...TVM19 T108...

There are just a few things in life which make you fall short of words. My Kerala trip has happened to me that way! The beauty of the place, the experiences- of both places and people has added something very precious and dear to my life. I am actually short of words right now to be able to describe whatever I am feeling.

I met some fantastic people whom I have taken as friends for life. They made the moments all the more special to be spent. I realised, I couldn't have laughed and smiled all the way all alone. Even smiles need a few warm hearts to reach to. 

We all were like different spices-clove, cardammom, mint, cinnamon- all blended together to leave an exotic fragrance for me to get nostalgic about and then feel great for it happened. We managed to find fun at almost every place we were. In between the sessions, at the trips, the charging point at Kapil, Jyoti Bhavan, our sweet little Cookies-n-Bites, Gauri Nivaas, Amritha and last but the Grandest at Rajdhani. For boys even the batch meetings were a feast!!

Our batch special EC6 was cherry on the cake. I enjoyed a lot while preparing the questionnare with Cd and Anushree but I enjoyed even more while evaluating it. The best part was guessing the owners of the sheets and we were very much successful in doing so for most of those! So all you folks who had put stars and "I am not giving her name" for your crushes, have been busted. We know your secrets...

Enough written for the first day of "Missing My Batch" feeling. I hope I have all you people with me in some way or the other.

I lived a lifetime in these 34 days...
God Bless us all...

... The Tickler ...

There are many books which have been termed as great. Many criteria are held up to prove that a book is a masterpiece. Many times it is just a hoax. Many a times it just might be a creation whose praise and the worthiness of such a praise have been blown up many a times the deserved amount. This blog is my expression which I wish to make public even if it means proving myself an idiot. I am not perfect myself but still I choose to do what follows. Still, no offense to anyone's sentiment is meant here because what will follow is sure to bring some "not so well wished comments".

Talking about masterpieces in writing, many have been declared so by the crowd, both -the elite and the non-elite alike in a "I too understand classics and appreciate them and I swear I do" fashion and how I wish I could murder such verdicts. Here I go and let loose the guillotine on my neck.

"The Alchemist". A lot and a whole lot has been sung in praise of this book. It is the most inspiring novel according to some. These people would find themselves lost if they did not have this book by their side 24x7. When I had read the book I was unaware of its status. I read it. That was it. It did nothing to me. Actually it did. It made me laugh. Not at the humor or the message in the climax but at the sheer feeling that I had been cheated, robbed off my hours which I had put into reading the book and that I could do nothing about it. Soon enough I chuckled once again over it. This time it was when all of a sudden I started hearing "My favorite book is The Alchemist", "The most inspiring thing I have ever read is The Alchemist", "The Alchemist changed my life". All of these were uttered by many TV stars, models and the like. Among the glitterati was one actress about whom I doubt if she could distinguish between two nursery rhymes, let alone the idea of reading a whole book. I suppose it was the only book she would have had read in her whole life time and the same goes for many of the twinkling stars. All these things make me so sure about the feeling I have about the page3 class-the class which makes or breaks fashion, be it about clothes or about books. The feeling goes like-do they even know how to solve class V math? The answer to it I have with me but who cares...

I read another of Coelho's "great piece" and tried my best to digest it but I suffered from indigestion. A very bad one and I really felt sick. "Eleven Minutes". A story about a girl who gives into prostitution for simply no reason. No reason at all. She was not forced, nor did she have "no other option" situation. All I could deduce out of it by revising (literally revising) the whole context, to ensure that I had not missed any crucial, life threatening or earth shattering reason, was that she wanted to make some quick money. Why I say this is because that the girl had a very good opportunity of working in a gift gallery and earn a decent living for herself and her family! (Yes, she had a family too!) But she chose to be virtuous the erratic way. Well, Mr. Coelho wished to make a demi-God out of a lecherous creature and he stated it as a journey of a girl who tries to know herself and then to prove it he has made her talk to an inner voice of hers.

I think I'd be sued by Mr. Coelho so I am asking for forgiveness right here right now. Please sir do not do so. Neither can I afford to have a case against me in my resume nor will I be able to pay any damages. I took my third chance with "Veronika Decides to Die". A work hell-bent on driving anyone to the heights(or depths or whatever...) of depression. The title of the book should have been "If You Are Cheerful...How Dare You?”. This book forced me to add “usually” to the next sentence. I "usually" don't leave any novel till I have read it to completion. This book challenged me to read it full and I bowed out of the duel after 24 pages of self inflicted torment. Had I not given up, I would have landed up as a neighbor of Mr. Coelho-in the asylum. In short, Coelho has been to an asylum and "Veronica Decides to Die" is his way of inviting everyone to join him! So, am I anti-Coelho?...Frankly, I am not so but I am anti-all-such-verdicts which have declared such novels as classics and this makes me hate these novels all the more over and over again! These have failed very badly in inspiring me. Not a bit in me was motivated. I was moved and I was moved only due to the tickle I felt after reading The Alchemist, a faint one though but again I was glad that it was a tickle and not any trip to an asylum or a brothel.

But there are many books which actually have moved me or tickled me well enough so that I could very well and gladly suggest reading those. Not for any divine reason but just for the sake of reading and mind it I am not giving any verdict. I'd rather not compare one "great writer" to another right here in the same post- I'd better not for I might get sued by both of them!!

Happy Reading!

P.S.: Please don't sue me Mr. Coelho.
P.S.: P.S.: Others please pray that he doesn't sue me for this!

...Go Wahoo...

Ever gone wahoo?

Didn't get it?

Read.

Are you happy? If you answer yes, you are and if you answer no you are not. Ok, this might not be true always because most of us are in a habit of hiding feelings. If talking generally about everyone, it is the sad feelings that are locked up in the vocal chords and if referring specifically to the incarnations of Venus, they are all experts at hiding the happy ones too. I, belonging to the same race, need to learn this art for I believe in letting everyone know at that very moment that I am the happiest creature around them. So unVenus of me!

Well getting back to what I began with. Ever caught in a situation where affording a tiny smile was a herculean task for you? Trying hard not to show the weaker aspect to anyone but deep inside dying to get someone to blurt it all out, but no "I wont". Why? Because "I am a strong person". And in fact you are. But the real strength at that moment lies not in going on with doing your daily job, delivering the best seminar or taking the best test of our life. No. Real strength tested is when you are able to smile when you are alone, smiling back at the little kid whom once you had given a band-aid and toffees, laughing till the belly hurts, making faces at your roomies and then getting beaten up by them, simply going Wahoo...

Wahooing just doesnt need any of your skills in the CV and even if it needed, in my case it couldn't for mine is blank--absolutely neat and clean!!! Dance as bad as you can on your favourite song, shout as loud as you can, go beat up the person who makes you feel this bad and then get beaten up by ten others. You might, in doing all this,seem to fit the profile of the missing mental assylum guy perfectly to many people but then it is much better than feeling like one and only appearing happy. Kick-off anything, anyone who makes you not love You. You are the best thing that could have happened to yourself. Realise!

An age old, worn-out-by-use statement is that you be what you make out of yourself but pure experience makes me say this. If you say you are happy, though you may not be at that time, eventually everything, "the whole universe conspires" to make you happy. After sometime, you do "Go Wahoo...".

...Better Luck Next Time...

I say,I love the rain because I can smile all the time and have the heavens cry for me. Life is way too short to have time for crying. But still I cry. Life is too complicated and unforgiving to be taken seriously and as someone anonymous has said "no one gets out of it (life) alive anyways"!

"Five Point Someone" sounds good enough when u get to hear "Nothing Point No One". In my Post-Graduation I am creating a record of getting grades not even good enough to be remembered after I put in the maximum amount of hard work I have ever put in till date in my whole academic life.

All the time that today I stood in the long queue for getting the result of my III semester, I cooked up all the blackmailing that was possible to blackmail the Almighty. As the queue got shorter the intensity of the blackmailing was reaching that of the ultrasonic waves hoping that somehow it would reach God and he would erase the marks in the register if they were not good! The trend of the result was not less fluctuating than the sensex. A good score by someone lifted the spirits within a bit high and the a low one dragged me down to the depths lower than that of the sunken Titanic. I reached the result window and bang, I scored even worse than the last time. It proves that my results are somewhat inversely proportional to my effort!

My exit from the queue with handful of marks once again, has confirmed to me that there is no God but myself else if there is one his/her ears would have gone deaf by my pleas and grant me something better. This is not the first time that it has happened, remember na, my PG record that I am creating! As many of you would say now that I might not have worked hard, IT WAS NOT SO!

If anyone can do me good, it is me. I will have to work upon it, again. No God ever comes and writes the exam for me, nor does he ever come and console me when I am not good enough for myself. After a few pathetic moments of weeping out the faith in God that took long to rebuild inside, I start all over again to be Happy. The state I really belong to. I engage people, phenomena(like rain) and myself to let me live my life as it should be--Happy and Satisfied no matter what.

Fine isn't good enough. I will have to be Extra Ordinary. I might have worked hard but it seems I didn't work hard enough.Better luck next time Suni (and Shambhavi too)!

...Me...

The me I know is a romantic. Don't miss the "a" before romantic else the discussion would take another course! Linda Goodman doesn't really make me very happy by defining the "typical Aquarian". Not a single trait that she defines is what I really am or would like to be. Except one that is. That one is the trait of the Aquarian being a thinker. Thoughts of what not come to my head ranging from the level below that of a kindergarten kid to a level surpassing that of Einstien!

Well of course the "thoughts" I am talking about are something for the good of humanity, the mankind...and not for the sample of this species and that would again of course be...Me. I put my gray matter to use for the economy of my India but if that needs to be implemented Mr. P. Chidambaram would need to study economics and finances all over again. I think about an uncorrupted India but that would mean no political parties in my country. I think about the butterflies, their colours. I think about the new watch I got. I think about....you. I think about what not!

My experience warns me over and always that my thoughts can not be understood by anyone else but myself. Maybe I think in a different language. Maybe in that of some other species. Maybe in that of an Aquarian.

...World Ahead...

Sometimes, an unexplicable kind of fear creeps in without letting us know. Try as hard as you can but you'll ever figure out what it is and why is it happening. Certain state of uncertainity about nothing, anything or just everything makes the heart beat faster every second making things even more difficult to go on with. The fear of falling out of love, not being loved, not being able to make through the exam, not able to understand the meaning of a simple "Hello"!!! Quite creepy, isn't it?

Daring to face the unknown is the strength that one seeks. Being able to do the impossible, turning all the dreams into realities for others to dream upon. Opening up the wings to fly was the fear of the seagull till he knew that he'd die even in his safe abode if he did not flap his wings. He thought of dying the better way...he plunged headlong into the sea, falling down the deep cliff. To his relief he did not die. He flew. And he flew high and higher still. He could see the calm vastless blue expanse lying beneath the fresh feathers. Another world other than his nest on the cliff was waiting to be explored by the gull. He realised that he was made for flying. The cliff was his fear. He made his fear make him go up and up.

We need to get out and see that there is a whole lot of "world" left to be lived into. They are just waiting for anyone, just anyone to come to them and see what it holds - good or bad. Why not that anyone be us. Fear holds us close to itself, safe and unharmed. It doesnt let us go anywhere else to get hurt. It nourishes our wounds and keeps them fresh. Keeps us from doing anything for ourselves, makes us wait for the change to happen. But its we who are the change in ourselves. Fear doesn't let us be that for us. It makes us wait for an angel to come to our rescue and it knows that the wait is going to be unending. It makes us exploit ourselves.

Realise that if we are not our own angels then it can not be anyone. Let the breeze touch you, dry the wounds. Make room for new skin. Let the voice out of the cocoon. Give yourself what you deserve. A life that is "lived" and not bred on fear and tears. Let there be tales to be told by you. The tales of your fear and most of all, how you overcame those. The heights, depths all are a part of the journey and so are beatiful landscapes, valleys. Just don't stop.

Going on completes the story.

...Harmless Death...

"Harmless Death"..... Thinking over it i have spent usually not more than five minutes and have discarded the idea after failing to find any sense in it. How utterly stupid it seems....Can death ever be harmless?

My friend has given me a small job to do. The poem by Ram Prasad Bismil which goes as "Sarfaroshi ki tammanna; Ab hamare dil me hai;Dekhna hai zor kitna;Baazu-e-quatil me hai....." is one of her favourites and she wished to hear it recited by me doned with all the acts and strong revolutionist's accents that i put into it just for the sake of fun.

After all the fun and play one question stands staring me right into my face. Who actually were these people? Were they superheroes or some very daring and bold creatures who just never had fear in them. The fear of death, the fear of losing loved ones, fear of being heart-broken. Did they not have it?
It wasn't so.
They had every kind of fear what you could ever think of. But they simply found a greater fear- the fear of never being free in own country. Their biggest fear , they turned it into their greatest pride. The pride they had in dying for the country that made them say "Zindagi to apni mehmaan maut ki mehfil mein hai" failed anything to be a reason good enough to be proud of.

They weren't destined to die for the nation. None of such martyrs ever knew that they would be doing such a great thing. They chose what their destiny was going to be. They simply chose to do so. They found for themselves a purpose to live or rather die for. They lived even better after they died!

Harmless death was what they had lived and are still continuing to live. They died but such a Harmless Death....