy.

Some remained sad.

If only we realized…

The importance of relativity

The working of probability

The existence of destiny

The mask of happiness

The ice of failure

The presence of Buddha!!

If only…