full throttle

The Other Versions

2009-07-05T05:08:00.002+05:30

We all are products of the choices that we have made till now in our respective lives. How nice it would have been to discover what we would have turned into in case we had made different choices at different stages of our lives. I for one wish so not because I am unhappy with my status quo but out of sheer curiosity. Would they have talked like me? Would they have thought like me? Would they have been happier than me? Would they have even managed to survive? Questions galore! The curiosity, however, is not about how different my other versions would be from me but how similar we would have been (or are??). Strangely, it is the extent of similarity and not dissimilarity in this vast world that often manages to catch our attention.

The Pleasant And The Miserable

2009-05-26T01:36:00.005+05:30

As the moon peeked through the trees on a windy night, I walked on the street that was occupied by few lazy dogs. After an unforgivingly hot day, the cool wind in the night was the testimony of the evening rain. The pleasant smell of the soil was still fresh. After a satisfying day at work, the idyllic weather felt like icing on the cake. Though the street was unusually empty, I didn’t really feel the need of seeing anyone around. The lonlier the place, the more comfortable I feel. Even as a child, I used to spend hours sitting alone, head thrown back, eyes staring at virtually nothing. Though people often find my state weird, I have never questioned my demeanor. Rather curiously, I find it quite pleasing.

As I marched the street, the mild noise of the footsteps tried its best to fill the air. And I was sure there was no one around to hear me. The dead leaves falling from the trees caressed me every now and then, as if trying to remind me that they too, exist and shouldn’t be ignored. As I reached my place, it was already quite late but then, that had been routine for quite some time. Waking up late, going to work and then coming back around two in the night. The routine didn’t really allow me to get glimpses of sunrise but sleeping till late in the day was a luxury in itself. Watching sunrises and sunsets has never really been on my priority list.

My arrival at my place was greeted by a rather tense silence. Though I often find silence calming, that very moment felt burdensome. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something just didn’t feel right. I stared at my room. Apparently, the room stared back at me. The night passed with intermittent sleep and when I eventually woke up in the morning, the neighbor passed on the information that a guy from the neighborhood had hung himself last night, and the reason behind it was yet to be discovered. I found myself asking if any reason was enough for the act. I am still looking for the answer.

The Quiet Shift

2009-05-26T00:51:00.004+05:30

The ease with which one learns to live without things that were once considered an inseparable part of life is often the measure of life's forward shift. We try to hold on to those lovely things but as life moves on, we find those things gradually moving away from us and we somehow discover peace and pleasure in newer things, newer places, newer people. That is indeed where the beauty of life lies. It learns to let things go. It learns to conform to novelty. It learns to welcome the change. For better or for worse.

The Consuming Friday

2009-04-26T01:41:00.002+05:30

It's been a while since I found myself tired--physically, mentally or both. Over the last six years, there had hardly been anything in life that could generate exhaustion. To add to that, things could easily be tagged had-to-do rather than willing-to-do. Every day passed with a mild yet false hope that the next day would arrive with work that I would cherish doing. The next day, almost inevitably, used to be same as the last one. To my relief, the last Friday was one different day. By the time I reached back to my place---that being 2 am and hence, technically not Friday---the body and the mind were sweetly consumed and depleted. As the body lied on the bed, the feeling of being spent doing something meaningful over the day was much more gratifying than I had envisaged. The sleep that followed felt heavenly.

The Internal Conundrum

2009-04-14T03:37:00.002+05:30

We are usually so busy finding logic, looking for particular reasons in our day-to-day decision making process that we fail to give our instincts a chance to display what they are capable of. There are times when our mind and body align precisely and we just know that nothing, absolutely nothing can go wrong in that particular moment. But the cruel habit of mistrusting our own instincts doesn't allow us to reap the benefits of that esthetic opportunity. All we are left with is a mixed feeling of joy and sorrow that arises from being capable of knowing the right path but not walking it. We often find ourselves as our biggest enemy.

The Hunted Ostrich

2009-04-05T16:03:00.006+05:30

Ostrich is by far the fastest running bird. So fast that it can easily beat the race horses, let alone human beings. But when it senses a hunter lurking around, it digs a hole in the sand, buries its head in the hole and feels safe assuming that since it can't see itself, neither can the hunter. The hunter, meanwhile, gets the bird without using any of his lethal hunting equipments.The fastest bird, the hunter quips, happens to be the easiest prey. The ostrich, however, keeps wondering how the hunter managed to hunt it down.

Creation, demolished

2009-04-04T02:58:00.004+05:30

Rome wasn't built in a day but Hiroshima was sabotaged in minutes.

It's amazing how one incorrect decision, one lose comment or one moment of insanity can literally demolish what took someone years to prepare and create. We can try our best to avoid that but if that happens, I can only think of Rudyard Kipling saying:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

May we all acquire the strength and attitude needed while enduring the toughest of times.

A Matter of Time

2009-04-01T02:52:00.003+05:30

When one craves for something for long and eventually achieves it with one final effort, one looks back wondering what took him so long. There are times when we give our best effort and the task appears to be insurmountable and then, sometimes a mere caress moves the seemingly immovable rock. Time has a knack of playing strange games. Trying to enjoy its playful nature is sometimes the best thing we can do.

The Art And The Artist

2009-03-31T03:54:00.004+05:30

Robert Frost is my favorite poet. Every time I feel that I am in need of a little stimulus, a small boost, or may be, an immediate change of perspective, I readily know what to look for. The ridiculous ease with which Frost carved his words is, if simply put, delightful.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

These are unarguably the most popular and inspiring words that one can find in the world of poetry. The manner in which these words evoke the deepest of feelings is soothing and at the same time, intense.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

The subtle joy, the unabated beauty associated with his words continue to enliven my senses all the way. That is indeed what art is all about.
On another note, I often wonder what I would do if asked to live with either art or intellect for the rest of my life. I would perhaps go with art.

Lost

2008-09-21T11:22:00.006+05:30

Yes, I used to blog on blogspot. But for some reason still unknown to me, I stopped blogging altogether and since then, even after several attempts, which couldn't be considered Herculean by any stretch of imagination, I had failed to revert to blogging. It felt as if it were a proprietary of the distant past. Now, after being accidentally introduced to few blogs, I feel like bringing those good, old blogging days back to life.

My life has been not so jovial during the last few months. I have seen my peers sailing from college life to their respective coveted professional lives. But I, for one, seem to have stuck somewhere between those two arenas. Without any apparent movement. Static. Neither here nor there, as they say.

New events seem to have abandoned visits to my life and I have, beyond doubt, developed a faint yet distinct hate towards this monotone behavior of my life. Over the last six months, people, things and seasons have commuted with scaring haste in front of my eyes and the sight of their magnificent ride has, rather conspicuously, germinated seeds of forlorn emotions. I find myself standing alone, as a silent witness to a myriad of events that don't even remotely concern me. And the wait for things to change in my own life is threatening to be eternal and to be honest, that feeling doesn't sit nicely inside me.

The sudden loss of direction and purpose in life has made me a bit deplorable and perhaps desperate as well. I eagerly look forward to that proverbial spring being just around the corner.

"If you are going through hell, keep going." -Winston Churchill

The Forces

2007-12-03T21:57:00.001+05:30

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

It comes to me as no surprise that I find myself as an amalgam of all these four. Interesting is the fact that I am far from balanced. It is, however, just a matter of time before I attain the balance and reach the equilibrium. Till then, I would enjoy the dominant force inside me---bloody-mindedness, that is. And the world will have to deal with me. There is no hiding back....

2007-12-03T21:49:00.000+05:30

It is often quoted that a man is known by the kind of friends and foes he has had, though I brutally discard any such clichéd proposition. Nevertheless, roll your sight on the things people have said over the stretch of time about yours truly and decide the sanctity of my character on your own. Sounds fair, doesn’t it? Of course, it does! After all, it is my character and not yours that is being put on test.

“The next time you stealthily pick money out from my purse without permission, you will be kicked out of the house”---No prizes for guessing why my mother was annoyed!!

“I won’t give up and I will request you not to give up as well. Just persist and let us hope we last longer than our lives. It is one of those very few aimless quests in my life”---a friend when I asked him to stop asking me the question that he continues to seek answer of for last four years. It seems that we come from a place where men take pride in being stubborn.

“I am betting 100 bucks on you. You know how much I despise losing . You won’t let me lose, will you?”---a friend who seems to have too much faith in me.

“Your right eye is a touch smaller than the left one. Somehow it appears so only from a small distance”---What the heck was she doing so close to my eyes??

“You think of giving up on me and I put a bullet in you head”---a friend when I told that I was good at driving people away. Incidentally, I didn’t know my friends kept guns with themselves. I had to reconsider who drove whom away.

“You are, if anything, a zombie. You walk as if there is no one around. Your talk with the least of warmth. You look as if you have not been served food for decades. Can you recall the last time you acted like a normal human being?”—a friend who, I guess, had a really bad day and needed someone to bring all his frustrations out upon. Guess who he bumped on!

“I like you for not what you are but in spite of what you are”---a friend who seemed desperate to let me know about my unsung qualities. I wondered for a week if what he said could be taken as a compliment. In the end, I decided otherwise.

“Your language is as bitter as gourd and it hurts as deep as sea”---oops, someone doesn’t wish to let even a single chance of framing similes go by.

“Your behavior scares me. Your attempts at achieving numbness is dreadful. Believe it or not, your conduct is unsocial. Don’t be such a loner. You are missing great fun in life”---a friend who didn’t look impressed by me. Am I really that scary?

“You surely know how to put your foot in your mouth”---a friend when I happened to screw myself up again. Yet again.

“I think I am in love with you”---someone who I hadn’t talked to even once and that ended up being the only talk we two had ever had. I always thought proposal was the most difficult thing to do and there she was, proving me wrong all the way.

“I would have chosen you if it weren’t for every other human being on the earth”---someone who was looking for a partner. Frank and pure. I loved that.

Alphabets

2007-10-07T06:56:00.000+05:30

Alphabets	Word(s)	Remark

A	Abhieshek	My identification "mark"

B	Beauty	A thing of beauty is joy for ever

C	Cricket	A passion since childhood

D	Death	A necessary evil

E	English	The language that connects (most) modern-day civilizations

F	Fuck	A word for all seasons

G	God	This one needs no explanation

H	Howard Roark	The perfect man

I	I	My favorite word

J	John McEnroe	Who says temper leads to failure?

K	Knowledge	The quest for knowledge is on

L	Life	The most underrated gift

M	Money	A very powerful tool

N	No	Rejection and disagreement construct new paths, open new windows, unearth new possibilities.

O	Optimism	For hope is the prop of life

P	Philosophy	Provides an answer to every question

Q	Question	Questioning every idea is after all not such a bad idea

R	Religion	An unremovable cog in the human wheel

S	Sachin Tendulkar	An artist who pleases a billion hearts

T	Time	It's the only companion that stays with us from our first breathes till the very last ones

U	Unique	That's what each one of us is

V	Vengeance	"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord"---Divine words!!

W	Why and Why Not	There come the questions again!

X	X	It denotes every unknown, every unidentified, every nameless

Y	Youth	The best period of life

Z	Zion	The ideal place

The Timeline

2007-10-01T22:21:00.000+05:30

1984 : Stepped on some strange planet called the earth. I experienced desperation. “This place is oversubscribed.”

1989 : Deliberately pushed my younger brother from some height. He happened to break one of his bones. I experienced elation. “As per my expectations, bones are indeed not strong.”

1990 : Threw a brick at my mate’s face. His evasive actions took some time and his skull spilled some deep red liquid. I experienced composure. “Even the skulls are not strong!”

1990 : Got drowned in deep water in an attempt to gauge its depth. I experienced apathy. “Water riding into the lungs doesn’t spare room for anything. Not even for hope.”

1992 : Got introduced to porn. I experienced excitement. “That was one heck of a discovery.”

1997 : Kissed a girl for the first time. I experienced disappointment. “Expectations don’t help the cause.”

1998 : Modified the contents of checked examination papers and conned the teachers into awarding me brownie marks. I experienced deception. “Conning a man is after all not such a difficult job.”

2002 : Fought for a disloyal man. I experienced betrayal. “The species that is the biggest threat to the existence of mankind is man himself.”

2002 : Arranged a bitter quarrel between two lovebirds. I experienced bloody-mindedness. “A combination of wicked intention and stealth action can produce vicious results.”

2002 : Spent three consecutive days without food under arguably unavoidable circumstances. I experienced satisfaction. “Can that be called developing appetite for hunger?”

2003 : Entered IIT. I experienced despondence. “Journey is a few million times more fun than destination.”

2005 : Spent a couple of months in countryside England. I experienced independence. “An independent mind is the reservoir of unprecedented success.”

2006 : Spent a couple of months in a cauldron-like environment in a steel plant. I experienced strength. “Watching liquid iron flow makes one realize the power of man.”

2006 : Read The Fountainhead. I experienced peace. “A man is only as productive as he allows himself to be.”

2007 : Attained tranquility. I experienced salvation. “Peace is what we seek; effort is what we lack.”

The Book

2007-08-26T23:46:00.000+05:30

When I was a kid---13-odd years old-- I found a book in a forgotten corner of my home. It had a thick film of dust planted in its hardbound cover and the pages had adopted a tinge of pale yellowness. The book looked old by all means and I gathered that no one had turned its pages for a long time. The book was voluminous and so it dented whatever desire I had to read it. Nevertheless, I took a look into its pages. There were innumerable phrases of virtue in it written in a very soothing manner. The book was a modern English translation of some another popular book that was written in ancient English centuries ago. Though I can’t recall the exact words that I laid my eyes upon, one of those phrases read something like this:

The only way a man can be perpetually happy is by not handing over all the sources of his happiness to others.

I liked what I read and I have always tried to follow those providential words very passionately since then. I do concede that I have failed miserably few times while translating those words into action but the number of times I have succeeded ridiculously outnumbers those when I have conked out. By the way, when I got rid of dust that veiled the face of the book, it read “The Bible”.

The Hitch

2007-08-02T17:51:00.000+05:30

The stage was set. People wished to know who that guy was. Everybody was willing to get a glimpse of that charming individual. After the monologue describing all the wonderful qualities that I possess, the announcer spoke--"Ladies and gentlemen, let me take the honor of presenting in front of you, the one and only----"
A pause. The kind of pause that adds to the excitement; one that bewilders the audience. You along with the entire audience held back in anticipation of hearing that divine name. I could see fervor in your eyes and smile on your face from the backstage. I prepared myself to leave the background and allow the soothing limelight to drown me. I knew it was time for me to be spotted and eventually applauded. Amidst all this exhilaration, I heard the announcer speaking--"Oops, I forgot his name."

Collage of Memories

2007-07-12T13:07:00.000+05:30

Baat zara purani si hai. takriban 22 saal pehle bihar ke ek chhote se kasbe mein paida hue. thode bade hue to maa baap ne school mein dakhila karwane ka socha. kasbe mein school ki kami thi. fir bhi maa baap ne koi kasar na chhodi. jald hi humne khud ko ek school mein paya. aalam to yeh tha ki school ka bhi woh pehla hi baras tha, woh bhi kiraaye ke makaan mein. dono naye. dono ek dusre ka haath thaame aage badhe. school ne tarakki ki. hum bhi saath aage chal diye. dus baarah baras ke hue toh khud ko dosto se ghira paya. saath khelte, saath padhte. ghar mein bhi hamesha padhai ka mahaul tha. roz shaam haath pair dho kar padhne baith jaate. dil mein aage badhne ki chahat thi. aankon mein sapne they ki ek din kuchh badaa karenge. logo se suna karte they dilli shahar mein kaafi chamak-damak hai. sun kar dil mein ek chahat si jaag uthti thi.

14 saal humne ussi school ki aangan mein guzar diye. baarahwi pass kiya. number bhi theek se they. aankon mein sapne abhi bhi jawaan they. bade shahar ki baatein hum abhi tak bhool na paye they. magar pitaji se dil ki baat kahe bhi to kaise? maa se kahaa ki hume dilli ki college mein padhna hai. gharwale jaraa sahme. humare ghar mein shayad hi kisi ne bihar ke baahar kadam rakha tha. dilli to dur ki baat thi. fir bhi gharwalo ko kisi tarah manaya. tasalli di ki sab kuchh sambhal lenge. bhari mann se ma ne haami bhar di. doston ko bhi humne alvida keh diya. pitaji saath dilli aye. tez raftaar ki zindagi dekh kar pitaji ne humari or dekha. hum to apni hi duniya mein khoye they. naya shahar, naya josh tha.

Pitaji ko chhodne station aye. train chal padi. waapas jaate waqt pitaji ki aankhon mein humne aanson ki do boondein dekhi. hum iske aadi na they. isliye thoda dukh hua. bhaari mann se apne kamre mein waapas aye. magar aankhon ne fir se naye sapne sajaane ki tayyari kar li thi.

17 saal ki umar mein ek anjaan shahar mein akele ek nayi shuruaat ki. din beete. aaj dilli shahar mein aaye hue paanch saal se zyada ho chuke hain. na shahar raas aya, na shahar ki raunak. fir bhi jeeye ja rahe hain. is jaddojahat mein purane saathi kahin kho se gaye—kuchh humse aage nikal gaye, kuchh ko humne peechhe chhod diya—kabhi jaan kar kabhi anjaane mein. magar in sab se bekhabar hum khud mein hi guum hain. aage ka pata nahin par paanv chale ja rahe hain. ankhein andhere mein aaj bhi kuchh talaash rahi hai. dil mein aaj bhi kuchh paane ki hasrat hai, ek tamanna hai. bas raste anjaan se hain. awara ki tarah manzil ki bas ek jhalak paane ko betaab chale ja rahe hain. kabhi ahiste, kabhi tez par yeh kadam hain ki rukne ka naam hi nahin lete. bas ek ummeed hai ki manzil agle mod pe humara intezaar kar rahi hai. manzil mile na mile, ek baat is shahar ne zarur sikhaya hai ki bina thamey, bina ruke chalte jaane ko hi zindagi kehte hain....

Deus Ex Machina

2007-06-25T15:40:00.000+05:30

When everything seems over---no goal to aim at, no obstacle to wipe out, no road to construct, no success to celebrate, no loss to ponder over---an angel sans any halo behind his head appears out of nowhere to create unexplored areas, to open new doors, to pose new challenges. He is, if anyone, worth being called Deus Ex Machina.

My Day And I

2007-06-18T16:38:00.000+05:30

Let everyone inquire
But this day is mine
They say the state's dire
But little do they know
That the sun is about to shine

Change

2007-05-02T05:06:00.001+05:30

There is nothing more charming
Than touching the wind of change
That may end up carving
The results that are ever so strange

Trial And Error

2007-04-28T21:30:00.000+05:30

Trial and error, believe it or not, is the best form of learning. It gives the opportunity to look into what goes wrong when we do a job in one particular way. It provides opportunities to correct things at a pace which suits a human mind the best. A slow process, someone might say but quality is any day better than quantity. Moreover, it helps a person learn on his own. There is perhaps no better feeling than satisfaction. And that's why, there is no better way to know the laws of nature.

Wait

2007-03-25T18:35:00.000+05:30

Copper leaves flew high in the wind
Rustling each other often they grinned
Thought they were flying on their own
And when the wind stopped blowing
The seeds of disappointment were sown

Often they make a feeble try
The wind smiles ever so wry
They wait for wind's mercy again
With heaps of helplessness and
Little patience flowing in their vein

Game

2007-03-25T05:28:00.000+05:30

Let's go out and play a game;
With zeal and slice of acclaim;
Having searing spirit and just one aim;
Where the winner is revered;
And the loser collects the blame.

Prey

2007-03-20T04:11:00.000+05:30

It matters to me. It really does. They may never meet again, rather they won't meet again. I've ensured that. They won't hear each other again. They won't see each other again. I want it to hurt them. Unfortunately, my effort doesn't alter things much. I can only manhandle events; not the results. They themselves will determine their fate. Brutal may it sound but I am elated that world will never see them together. Sadist I am. I can only hope that they are not masochists. I pretend to heal wounds; I'm not known to inflict wounds. I enjoy my stealth. I move on. Quietly. Viciously. Proudly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It hurts. It really does. There is an eerie sense of pain. Unbearable pain. It is about to obliterate every patch of vitality. I often thought that we would be together. Always. I always wished to see him; I always wished to hear him. It proved to be a gag. I was wrong. I was proved wrong. Brutally. Intentionally. Time, they say, heals wounds. I think otherwise. It seems that like everything else, time has eventually been corrupted. It has lost its character. Time has started bestowing wounds. May be, it always did. It is a sadist. It waits, hunts, enjoys. And then, moves on--quietly, viciously, proudly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can sense victory...Another victory. I must thank them for their support.

Virile

2007-03-20T03:54:00.000+05:30

Here It Goes

2007-03-13T04:42:00.001+05:30

It can't get bigger than this. The much-anticipated mega-event that everyone (at least I) had been waiting for so long has finally arrived. ICC World Cup 2007. Right from my childhood, I have dreamt of watching India win the cricket world cup. People from the generation that precedes me don't tire telling me stories of how they went out beating dhols on the streets when India, unexpectedly of course, won 1983 Prudential World Cup; how a proud Kapil Dev whole-heartedly accepted the trophy on the famous balcony of Lord’s; how he and his teammates went around Delhi with the charming silver trophy; how Mrs. Indira Gandhi congratulated him for the grand success. And I don’t tire listening to them either. But there is a subtle sense of jealousy. I always feel jealous when they tell me those lusty episodes, for I have always wished to see all those events repeating themselves in our era. It was such a pleasure to watch that Prudential World Cup when I visited the Lord’s museum a couple of years ago. I can’t imagine the high spirits all around India if this present team manages to pull out a victory on April 28, 2007. Words of a person who is truly in love with the Indian cricket team.

History, as they say, repeats itself and I desire to see this saying coming true this year. Since that golden month of July 1983, India has come close to winning this event on more than one occasion—1987 semifinal and then 1996 semifinal. But none so closer than the grand finale of 2003 edition. Faces in the team have changed but desire has inevitably remained the same. Come on India. Give all of us a chance to beat dhols on the streets on India. Trust me, this generation of cricket lovers will pray in front of your idols for a long, long time. You guys are, of course, not Gods but you will be treated like nothing lesser than Gods in India.

Though I am an avid Indian cricket team fan, I would like the games of this WC to be tantalizingly poised rather than being one-sided. There is much more sense of elation when a whole team competes against another team to win a close match. Blazes of individual brilliance, most of the times, don’t manage to create such illustrious effect. 2003 WC was a spoilsport in this respect. Even that Indo-Pak encounter in Centurion Park resulted in a one-sided affair, thanks to some extraordinary effort by Tendulkar. That is why, unlike most Indians, I rate 1999 WC matches much higher than those of 2003 WC. One can recall that Australia-South Africa semifinal as an example to understand what I mean.

On a serious note, irrespective of which team wins the trophy, Cricket should be the ultimate winner. And may the best team win. Everything else is secondary.

Playing With Faces

2007-02-26T15:31:00.000+05:30

As crowd becomes dizzy, city dips into murk
Though flesh gets lazy, my head jumps to work
With hush in abundance, tranquility tickles the mind
I wish this brutal cosmos were always so kind

The faces I see daily are so misleading
I never know if they are euphoric or bleeding
Faces are often not as obvious as they look
They own the shrewdness of an agile crook

Those faces stare mine and give different name
Alas, alas, they sound anything but the same
They call me a terror, they call me a saint
Perhaps I am everything, everything I ain't

I often see my face in that old dusty mirror
As a desperate attempt to make myself clearer
As always, I lose in this age old game
But one day, I will gift myself a name

The pigeons outside are seizing peace
The golden rays are about to fleece
We'll try reading those faces again
Without ignoring that tinge of feign

The Other Side

2007-02-07T17:02:00.000+05:30

When the first yellow rays hit her face
Dew gave grass the final embrace
Woke she up in the usual space
Without anticipating any fresh race

Leaning casually at small windowpane
Looked at the street she again and again
Passed a man during thin morning rain
Their eyes met daily and lips smiled then

Moved he ahead, her curious eyes gazed him
Until he reached horizon's brim
She wished to go out, relish and scream
She envied his freedom in restless dream

Walked he hopelessly towards the town
His tired feet gradually slowing down
Who the woman was having eyes dark brown
Thought he daily with head always drown

Reckoned she herself a bird in prison
His smile lent her a hope, a reason
With a desire to taste the changing season
She abandoned her haven like a wild pigeon

The sun was warm, she found it sweet
Ran she through the field of wheat
The air she touched was fresh and neat
Believed she was in a company elite

Sneaked into her abode, he saw luxury a lot
An abundance of fortune he always sought
Proud he felt as he handled a golden pot
There was more than what he had ever thought

The sun began beating, it was all heat
She was brought down on her feeble feet
The sun went down, gloom showed its ugly teeth
Gold lost its hue, seemed like an iron cleat

Amid her cosmos, her throat went dry
She couldn't find her any ally
Having had his fortune, got nothing to try
Girdled by golden hue, he sought to vie

On the doorsteps they did collide
There was nothing to show, nothing to hide
Realized they something and then they cried
The grass is not greener on the other side

Futile Steps

2007-01-24T14:31:00.000+05:30

Mute I grew, sensed I few
It was only a picture that I knew
Slowly and calmly I carried my soul
From a distance, I looked at my goal

Bare-chested I faced the morning cold
I am the one who was not to be sold
I recognized not the direction of wind
I was ever at the start, ever at the end

The fog came riding on the season
Just for its sake, hardly a reason
Shrouded it me like the darkness of night
I was brutally blinded amidst a fight

The fog grew old and so did I
With closed eyes I learned to fly
Waving my huge wings, the fog I fought
Beaten the nature, I proudly thought

Roared I loud, faster I flew
Aim was left behind, hardly I knew
There was no coming back, I realized late
Was it pride or was it the fate?

The goal looked tiny from the distance
Smiled I little with no resistance
A moth flew over my dead open mouth
I knew today sun will sink into the south

Run Afoul

2007-01-06T02:50:00.000+05:30

"These people in AIIMS are doing a commendable job. Their inspiring protest will certainly lead to some very fruitful results," an IITian spoke to his mate with his eyes fixed on the newspaper headlines. "Yes, they are. Why don't we carry out a similar protest? We should also raise our voice. Our voice must be heard. What say?' replied the other guy. "Indeed!"

Two months later, a student-faculty body spread leaflets all over IITD—in every hostel, in insti, on streets of IIT—everywhere. Students along with faculty members were asked if they protested reservation. The students who protested reservations were asked to write their names and entry numbers on papers distributed by the committee especially for this purpose. Overwhelming statistics of the surveillance was printed and distributed in IIT. Around 98% of students and 92% of faculty members protested reservations. Meanwhile, a date was fixed and students who protested this reservation policy in writing were asked to be a part of a peaceful rally to express their disagreement over it. Even the faculty members of different departments were asked to join this act. The organizers of this protest rally looked more than satisfied with the proceedings.

On the D-day--not very surprisingly--only a handful of students turned up. The number of faculty members present there huffed and puffed to go past the mark of a dozen. This handful of students and faculty members hopped to the doorsteps of each and every hostel to urge people inside to come out and be a part of it. But who can alter the ideas of those who always have some more important work to do? Most students ignored the cause citing one reason or the other. Some of the guys had to show their faces to their parents who can't live without seeing their wards every weekend, some of them had to rest their eyes laden with enormous amount of sleep, some of them had to write mock CAT papers while some had to prepare for PIs and GDs. The interesting part is that majority of the guys preparing for GDs must have debated over pros and cons of reservation and proposed peaceful protest as one of the steps against this policy. An irony!

But the most widely-used justification—if at all given--for the absence was—"Yaar, in sab se kuchh hota hai kya? Kuch nahin hone wala protest se. Aaj tak kuchh hua hai kya?" These kinds of explanations—-that are miles away from justifications--can leave anyone speechless. "But mate, no matter what the result is, we can always be satiated that we played our part against something we believe is not correct." "To hell with satisfaction!" No further comments, My Lord.

Next day, NDTV reports that a mob of around 600 IIT students and more than 100 IIT faculty members brought out a grand, avid protest against reservation policy. A reporter interviews a faculty member for a couple of minutes. The Times of India also produces similar huge statistics. People all over read that IIT eventually has started showing the power of its big student and faculty community.

"I didn't know that while I was sleeping yesterday morning, so many students and faculty members measured the length of streets in Delhi ," said someone in the reading room of Vindy after reading the article in The Times of India . "How much did they actually measure," asked his mate. Their giggles saturated the environment.

IIT continues to live up to the expectations of the outer world; and IITians to those of the inner world!! Nevertheless, they co-exist with harmony—-dubious harmony, though.

Ashley Giles

2006-12-04T10:04:00.000+05:30

Ashley Giles, poor Ashley Giles!!!

Suggestions for a new ad featuring Giles...

1 wicket at the Gabba - 121 runs. 1 wicket in Adelaide - 103 runs. Dropping Ricky Ponting - priceless

Ashley Giles - Proud sponsor of the Australian Ashes campaign

Interesting

2006-11-29T12:56:00.000+05:30

Interesting, in particular, is—ummm what shall I say--a very interesting word. It has got different meanings—ranging from one end of the spectrum where it might mean virtuous and groovy to the other end where it may also mean spoilt and ridiculous.

“You are actually a very interesting guy,” alleged a stranger whom I had met barely half an hour before when I apprized him that I was a big critic of Amitabh Bachchan’s contemporary works. For an avid fan of Amitabh that he was (he loved his every film--even movies like Mrityudaata and Boom), listening my statement was almost an offence and he wanted to call me names which I had never heard before. He, for some mysterious reasons beyond my mediocre intellect, opted for the softer choice of calling me interesting. I couldn’t decide if I would have liked him calling me names more, for I struggled to decipher what he exactly meant when he tagged me interesting. That was mental harassment.

The word interesting is also used when one struggles to find a suitable adjective to describe a particular person, thing or event—something like what I did at the beginning of this post (if you haven’t noticed yet). It also buys you time when you are not quite sure about the quality of something. “It’s an interesting tactics,” says a commentating Rameez Raza whenever he isn’t sure why the captain made a particular field placement. If the very next ball produces a healthy result, he would quickly replace the adjective with a more absolved one and say—what a splendid tactics by the captain. He surely has got a thinking head over his shoulders.

Similarly, this word saves you from public embarrassment if what you think is in complete contrast with the ideas of masses. Even if you think that Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a pure tragedy of art and complete shit, you can save yourself from being abashed if you arc your eyebrows, curl your lips and call the painting interesting first and then pass priceless comments upon how Da Vinci could have made minor adjustments in the picture to make it look a bit better. You will invariable be tagged smart and a pundit in the field of painting. Now you know how certain journalists who don’t know the basics of a subject cleverly write half-a-page long columns in the newspapers and once you end up reading it, you feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because you couldn’t understand what he actually wanted to say. The melodic theme is that he never had anything to say.

Words having blurred and vague meanings always create an atmosphere where the speaker is invariably uplifted to the position of a great thinker and his listeners who couldn’t understand a single word discuss his profound greatness among themselves. Such is the power of obscurity. It sells. Things that are less understood have more magnetic power than their obvious counterparts.

I am again tempted to use the word interesting—with some caution and ingenuity. It surely is worth trying. Interesting is indeed an interesting word.

Addicted I Am

2006-11-15T18:38:00.000+05:30

As a kid, I learnt the eight parts of speech of English from my English teacher. I was told that adjectives held an enormous power--much more than any other part of speech--within themselves. After a decade and a half, when I was virtually forced to write a testimonial for someone for the very first time, I understood why my English teacher called adjectives the powerhouse of English. They indeed serve the purpose of pleasing others.

When I was first introduced to Orkut, I found it anything but captivating. I was in fact hesitant to join it at the first place. But one of my mates sent me an invitation to join Orkut and despite my unwillingness, I joined it just for my mate's sake. I was doing more or less fine with a long list of friends in Yahoo Messenger. And hence, I hardly bothered to check my Orkut account on a regular basis. I never added anyone in my Orkut account, despised each and every community and people felt blessed if they received scraps from me. I never understood why people were so concerned about the number of scraps they have had. "To know the value of invaluable scraps, you need to use Orkut, mate. The unwritten rule of Orkut is--the more you use it, the more scraps you receive. Scraps are earnestly precious. Lesser mortals like you won't understand the addiction," said someone to me. The two words that caught my attention in his speech were 'lesser mortals'. How dare he call me a lesser mortal, I thought. By the time I satisfied myself by knocking him a punch or two in my imagination (of course), he was gone. What the heck! I could have hit him in reality as well. It's a different matter altogether that I would have received many more long-lasting bruises in return.

Today, one and a half years after joining Orkut, I check my account innumerable number of times daily, keep refreshing the page in hope of receiving one more scrap and I yell when I find that no one has scrapped me in last ten minutes or so. "How can people do that to me," I often ask myself. I haven't found an answer yet. These days, I am on a spree of writing testimonials. I have actually mustered a huge set of oh-how-sweet adjectives and I often use them while writing testimonials. Girls tell me that I write testimonials that are lovelier than teddy beers while a diabetic had once said that my testimonials were sweeter than artificial sweetener. As a matter of fact, I am yet to write testimonials for alcoholics and terrorists. I wonder what kind of comparisons they would make.

Believe it or not, the real charm of Orkut lies in the fact that its scrapbook acts as open email ids--open for all to view the contents. A cheesy scrap from the opposite sex can be invitation to disaster if your friends somehow take a look at it. But then, it can also serve as a means of enhancing the number of scraps. Consider the case if a girl proposes you on Orkut. Your friends will surely send you 100-odd scraps asking who she is. And your scrapbook is almost flooded on the eve of your birthday. People don't mind faking their birthdays in order to enhance the influx of scraps. And the number of fans you have had is considered as the only parameter to gauge your popularity.

ATTENTION READERS-- the crux of the article is that if you want others to honor you, enhance the number fans you have, even if the means of acquiring fans is cheesy. Third law of Newton says that every action has equal and opposite reaction. So in order to gather scraps, send more and more scraps to your friends and also to their girlfriends. You can send scraps to your own girlfriend(s) as well if you find time after watching your friends' girlfriends' albums. This is indeed a battle of mustering scraps and fans. And everything is fine, as the cliché goes, in love and war.

And yes, I won't mind lending you my sacred book of adjectives if you are about to write a testimonial. Till then, bye bye. And don't forget to add me as your friend. My identity on Orkut is Full Throttle...! See you on Orkut.

Meet The Rockers

2006-11-01T18:40:00.000+05:30

These days, a guy with hair long enough to shroud every square inch of his face and a strange beard on his chin (if his hair allows a glimpse) roams on the streets of IIT after midnight. He is not seen in the day because alcohol, doping materials and drugs generally take over him during daytime. He wears jeans that can accommodate the thick legs of an elephant. To make matters worse, his jeans is at least two feet longer than his own legs. Body builders holding mikes are printed on his every shirt. The back side of his shirt reads—I love Metallica. The body builders on his shirt have looks of a monster that would tear you apart if given a chance to come alive.

During night, the guy listens to rock music at full volume on his Altec Lansing 5-in-1 speakers and 1500 watts woofer, doesn’t let his neighbors sleep and occasionally comes out of his room to have a round of cigarettes and iced tea. That is the only time his neighbors manage to sleep. He is a rocker, I was apprized by one of my mates as we sipped cold coffee. Now I know why he looks so strange, I replied back with arced eyebrows and narrow eyes. Perhaps overwhelmed by the eminent praises he received from me, the rocker stared at us with eyes more close than open. Not interested, bhaisaab, we felt like saying. He kept staring. No words, nothing. Silence. Time refused to move forward. But irrespective of the ideas time had, I needed to move forward. Backwards, I mean. Time can wait. Scared by the look that was anything but polite, we hopped away from him. Looked like a beast. Didn’t he, I said after gaining a fairly safe distance from him. He looked more like a statue to me, my mate said. My heart was still pounding. They all look the bloody same, I was informed again. Thank you for the information. Hey, I spilled all my cold coffee, I cried with sheer pain. That rocker owes me some cold coffee rather than that cold stare.

I have never had a chance to know what rock music was before I entered IIT. I had heard that rock is another form of music—very lusty and magnetic. I dreamt of listening to rock during my pre-IIT days. I got through JEE and got my chance to know more about rock. By the time I listened my first rock, I despised why I dreamt such a nightmare. Man, you need to develop a taste for rock, my seniors who rendered immense love for rock, told me. OK, I will try to develop such taste, I thought. Three and a half years after listening to my first rock song, I have strict reservations against calling it music, let alone lusty and magnetic. I often see rock lovers playing virtual guitars, waggling their heads and extracting pleasure from it. Their fingers move so fast on their virtual guitars that they can put world’s leading guitarists on shame. The wagging of their heads is so severe that their brains come under serious threat of being blown out of the skulls. While listening to rock, they get as animated as a bull at the sight of some red cloth. When I asked one of the rock lovers if he really understood the lyrics, he answered—It’s not about lyrics, man. It’s about feeling. I am, perhaps, too numb to feel rock. My inability, I accept. Most of the guys who take pride in saying that they are lovers of rock music fail to understand the lyrics on their own. It is only after finding lyrics on internet do they understand what the singer is actually singing(singing or shouting??!?). I understand that love for a particular kind of music is not a slave of any particular language--An American, for instance, who might not know a single language other than English can find Ugandan folk music awesome. But for a person like me--naive and foolish if one finds joy in stating--an effort won't be made to love something. There are certain things that come naturally to people and mustn't be imposed. Music is one such thing.

I came across the same rocker the other night on the same place. He won’t spare me today, I thought. Hello man, how are you, he asked. I somehow managed to capture a glimpse of smile of his face enshrouded by long, dense hair. I am fine, I flinched. Want some cold coffee, an invitation from the rocker. Rockers are actually not so bad, I found my lips whispering.

Cellphones And Their Users

2006-10-29T06:25:00.000+05:30

“Daddy, I want a new cellphone,” an eight year old kid demands his decently rich dad. “But son, you had recently bought one,” contends his decently rich dad. “The latest model that arrived in the market yesterday has a 10 megapixels camera. Moreover, I bought my last phone six months ago,” he says with all his effort to make six months sound like six decades. “OK, we will get a new one tomorrow. And give this old one to our gardener’s son. He was also saying the other day that he had got bored with his cellphone. And he wants the one with MS Office.” World in 2009.

Mobiles phones are as basic a necessity for the younger generation as controversies to Rakhi Sawant. If you don’t own a cellphone, the general notion would be that you are a son/daughter of an unemployed or something. His family conditions must be really miserable. He can’t even afford a mobile, you would hear someone saying. And if you don’t know about the latest trends, you are tagged ancient. You haven’t even heard about Nokia N60? You must be living in Stone Age, you will inevitably be informed with raised eyebrows.

For most people, buying their first cellphone brings a delight with itself that can only be compared to Bill Gates handing over his empire to you. As soon as the phone is bought, the urge of letting others know that you have actually got a new cellphone takes over. The easiest way goes something like this. You go to one of your pals who seems relatively free and talk to him for a couple of minutes, bring out your cellphone, (pretend to) watch the time and say—Oh God, I am late again. I am doomed. I will call you later. Hey I have lost your phone number. Give me your number again.” “Nice cellphone,” he would invariably say despite knowing that you would never call him. You are delighted. Mission right on track!! As long as he keeps mentioning that your cellphone looks cool, you don’t mind him calling you the ugliest creature in the world. “Thanks, bought it yesterday only.” Then you go on talking about all the features it has got. Fifteen minutes pass by. The guy in front looks anything but involved. You sense that. Now that your mission is accomplished, you tighten your tie, keep the phone in your pocket and leave in hunt of another soul who would call your cellphone great. After a week or so, everyone in your family, office and friend circle gets to know that you have got a new cellphone. Meanwhile, one of your friends apprizes you that a new phone with superior features has been launched. Now the cellphone no longer remains new to you!! Can I afford to buy a new one, your cellphone-obsessed-mind thinks. Next day, you stand in front of some cellphone showroom and ask yourself the same question. The next salary-day isn't very far away, you remind yourself.

Now a days, it's difficult to guess whether a cellphone includes camera or is it the other way round. A cellphone is now a multipurpose device---camera with all sorts of zooming facilities, FM radio, mp3 player, MS Office, palmtop and yes, I almost forgot to mention that it includes a phone as well!! The level of facility of course, depends upon the depth of your pocket, with the facility to call others being the minimum one. Wonderful. Sounds like magic. To me, at least!

There are guys who know almost everything about cellphones—the latest models, models introduced in US but yet to arrive in India, their elusive features, their prices, their reliability, their battery life—virtually everything. Living cellphone encyclopedia, in short. And you can find such guys everywhere. They might possess the most ancient cellphones but dare not question their knowledge in this particular field. If one is about to buy a cellphone, he need not surf the sites or decide right at the cellphone shop. He just needs to meet one of those guys and give him the price range. The living encyclopedia would put his index finger on his chin, look towards the window pane, calculate something in his mind and then tell you--- Nokia xxxx is your best deal. You can trust his divine words blindly, go to the shop, ask for Nokia xxxx and come back gladly. No site-surfing, no decision-making! What more—such guys are always ready to company you to the cellphone shop. Angels, they are.

My cellphone is my lifeline, people are often heard saying. They just can’t imagine taking their hands off their phones. They might be right in front of their homes but they would still call their moms and say—‘yes mom, I am coming. I hope my food is ready.’ Some of the cellphone users have lots of money in their wallet (may be in their dads’ wallet) and they would participate in every contest that needs sending an option by sms. By the end of the day, they discover that they have sent 50-odd messages with no success in those contests. And there are people who call their mates whom they had talked in person 15 minutes ago and usually the chat goes on till eternity as if they hadn't talked to each other for centuries. And there are few (like me) who keep cellphones just because they are asked to. They don’t actually need them but they use them as clocks. Yes, clocks!! They often forget to carry their cellphones with themselves, put their phones in silent mode while going to sleep and calls they miss embarrassingly outnumbers those they attend. Someone calls to one such person and says—hi, what’s up? And the inevitable reply is something like—“Nothing’s up, everything is down. Come to the point. Why did you call?” These are the kind of people whose phone bills struggle to cross Rs. 100 mark per month. Telecommunication service providers try their best to allure such people to use their cellphones more often but they just refuse to talk. For them, cellphones are strictly SOS messaging protocol. When one of such persons (read: Abhieshek) goes to pay his sub-Rs100 bill at the service provider’s office (in case, it’s post paid), the bill collector almost bursts into laughter and is tempted to ask—‘How much did you actually spend to reach our office? I reckon it was threateningly close to your monthly bill. Wasn’t it?’ Thank God, the bill collectors are polite and understanding enough to refrain themselves from asking such mortifying questions. I love bill collectors!!

Yaad Nahin Main Yaad Nahin

2006-10-28T11:25:00.000+05:30

zameen nahin, main aasmaan nahin
tinkaa nahin, main jahaan nahin

khush nahin, main khafaa nahin
dariya nahin, main hawaa nahin

jeet nahin, main haar nahin
nafrat nahin, main pyaar nahin

prashna nahin, main hal nahin
vada nahin, main chhal nahin

dur nahin, main paas nahin
dhadkan nahin, main saans nahin

mook nahin, main awaz nahin
zaahir nahin, main raaz nahin

jal nahin, main aag nahin
sur nahin, main raag nahin

jalaa nahin, main bujha nahin
ujdaa nahin, main sajaa nahin

kundan nahin, main kaath nahin
dhan nahin, main raakh nahin

jashn nahin, main shok nahin
mukt nahin, main rok nahin

manzil nahin, main raah nahin
hassi nahin, main aah nahin

behosh nahin, main ehsaas nahin
zinda nahin, main laash nahin

chalaa nahin, main thamaa nahin
prithak nahin, main ramaa nahin

ujala nahin, main raat nahin
tanha nahin, main saath nahin

bas ek pal mein simta hoon
aur fir, yaad nahin, main yaad nahin...

Lost In Colors

2006-10-25T17:42:00.000+05:30

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”—Juliet says Romeo in Shakespeare’s arguably the most famous play, Romeo and Juliet. Had Shakespeare’s soul not departed for some romantic sessions with beautiful angels somewhere in the heaven above, today—in 2006--he would have certainly acknowledged the importance of names. Names of different shades of colors, in particular.

People have time and again made me believe that I am hopeless when it comes to distinguishing subtle variations in colors. Wait a minute. You are not assuming me to be color blind, are you? To clear the fog, let me tell you that I can perfectly distinguish black from white. OK, OK, I know even the color blinds can do that. (I was just testing your general knowledge for a change.) But I can even distinguish red from green and blue from yellow. See, now you know that my eyes haven’t deteriorated a bit. Though it’s a different matter altogether that I find it difficult to differentiate between Sky Blue and Persian Blue.

“I like this red color of you sweater. It’s my favorite color,” I told one of my female friends over a cup of coffee. I didn’t know I was asking for trouble. I should have rather said—“I like this color of your sweater. It’s my favorite color.” (Almost) Everybody knows how particular females are about colors. Sadly, I had never come across any such universal fact. “It’s not red, it’s Crimson,” she almost roared back with a how-dumb-you-are look. “Whatever!” I whispered, trying to divert her attention towards the cup of coffee. “You don’t even know what color this is and you say this is your favorite one! Now that’s ludicrous,” she said with an overwhelming delight on her face. I knew instantly that she had not had someone for last few days to make fun of and somehow I found myself imagining how helpless an about-to-die deer felt as it saw a hungry lioness pushing it into a corner. Needless to say (but I would still say), my position was not any better than that of the almost-dead deer. “What’s in a name, what’s in a name,” I flinched. I just hoped that she had had some amount of respect for Shakespeare and his sayings. She went on to count different shades of blue and red on her fingers and wanted me to learn at least a few of them. But how can she expect a guy to learn hues of colors who often struggles to recall his mobile number? Too much of an asking.

People generally have one and only one color as their favorite. But he may not choose everything around him painted in that particular color. For instance--Someone like me, whose favorite color is red (may be crimson!!!) will not like his formal trouser or shoes to be red-colored. Going a step further, I won’t like my hair tainted red either. Similarly, no matter how crazy a person is about blue (say Persian Blue, to be very specific), she won’t like her lipstick blue. But there is no shortage of frenzy creatures in this world. You will see them every now and then. Anyway, let’s go ahead.

I had seen people around me wearing kurtas of different colors (now don’t ask me the particular shades). I found that cool. Even I am a human being (oh yes, I am!!) and I also have desires. So, the other day, I went to a shop to buy cloth piece for my kurta. The shopkeeper showed cloth pieces of different colors and shades. I didn’t like any. More colors. No success yet! I had seen someone wearing a blue-colored kurta and wanted something like that. More colors put in front of me. But I am a difficult person to please! After rejecting some genuine, honest effort from the shopkeeper, I could sense frustration in his eyes, as if saying –For God’s sake, will you now leave? He was about to cry as I insisted him to make one last attempt. “What exact shade do you want?” he finally spoke as he wiped sweat along with all his patience from his forehead. Now that was one hell of a question for me. I could calculate the rate of mass transfer in a packed bed (IIT says I am a chemical engineer, though I have never accepted!!) but shades—not my cup of tea. “Something in blue would do fine,” I told hesitantly but politely. I didn’t want to make that poor soul cry. By the time I collected the receipt, the owner of the shopkeeper had made me learn that it was called Ultramarine. I felt embarrassed. I recalled the giggling face of that friend of mine. I have decided to teach Shakespeare a lesson (read: kidnap all his angel girlfriends) if and when I happen to visit heaven. There’s surely something in the name, I tell you. Don’t believe the words of that 16th century ancient guy. He bluffed all of us. A rose in 2006 called by some other name may not smell as sweet.

Physical Features

2006-10-24T15:12:00.000+05:30

I receive an amused look whenever one meets me for the very first time. Though people try to conceal their awry sense of joy, I have got so used to that particular subtle look on their faces that I invariably catch those glimpses effortlessly. It’s not that I am unbelievably good looking or I possess attractive physique that introduces a smile on their faces but the fact that I possess an embarrassingly slim body structure makes them do so. To make matters worse, an abnormally large face rests over my shoulders and a pair of hands that can be detached by applying minimal force hangs below the shoulders, imparting me the looks of an alien. If you have no idea how an alien looks, do watch some movies like ET or alien v/s predator and if you are a die-hard Bollywood fan, you can always watch Koi Mil Gaya. Now if you are through with the movie, you can move on with the post. No, no let me tell you that I don’t look exactly like an alien if you have already started painting my structure in the canvas of your mind. But I must confess (I am almost into tears!!) that most of my features do resemble those of an alien. Similar height (just managed to cross 5 feet a couple of years ago), similar large eyes with pupils adamant to come out of the iris, voice difficult for others to understand and an above-average intellectual mind (that’s what I think)!! To add to that, my sense of dressing isn’t very different from that of aliens. Can you imagine my structure now? People often ask me what I generally eat in a day and they get an idea what not to feed their kids to save them from attaining alien-esque features.

Some of the people who really feel sorry about my physical features often suggest me to eat properly. They regularly let me know that if I continue like this for few more years, I would inevitably vanish. They suggest me to eat the amount of food in one meal that I generally have in 2 days. What they fail to understand is that a small belly lies in a small body. Enhancing my appetite is something that is beyond my control. I love food but I can’t eat much (Drops of tears are falling on the keyboard!!).

Most of the people I regularly come across are well built, possess height around six feet and hence, they see it as a moral responsibility (towards me, of course) to make me realize of my gradual drift towards un-human physical features. Every time I see a well-built person, the first thought that comes to my mind is--can I afford a fist-fight with him? The second thought that crosses my mind is—-I can’t!!

But I was not the same during my childhood days. Though I was born with a relatively bigger head than most other children, my good enough physique--firm arms, strong calves-- reconciled with it. But as days passed by, my weight refused to increase while the rate at which the size of my head increased knew no stopping. Result is in front of you. These days, with hardly any serious work to do, I amuse grown-ups and scare kids. That is one job I am really good at. If you can’t recall the last time you had laughed, do meet me. Your days of laughter are not far away.

A Spectrum Of Commentators

2006-10-20T16:37:00.000+05:30

During the ongoing Champions Trophy in India, Harbhajan Singh misjudged a catch and just when it looked that he would drop the catch, he somehow managed to hold the ball in his hands inches inside the boundary rope. Incidentally, two old foes Tony Greig and Geoffrey Boycott were on the air commentating. “Harbhajan Singh has got under the ball. Ooo…he seems to have made a mess of the catch…. I think he has dropped the ball…Or has he caught it?? Thank god, he…” said Boycott. “Harbhajan Singh has taken a blinder. One of the best catches one would have seen in the recent past,” screamed Tony Greig on the microphone interrupting Boycott. “But he made a simple catch look spectacular. Didn’t he?” yelled Geoffrey. “But he did manage to make it look spectacular,” argued Tony Greig with a chuckle.

Cricket commentators are a different species altogether. They come in all shapes and sizes-- their accent and use of words making them popular or unpopular. They always try to come up with something new every time around. Some fail while some of them do succeed in entertaining their listeners. The addition of females is the latest development in this fraternity. Commentators who talk sense are the most popular. Unfortunately, someone like Navjot Singh Sidhu who talks a lot with a handful of non-sense submerged into it also get popular. Let’s study the characters of these entertainers. To start with, people like Ravi Shashtri and Barry Richards stick to the happenings on the field and read the game wisely and hence, they give the listeners a better picture of the game. Their enthusiastic approach and smart analysis make them popular among listeners. Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Chappell, Harsha Bhogle and Sanjay Manjrekar also form a part of this group. Richie Benaud is one commentator who holds a special place for himself in the commentary field because of his great knowledge of cricket and composed voice. Then arrive the likes of Tony Greig, Mark Nicholas and Mike Haysman who have actually shifted their focus on making the art of commentary entertaining. These are the people who have actually made commentary an interesting job. They exaggerate events and tend to infuse fake exuberance into the listeners. Interestingly, their inspiring voices do tend to succeed in doing so. Cricket is after all a means of entertainment!

After all these men comes Geoffrey Boycott who is a die-hard fan of technique---be it batting, bowling or catching! If you ask him, someone like Sehwag is an ugly scar on the beautiful face of cricket. During India’s last tour to Australia, Sehwag played and missed quite a few deliveries outside the off stump. See what Boycott had to say. “This lad has got a rubbish technique. Even my mum would play these deliveries better.” When Sehwag played crunching cover drives on the next two Brett-Lee-deliveries, Boycott says—“Ha ha, this guy has made a mockery of what I told a couple of minutes before. He has got great hand-eye co-ordination. He doesn’t need any coaching book technique.” In the very next over, Sehwag comes out of his crease to a MacGill-delivery and gets stumped. Boycott says—“Just hand-eye co-ordination can’t take you too far in such a competitive form of the game, son. You need to learn quite a bit about batting. Crickeet is no child’s play.”

Then there is a whole bunch of other English commentators that includes David Lloyd, Ian Botham and David Gower. They have a special liking for their national team. If debutant Robert Key scores a century against a hapless West Indian attack, they start seeing him as a potential threat to Mcgrath and Warne in the next Ashes series. There is no cricket more important than Ashes for this group of commentators. And by the time Ashes ends, players like Robert Key are seen packing their bags with face-hiding batting averages of 15 in the series.

And then there is a man called Navjot Singh Sidhu who speaks nothing but non-sense. When he had initially arrived in the commentary field, he did a decent job with his catchy one-liners. But as time passed by, his one-liners became an overdose and irritating. In the recent one day game between India and England, England was bowled out for mere 125. During the break between the innings, when asked how much chance England had actually had, let’s see what he said---“England faces a deep, dark tunnel in front of it and it has no other option but to walk that tiresome, painful path towards the end of the tunnel where a slow, inevitable death with bright, cruel teeth waits for it. Sorry my dear friend, miracles are called so because they don’t happen too often. No matter how hard England flocks its feathers, it can’t escape defeat in this match.” When Charu Sharma asked the same question to Ian Chappell, he answered with his typical Australian flair—“I don’t know why Sidhu said so much about the probability of an English win. For me, the simple answer is zero.” Sidhu was embarrassed. Dean Jones has tried to give Sidhu a run for his money in the field of non-sense commentary and has succeeded to some extent as well.

Michael Holding is better known for his Caribbean accent more than anything else. “Adaam Gilchrist is playing just the kind of innings Australia wanted at this juncture” seems to be his favorite sentence. He is usually so obsessed with the pace quartet of the West Indies during the early 80’s that every other fast bowler looks mediocre to him.

Some commentators have special liking for some players. ‘Saurav Ganguly—the prince of Calcutta’ is Boycott’s favorite despite his horrible technique while Sachin Tendulkar must thank Tony Greig for helping him acquire semi-God status all over the world. Jacques Kallis owes Mike Haysman a can of beer for enhancing his popularity and Imran Khan always has a sea of praises for Younis Khan.

The two female commentators from South Africa seem to talk sense in the microphone. One can only hope that they would add a new dimension to commentary. People like Rameez Raja, Jeff Thomson, Arun Lal and L Shivramkrishnan don’t have anything special about their commentary skills to talk about. They are paid just because they know the game and speak a bit of English.

Commentator, as a group, surely form a nice spectrum with different colors in it.

Matrimonial Problem

2006-10-19T07:22:00.000+05:30

As I write this post, I feel more or less determined to hold moderators and owners of certain yahoo groups by their collars, drag them to the court and ask My Lord to allow me to hang all of them for their grievous crime. And since My Lord would inevitably say that he might take a minimum of 10 years to come up with any sort of decision (as Indian courts usually do), I feel like teaching those moderators a lesson in my own surreal ways. They have catered me several sleepless nights by sending enough scary invitations for joining their absurd yahoo groups. If that wasn't enough, I often find myself waking up suddenly in the night as I pull myself out of a dreadful nightmare(if at alI I manage to sleep), thanks to the role these moderators have played during last six months or so. Now I know what people called mental molestation.

Though I consider myself a strong enough character (mentally and certainly not physically as everyone points out) to handle issues on my own, these frequent invitations to join matrimonial groups have certainly taken a toll on me. There is no greater elation when I open my yahoo messenger and it says 'you have got 1 new mail'. The frequency at which I check my mail doesn't allow yahoo messenger to state that I have got more than one mail. And there isn't any more deplorable moment when I open my yahoo mail only to find a matrimonial group invitation. It's like end of the world for me. The names of these matrimonial groups are as irritating as their contents--agarwal2agarwalmarriage group, Letsmarry, MarryBigBeautifulWomen etc etc. I don't know why they think that I am an Agarwal! And if the lady is so beautiful, why would she marry me? I possess neither Bill Gates' money nor Tom Cruise's looks. Apart from all that, though I am legally eligible to marry as I have already achieved that coveted landmark of 21 years of age, I am currently not in a mood of marrying, you know. (Blushing)Lolz!! I have just started my life and I have no plans to ruin it so soon. I still have some sense left in some corner of my brain.

When I told some of my mates about this farcical and equally derisory problem that I am facing these days, they all laughed at me saying that I must have given my email id to one (or more) of these groups . But I am more certain than an Australian victory over Kenya as I say that an idea as weird as pasting my own id in any matrimonial site can't even come close to my periphery of thoughts. Though I must confess that I have certainly given some fake ids for getting some pirated softwares from internet. "Pirate, he is a bloody pirate," I can listen some software engineer screaming somewhere in Bangalore. None of my concern though. I have much graver issues like matrimony-case to tackle these days! I even tried to block these addressed and called them spam but these addresses somehow manage to breach spam protectors and chafe poor users like me. If any of the moderators of those groups is reading this post, I urge him/her to look for better candidates to send your unsolicited mails. I am genuinely not interested!! For those who don't know, this is my favorite one liner! I had once used it when a girl had proposed me. O yes, you read it correctly---A girl proposing a boy! Now you know that it doesn't happen only in movies. Real life, as they say, is much more exciting than reel life. Anyway, do I need to tell you what the consequence was when I told her that I was genuinely not interested? I leave it for you to guess!!

Bloggers' Addiction

2006-10-06T15:00:00.000+05:30

There is something peculiar about bloggers that I have failed to understand since the day I was introduced to blogging. Very similar to the case with any other form of addiction, the addiction of 'blogging regularly' brings a certain amount of insanity with itself. When a blogger runs out of topics to write upon, s/he tends to look all over the place for an issue or two. The best source of topics that strikes such a one-post-a-day blogger is newspapers and news channels. No matter how ignorant a blogger is about a particular hot topic, s/he always tends to post something related to it on his/her blog. The one case that was in the cauldron few weeks ago was that of Pluto being stripped off its coveted status of being called a planet. Now how the hell does it matter to a common person whether Pluto is a planet or not? But bloggers have needs of their own. They tend to pour in their views and opinions over anything and everything. Very similar to what I am doing right now--pouring my views over insane bloggers (with I myself being one of them). Anyway, coming back to the topic, I came across scores of blogs which talked about what exactly being a planet means, which parameters essential for a piece of rock to be called a planet are and blah blah. They went on writing pages over the history of Pluto and how dramatic the discovery of Pluto was. Bloggers showed their immense love for this ex-planet and urged the scientific community all over the world not to snatch away the planetic title from Pluto. Poor Pluto must be feeling deeply indebted to all its protagonists out there on the earth. She ought to visit the earth just to know how her popularity has peaked up during last few weeks.

Second such case was that of a person called Steve Irwin who eventually died doing what served as his means of living. Blogging community all over the world paid tribute to him and his heroics with 20-feel-long crocodiles. Bloggers showed such deep concern over the demise of this man that it actually made me wonder if Steve Irwin was one of the terrorists US government is looking for.
When I googled to know who he was, he turned out to be a person who fought with crocodiles. People cried lakes on their blogs writing how eagerly they waited every week to watch his show, how popular he was among their friends and how interested they were in their combat with crocodiles. I tried to visualize the excitement on people's face as they watched that cowboy trying his best to defeat a gigantic crocodile!! I failed. Their fake concern over the death of his crocodile hunter was nothing but an honest attempt to satisfy their hunger to update their blogs. As far as I am concerned, all those bloggers cried crocodile tears!! Didn't they?

By the way, I did manage to write a post without having anything particular or serious to talk about. Kudos to me.

Educated Raavan

2006-10-03T07:37:00.000+05:30

Sculptures of Raavan, Mehnaad and Kumbhkaran were erected hastily on Dussehra afternoon. By the time, the day drifted towards its end, the three sculptures were set to fire one by one with Raavan being the last casualty. Crackers installed inside them made deafening noise, huge spheres of smoke gained height above the burning sculptures, sparkling chunks of burning paper floated between the layers of air and baneful smell of gunpowder diffused into the atmosphere. A large crowd entertained itself by being a part of this evil-burning ceremony. With Raavan turned into ashes, the mob retrieved back discussing how harmful the rays coming out of crackers are and how polluted Delhi-air has become over the years. Two women talked about how their in-laws have made their lives miserable. Children accompanying them, oblivious to their talk, were glad with the sight they witnessed and asked each other who the two sculptures on either side of Raavan represented.

Raavan, despite being such a learned creature, an avid Lord Shiva devotee and a conqueror of entire cosmos, fell prey to evil and eventually couldn’t save himself and his family from fiasco and the wrath of Lord Rama. Today, we remember Raavan as the face of evil. What did those Vedas, Puranas, Upnishads teach him? Virtually nothing! That is perhaps why education has evolved over the years just as a medium of reading newspapers and getting a good job. It is only attitude that can help you gain some good name. Education— philosophical, religious, spiritual or any other form---is useless unless you don the right attitude.

Naina (Awesome Lyrics)

2006-09-22T03:14:00.000+05:30

nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat suniyo re
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge
jagte jaadu phukenge re jagte jagte jaadu
jagte jaadu phukenge re neenden banjar kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge
nainon ki mat maaniyo re

bhala manda dekhe na paraya na saga re
nainon ko toh dasne ka chaska laga re
bhala manda dekhe na paraya na saga re
nainon ko toh dasne ka chaska laga re
nainon ka zehar nasheela re - 4
baadalon mein satrangiyan bonve
bhor talak barsaave
baadalon mein satrangiyan bonve
naina baanvra kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge -2

naina raat ko chalte chalte swargan mein le jaave
megh malhaar ke sapne dije hariyali dikhlave
naina raat ko chalte chalte swargan mein le jaave
megh malhaar ke sapne dije hariyali dikhlave
nainon ki zubaan pe bharosa nahi aata
likhat padhat na rasid na khaata
nainon ki zubaan pe bharosa nahi aata
likhat padhat na rasid na khaata
saari baat hawaayi - 2
bin baadal barsaaye saawan saawan bin barsaata
bin baadal barsaaye saawan naina baanwara kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat suniyo re
naina thag lenge
jagte jaadu phukenge re jagte jagte jaadu
jagte jaadu phukenge re neenden banjar kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge -2
naina

Nostalgia

2006-09-18T14:13:00.000+05:30

When you are badly looking for something during an hour of utmost need, it is almost inevitable that you would not find it. Someone enters your room, asks for the CD you had borrowed from him the other day and you feel lost. ‘What CD?’ you think and suddenly realize that if you don’t recall which CD he is actually talking about, he would hit you on your face and could possibly break your head as well. You hastily look at every possible corner where you might have thrown his CD with no apparent success. You give him a pleading look and say that you would return it to him as soon as you find it out. The person, feeling perhaps disappointed and certainly furious, leaves saying fine. He, in fact, thinks—“you better find it out otherwise….” You avoid thinking what he might do if you don’t actually hand him the CD over to him.

So, the man leaves, planting a job in your mind. And you start your damage control job. Since you are a technical guy, at least you think yourself to be, you plan your quest for the million-dollar-CD in a contrived way. You, at first, try to mark out the places in your room where the probability of finding it is maximal. After damaging you brain cells for good two minutes, you eventually infer that the probability is exactly the same at every point in the room. Your past experiences say that it is better to look on the floor below your bed first where you had dropped your friend’s twenty-thousand-bucks-cellphone yesterday and then in the cupboard where you had kept your friend’s shoes the last time around. Happens with every guy, nothing to worry about!!

You do not find anything on the floor and you look inside the cupboard. The things that you find inside leave you nostalgic and of course, make you feel guilty. You see a Rakhi, sent by your sweet seven-year-old cousin, which you never bothered to tie around your ankle on the pious occasion of Rakshabandhan. When she called you last time around, you had lied that you indeed liked the rakhi and tied it on Rakshabandhan. You frown. You imagine your cousin’s innocent, smiling face in front of you. You find a birthday card you had bought to send to a friend whom you haven’t met for good three years. You kept postponing the job of posting it for a while and then you eventually forgot to send it altogether. You recall how tense he was, just before the result of your IIT JEE. You wish the days could somehow be retrieved. You find some prasad, carefully folded inside a piece of paper, which your mother had given you the last time you had been leaving home. She had asked you to put small pieces of prasad in your mouth every time you went out to write an examination. You had reluctantly put it in your bag saying that these things added to the weight of the bag. You feel guilty. You vow that you would indeed follow your mother’s instructions from now on. You find the laudatory recommendation letter your wonderful, ever-smiling professor had written for your work in the UK last time around. You think about the aesthetic seventy five days you had spent in the UK last summer. You wish to visit that place again and meet her. You find yourself smiling. A small cupboard can bring so many emotions out of you. You had never thought like that before. Never.

Meanwhile, the same guy visits you again and asks if you actually found his CD out. You look horrified. Yet another emotion!!!

Students' Politics

2006-09-11T17:49:00.000+05:30

The much awaited Delhi University Students’ Union Elections (for Delhi University students, of course) are over and the results are out as well. Last year’s results have almost repeated itself, just that the vice-president’s post managed to hop from the grasp of National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) to Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP). Rest three posts were secured by NSUI. Reasons for ABVP’s debacle and NSUI’s thumping victory are not too tough to predict---The support of in-power Congress government (home and state) led by Sheila Dixit to NSUI respectively played massive and in fact, critical role in their overwhelming success. The nod of Sheila Dixit to enhance accident insurance for all the DU students and better residing facilities for the students of north-west campus, which forms a major vote bank, ensured NSUI’s victory.

On the other hand, BJP-RSS-fed-ABVP never looked like winning any post at all. The only consolation they received was a nail-biting finish in an eventual triumph in the tussle for vice-presidency post---that too by a whisker; a margin of mere 35 votes. How close the decision for this post was can be rendered by the fact that as many as 85,000 students study in DU.

The seriousness of this Delhi University can be felt by the involvement of the biggies of the political parties like BJP and Congress. Forsooth, the ruling party in the centre has always played pivotal role in DU elections. Candidates for the posts are wisely chosen keeping the castes of the candidates in mind, each and every movement of the opposition activists are closely monitored, piles of money flow for securing every vote, foul games are played, and then after careful planning by the leading names in Indian politics, the activists campaign (in form of their candidates’ posters being pasted on every bus stop, candidates making personal visits to students who can influence other students, forcing and in some cases, bribing students) for their respective candidates to transform all the sweat, used (and misused) money into eventual success. DU forms a massive students’ community with a population of 85,000 which, by any standards, is a colossal number. Even 40% polling attendance this year meant 34,000 votes were cast!!

The victory of Congress-backed NSUI somehow corroborates the fact that anti-reservation movement has failed to hit DU. The mass movement is, in fact, restricted to professional courses like medicine and engineering. The chief Congress players of this election are tirelessly boasting that the victory of Congress-backed candidates has confirmed that students are glad with the decision of the government to move on with the quota system. They see as a major triumph among the students’ community. Rubbish, all rubbish!!!

The involvement of the political parties substantiates, on the first hand, that foul games would be played and unfortunately, the worst-hit people in this diplomatic game are students. A very small community of students is actually interested in what happens during these elections. The issues handled by these winning candidates are too superficial to carry on elections on such a mass scale. Electric voting machines are installed which have been introduced in our Lok Sabha elections only a couple of years ago. Yes, the students are surely given the right to choose their candidates but what these candidates are supposed to do is still enigmatic. College-bands is a usual affair during election days. Students are virtually forced, in one way or the other (read: emotionally and financially), to vote for a particular candidate. Some succumb to the pressure and eventually play the role of puppets in the hands of the activists. Most of the students who avidly take part in these elections are not really students but stay in colleges just for these election-seasons. Not surprisingly, the true winners of these elections are the political parties. It is their way of rendering who holds the key of youth-power in Delhi. Certainly a very sorry state for the Delhi University students.

The Ad Effect

2006-09-07T13:12:00.000+05:30

You reach your home after a tiresome day in the office. You throw your bag and yourself on the wooden chair and cozy sofa respectively. (Few might be doing the other way around as well, none of my business though) You send your eyeballs on a walk for searching TV’s remote control; you, as usual, can’t find it at the proper place; you ask your wife to hand over the remote to you. She comes out of the chicken…err.. I mean kitchen, lifts the remote from the same place where you had just explored, gives you the remote with a furious look; you desperately avoid looking at her; you turn the TV on and the drama starts!

Your cable operator gives you the privilege of enjoying hundred-odd channels. The actual number of channels you actually go though can be counted on fingers. Anyway, so you surf the channel to watch the live action of India versus West Indies One day cricket match at St. John’s Park, Antigua in the Caribbean. The match is, as usual, delayed by the frequent thunderstorm there. You watch Arun Lal and Laxman Shivramakrishnan fighting over why Dravid should choose bowling first in overcast conditions if and when the match starts. Suddenly, Sanjay Manjrekar intervenes and says that they would be right back after a short break. a sigh of relief for everyone. You hate the face and voice of Arun Lal and L Shivramakrishnan. Disappointed by the delay in the live action, you use your remote again---this time to Aajtak where you see a villainous face talking about a ghost in suburb of Assam who arrives every time he listens to a Himesh Reshammiya song. You curse the channel and your finger plays again on the button of the remote control to surf other news channels. You discover that the story is not so different in other news channels either. Just the faces of the villainous reporters have changed but the basic news remains unaltered. Star News talks with Madan Lal Khurana who lost his pet dog recently while reporter in Zee News is busy trying to settle the divorce issue of a couple. You can’t handle it anymore. You move on. In between, Star Plus and Zee TV arrive. You hastily pass through them without rendering any interest in learning whether it is Tulsi or Parvati who is crying lakes, whether it is Komolika or xyz (sorry I don’t know names) who is plotting yet another deadly plan to snatch away the leading lady’s husband. It is actually fun for the show’s leading man who seems to be in a to-n-fro motion from the vamp’s arms to leading lady’s!!! Time taken for this shift is about 50 episodes which is more or less constant for every Ekkta Kkapoor soap opera.

You think of turning the TV off but since you don’t want to face your leading lady who happens to be your wife, you keep TV on. You spend some time guessing what you can watch on TV. Suddenly, a brilliant idea strikes you and you start searching a channel that shows advertisements! Oh yes, ads are the best shows on the TV. Hilarious and short!! One can develop a full story in a 20 second ad which Ekkta Kkapoor might fail to do in 20 episodes of Kkahaani Ghar Ghar Kki.

You watch a proud semi-nude Shah Rukh Khan in a bathtub surrounded by actresses from every age group—right from Hema Malini to Kareena Kapoor. He opens his arms to let his audience know how great he feels while using Lux International. The ladies around him pass contrived smiles. And they want us to buy the soap. Great show SRK and the ladies.

There arrives Virender Sehwag in Reliance’s ad. It still remains a mystery whether his explosive batting or this ad makes him more (un)popular. Let’s see this one. Sehwag is on the crease; six runs to get from the last delivery of the innings (I am not so sure how many times he survives to face the last ball in the innings). Anyway, Sehwag looks tensed, not because he can’t hit a six but because of the monstrous physique of the bowler. He badly wants to win the game for his team but doesn’t know how. Meanwhile, his mother is tensed as well. She sends a call to his sweating son. He doesn’t have the cellphone but someone throws the phone from outside as if it were a cricket ball. The cellphone is good enough to maintain itself in one piece despite being thrown. Sehwag picks it up, listens to some inspiring words from his mother and hits the bowler out of the ground. His team wins, everybody is happy and Sehwag wants us to use Reliance Mobile…why?? Because it helped him win the match!!! Fantastic ad.. Hats off to the composer of this ad. I would like to meet him just to make sure he doesn’t live anymore to create such bizarre ideas.

But forsooth, the two ads which stirred Indian television were Dabur-lal-dant-manjan’s and Lijjat-paapad’s. A young boy, Raju, is in his classroom. The teacher asks him how his teeth shine like pearls. “Arey raju, tumhare daant toh motiyon se bhi tez chamakte hain?” The boy replies—“Kyon na ho masterji, main roz dabur lal dant manjan se jo brush karta hoon.” Raju then sings—“Daanto ki kare hifazat moti sa chamkaye...dabur laal dant manjan se mukhada khil khil jaaye.” It is one of the first few ads people watched on the TV screen. It actually enhanced the sales of this product many folds.

The ad industry which actually needs to work on rendering how a product can make one’s life better and how it is better than its rival companies is working upon showing celebrity faces in the 20 second space! I wonder how much it actually works. Anyway, no matter how poor these ads might be, the fact is that it still is a better idea to watch commercial ads than those shabby soap operas on the screen. Enjoy the show!!!

P.S This is the lighter version of The Ad Effect. I would come up with a much serious version in a couple of days. Till then, enjoy the show!! Err…I mean ads. On your TV, of course.

Abhieshek The Photographer

2006-08-31T11:11:00.000+05:30

Goa looks elegant through my eyes...

UK doesn't look bad either...

Frisking Innocence in Iraq

2006-08-28T06:53:00.000+05:30

Comments are welcome...!!

Cock Tale

2006-08-28T05:54:00.000+05:30

There were quite a few interesting happenings in my life during last summer, if only I could call them interesting at all. Bachcha log, you do not need any parental supervision while going through this post. It contains nothing suspicious. Suspicious is the word parents usually use for vulgar ‘items’, lol. Sounds good. Quite acceptable. Anyway, let me initiate the tale. The Cock Tale.

Summers have always been relentless in our country, irrespective of the zone. Be it Delhi, Chennai, Nagpur or Patna. I, by the way, spent my summer at a place called Durgapur near Kolkata, thanks to audacious planning of IIT Delhi. To make matters worse, I was virtually impelled to spend eight hours a day in a fuming steel plant. If you have never been to any steel plant, I would advise you not to plan any visit there in any given circumstances. If you are, in case, asked to choose between spending your whole life with Bin Laden and visiting a steel plant, do not even hesitate to choose Bin Laden. Steel plants are horrible places—charcoal powder floating in the air, lumps of burning coal radiating infrared rays. To make matters worse, hot, luminous liquid iron flows to make one realize that he is spending time in Hell. Hell on the face of earth.

By the time I used to return back to my hostel, every joule of energy was sucked out of my skinny body. The only plus point of my stay there was that boys and girls shared the same edifice (not the same room though). Most girls being Biharis. It took me 21 long years to discover that even Bihari gals are cute. I always thought that only one girl in Bihar was cute. Hey, what am I proceeding towards? I am not here to describe my love interest. That will be done in some other post. May be, never. Despite all those searing hours in the steel plant, I was not very unhappy. The most irritating part of the story started later in the night; or I should rather say, early in the morning. At around 3 AM. The hero (in fact, the villain if you ask me) of this saga is a cock. Murga, in Hindi. That bloody cock!!!

On every single morning at 3 AM, the cock started to crow at the top of the voice. Considering that I usually fall late on bed, that vociferous noise at three in the morning was nothing better than some Himesh Reshammiya song—shabby and painful. I managed to ignore it for a couple of days. But brushing aside that atrocious sound every single day was just too much for asking. One morning at six in the morning, my patience gave up and I came out of my room only to find that the cock was crowing right in front of my room. I waived my hand and asked that cock to move out of that place, of course in human voice. Sadly, this time around, it was too much of an ask for it. It crowed back at me. Sparked by its protest, I slapped it. Oh yes, I slapped it!! The cock fell away, around six meters away. It wasn’t moving at all. I was shocked. And possibly, so was it. I never wanted to hit it so hard. I, perhaps, underestimated my strength and certainly overestimated the cock’s strength. I was, more or less, sure that that cock died instantly. I looked all around me, making sure that no one was watching me. Relieved by my solitude, I quickly moved back to my room. There was a mixed feeling inside me. Mixed-- due to two reasons. I was both happy and sad. Happy because I sensed that I was not as weak I thought myself to be. And sad because I had killed the poor cock. That too for a crime not so grave. Anyway, since the cock was then dead, there was no point thinking about it and losing my sleep over it. The noisy cock might have been enjoying in the hell, I thought.

I woke up at nine. The corpse was not there. It was the beginning of a new day for me with the same old job. I went to the steel plant. I came back at five in the evening only to find the cock hopping around with a band-aid sort of thing rolled around its neck. I was again happy and sad. Happy because the cock hadn’t died and sad because I would have to resist its creaky sound again. Yet again. In the night, the butler was asking guys in the mess if they knew somebody who hit its pet. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. When being intrigued, the butler revealed that THE cock was its pet and someone hit it. He even asked me if I knew that bloody guy. I considered myself no lesser than Satyawadi Harishchandra. So, telling lies was not my job. When caught in an insurmountable problem, pretend!! Someone tried to kill your cock?, I asked as if it was my dearest pal. He nodded. I didn’t reply to him anymore and hastily changed the topic of discussion.

Days went by. The cock wasn’t crowing anymore. I was rather surprised by its silence. I had got used to it in one way or the other. That silence didn’t let me sleep. I asked the butler the next day if his pet cock was fine. He replied me woefully that he himself killed his pet cock because its health was degrading. He served its flesh to us only, he said wryly. What an excuse to kill somebody, I thought. But the hero was killed. He was no more. May its soul live in peace in heaven. And the villain was still roaming freely.

I was happy and sad, again. Yet again.

Contrast

2006-08-13T04:51:00.000+05:30

Though I was born in a small town called Giridih in Jharkhand, I originally belong to Madhupur, a suburb, countryside area, about forty kilometers away from Giridih. My ancestors lived there for a long, long time. My grandmother and my two paternal uncles still reside there. The home where they live is basically a four-room hut. The cemented floor is broken at a number of places, making sure that it projects an ancestral look. There is a large courtyard in front of that hut which gets extremely swampy during rains. Since my father had earned a job in Giridih, he moved out of that place. After working for ten years in a government owned bank, my father owned a decent house at Giridih.

Even though we have moved out of our ancestral home, we visit there every now and then. Our visits happened to be more frequent while I was a kid. We went there every year on the eve of Durga Puja, our prime festival and then, during summer vacations. The gathering during the Durga Puja used to be the best five days of the year. There used to be a sense of sacredness in the air. The large idols of Goddess Durga were worshipped on several streets of the town. People waited for months to celebrate this grand festival. I waited for weeks for the start of my Durga Puja vacation to buy new clothes, to go to Madhupur, to be a part of melas with my cousins and family members, to join my bare hands in front of the Goddess of power.

The stay during summer vacations used to be lengthy, usually ranging between a week and a fortnight, thus giving ourselves enough time to mingle with grandmother, uncles and aunts. During those 10-15 days, I, as a kid, was obviously more interested in being in the company of my cousins in my age group. The summer afternoons did no harm to their reputation by keeping the mercury level soaring high. Since electricity is not a 24*7 resource in our part of the country, hand fans were the only respite. The sun beat hard on the soil. Water disappeared from the wells as if it were put on fire. I, along with my cousins, waited for the sun to be merciful as the day gradually progressed towards its end. Arrival of the evening marked indispensable reprieve from cauldron like environment.

The evenings were particularly special for us as they invited vendors who sold ice-cream in their big containers on wheels. The containers were partially filled with solid ice to keep the ice-cream in good shape. The ice-creams were nothing more than small cuboidal pieces of ice in ripe, green mango flavor and others in coconut flavor with thin wooden sticks attached to them. The mango flavored ice-cream cost Re 1 while the coconut flavored one was worth fifty paise.

The vociferous shout of the ice-cream vendor infused astounding energy in our sweating bodies. After acquiring few coins from our mothers, we always rushed barefooted towards the main wooden door through the soil-laden courtyard. The touch of the bottom of feet with the blistering soil acted as sweet pain experienced while journey towards a historic achievement. The coconut-like taste and sourish flavor of ripe mango filled us with joy. Every bite of ice and every drop of flavored cool water (formed by melting of ice) was delight to the tongue. The trace of coolness that ice provided on the inner part of the cheek and the teeth was nothing less than divine elation. We tried to last our ice-creams as long as possible. And if our part of the ice-cream came to an early end, we used to ask for small bites from others. We tried every trick in the book to gain a part of others’ share. Sometimes the tricks worked, sometimes they didn’t.

These days, I live in Delhi, the capital city of this supposedly great country. Delhi—where money flows out of pocket like water in the drain during rains, where millions of people survive just in the hope of a better tomorrow, where people virtually run in order to maintain their lead in the race in their respective fields, where earning money is the only way of celebration.

Deepawali is the prime festival in this prime city of India. People buy gifts for each other. The costlier, the better—that’s the basic idea of people while buying gifts. It’s a way of demoing the weight inside their pockets. It’s considered a kind of insult if your presents to others appear cheaper than what they gift you. It’s a matter of fact that most of them struggle to answer if asked why exactly Deepawali is celebrated. Though this city may strongly disagree, what eventually matters in (and to) this city is money. I, on the other hand, tend to spend quite Deepawali’s on the roof of my hostel, watching millions of rupees, in the form of firecrackers, being burnt in a matter of few hours. Burning firecrackers, for instance, is also a contrived method of displaying the pile of money you sit upon.

Since grass on the other side always looks greener, people from all parts of the country visit this city to earn money and then, to spend it if they succeed to earn any, against every odd. I, as a student, am yet to enter this race of earning money; and then more money. I just spend money that is sent to me by my parents residing at that small, unknown town. It’s just that the denomination in which I spend money these days has multiplied several folds; may be hundred-odd folds. A simple, far-from-extraordinary cold coffee or cappuccino costs around fifty bucks in Barista. A decent meal in a decent restaurant costs above hundred rupees. A vegetarian pizza costs around two hundred bucks at Pizza Hut. I have started visiting these coffee shops and these decent restaurants since last couple of years, thereby increasing my monthly expenditure to an alarmingly high amount; amount that I, as a student, am scared to think of.

But the saddest part of the story is that I don’t find these 50-bucks coffees and 100-bucks meals even half as tasty and satisfying as those fifty-paise and one-rupee ice-creams. Ironically, the cost of the bread doesn’t (and can’t) determine its taste. Money, as they say, can’t buy everything…

But, who knows, I might also become a part of this demeaning city with the passage of time...I can only pray to Goddess Durga to shield me against all evils of this only-money-matters city.

Cafe Rendezvous

2006-08-09T18:11:00.000+05:30

Vegas @ Bihar

2006-07-29T19:52:00.000+05:30

Definitely not a happy summer (vacation!!!..err I mean training) for me, I would say. Since I was only a couple of hundred kilometers away from my hometown, I usually managed to visit my home every now and then. Most of my friends were enjoying their vacations there but there was a serious scarcity of cards-playing-members in our group. So, during one of my visits, we decided to play cards. 29 is the name of the game of cards which almost every Bihari (and Jharkhandi as well!!!) knows. But playing cards is considered a serious offence in our families. It’s a game made for Juadis, they would always say. What to do??? Guys want to play 29 and parents won’t allow. An issue of grave concern! So, three of the most dedicated players, all of them being IITians (including me), sat down to discover a decent enough place to play. Since ours is a very small town and people know each other very well (especially we IITans, lol), it seemed quite a difficult job. Several places were talked about, analyzed, scrutinized and eventually discarded. At last, one of us came up with the weirdest idea of all…The Crematory Place!!! Hardly anyone alive visited that dreadful zone. A nice, quite place on the bank of the monsoon-fed river with few half-burnt corpses waiting for us. I was quick to say yes. The third guy hesitated for a while but the urge inside was so menacing that everything else appeared secondary. So, the grand casino for us was decided. It was just a matter of finding the 4^th player. But that issue hardly bothered us. The 4^th guy was at a phone-call-distance. One of us had a pack of cards in his house. All problems solved! We all agreed to meet in the evening.

Evening arrived and so did we. The 4^th guy was ringed at his home. Unfortunately for us, he was not at his home. It is, indeed, criminal to expect finding people from our group at our respective homes during summer evenings. So, we waited and waited for someone to arrive. We always gather at a pre-decided place so that none of us is left roaming on the streets finding others. (See, we are quite methodical and always plan things wellJ.). Time flew by and we were left wondering when the fourth ‘card-playing-member’ would arrive. It had started getting dark. Finally, the fourth one arrived and we quickly moved towards the abode of non-living lives.

A really captivating place for we Juadis. A Peepal tree, cool breeze blowing, a thirsty river, green fields on the other side of the river, a boundary wall good enough to separate us from the rest of the town, a cemented mundane and most importantly, not a single known and alive face other than four of ours. Perfect scenario! Our eyes lit up with excitement. Good choice, we said to each other with an element of satisfaction over the time we spent planning the diligent space.

We sat down on the dusty, cemented zone. The handkerchief was taken out and spread. The cards started slipping on the handkerchief with crisp perfection. One aspect that separates a classic-cards-player from other players is the panache of letting the cards fly away from his hands and the ease with which cards slip on the surface. If you play cards, you must know its elegance. We were miles away from reaching our peak when the darkness in the environment called the end of the play. We wished we had brought a bulb with us.

Nevertheless, we were glad that we, at least, got the feeling of the smooth cards on our palms. We came out of the crematory talking about the indifferent nature of the stock market during those days, the companies which were relatively safe to bet upon and the way we performed at the grand casino!!! End of a more-than-happy rendezvous with non-living lives. I hastily left for my home as it was time for my early dinner.

Nothing Special

2006-06-09T13:16:00.000+05:30

Sorry folks, it has been long since have I have scribbled. But what to do!!! I am tethered to such a place where finding internet is as easy as finding penguins in Sahara. I'll continue this blogging as soon as I get back to Delhi....
Life sucks, it truly does....trust me:(

Survival

2006-05-20T04:37:00.000+05:30

They talk about religion, they talk about faith, they talk about science and technology but what eventually matters is the struggle for survival. Nothing else matters to man more than survival when the dark clouds of demise start shrouding. And it is during those times that anything that aid his cause of existence is celebrated. Morality and ethics take a backseat when our endurance is interrogated. This is perhaps why a crime committed during self-protection is not considered beyond the horizon of humanitarian laws.

Religion and science ought to be embraced as long as they assure better living conditions for the whole ecology. No sooner than they become a burden and hinder the smooth flow of the system, they are thrown out to make room for some other useful tool for easy survival. Rigid and brittle customs and ideas always make way for flexible ones. Change is the law of nature and anything (and anyone) daring to go beyond this eternal convention is shown the exit door.

We always use things (and ideas) around us. Don’t we? That’s what they have been created for. Who cares about religion if it can’t cater essential daily meals to a man? Likewise, why will someone endorse science if it can satisfy the basic needs of a man? The first thing that a man worries about is the source of fulfillment of his basic needs. Everything like humanity, brotherhood, charity, holiness are taken care of thereafter. Many call it selfish attitude but that’s the way it goes! My-survival-comes-first attitude is what man has honored till now. Let’s see how far this aureate attitude can carry us. There is and always will be a huge gulf between ideality and reality. What do you say?

Random

2006-05-17T02:51:00.000+05:30

Life, as they say, is full of many more surprises and eldritch events than those in the most enthralling fiction one would ever come across. Just when we think that it is the end of the richest and most eventful experience, life promptly throws one more opportunity to attend something new, something unexpected. On the similar lines, when everything seems to be going right and we feel ourselves to be the best and luckiest person around, Someone makes sure that we know that dreadful times can be just around the corner. A great leveling act…isn’t it? I need to meet this equalizing person (person???).

We always gauge life in terms of victories and defeats, gains and losses, good(s) and bad(s), successes and failures, love and hate, and what not! But the subtle difference between the above mentioned terms is that while all other terms are relative, love and hate are always absolute, to say the least. There are zones beyond the periphery of gains and losses, beyond the boundaries of good and bad, beyond the fringes of success and failure. But everything and everyone seems to lie within the set of love and hate. Right from the first look, we tend to form a certain degree of respect (or disrespect) which gradually changes as we come across it thereafter. The scale of respect (and disrespect) can always be modified into that of love (and hate). Where shall I keep that equalizing person on this scale? Never thought about it! See, I am (of course, pretending to be) too busy a person!!!(lol)

Anyway, coming back to the topic of surprises that life presents, the weirdest of all is the microscopic amount of time (microseconds???) one needs to change his view about something. Knowing the kind of moody (read insane!) person that I am, one can easily guess how quickly my finger moves on the love-hate scale. And delivering no surprises, I woefully inform that the worst hit person in my game of pointing-finger-on-scales is none other than yours truly. Can’t help! Rules of the game are fixed and the show must go on. Casualties are part and parcel of the game. No matter if the injured (or killed) person is the mentor himself. That’s what the audience enjoys. Entertaining the world at one's own cost has a delight of its own.

"That’s the spirit my boy!!!", Someone whispers into my curious ears every now and then.

Words

2006-05-13T02:14:00.000+05:30

There are phases in one’s life when empowerment of speech becomes the most appreciated gift of God to him and he just seeks acceptance of one last wish, which, according to him, is as important as the gift of speech---the presence of one such person who can listen all his thoughts, all his feelings, all his plans; that too without making any comment, without yielding any solution, without rendering any appreciation, without pointing any flaw. He solely wishes to read all the remarks, solutions, admirations and transgressions through the medium of continuously changing emotions on the face of the silent listener. Those births and deaths of different horizontal lines on the forehead, those narrowings and widenings of the eyes, those frequent changes in the curves traced by the lips of the trusted listener are supposed to generate indispensable, invisible words that the speaker’s eyes can easily decipher. The idea of transferring thoughts from our own mind and heart to someone else’s using audible words as protocol and then deriving response in the form of facial words brings holy peace to mind and soul…Trust me…
It is just a matter of finding one such person! Easier said than done...:)

Discovery

2006-04-27T06:59:00.000+05:30

We live with ourselves 24 hours a day and we still struggle to define ourselves. We find it difficult to guess how we will conduct in a given situation. We live in an environment where we need to prove our credibility, our potential, our transcendence every now and then. And the worst part of the job is that we always need to establish ourselves in the eyes of those whom we love and believe in. We are constantly gazed at by the eyes of our community and surroundings. We are always on trial!

At times, this scenario makes life difficult and repressing as well. We are usually scared of what our loved ones would think of us if they come to know the literal human being inside us. In order to confront this arduous job of pleasing others, we generally wear masks and feign to be virtuous in front of others. In fact, the masks continue to change as we encounter different people. And continuous compliance to this pretence for a certain period of time buries our original face somewhere deep inside us. We tend to forget and sometimes, ignore what we actually are made up of.

In such a play script, some of our inherent feelings get submerged and are often not allowed to come out. There are certain forces and urges inside us that are blocked down for the sake of shamming. The posture of a rebel, a maverick and an outspoken person are asked to take a backseat for maneuvering this delusive task.

Why are we always asked to alter ourselves in order to shift into the comfort zone of the society? Do we constitute the society or is it the other way around? For how long shall we live pretending ourselves to be benevolent towards the wily society?

We ought to discover our actual character before we completely lose ourselves. But knowing ourselves is generally as difficult as detecting water in a desert. One way to let the dormant energy inside us pop up is by arguing with ourselves in rugged situations. Let us be honest to ourselves; fight against ourselves; and even be cruel to ourselves just to know what steel we are made up of. Character is defined by what we do when left alone. And we must adopt the same rules while being constantly stared by vicious eyes of the society. Let everybody know what we actually are. No fear, no pretence, no hiding. If you love me for what I am---Great. And even if you hate me for what I am---Great!!!

49.5%

2006-04-21T05:59:00.000+05:30

49.5% - This number has succeeded in bewildering and to some extent, scaring masses over the last couple of weeks. Though I wished to write about it just after the declaration of this vicious reservation policy, I took my time to hunt the pros and cons assorted to it. I googled and came out with some interesting but blue results.

Let us first see what exactly this reservation policy holds in its core. I will not reserve myself just talking about 27% reservation for what they call OBCs but include few issues related to 22.5% reservation for SC/ST category as well. This highly-talked-about idea of reservation of seats in different institutions handled by government was first pronounced by Dr. B R Ambedkar, the creator of our constitution. It might be an interesting fact for few people that Dr. B R Ambedkar himself was a part of the backward section of the newly independent Indian society. He had probably witnessed the problems that the people of his community suffered with and hence, thought of erasing those problems by aiding them with this reservation policy. When this policy was first implemented, it was decided that it would be ceased once those socially backward people come at par with the non-backward section of the society.

No problems till now! Indian society moved on with this reservation policy and the backwards went on enjoying the reservation and slowly we reached the stage while V P Singh was enjoying his few golden years of his life as the PM of the largest democracy. Mandal commission had submitted its report about the socially backward and uneducated class of the society in 1980 and based upon it, reservation was supposed to be implemented during V P Singh’s era.

Let us see what Mr. B P Mandal had to say about Indian society. According to him, there are as many as 3743 castes and communities belonging to the OBC category which constitutes 52% of the Indian population. Moreover, it was already declared that around 25% of Indian population belongs to SC/ST category. So, class 2 Mathematics says that around 75% of Indian population is backward%, oh yes you read it correctly, 75%. Fantastic result! Isn’t it? There are few more such antic results to follow. Carry on.

There are 11 indicators which form the backbone of the results of the Mandal Commission. They are subdivided into 3 categories—Social, Educational and Economic. The 11 indicators for deciding OBCs are:

Social

Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others.
Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labor for their livelihood.
Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is 25% above the state average in rural areas and 10% in urban areas; and that of married men is 10% and 5% above the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.
Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25% above the state average.

Educational

Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years who never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.
Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.
Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average

Economic

Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.
Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha houses is at least 25 % above the state average.
Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half a kilometer for more than 50% of the households.
Castes/classes where the number of the house-holds having taken a consumption loan is at least 25% above the state average.

Though these indicators may sound perfectly normal at first look to many people, it has a number of loopholes which can be (and are!) easily exploited. Few of the above mentioned points are quite acceptable but some of them are very hazy and hence, controversial.

In 1990, the amendment in the constitution for 27% reservation was proposed in the Parliament but it broke the backbone of the government and Mr. V P Singh had to eventually resign.

Everything settled down. No reservation for OBCs but SC/ST categories continued enjoying the gratifying 22.5% reservation. 2006 arrives and this time, Arjun Singh comes up with a similar proposal for 27% reservation for OBC students in government educational institutions including IITs and IIMs. Here again, furor and protests rose from every corner of India. People who advocate this policy argue that this reservation policy for the OBCs would eventually lead to upgradation of the socially and economically backward section of the society. On the other hand, people who protest this policy say that it would dilute the high standards which these education institutions have set over the last fifty years. No denials. Valid points from both the sections!

Let’s see the crux of the problem. A generally-category-student scores 75 marks in a highly competitive entrance examination only to lose the seat to a reserved-category-student who scored mere 55. Result—that general-category-student will never be satisfied with this policy of undue inclination towards a reserved-category-student. It will obviously germinate the seeds of hatred against students obtaining preference over him. Moreover, the institution has to admit a student who is less meritorious than few others students who wrote the examination. The only gainer seems to be the student who enjoys the admission in the dandy institution just because he belongs to SC/ST/OBC category. Talking about the profit of the nation, it gained a student who is far less meritorious; it gained the hatred against reserved people and thus, disunity! Nation got richer!!!

But, is that the end of the story? No, not at all! Let’s confer what that student confronts once he enters the high-profile institution. He is asked to keep pace with those students who scored around 90 in the entrance examination. The result is quite obvious. He finds it difficult to match the demands of a cruel environment and generally falls behind. In some cases, he even struggles to secure the degree in the specified duration. Is this the kind of progress they look for??? I wonder!

The scenario is not very different in other fields as well. Even in jobs, they scramble against people who are much more meritorious. But, there is an interesting result to follow. Among people having annual earnings more than Rs. 50,000 in government jobs, the average salary of a SC/ST category person is nearly twice of that of a general category person, thanks to ultra-quick promotions through reservation policy. Though it contributes to better lives for reserved people at the expense of general category people, what nation loses is the service of people who are much more meritorious.

The problem is that the fruits of this policy never reach the section of the society that really needs it. It is always enjoyed by the richer section of the reserved class which has the capability to earn bread on its own. The poorer class is always deprived of the yields of this policy and thus, its condition never changes. In fact, it always shifts from bad to worse.

But the million dollars is question is—what is the solution of this problem? How can both these issues be taken care of? We can’t ignore one of them for the sake of other. It is a well known truth that merit is not the sole property of the forward section of the society. If given a chance, the backward class can also gain the skills needed to match shoulders in different spheres. So, there should be certain reservation for the economically backward people (in form of certain seat reservation and free education) at the primary level, say primary schools, so that they get equal opportunities to read and write and learn and as the person moves to the higher levels, the reservation should be gradually diminished so that it results to absolutely zero reservation when it comes to job prospects. This option serves the socially and economically backward section of the society without the interest of the forward class being hampered. Moreover, the nation will also gain the best hands to serve it. I sincerely hope that such an environment shapes up where every person of the society, no matter which class or creed or section he belongs to, gets fair and equal opportunity and that will be in the best interest of the nation.

Different Dimensions

2006-04-16T05:37:00.000+05:30

Recognition captures the top rank when desires of a human being are talked about. Every person has a concealed desire to be recognized as an intellect and it is often forgotten that intellect is not the only parameter that defines a human being. There are several instances when we do things that an intellect is not supposed to practise. Anger and shedding tears are just few of them.

We always seek reasons for happenings around us and that’s our only criteria for judging the reality. We generally ask questions like why, why-not and how before placing an event in an elite category called facts. Hence, we, rather unknowingly, formulate two sets in which we drop ideas; one being objective and other subjective. We, in our mad quest of realism and truth, assume that intellect is the sole and supreme module and anything lying beyond its range is baseless and hence, untrue.

But the basic idea still remains that every person, somewhere deep inside, is irrational because no person has ever been able to detach himself from plinth of irrationality which comprises anger, annoyance, pique and chafe. A man consists of several quantities other than intellect which define his wholeness. Emotions, retention, the power of making a choice are just few of them. None of the above mentioned components can individually define a man but all of them dissolve into each other to create a human being. The awe of being called an intellect submerges us into a sea where what we realize is a world of water called intellect and we sense no air of sentiments and emotions. We take pride in saying that we are trying to explore every corner of this sea but the irony is that we can’t even see the world that lies beyond the surface of this limited water.

We detest to be called sentimental or emotional people. We rather take pride in being called rationalists. Since the very beginning of human civilization, we presume feelings to be malign which make us fallible and fragile. On the other hand, intellect is considered to be divine. A more intellectual man is regarded closer to perfection.

As the civilization progressed, we even tried to define emotions and sentiments by the tools of intellect. But if we look within ourselves minutely, we realize that it is instincts and emotions rather than reasons and facts that we trust upon during the hours of crisis. In fact, instincts come more naturally to us than intellect. The spontaneity of instincts makes us follow them when we step into a territory of problems and scarcity. On the other hand, intellect needs some conscious effort and sometimes, contrivance as well to reach a conclusion. And there are times when we need to make a quick decision and that’s where intellect tends to crumble and hence, leaves us alone with our feelings and instincts.

A better frame of mind and a calmer attitude can make us realize that there is something more for man to respect than just intellect. There is not even a trace of doubt that intellect has served man to touch new heights but there are various other dimensions of human nature that we need to find out and trust upon. Then only we can hope for acceleration towards perfection.

Two And One

2006-04-14T20:50:00.000+05:30

An age old beginning, a primitive combat, an archaic love story and a lauded astuteness that continues till today and will go on till the very end of the clock. This one-sided affair evolved when the sun looked at the gorgeous earth for the very first time. Since then, he is burning himself to provide eyes to her. He spends whole day gazing at her, waiting for her one look. There comes another lover. The cloud, which axes his organs to satisfy the thirsty earth. He donates his blood to freshen her. And then, the flaming sphere goes wild! His searing rays deprive the earth of every gift from the cloud. The cloud feels jealous and unplugs the vision of the sun. The earth attends this sport of the naive neighbors in the sky. Keeps quiet, enjoys the colorless blood, cherishes the golden rays, and savors the battle!

Mourning (Continued...)

2006-04-11T05:40:00.000+05:30

Continued…

The gracious wind blowing in their lives had suddenly transformed into a violent sandstorm. The family which she used to consider as the happiest in the world was on the verge of a drastic explosion in which all the three members could fall apart. Life, sometimes plays such cruel games that one can’t help but start hating every gift that it brought with itself in yesteryears. The lady sensed that life was asking for her most beautiful asset in return of all the joys it had delivered till then.

By the time she returned home with Radha, she had turned pale. Her body was trembling; her heart had slipped into the pool of despair; her mind had stopped supplying thoughts. She uneasily looked at Radha. She was chirping in a world of her own. She was just another girl but a very special one for her mother. Radha’s every laugh, her every act of obstinacy served as a life source for her. Her every need was gleefully fulfilled by her mother. And now, the lady was about to see her daughter being snapped from her.

“What happened Ma?” Radha enquired.

“Nothing much. It’s the heated sun that bothered me throughout the travel. I am fine now.”

“OK, then you can have a nap. There is lot to do for the dinner. And if we don’t start early in the evening, we won’t be able to do enough for it.”

“No, I am fine”, she told hesitantly.

The lady didn’t know what she ought to do. She had always lived under the influence of her husband. The man’s world hadn’t allowed her to learn the prowess of taking decisions. Her feminine ears had always listened what this male world narrated, her loyal mind had often done what this autocratic world asked. The mere thought of Radha’s future shivered her. The girl whom she wanted to endow every possible pleasance was about to be harnessed by this unkind world. The man who ought to be a shield turned out to be a sword adamant to slice someone’s life.

The clock moved fast. The sun was preparing to go for a sleep.

“Ma, it is already evening and you don’t seem to be in any mood! What has happened to you? Please come and help me out.”

“I wish I could help you”, the lady whispered.

“What? I can’t do everything on my own. Now please come.”

“OK, here I am”, she replied.

It was around eight in the evening.

“Here comes father! You know we have planned a special dinner tonight and everything is ready. We were waiting for you only.”

“That is nice.”

“So, shall we start?”

“Yes”, Hari replied plainly.

Radha and her mother served the food on the cleaned floor. No sooner than they started the meal the lady went out.

“Radha, you and father start the meal. I am going to ask the neighbor for some fresh water. I forgot to carry water this evening.”

“OK, Ma. But come back soon.”

As she went out, she discovered that the moon had replaced the scorching sun and grey clouds had shrouded the sky. The bright blue luminance of occasional sparking in the clouds bathed her. There was a hint of rain in the air. She slowly moved towards the sea. Precipitation was gaining strength and so was water in her eyes. She had seen her daughter for the last time. She had poisoned her happy family…

Mourning

2006-03-24T01:15:00.000+05:30

Today she hated the solitude of the sea. The roar of the high tides made her feel that the sea is crying for a companion. And she knew that she was on the shore that night to accompany the vast water body that had drowned itself into its own tears, for she was also amongst the poor lonely creatures of this unkind universe. Both of them, probably, needed each other on that full moon night. The large drops of rain water weren’t enough to wet her. Each drop of salty water coming out of her gloomy eyes bore massive turbulence that was good enough to destroy everything around her. The wrath inside her heart contained much more menace than those frequent lightening. Ponderous repent had provided her adequate weight to confront the strong wind blowing against her face. But her moisture laden eyes, unaware of the agitation of nature, were lost in another world, looking for a twinkling star on the surface of the sky shrouded in grey clouds.

The day had started like any other day for that forty-odd year old lady surviving in the countryside. The golden rays of dawn, arriving from the other side of the sea fell on her eyes to wake her up. She hastily completed her ablutions and woke her daughter up.

“Wake up, my daughter! We have to leave for selling fish. We need to rush,” she told her twenty two year old daughter Radha, shaking her shoulder.

“Yes Ma, give me few more minutes of sleep” Radha said, moving towards other side of the impoverished old cot.

By that time, Radha’s father, a fifty year old, large bellied, partially white haired, black colored man had woken up and was preparing to leave for the sea with his small boat and a frail net perforated at innumerable spots. The lady quickly mudded the floor of the stone-walled house and left for the town with her daughter putting the fish in a hard jute bag on her head.

“You know your father caught scores of large fish last evening. We can earn a lot of money today.” The lady eagerly told her daughter.

“That’s great news! We can plan a good rich dinner tonight, Ma”, Radha told showing her joyous eyes.”

By the time the sun gained its full strength, they had already sold all their fish and they planned to move towards their home. On the way to home, they decided the things they needed to purchase to make a great dinner. They stopped in a nearby grocery store. While purchasing the foodstuffs, the lady saw her husband on the other side of the street. She was a bit amazed to see him at the centre of the town during afternoon.

“Radha, your father is nearby. Let me tell him to reach home early this evening so that we all can enjoy the hot, delicious food. Till then, you purchase the items”, she said moving towards the street.

Before she reached him, he had already moved far away. She hastily coursed the street only to find few people handing him some currency notes. She was puzzled because it was she who sold fish and earned money. In order to get hold of the happenings, she tried listening the proceedings from some distance.

“I won’t give you more than three thousand rupees. That’s more than what we usually give.” one of the black-goggled person told.

“Sir, I think it is quite less for such a beautiful piece. Can’t you give me five hundred more? Please!” he cautiously argued with a sheepish smile.

“No, Hari. Now you are asking for too much.” the other person clarified.

“Sir, haven’t you seen my daughter? Isn’t she worth five hundred more? And what difference will it make to wealthy people like you? Please understand sir. Five hundred more can confirm my liquor for 3-4 more days. Samjho Saab!”

“This bloody won’t leave without five hundred more. A beautiful girl at this price is not a bad deal. I will make sure she fetches us much more than that.” One of those persons whispered in other’s ear.

“OK Hari, three thousand five hundred done! I have already paid you two thousand. You will get the rest once you hand over the lass to me. So, when shall I visit you?”

“Thank you, sir. That is so kind of you. You can take her away tonight when everybody around would be sleeping”, Hari replied.

“OK, we will be there in time.”

The lady was horrified with his conversation. She somehow protected herself from her husband’s vision and hurriedly moved towards her daughter.

“What has happened Ma? Why are you in such hurry?” asked Radha watching her mother moving so fast towards her.

“Nothing, my daughter. Let’s move towards home.”

“Fine. Let me take the foodstuffs with me.”

On the way back home, there were no words on her lips. She somehow stopped her eyes from moistening. She frequently slowed down, saw her daughter from behind and then gathered momentum to match Radha’s footsteps. She kept thinking about the past when her child was born. How happy her husband and she were! How frequently they argued over the resemblance of their child’s face with theirs. She was thinking about the day when she had fought with her husband while choosing a name for their child. She recalled the bliss on Hari’s face when Radha had walked on her feet for the very first time.

To be continued...

Oasis

2006-03-21T01:59:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time, there lived a spirited and inquisitive young man in a small community on the periphery of a hot and rigorous desert. He had to travel miles to collect small amount of water for his day-to-day living. The water that he usually obtained used to be full of dust and mostly tasteless. He always dreamt of getting some cool, sweet water that could bring heavenly respite to his athirst heart. But he didn’t know where his dream aim lied. Fortunately for him, one day, he came to know that a holy saint had visited his community. He went to that saint and told him about the dream of his life and asked if he could help him in his quest for a pool of water that could satisfy him. The saint told him that such a destination lied on the other side of the desert. The young man’s eyes lit up. But the saint also monished him about the perils that he could face while crossing the desert. But he was determined enough to face every hurdle; to defy every challenge. He prepared for his venturous trip and left the community the next morning with roaring spirits.

The first few days were marked with immense exuberance. His head was high; his feet moved fast, his body knew no bounds. But as the pursuit progressed, his resources started falling short. But he refused to look down. Even the bold sandstorms couldn’t descend his stalwart liveliness. During his trip, he saw several oases that served as places for rest during callous heated days. The oases were surrounded by nice green carpets of cushy grass. The ponds at the backyard of the oases acted as the sources of water. The water that they provided was not the cleanest but they certainly served as respite in that dry desert. The young man was thirsty and hungry as well. But he didn’t care about spending any time at those stations. Reaching the other side of the desert was the only aim of his trip.

As he progressed, his body started showing signs of vulnerability due to lack of food and water. His feet started feeling the weight of his body. His eyes were marred by extreme heat. The strong wind blowing across the desert was adamant to blow him away. He badly needed some life-saving water. At that time, he didn’t care about the sweetness of the water. He looked back but he had moved far away from the oases. He couldn’t even think about retrieving back to one of those oases. He was on the verge of a starving death.

He fell on his knees. Suddenly, he felt the vestige of a human being beside him. He looked to his right and found the saint standing nearby. The saint asked him what arrested his avid march. The young man described the whole journey to him but was still clueless about the fact that despite his extreme vigor and young body, he couldn’t reach his goal. The saint smiled and told him that though he showed great courage and energy to chase his dream, he didn’t plan his journey well; he didn’t show respect to the resources that he needed to reach the destination. The frantic avidity to enjoy only the ultimate victory protected him from the small chunks of felicity that lied on the course of victory. He had got the lesson from his angel. And then, his fatigued eyes tardily shut down in peace…

2006-03-20T07:09:00.000+05:30

There is no point burning firecrackers during explosions. Its sound is pronounced only if kindled during pin drop silence...

My Shadow

2006-03-18T01:34:00.000+05:30

When the sun brings a pleasant morning with itself
My shadow starts fabricating itself to accompany me

When the ignited rays show their full strength on my face
My shadow cleverly hides itself behind me

When I turn my face to save myself from the scorching sunrays
My shadow slyly comes in front of me to make its presence felt

When the sun gets overhead and beams unkindly
My shadow tries to dissolve itself into my arms

When dusk comes closer and light starts to fade
My shadow lengthens itself and prepares to go away

When my nervous feet move through darkness looking for a company
My shadow smartly fuses itself into the gloom leaving me alone

Next day when the sun brings a pleasant morning with itself
My shadow again starts fabricating itself to accompany me

I don’t know why I still call that unfaithful ‘my’ shadow….

All's Well That Ends Well

2006-03-16T22:39:00.000+05:30

Oh yeah, all’s well that ends well! That’s what I uttered when I went through my GATE result in the afternoon. The result was supposed to be put on the internet at 10 in the morning but I was in no position to keep myself awake till 10 AM after going through (yet another) night out.

Though I am only a third year student, I decided to write GATE when I heard my batch mates murmuring something about writing some examination. I moved towards them and asked what that buzz was all about. They told me that they were ambitiously looking forward to GATE this year only. Since I had no clue about their unusual decision, I asked them why they were so eager to write the examination this time around. And I was more than convinced after listening to the reply.

“Yaar, agar is baar GATE clear nahin hua then we can get an extra chance to write the examination in our 4^th year. Moreover, we will get an idea of the examination pattern this time”, one of my mates said.

The reply sounded logical to me. It’s amazing how ridiculously our mindsets have changed after our three year stay in IIT! There used to be a time when we easily and sometimes, humorously solved every question in almost every given book for JEE. And today, even an examination of far inferior quality sparks a blaze of diffidence and even, some scare in our hearts. I think I didn’t tell you the fact that this bunch of fools (including me) belongs to dual degree program of chemical engineering. That’s why we all are so concerned about our nice monetary scholarships during the fifth year of our stay in IIT.

Anyway, let’s come back to the GATE drama. So, we eventually decided to purchase GATE forms. But, my dear, nothing comes free of cost in this world. The next hurdle was to arrange an amount of Rs. 1000. My contacts all around helped me out yet again. It hardly took me two minutes or so to arrange that relatively small amount of money. I sound like some bhai in Mumbai. Don’t I? It is another matter that I haven’t paid back that amount to my ‘contact’ till now. I am planning to pay him back only when I get my first scholarship (lol). I hope he is not reading this. Hey reader, even today, I am need of some cash. Can you lend me few bucks? Please. I will return it back to you tomorrow, for sure.

I have this uncanny knack of deviating from the real matter. Sorry for that. Anyway, so the form was purchased and it was delivered at the GATE office on the evening of the scheduled deadline. I know I am among those impossible guys. There is no need to repeat that. Few more shocks are yet to come. Keep reading. After that evening, I had no clue about the date of examination. Life went on with usual ease and carelessness.

“Abhi to bahut din baaki hain yaar”, we normally told each other. But, the irony is that time shrinks at impossible rate. Months reduced into weeks and weeks contracted into mere few days. It was time to purchase the book to prepare for the examination. I went to Bersarai, looked for a book that comprised last ten years’ question papers but the book wasn’t available in the bookshop. The guy in the shop told me to visit the shop on the next day. What the heck! Who cared to visit him again on the next day? Time was flying by and I was in my notorious I-don’t-care mood. Finally just five days were left and my mate shook me up.

“Yaar, ab to sirf 5 din baaki hain. Ab to book khareed le. Fir saath mein padhte hain. Maine bhi abhi tak kuchh nahin padha hai. 2 log saath mein padhenge to kuchh kar lenge examination hour mein”, my mate told me. He tried his best to convince me.

It was time to purchase the book. I went to the shop again. This time, luckily (rather unluckily), I got the book. It cost me a hefty amount of Rs. 90. Goodness me, these books have turned so costly these days (lol). But only purchasing the book can’t serve the purpose; it has to be read as well. I brought it to my room and placed it nicely on the shelf and didn’t see it for next few days. Now it came down to the last night before the examination. I could feel the heat of the moment. I removed the dust from the cover of the book and solved question papers of last few years. In my case, the word ‘few’ means ‘two’. That was more than enough. Then, one of my friends signed into messenger and I can leave anything to talk to her. And I mean it when I say anything. Oopss!!! I talked to her for an hour or so and when I told her that I was supposed to write an examination the next day, I didn’t know that I was inviting an avalanche. She was all over me. So, I signed off after promising that I would study. I tried but you know, I couldn’t go on for too long. It was time for a break. I decided to go to sleep after playing a game of tennis on my computer. You can easily guess what happened thereafter. If you can’t guess, well, for your information, yours truly spent whole night playing games on the comp. Yes! I went for a night out. I know you are again pulling off your hair. But sorry, I can’t help. I am what I am (lol again).

Finally, the much awaited D-day arrived. (Was I really waiting for that day to come???) I woke everyone up. Usually, others wake me up but since I went for a night out, it was my turn to wake them up. Then we went out for a picnic..err…I mean for writing the exam. It was no less than the fun we usually muster during a picnic. All the examinees in the room allotted to me were at least 5 years elder to me and I looked like odd-man-out…may be, odd-child-out. The lady there for invigilation came to me and asked if I were in the correct place. I looked around and said that I was there for the examination only. She still couldn’t believe me. It was only when I showed her my admit card did she accept my words. It was quite humorous. While I was writing the examination, she came to me and told that I looked like an 18 year old baby. Baby??? How can she call me a baby? I really hated her words.

But I purposefully wrote during those three meaningful hours. I used all my pre-IIT problem solving skills, for I have hardly learnt anything in academics during my last three years’ stay in IIT. I came back to my room and I hoaxed some of my friends by telling that I didn’t turn up at all for the examination. Knowing the kind of guy that I am, most of the people believed me! Then, I cleared the fog. I had pulled their legs yet again.

Now, after getting the result, and after a comfortable success in GATE, I don’t regret my night out, my carelessness, my outspoken desire to talk to my friends. I know I don’t waste my time when I talk to my friends, when I go for a night out, when I show some carelessness. This is what I call ‘a careless care’!

Now I am planning to throw a party. Be there at time. I know you are wondering “where and when?” For the answer, contact me! Cheers!!!

A Lively Game, A Gamely Life

2006-03-14T05:42:00.000+05:30

Every evening, when the classes get over, a bunch of zealous guys gather in the backyard of a hostel to enliven themselves; to regain the energy that is lost throughout the day. Two of the guys are chosen as captains and two teams are created. Toss is called and the teams get ready for a game of cricket. For these guys, it no longer remains a game. It becomes a combat of existence. The small playground turns into a battlefield. Players mould themselves into paladins. The rules of the game are made stricter. Discipline is the name of their revived format of the game. Playing over-aggressively is considered as grave a crime as playing too defensively. Every run scored is cheered and every wicket taken is celebrated. Even a minor error in the field is followed by bitter vociferous shouts from every corner. Opponent players sledge each other. Each player is supposed to be on his toes. This game is not for light-hearted people. Frequent burning eye contacts and nerve racking comments get the adrenaline in the veins flowing at impossible speed. One can easily feel the heat of the moment. Complacency is lethal in this territory. A lax player is shown the gate. The sharks of the game swallow the small fish. There is no hiding place in this warfare. Each one of players is ready to draw the first blood. Every wound gifted to the opposition is applauded by the teammates. Anything like spirit-of-the-game is not recognized in such fierce battles. If one can’t fight, he is supposed to expire. Controlling the happenings becomes the call of the hour. Even the players of one team compete healthily against each other. It brings the best out from everyone. Warriors in that battlefield struggle hard to win; win at any cost. The better equipped, more unified team wins the competition. And every loss is taken on the heart and it creates an opportunity for the opposition to take pride and make mockery of the losing team. Sarcastic comments are passed to the losers. They get nasty and show no mercy, for they receive none. But the best part of this whole situation is that everything is done within the pre-determined laws. Even the slightest deflection from these rules is not entertained and badly criticized.

Similar is the case with our lives. In fact, life constitutes several such battles. Just the form and the format of the battles change. One always competes with organisms around itself for survival. More the number of battles one wins, the longer he survives. One who can’t adapt to the extreme conditions doesn’t suit this place. Nature doesn’t celebrate fragile creatures. It’s all about deceiving precarious situations and coming out with flying colors. Victory is synonymous to survival. History announces the fact that a species that couldn’t shape itself according to the environment ceased to exist. Endurance is a mixture of aggress and defense. Any threat to our motive of survival should be curbed. And if this approach doesn’t prove handy, then only defense mechanism comes into play.

Sometimes, even the healthiest species terminates. Thanks to some bug in the programming of the forces of nature which are beyond our control. We know it better as luck. At times, this mysterious force assists the weaker species and hence, allows it some space to exist. And when it gets cruel, it ruins the strongest giants. But it is something we will never get hold of. It’s cheesy but we are forced to respect this irrepressible power as we have no other choice. What we can do is to be prepared to defy ourselves from every form of menace and develop an unsurpassable defense mechanism and hope that nature doesn’t play its unenviable, unloved game.

But the irony is that we ourselves are the biggest threat to our race. As said above, over-aggressiveness proves as fatal as anything else. We have done well, till now, to defend ourselves against other races capable of destroying our existence but the lust of conquering everything that this universe presents and the unhealthy competition among human beings has developed such a situation that we have lost our vision to distinguish between peril and vitality and thus, we are facing the danger of self-destruction. We human beings are our richest resource and we need to preserve it. We dream of discovering life on other heavenly bodies but if we can’t respect lives of our own fellow beings, the quest on other stations of universe will lead us nowhere….

A Judge

2006-03-07T01:19:00.000+05:30

It is around 12:30 AM and despite my best efforts to sneak into the dream world, I am here writing a post. The happenings during last few days have left me sleepless, restless and more deplorably, hopeless. This current state is not very uncommon to me. Such a trauma hits me every now and then. And sadly, it takes me quite a while to come out of such woeful situations. I hope it won’t take me so long this time around. It all started when I was talking to one of my mates about my usual nagging problem of going-into-a-shell when things go horribly wrong, and his response was—“Come on friend, you think about a hell lot of things. That’s your problem!” And he disappeared with a cautious smile on his face. I had no words for him. He had left me speechless.

Not too many people empathize emotions. And it hurts when people whom one considers close to himself come up with such savage replies. So, how do we define friends? How are they different from acquaintances? People usually consider those people as their friends whom they hang out with, whom they celebrate their birthdays with, whom they often talk with, whom they share SMS jokes with, and most appropriately, whom they enjoy being with. But, usually, that enjoyment level and henceforth, the relationship start deteriorating once a person starts taking his friend for granted. Most people in this highly materialistic and practical world seek enjoyment from everything and every relationship they are associated with. But when a person needs some constant help from his friend, the relationship is usually pounded. Promises start to vaporize, the everyday-hanging out gives way to avoidance and the popular saying “A friend in need is a friend indeed” becomes a burden. That’s the nature of this modern era!

I was going through one of the forwarded mails in my inbox that talked about a person who CAN’T be considered as a friend. It goes like this…

I am not your friend if:

You have to think before you speak to me.
My presence ever makes you feel uncomfortable.
You have to thank me for everything I do for you.
You have to say sorry for everything that you don’t do.
You have to ask me for favors.
You think I would not be curious to know your new philosophy of life.
You go by what I say and do not understand what I don’t say.
You think that listening to your dreams would put me to sleep.
You would rather keep quiet when you really want to talk.
You hesitate to ask me to stay back when you think we should be together.
You take too much time to tell me what I mean to you.

Sounds captivating... Does it not?

People usually use a number of adjectives for their friends like—best friend, close friend, good friend, very good friend and what not. A person even went further to define a bad friend! All these adjectives sound ludicrously eccentric to me. As far as I am concerned, a given person is either my friend or NOT my friend. These are two mutually exclusive sets. The worshipful word ‘friend’ is self-explanatory. It doesn’t need any adjective to pronounce its vitality. But I have seen people who tend to ignore one friend in the presence of another and people to whom a new friend matters more than an old one. There are also few characters who force their friendship upon others. I hope the concerned people are reading this and recognizing themselves.

Let’s imagine how those satirical people might be differentiating their friends. I suppose that person might consider one his best friend if he avoids all eleven above mentioned characteristics, a very good friend if he nullifies say, eight of those points, a good friend if he keeps off five of those and a bad friend if he annuls three or less points in the list. Isn’t that ridiculous? But no matter what I say, people do differentiate between friends. Moreover, they often misread acquaintanceship as friendship. I have learnt the hard way that there is a definite, sharp line that separates these two relationships. Experience is a cruel teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. But the scars painted by this teacher on the face of life always remind us the mistakes we had committed in the past. And I am glad that I am learning this lesson sooner than later. But I must accept that the pace at which I am learning this prowess is ridiculously sluggish.

Though one can’t judge every person perfectly, one can always get better with experience. The more you get hurt, the more you learn about the ‘techniques’ of choosing friends. It might sound over-optimistic and even idealistic. But at the end of the day, it certainly proves worthful. A cautious and calculated approach while choosing friends can do wonders. We human beings have developed all kinds of institutions where we can learn different arts; be it engineering or dancing or managing business issues but it is pity that we have never been able to evolve schools that can teach us the ways of judging people in a sublime manner. I wish we had few such ‘refuges’…

Different Angle

2006-02-27T05:48:00.000+05:30

It’s amazing how life can change in a matter of few days. If you don’t agree with me, ask Ganguly. These days, he is the most eligible person to answer such queries. I had vowed not to write upon Ganguly saga. But this guy is creating headlines just too often. And the fact is that ‘love him or hate him but you just can’t ignore Ganguly’. This poor chap got everything wrong when he opened his mouth against Chappell after scoring an uncharacteristically irksome century against a hapless Zimbabwe attack. And that opened the floodgates for him. The person who was at the helm of reviving this ‘Team India’ suddenly finds himself struggling to secure his place in the team in both formats of the game and everyone interested in Indian cricket wants to know if it is the end of a prolific career. When the sky is blue, grass green and a team winning for fun, who cares about an individual!

Every Ganguly supporter, whether in Kolkata or England, believes that it is Chappell who devilled Ganguly’s empire. And what interests me is the fact that it is Ganguly who advocated Chappell’s nomination as the coach. Moreover, Ganguly himself had flown to Sydney a couple of years ago to take tips from Chappell for tackling short deliveries. We will never know what exactly happened during that short two months tenure of Chappell as coach that made him and Ganguly, the ‘captain’, the fiercest enemies. The reasons may vary from an elementary case of clash of egos to a relatively graver problem of absolute desire of securing throttling hold over the team.

Every single player in the team knew that Ganguly was struggling with his form and being the captain was the only factor that patronized his presence in the team. But no one dared to come forward to question his selection. But disaster always finds its way to creep into one’s life. This time around, it chose the victim itself to mend catastrophe’s path. Ganguly’s outcry on the occasion of a dead century was just one of those incidents. Too many things changed in a matter of few months against Ganguly’s liking. Leakage of Chappell’s ‘secret’ letter to BCCI President, Sharad Pawar’s emphatic victory against Dalmiya (Ganguly’s blind supporter) in BCCI elections, change in the faces constituting the selection panel and a sudden ascend in the performance of newcomers in the team made it virtually impossible for Ganguly to plot his comeback in the team. Moreover, Ganguly didn’t favor himself by bunking domestic matches citing one reason or the other. And the irony is that he was forced to compete against those players whom he had fought for in selection meetings during his regime. Kaif was preferred over him in one day internationals while Yuvraj displaced Ganguly in the test team. Even in one of the domestic test matches, Zaheer Khan, whom he backed so strongly, gifted him a ‘pair’ to make his case even weaker. How cruel life can be!

One can find half-burnt posters of Chappell on almost every street of Kolkata. Everyone claims him to be the source of Ganguly’s fiasco. But an interesting point is that Dravid might also be one of the masterminds behind all this drama. I know he has been a great servant of Indian cricket. He is, in fact, the best test batsmen India has ever produced and I rate him even higher than Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar in test cricket and I am no authority to suspect his commitment towards Indian team but the bottom-line is that the urge for limelight and power can make even the calmest person go mad.

It is no secret that Dravid has always lived in the shadows of Indian greats like Tendulkar and Ganguly and off late, of Sehwag. Ganguly and he debuted in the same game but he always fell behind when it came to the task of creating headlines. During late nineties and early part of the millennium, Ganguly reached the peak of his career and was considered among the best batsmen of his era. Despite playing as vital a role as those of Tendulkars and Gangulys, Dravid never got the same acclaim. He always played the role of second fiddle to other slam-bam players and thus the limelight was always attracted by everybody but him. His nature of batting was not compatible with those cricket lovers who visit grounds just to see sixes being hit. He has always done his job in tranquility and has always been the background color of colorful Indian cricket’s portrait. And suddenly he finds himself at the core of the Indian team with everything going his way. Now he is the captain of a team which is on an unprecedented winning streak. With everything falling into place, he is now acclaimed as a ‘thinking captain’ and is applauded for everything he does; be it taking the bold step of opening in the test matches or experimenting with the youths. He now bubbles with enthusiasm and is even ready to play the lead roles. He finds a Tendulkar who is struggling with his injuries, a Ganguly who is almost at the end of his career and a team that looks forward to him as an icon. The stage is set for him. He just needs to crush his ‘rival’ who is already on the floor. And his knack of playing his role in the background can pay him rich dividends in this field. He might prefer to hide himself in another shadow; this time in that of Chappell who has already earned some ‘popularity’ due to his open revolt against Ganguly regime. Dravid might not have staged the downfall of Ganguly but he might be eager to erase his name from future Indian team for his own sake. And he might be considering Chappell as the right person to use for his own benefit; Dravid’s words from Chappell’s mouth! I won’t be surprised if after his retirement, Dravid writes in his autobiography about the ways he used to debacle his opponents; be it Australia or Pakistan or Ganguly! Still water runs deep. Doesn’t it?

I know such an idea is somewhat difficult for diehard Dravid fans (including me) to swallow but I would advise them to hire a time machine and go back to year 2000 when Hansie Cronje surprised everybody by accepting that he indeed accepted money to lose matches. Wasn’t that a similar shock? Who could have imagined such a great ambassador of the game to be a crook? That’s what separates human beings from other organisms--Unpredictability! One should take nothing for granted. The unlikeliest and most grievous probability values are 0 and 1. And Dravid might be the perfect example for the word 'unpredictability'. But then, there is always a word ‘might’…

Great Indian Dream

2006-02-22T17:35:00.000+05:30

They say that India is not just another country; it is a culture, it is an adherence, it is a festival, it is a pleasure. But how true are those words? We talk about our freedom in the country, we take pride in unity-in-diversity hymn and we boast of the fact that we are the largest democracy in the world. But when we dare to go deep into the ocean of facts, we see a different picture altogether. Majority of our population is plagued by poverty; the general happiness rating of India is incredibly low; North Indians disdain South Indians and the other way around.

It’s amazing how eagerly we wait for the arrival of 15^th August or 26^th January so that we can enjoy few extra hours of sleep in the morning. It’s astonishing how badly the ‘sentiments’ of religious leaders are hurt when Salman Rushdie writes “Satanic Verses” and then fatwa is declared against him. It’s surprising how much we talk about the great works of Gandhi and then criticize all the paths shown by him. It’s dispiriting how we spend hours watching news on the TV concerning a natural calamity in Kashmir and then hesitate to donate Rs 10 in the relief fund.

We always think that saluting our National Flag and singing National Anthem twice a year, supporting Indian cricket team in a game against Pakistan and calling ourselves Indians are the only ways of showing our respect towards our so called great India. These days, everyone has drowned himself into the colors that Rang De Basanti has brought with itself. Everybody is acclaiming the way Aamir Khan utters “behen de takki” in his dandy Punjabi accent and the way those five youths enjoyed their lives in Delhi and the path they chose to bring justice to a dead pilot whom they called their friend. But do we really care if the path that those five “revolutionaries” chose was correct? Is killing a criminal the only way to bring justice to those who are victims of his barbarism? In fact, is it really a way to punish a criminal? I firmly believe that killing a criminal is not at all the way to penalize him. The only way is to make him realize that he committed a crime and then asking him to rectify his mistake (or crime) in every possible way. Furthermore, how many criminals can one kill to purify the polluted Indian air? There is no end to this vicious ‘litigation’.

Moreover, the climax of the movie spreads a futile message in the audience. I can’t understand why those five young men chose to sacrifice themselves. Was it just for the sake of resembling the incident with one that occurred in the case of Bhagat Singh and company? The director and the script writer of the movie must understand that in this era, no war is won by dying. The person himself should accomplish the task of revolutionizing the environment. India is a place where sacrifices of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh are not recalled; leave aside those of five unknown names. Sacrifices like those create headlines for two days; TV channels interview their relatives for a week; general public remember their names for a fortnight and then everything boils down to the ground level. After a month, people struggle to recall if anything like that had occurred.

Nobody understands the pain of others until a person himself goes through such dreadful events. Even those five guys realized the fire inside them only when they felt the pain in their respective souls. Nevertheless, it is certainly a movie that can make us talk to our scruples and realize that there is no point in watching impotently everything going wrong around us. We need to make a sound and ‘legal’ stand against something functioning improperly in the system, for it is our responsibility to bring back the lost pride of our lovely country. We can’t afford to leave the job for others to complete. We need to recognize that every issue of national interest is as important as our personal issues; in fact, more important than our personal issues.

We dream of other nations acclaiming India as a developed and rich country. But the first step towards this trip is to realize that others will never respect us if we ourselves don’t show respect towards our country and our people. We need not be revolutionists or freedom fighters to turn that bold Indian dream into realism. If each one of us can change our attitude towards looking into a problem and can motivate ourselves to work out that problem in a sensible manner, we can see a new India in the horizon. Rights and duties go hand in hand and are inter-related. If every one of us starts performing his part of the job honestly and correctly, then that great India is just around the corner. I wish to live in that happy India and I am sure you too. Can’t we vow to contribute to this Indian dream, can’t we lend our hands for this Indian desire, can’t we devote our time to make India a better place to live at, can’t we gift the coming generations a developed India? We surely can!!!

I, Me, Myself.

2006-02-21T05:48:00.000+05:30

Ask a young actor where he sees himself after five years or so and he would inevitably say that he wants to be as successful as Amitabh Bachchan; ask a budding singer what she aims at and she would say that she wishes to be the next Lata Mangeshkar; ask a cricketer who is about to play his debut game what he wants to achieve and he would say that he aspires to be as successful as Sachin Tendulkar; and ask a young industrialist what he wants to accomplish and he would say that he desires to be as rich as Bill Gates. That’s the trend we human beings follow. We always want to be like our idols. We see the most successful people around and we don’t dare to go beyond them; we can’t see ourselves achieving more than what they did. We always dream to be the best in the business but when asked how successful we want to be, we always come up with a name. Isn’t that amazing?

We always live in shadow of our paragons who are more successful than others but we often forget that we have identities of our own and we have to develop worlds of our own, where there is just one king, just one emperor. Do I need to name the emperor?

In this materialistic world, every idol is fancied as the limit of perfection. But are they really perfect? Can’t we achieve more than what they did? OR why do we endure the success of others, why can’t we determine our own success? Will that not be more satisfying? These are few questions we need to ask ourselves.

We need to show our dreams the way that leads to the factory of materialization, and let future decide how things shape up. We, at times, envy the success of our fellows when fate plays a deciding role in it and we wonder why luck flirts with us so often, despite we being more oriented and having more potential. But then, life is a potpourri of games—you win few, you lose few. It’s difficult to swallow losses but one has to live with them, no matter how close to perfection he is.

No matter how stupid I am, no matter how many complaints I have to register in God’s book, no matter how many painful moments I have endured, no matter how distressed I am, no matter how many failures I have gathered till now, I would love to visit this world every single time with the same personality traits that I have been awarded in this particular life, for I love the way I struggle to reach the farthest milestone with my limited resources and abilities. Had I been awarded with superior qualities, I would no more have remained a ‘normal’ human being and with substandard capabilities, I would not have even bothered to chase my dreams. May be, I wouldn’t have even dreamt. I just want to be myself and I don’t want others to follow me either as everyone has his own ‘unique’ way of adaptation, his own ways of thinking, his own track to sprint on.

Every time a person generates a new 'sensible' idea, he goes on to reach heights never attained before. Be it Einstein or Microsoft owner Bill Gates or Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, each one of them had ideas of their own; very unique and something that world had never thought of before. And these revolutionary ideas swept everyone off his feet. And that's what made them distinct in the crowd of seven billion people. They dared to think beyond the norms and proved their uniqueness. It is quite easy to earn Rs. thirty thousand per month with no innovation involved but at the end of the day, it won’t satisfy you if you feel that you have the potential and vigor to 'contribute' in a much better way.

It is all about discovering the strengths and weaknesses that we possess and then decide what we aspire to reach. In the end, my race is with myself only and the surroundings are mere racecourses. Can I beat myself? Can I stretch my limits? In the evening of life, if I know that I achieved what I could have, I would justify my potential and would be ready to apprize my God of my performance and my singularity with a well-deserved ardent eye contact.

Love versus Love

2006-02-18T18:24:00.000+05:30

It’s amazing how it feels when something you start ‘loving’ is snatched from you and then, you are tethered to see that happen. What can you do if you are forced to be a mere spectator when your most ‘loved’ possession is shredded into tiny pieces in front of you? Do mind the word ‘loving/loved’ that has been used throughout the post instead of ‘liking/liked’. The verb ‘love’ is far different from the verb ‘like’. Moreover, love, the noun, is not just another feeling. In fact, it is a passion, an intense emotion, a belief and may be, much more than what those words can reveal.

Just imagine how it feels when you are tied to a firm pillar by the strongest rope ever manufactured and then a brute is on the verge of scooping out your heart by pressing his ardent sharp knife into your soft flesh without displaying any trace of mercy on his inclement face. How difficult can it be to watch into those cruel blood red eyes, mere inches away from your face, of that merciless hunter. And it can’t get worse if you come across the fact that the relentless poacher is none but the person whom you gravely ‘love’. Yes, there arrives the hapless word ‘love’ again!

One may always fall prey to such situations when he can do nothing but kill one of his ‘loves’ to salvage the other one. I know it hurts when one is asked to burn one half of his asset just because the other half envies it and ‘loves’ to be known as the only asset the concerned person owns. Is this mere possessiveness on the part of the latter or is it the inability of the former to defend itself against its ‘enemy’ that has brought it on the brink of an end-- a dead end! Does the other half of my asset, the intense one, want me to attach myself only to it? Is this its intense love that I want or do I desire the silent, may be weak care that the first half has to offer me? In fact, I don’t even know if the first half has any ‘love’, any care for me inside it. If it really has something sacred for me, why doesn’t it come out and demonstrate itself in front of the population. Can’t it be bold enough to apprize the cosmos that it values me as much as I do it? Does still water really run deep?

I am not certain about the standing of the very vocal, very outrageous half of my asset as well. It exhibits its intension of killing the other half but is it just the desire of gaining me as its sole property or the hatred against that other half that rams it to destroy the silent half?

I have to come up with a choice soon for if I stay numb for too long, it would result in certain death of mum-half of my assets and then I would never know if that dead tacit half really ‘loved’ me. I need to ask myself a question---Who is more significant- the one whom I love or the one who loves me? My inability to reach a hasty conclusion might prove fatal. Which one shall I choose???

Valentine

2006-02-14T06:52:00.000+05:30

Saint Valentine knocks the door of time and the young population behind the door welcomes him with open arms. Every juvenile is busy making his/her partner feel special. These days, even the oldies can be seen soaking themselves in lively colors that St. Valentine brings with himself on this endearing day every year. People all around the world use this opportunity to apprize their counterparts what they mean to them. A young lad, standing far away from this scintillating event, enjoys and even envies the felicity that his friends experience with their girlfriends on this exhilarating day and wonders where his girl is. He eagerly inquires Cupid when he would find the girl who visits him in his every dream. He portrays the girl whose three majestic words can bring an end to his every sorrow, whose one glance can enliven his every desire, whose one tear can stimulate him to set this cosmos on fire, whose one smile can bring his existence to stalemate.

He always feels the need of one such girl whom he can embrace when he needs someone around him, whom he can tell about all his troubles, whom he can tease on her every minor error, whom he can fight with while deciding the movie they would be watching that evening, whom he can bank upon when he finds himself in dire straits.

He aspires for a girl who can tauntingly yell at him at the stare of some other girl, who can sham fear just to entice him to hold her lax hands, who can call him at midnight just to say that she cares for him, who can feel his absence when he is not around, who can put her head on his shoulder claiming it to be the cosiest berth to rest upon.

He knows that his Valentine is just around the corner and might be thinking on same tracks about him. He just needs to find her out. No prizes for guessing who this guy is…

Meanwhile...

2006-02-10T07:22:00.000+05:30

“Please God! Just ask that bloody prof to produce a lenient question paper for this Major. I need few more marks to pass this course. Please help me this time, one last time. Please!” I talked to my God in a whispering voice with closed eyes, sinking into my favorite third bench from the right in the second last row. There was a whole bunch of guys going through the same process. I looked around and the nervous look on their faces made me feel a bit better. I was not alone in that terrorizing Ex-hall. I looked at one of my mates and we shared an anxious smile. There were few girls as well, with apprehensive looks and I was badly trying to avoid fronting them, for I was there to debar a probable F grade while those maidens were concerned about their inevitable A grades. My classmates were assaying to seat themselves in a definite, plotted arrangement in order to write their papers with a collective effort, using every bit of available resources. It is one of those rare events while the most barbaric foes conduct like trustworthy allies.

The examination hour started and I tried to figure out the known words in the question paper. It hardly took me any time to sample out the questions which I could attempt in my bare answer book. I commenced tardily, for I knew that my fast pace could result in ‘completion’ of my paper in half an hour or so. Despite my best effort, I couldn’t carry on for more than three quarters of an hour. Even after innumerous verifications of my neat attempts in the answer book, I have had more than an hour left to spend. And this is usually the time when my philosophical mind generates weirdest doctrines, my mechanical brain points out the ‘Centre of Mass’ of each and every fan attached to the roof, my secular heart criticizes those useless examinations, my athirst taste buds desire a cup of really hot coffee and my heavy eyelids seek a nap.

I looked around if others had also hit the same patch. The murmur in the air affirmed that my mates were busy catching the informative waves from each and every corner of Ex-hall. Periodic cautionary outcries from the prof muted the mutter. But, every single time prof left the arena for one reason or the other, it regained its lost intensity. The students tried every trick in their Holy Book to gain few more marks which they can boast of. The apt use of calculators for ‘mugging up’ formulae, the ingenious practice of copying each and every letter of bulky books to mere pieces of paper and summing up the juicy facts on the palm can bring shame upon the smartest cheats.

In the meantime, there were few students who served as the centers of scare and hopelessness for guys like yours truly. Their frequent demand for extra answer sheets created furor in the hearts of rest of the examinees. The speed at which their pens slipped on the paper made me wonder if the answers were so lengthy. They wrote as if they would be stoned after the examination.

The end of the examination was more of a sigh of relief for me than anything else. As soon as the prof snatched the answer book from my hand, my eyes started searching for my mates whom I believed had fared more or less like me. Every eye contact was followed by spooky smiles. We gathered at one corner of the Ex-hall.

“Fuck yaar! Despite such puppy questions I couldn’t answer them because I had not mugged the formulae”, one of us tried to explain the toughness level of the questions.
“Oye! Will you keep your mouth shut? We all know how much you knew”- another one among us shouted at him in frustration.
“Yaar”, uttered another fellow, “you didn’t help me at all in the paper. It wasn’t expected of you.”
“I myself was clueless yaar! Moreover, you were sitting too far from me to pass the answers in any form.”
“Will you all stop all this nonsense? It is now past and there is no point talking about it. We should be thinking about the next paper. Why don’t you people understand?”-- I came up with my practical philosophy.
“Haan yaar, you are right. We have a fighter paper to face tomorrow. And I haven’t even looked at the course content. I might be awarded a fakka. Let’s move.”

We headed towards our hostel knowing that we all would enjoy a long session of sleep just after reaching our respective rooms, no matter how fighter the next examination was!

Purpose

2006-02-08T03:39:00.000+05:30

Few ‘encouraging’ words from my loved ones and I can sense life, which had nearly deserted my body, again accumulating itself in my cells. Blistering storm is reforming itself into cool steady breeze. The dark night has given way to dawn and I hope to see a new, delightful sun this morning. I need to reanalyze myself. I wish to fly to a territory where I can spend some time laying on soft green grass, talking to colorful chirping birds, touching the soft fur on red-tinged ears of small rabbits, listening to comforting sound of water flowing in the nearby lake, saluting the cloudless blue sky, lauding the proud hill on the other side of the lake. Is there any such peaceful and enticing place on this so-called beautiful planet? If not, then I need to construct such an environment to stem my fall into the dark burrow.

It is the lack of motivation that has always slowed down my march. And I am passing through one such phase. I can still recall moments from my past when I pointed out things-to-do and completed those jobs well within the intense deadlines I had set; I can still figure out the instances when Mathematics theories sounded common sense to me; I can still collect events in my mind when I enjoyed the surprised looks on the faces of people germinated by my skill of rendering quick, smart solutions to impossible looking problems; I can still gather examples from my past when I attended tuitions at 5 AM just to get glimpses of my friend’s girlfriend (oops!!!). I hope my friend doesn’t read my blog regularly.

Life, today, has come to a halt. It sees no target to aim at, no barrier to cross, no aspiration to exercise for. I have always loved limelight and I have attracted it often in the past. It wasn’t too long ago when I dreamt of conquering this world and stamping my name in everyone’s book with enormous volume of vigor and positive energy campaigning in my arteries. The joy of working hard for a purpose has always pleased me but these days the magic word “purpose” is flirting with me. The vim, the energy, the push is still there but it lacks orientation. I know I have worked madly, day in and day out, when given a task but those tasks never challenged my limits. I have always come across jobs that are either too timid to daunt me or too dull to work for. What I am looking for is an interesting task that can push my limits; that can book me for itself till eternity.

This world is certainly not shy of such objectives. My eyes are soberly looking for such an aim, my mind is badly cogitating million such thoughts. I am still looking for the purpose of my arrival, for I don't want to leave the stage without playing my role perfectly. I think….no, I believe I'll get hold of that dream role sooner or later. I am eagerly looking for the angel who could usher me to my destination. Is that you???

My Terminal

2006-02-04T01:51:00.000+05:30

I sense immense pleasure every time I see people carrying a dead body to the graveyard. I find the deplorable, moist eyes of the loved ones of the corpse soothing. I feel good when a lifeless body is on the verge of losing its connection with this living world as the lid of the coffin is tardily shut. I enjoy spending time with myself in a graveyard crowded with lively spirits. Although I can’t see any movement around, I always feel their presence when dry leaves rustle in the strong breeze blowing across the cemetery. The silent crying of air makes me believe that someone follows me every time I visit my favorite destination.

Death, it seems, is the only medicine that can bring relief to my sorry soul. Every moment I spend on this planet contributes to my grief. I am bleeding since the very first day I trod on the planet. And the fall of last drop of blood flowing in my veins on the soil will declare the end of my rues. I know death is my destiny and I am thirstily running towards it. Birth, life and death constitute a magnet with birth and death being its two poles and life being the separation between the two poles. No matter how short this magnet is, the two poles never meet each other and it is left to us to determine our path from birth to death. Sorrow is a monotonic increasing function of distance traveled between birth and death. The more you walk, the more you suffer. I am tired of walking this wearisome path and I am in need of renaissance. I need to construct my shortest road to death using the colorless flesh of time. The unfortunate event of birth pushes me away from itself, while enthralling personality of death attracts me as if asking me to sublime in its affectionate arms.

I envy the freedom of the dead buried three feet beneath the ground in a six feet long coffin, for he relishes his decision of discontinuing his relationship with the painful job of living. He celebrates his role of a creature that doesn’t have to bother about his survival. I wish to live the life of a dead. I want to explore that maverick world.

I plead for death in front of the Master. I hurt ‘living people’ around me just to make sure that they file complaint against me in the court of the Lord. I bruise them so that the curses germinating in their anguished hearts can agitate Him to consider my case. In a way, I use people as attesters of my sins in front of Him.

The volume of this anti-Abhieshek league is growing and I know that I am on the brink of winning my right to die. I want this group to accelerate my bleeding; I need them to assist me in engineering the road to my casket; I ask them to help my cause. My ways of approaching my destiny might be eccentric and my habit of exploring for shortcuts might lengthen my path, but at this moment, I can clearly vision my darling end and I want to accomplish this task forthwith. May God approve the petition of this distressed lot in near future!

The F word

2006-01-31T23:12:00.000+05:30

Perhaps one of the most interesting words in English language today is the word fuck. Of all the English words that begin with the letter "F", fuck is the only word that is referred to as "the F word". It's the one magical word. Just by its sound, it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love. Fuck, as most words in English language, is derived from a German word "frichen" which means “to strike”. In English, fuck falls into many grammatical categories. As a transitive verb, for instance,--"John fucks Sherley". As an intransitive verb—“Sherley fucks”. Its meaning is not always sexual. It can be used as an adjective such as--"John's doing all the fucking work", as part of an adverb--"Sherley talks too fucking much", as an adverb enhancing an adjective--"Sherley is fucking beautiful", as a noun--"I don't give a fuck", as a part of a word--"Absofuckinglutely" or "Infuckincredible", and as almost every word in the sentence--"Fuck the fucking fuckers". As you must realize, there aren't too many words with the versatility of "fuck" as in these examples describing situations such as

Fraud -- I got fucked with this used car a lot.
Dismay -- Oh! Fuck it.
Trouble -- I guess I am really fucked now.
Aggression -- Don't fuck with me, buddy.
Difficulty -- I don't understand this fucking question.
Inquiry -- Who the fuck was that?
Dissatisfaction -- I don’t like what the fuck is going on here.
Diffidence -- He is a fuck off.
Dismissal -- Why don’t you go outside and play "hide and go fuck yourself"?

I am sure you can think of many more examples. With all these multipurpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use this word? We say use this unique flexible word more often in your daily speech. It will identify the quality of your character immediately. So use this word loudly and proudly!!!

Thanks to Google for all the fucking information…

Is beauty just skin deep?

2006-01-26T08:26:00.000+05:30

"How will I fare in a popularity contest in IIT?” asked one of my friends, who is, by far, the most gorgeous female I have ever come across. I had absolutely no reply to her inquiry because I knew that she would win the contest by a long distance. Such is the influence of nifty faces in this materialistic world. It's not that she interacts with every person in IIT but, it is the shine on the face that attracts the people around. After all, who doesn't want to see a good face!

I was going through one of the forwarded emails the other day that compared Sania Mirza, the latest tennis sensation and Koneru Humpy. Are you wondering who Humpy is? If yes, then please note that she is the present world number 2 player in international women's chess arena and more importantly, she is among the very few Indian women who represent India on international sports platform. The article talked about Sania being every youngster's dream girl and how curiously people wanted to know about her favorite cuisine, music and color and the words printed on her T-shirt while Humpy, with mediocre looks, being an unknown name despite achieving similar, if not greater success than Sania. The same story fits other fields as well. Despite having nominal acting capabilities, Angelina Jolie continues to find herself among the highest paid actresses. People with good looks always attract limelight.

It is true that looks is the first aspect one considers during the first meet with a person. People tend to make assumptions about the behavior and thinking of the people on the basis of their very first look. And thus, the face contributes to one's first impression. Even the word personality consists of the word persona which, in Latin, means mask. Though, strictly speaking, according to psychology, personality is a collection of emotion, looks, thought and behavior patterns unique to a person.

Researchers have come up with theories such as Halo effect revealing that attractive people tend to be more intelligent, better adjusted, and more popular. Yes, I know that not many people would be convinced by this theory but that's the story narrated by the research guys. Even the people related with psychology of beauty believe that good looking people achieve more occupational success than their not-so-attractive counterparts.

The phrase "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" is losing its significance in this era. It's pity that we constitute a society which lays high emphasis on physical appearances of people. And thanks to media and audience, this theory doesn't look like taking a U-turn. After all, no one wants to see baleful faces in TV commercials. Moreover, media has corroborated that attractive faces sell. This is why companies manufacturing cosmetics are big hits in the field of business. Every time you visit a parlor, you will always find people suggesting bleach or a hair color or a facial to improve your looks. And the worst part is that more often than not, we start caring their words and fall prey to their ideas.

But, is this world so unfair to moderate-looking-people? No!!! Certainly not. There are few luxuries which good looking people enjoy but at the end of the day, it is the way people carry themselves that counts. Looks can often be misleading. And assumptions made on the basis of looks may go wrong. One might be the most pleasing face on the planet, but if he/she doesn't have a clean heart and a fair soul, that look won't transmit him/her to the ultimate goal of life. What do you say?

Plight

2006-01-21T20:20:00.000+05:30

It was a usual sunny afternoon in December. The yellow sun was tardily altering its hue to white. The lukewarm rays were comforting the earth. And I was spending my time in a train running at around seventy kmph, which can always be considered awesome by Indian norms. A bunch of sixty chirpy students that included me as well was coming back from an audacious "industrial" trip, better known as an enjoyment trip, from Goa. Each one of the sixty students had a saga of his own. And the degree of enjoyment of each one of us at those tingling Goa beaches could be clearly read on our faces. Few were not satisfied with their trip and had plenty to complain about while others considered it as a lifetime experience. The students were apprizing each other of their night outs at beaches, their heroics with rented bikes, their stares at topless ladies and what not.

Rare glimpses of photogenic valleys and mountains were drawing our attention and we were prompted to click few snaps with those charming backgrounds. But a dark boy, whose soul was barely ten years old, had no urge left in his heart to praise the beauty of nature. His starvation had, probably, overshadowed his delicate feelings. He was busy picking up empty mineral water bottles and cleaning the green surface of the moving train with his thin, tiny palms. Every time he entered a compartment, the passengers gave him a tough, long look just to make sure that the cursed boy was not carrying away their precious luggage with himself. After his satisfactory cleansing job, he visited the compartments again, this time with the desire that people would bless him with few coins, just enough to feed him. But, he was, probably, hoping against hope. Every time he showed his bent, empty hands, he was greeted with nods of heads, avoidance of eye contact, shrugs of shoulders, and sometimes, rough, rude speeches. But the poor boy never showed any emotion on his face. He had, probably, got used to that treatment. It was amazing how hard people were trying to avoid looking into the eyes of that innocent boy. They knew they could not dare to say "no" looking directly at his face. After his departure from each compartment, the passengers had had a sigh of relief knowing that they had saved their valuable single rupee coins and they even had plenty of statements to make about the alarming increment in the number of beggars in that part of the world and how the beggar-gangs worked to earn money. We spend hundreds of rupees to watch a movie and thousands of rupees to present gifts to our loved ones but we always hesitate to pull out a coin from our wallet to feed a starving child.

The boy moved on his quest for people who could satisfy his needs. My eyes were following his every movement, his every expression. The absence of lines on his palms made me feel that someone above had forgotten to develop his fate. The child, who could have served as the source of envy in different walks of life for some of the rich children, was undone by forces beyond his command. The age at which a normal child finds himself playing with toys, that boy was busy cleaning the dust below people's feet. In the end, the boy managed to earn just three coins and those coins were never enough to suppress his hunger. I thought I could understand his every pain, his every bother. I slowly moved towards him and started gazing him. The boy looked restless and unsatisfied. But he had no one around him who could register his complain. Even his God had defied him. I, in order to help him, forwarded a ten rupee note towards him. He smiled, took the note from me and said- "Nahin saahab, yeh aap rakh lo. Main apne liye khud kamaaunga", forwarding that note towards me. My eyes were moist and had a wide smile on my face. I was astonished by his self-confidence, eagerness to work for himself and the way in which he managed a smile in adverse conditions. His one golden sentence certainly taught me a thing or two. I couldn't dare to ask him anything. I slowly moved back to my seat and wished him all success in his life.

My usual impuissance and irritation

2006-01-19T04:03:00.000+05:30

1. I miss the last bus to my residing place in Durham and I am constrained to spend the night under the sky in Newcastle during a chilly winter.

2. I am shown the red card in a crunch situation in soccer, albeit I was pushed by my opponent.

3. I observe a beggar who looks, with moist eyes, at a quarter-eaten piece of cake being thrown out of the window of a shining black Mercedes into the dustbin.

4. I see my two close friends wrangling and I am not allowed to utter a single word.

5. I, accidentally, burn my palm in the night and I have an examination to write the next morning.

6. My girlfriend wants me to take a look at her new dress and I am tethered to a dull lecture.

7. I spend a whole night preparing for a presentation and the next morning, I find the projector not working properly.

8. I spend a whole week deciding the name of the book I would be presenting my friend on her birthday and I am informed that the particular book is not available in the market.

9. I am running late for my job interview and I find that my clothes are not ironed.

10.I like a watch in a shop and my wallet says that I am Rs 50 shy of its price.

Poor soul!!! God help me...

I wish I had a foe

2006-01-16T19:11:00.000+05:30

I wish I had a foe
who could shamelessly look into my eyes
who could construct ways to agitate me
who could bring the best out of me.

I wish I had a foe
who could take responsibility for my usual temper
who could evoke me to run doubly fast to beat him
whom I could trust as the only person against me.

I wish I had a foe
who could boldly announce his nonalignment with me
who could bring my sins in front of the territory
who could gift me a reason to dwell in my hollow life.

I wish I had a foe
who could look for every chance to diss me
who could bring the angry person out of me
who could openly, dauntlessly argufy me.

I wish I had a foe
who could offer me sleepless nights
who could cater me struggling days
who could deny me facile victories.

I wish I had a foe
who could, at least, think about me
even if his thinking goes against me.

The battle is on

2006-01-14T04:01:00.000+05:30

Dark clouds have enshrouded the delightful, blue sky. White fog has dampened the vision. Demon is slowly but surely marching forward in the region of angels. It is difficult to distinguish between a friend and a foe; it is tough to differentiate between God and Devil. Everybody seems to be wearing faces. The animal inside the human body has woken up, and is showing its ugly, dreadful teeth. The vociferous cry of the soul is inviting havoc. Forces of evil are out to conquer. The new dictionary meaning of bravery is stupidity. Words like truth and honesty are laughed upon. That's the picture of the modern and advanced era depicted by a silent viewer standing far away from this guile realm. This cosmos can be very deceptive from inside. The false calmness in the air often misleads to composure. The bright sunshine may tempt you for a barbeque but monsoon can be at a stone's throw. The tacit conspiracy may catch you napping. The mad race for supremacy over others is excising the delicate feelings inside the hapless heart. The wild competition is slashing the flesh of the poor child playing inside the human soul. The color of darkness has started captivating us. The word "I" has replaced "we". Our belief in humanity is shaking. Malign spirits have started inspiring us.

We humans need to clear our stand in this battle of God and Devil, for we are the weakest among the three groups and victory of any of the other two will make us follow their rules. The ball is in our court. What exactly do we wish?

The evil power is gaining control over the battle. And human support can corroborate its victory in no time. Human backup to godly exponent may not confirm an immediate victory to this group but our support will certainly boost them up and eventually lead them to victory. The consequences of the victories of these two groups have a wide gulf between them. As far as we humans are concerned, an evil triumph would mean slavery and hunger for eons to come and thus, intends catastrophic results while the success of godly creatures would imply an environment of perpetual love and joy.

Meanwhile, the battle is on and demons have the upper hand. The choice is ours. The ball is still in our court...

Foreign Approval

2006-01-12T03:36:00.000+05:30

It was only when Amartya Sen received 1998 Nobel Prize in Stolkholm for his work in the field of economics that we discovered the genius inside him.

When Bill Gates makes a statement about IITs, it dominates the headlines of The Times of India while a similar Narayan Murthy or Vinod Khosla comment evaporates away unnoticed.

Indian government waited for ICC's nomination of Sachin Tendulkar as the player of the year to honour this champion with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, given the fact that India has hardly produced any world beater in a game other than cricket.

Satyajit Ray received Padma Vibhushan only after he was rewarded with all the prestigious worldwide film awards, right from Golden Berlin Bear in Germany to Golden Palm in Cannes.

All these above mentioned facts connote that we always need a foreign stamp to corroborate whether a particular person or institution or even an event is worth praising or not. It appears that we have lost faith in our ability to rationalize the immensity associated with something or someone. We constitute one fifth of the world in terms of the number of human bodies but these bodies mean nothing more than lifeless, dead creatures if we can't use our ability to express the greatness of our people and the graveness of our events. We appreciate a B grade English movie but hesitate to call a genuinely good Bollywood movie good. This diffidence is a consequence of our blind faith in alien products and people, and our inability to define eminence. We may be producing the best hands for all walks of life but at the end of the day, it is self-recognition that can firm our feet during a storm.

He loves me

2006-01-09T23:58:00.000+05:30

GOD, the only reality, the ultimate source of vitality, is the power that drives the universe.

I know He consoles me when I cry behind closed doors, I know He listens to me when I murmur with closed eyes, I know He ushers me when I walk the lonely paths, I know He nourishes me when I am hungry, I know He opens the evacuation door when I am surrounded by troubles, I know He cries when I lie, I know He kisses my forehead when I need love, I know He holds my hand when I move through darkness, I know He medicines me when I am ill, I know He plays with me when I need a partner, I know He opens his arms when I need a hug, I know He sings my favorite song when I wish to break the silence, I know He swings the handfan when I try to sleep, I know He trusts me when nobody shows confidence in me, I know He teaches me when I show respect for knowledge, I know He asks my mother to talk to me when I miss her, I know He infuses confidence in me when I am down, I know He revels when I am happy, I know He loves me, I know He loves me...

Love Proposal

2006-01-07T06:25:00.000+05:30

It was pretty late in the night. All my family members were in sound sleep. But I was in no mood to sleep. I had to perform a Herculean task the next morning in the school. I had to propose a girl. I closed the door of my room, stood in front of the mirror and started rehearsing the lines I would be telling her the next day.

"I think I love you", I uttered with some confidence on my face.
"Nah, she would feel that I was too confused", I thought. I dropped that line. I started looking for a more appealing one.
"I love you since the very first day I saw you in the class", I spoke again, this time with a much more confident look on my face.
"No yaar, that's too conventional a line to say." I shouted in frustration. At the very next moment, I realized that it was already 1 AM and I must not wake anybody up. With that idea in back of my mind, I started my work again.
"Come on Abhieshek, I know you can do better", I told myself and went in front of the mirror again. I tried few more lines without any real success. But I had to prepare that ecstatic sentence for her. So I moved on.
"I am in love with you", I said to my image in the mirror, this time with a little sensual look.
"Now, that sounds much better", I thought.
"I am sure she would be moved by that sentence", I whispered, followed by a toothy smile. Satisfied with my line, I set the clock to ring at 6:30 AM and went to sleep.

It all started about two years back when she joined my school for her +2 study. Ours was the only school in the town for +2 studies and thus, every student in the town had to join our school after passing 10th board examination. It was the first day of the new session. I, along with my friends, was standing in front of our class, looking for the new girls who had taken admission in class 11. Girls came by and entered the class. After the arrival of every new girl, we friends looked at each other without any exchange of words. Those eyes were telling everything. After few minutes, we saw our class teacher walking towards our class. We quickly took our respective seats. The class started in a full fledged way. I turned my head towards my friend.
"None of the new girls is good looking. What do you say?", I asked him in a whispering voice. He nodded his approval with a disappointing look on his face.
"Sir, may I come in?", a feminine voice interrogated.
I, still in total disarray, tried to have a look from the corner of my eye at the person standing on the door. The girl looked a bit nervous, breathing fast with disjunctive sets of silky hair tangling over her shoulders as if she had hurried to reach the class in time. She entered the class and her innocent, dark eyes explored every corner of the class in search of a vacant seat.
"Why don't you occupy that seat?", the teacher asked the girl pointing his hand towards the seat just beside mine.
"There comes the girl", I whispered, with my eyes on the notebook and a sheepish smile on the face.The girl promptly occupied the seat.
"Excuse me", she said nervously bending towards me.
"Do you have an extra pen? I forgot to bring mine"
"You can use this pen. I do have one more", I said, shifting the pen I was writing with towards her. She smiled her thanks.
"Now I have nothing to complain about", I said, turning my head towards my friend.
"Meet me during the break. I will take care of you", he replied, showing his red, covetous eyes. I enjoyed that envious look on his face. But I knew I had had a tough time ahead. For the first few days, I didn't have too strong a feeling for her.But that incident proved to be the albatross around my neck. Every now and then, I was teased by my friends. Frequent quibbles about her left me speechless in front of them. And that resulted in the ontogeny of a soft corner for her in my heart. But I never accepted that in front of my friends, for that would have provided them an opportunity to get into the groove.

Time ran away, thick and fast. We entered into the last few days of our school life. But I could never ask her for friendship; leave aside a love proposal. Few hi-hello's with her, here and there, made me feel good about her. I used to observe her from a distance. I loved her every movement, the way she giggled over every joke, the way she tried to avoid eye contact when asked about her first crush, the way she madly turned the pages of the Mathematics book for formulae minutes before the start of an examination, the way she argued with the teacher for every single mark in the answer paper, the way she tried unsuccessfully to conceal her joy when praised for her good work. I loved her, I really loved her. I fantasized dating her, going out for dinner with her, talking to her for hours. I didn't know when and how I had travelled the journey of soft corner to infatuation, then to crush and eventually, to love.

I realized that I had just a handful of days remaining to let her know what I felt about her. But I had no clue about the way of doing that. I decided to go back to my friends, who, by that time, had read my feelings about her in my eyes, for some aid. They came up with the idea of proposing the girl. On the first hearing, I concluded that it was no better than a suicide attempt. But they tried their best to convince me and eventually, I agreed to give it a shot, whatever the result might be. They asked me to prepare the proposal sentence for her.

The clock rang just at the right time to wake me up. I hastily completed all my ablutions in the chilly winter morning. But I was not at all feeling cold in the heat of the situation.
"What's the matter? You look overexcited and hastened as well", asked my mother suspiciously on the dining table.
"There is nothing as such, Ma. Actually I have a class test today and I have prepared very well for it. That's why..", I replied, pretending everything to be quite normal.
I, probably, reached the school too early. Love can make a person do strange things. Finally the class started. I discussed my last night preparations with my friends. They praised the line I prepared for her. We eagerly waited for the lunch break. The bell rang and it was the break. She went out with her friend in the sun. We followed them to the huge grassy lawn. I had started feeling nervous.It was only then I knew why they said that tunnelling a mountain was an easier job than proposing a girl. My friends asked me to go to her.
"Her friend is also with her. How can I tell anything to her in front of her friend?", I argued.
One of the guys from our group called her friend and made sure that she was alone.
"Now everything is clear. Go there and tell her everything. I am sure her answer would be affirmative", my pal told me. But I was in no position to move. My legs were shivering.
"No, I am too nervous to say anything to her", I uttered with a disastrous look.
"Go!!", my friend shouted at me. I somehow gathered courage and slowly walked towards her.
She was glowing in the bright, sunny afternoon. I moved closer to her. She was standing alone, with folded hands, waiting for her friend.
"Hello", I said.
"Hello", she smiled.
"I wanted to tell you something", I spoke. The world had come to a standstill for me.
"Yes, please carry on"
I was so anxious that I forgot the line I was supposed to say. But I had to say something.
"As you know, we know each other very well", I said with my eyes firm on her face. She raised her eyebrows.
"I...I mean we are classmates since last two years", I stammered. I took one long breath.
"I just wanted to say that I am crazy about you. I liked you on the very first day you entered the class. I love you, I love you very, very much", I told everything I had in my heart in one breath. Her resplendent, bright face turned pale. She tried to avoid eye contact for a moment. She didn't know what to say. She took her time, fixed her eyes on my already nervous face and said in a convincing voice,-"Abhieshek, there is nothing wrong about what you feel about me. Infact, I respect your feelings. But I am sorry to say that I am not ready for any such relationship. I am really sorry. I hope you understand my position."
The bell rang once again. She started going back to the classroom. I felt as if it was the end of the world for me.
"I can't let her go like that", I told myself. I ran only to stop in front of her.
"Hey, wait for a moment. Give me two minutes. Can you?" I asked. She nodded.
"Thanks. OK, even if you didn't accept my proposal, it is perfectly fine with me. But can we be friends? I think we can be. What do you say?" I asked, forwarding my right hand towards her.
"We surely can be", she smiled and shook hands with me.
"Now you may go", I grinned, waving my hand towards the classroom. She chuckled and moved ahead. I kept watching her till she vanished into the classroom. I turned back towards my friends with a satisfied, joyous feeling in my heart. I loved the slow wind blowing through the lawn. My world started moving again. It was just the start of a new beginning for me...

Expectations

2006-01-05T17:20:00.000+05:30

You have lost your wedding ring. You are badly looking for it in your home. Your maid comes to you, shows the ring and asks, "Sir, is this what you are looking for?"

You are dating a girl for the first time. You want to devote your favorite song to her. But you are unable to recall the lyrics of the song. You are trying hard for it. Someone starts playing the same song far away, just loud enough for you to catch the lyrics.

You are struggling to pass a particular academic course. You haven't studied much for the examination. You were busy enjoying your closest pal's birthday party last night. You read the question paper in the examination hall and find that you know the answer of each and every question.

In all the three above mentioned situations, you will find yourself with a nice, long smile on your face. This is what an unexpected help can do to you. The help can come in any form. Be it human, nature or fate.
Now let us take a look at few other situations.

You are running late to catch a flight. You ask your friend to drop you at the airport. He laughs at you, says, "Sorry buddy, I have to leave for a peg of wine in the nearby bar." and then fades away with his other mates.

You reach your home tired after a lengthy, hectic day in office expecting your wife to be waiting for you and then, you find your wife involved in a passionate kiss with a stranger.

These are the kinds of situation when one feels that it is better not to expect anything from others, not even from the dearest ones.
Expectations are the root cause of agony and sufferings. Alexander Pope once famously said that 'Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed'. And it appears to be the call of the day. It not only refers to the expectations of a person from another but also to those of a person for his constructive piece of work. One just needs to work in the right direction without caring much about the results. Man should be content with his best efforts and should leave the rest for the forces of nature to take care of. If he is rewarded with success, that's the fruit for his conscientious work. Even if he doesn't succeed, he has to take it in sporting spirit and hit back with greater crusade. Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.
But all that is easier said than done. It is difficult to imagine not expecting goods from people whom you have helped out and not anticipating success for hours of toilsome work you put in. But in the long run, it is the expecting-nothing-from-anyone overture that would bring prosperity to everyone. All these talks remain words in a philosophy book kept in an unknown library if not put into practice. Life is a great leveler in itself. Many a times, you would be aided by unknown forces and then, there would certainly be those instances when you might find yourself as a helpless character in the drama of life who doesn’t receive even expected assistance. Live life on your own, conceiving yourself to be your only patron and I am sure you would find this world really aesthetic and worth appreciating.

She...

2006-01-01T19:42:00.000+05:30

The beginning of yet another new year, Jan 1st 2006, was a bit of a mixed bag of emotions for me. The year 2005 was about to leave the platform. It was around 11:55 in the night and I was trying to complete one of my writings. But I was never there to conclude it. The mind inside deviated time and again, looking for someone, thinking about somebody. I just wanted to talk to a particular person, just to greet her very happy new year. After every half a minute, I was going through my yahoo messenger friend list just to know if she had logged on. The mind knew that she wasn't there. But the heart and the soul were not ready to accept the fact. Every person in the cosmos was preparing to welcome the New Year but I was alone in my room, still waiting for someone to appear. I could feel the loneliness around and inside me. There comes the New Year. Delhi was shining brightly in the light of those grand firecrackers. I was asked to join the birthday treat of one of my mates. The foggy nature of a biting winter in Delhi was good enough to freeze the blood flowing in the veins. But I had to be there. I slowly walked the lonely streets to reach the party spot. Everybody was greeting the birthday boy and celebrating the New Year eve as well, letting each other know about their respective New Year resolutions with laughter all around. They knew those resolutions won't last for too long. I was asked for my New Year resolution. I had a false, contrived smile on my face without any word. The time was passing by. The mercury level was falling by the minute. The sky that was once sparkling with expansive firecrackers had returned to its normal gloomy hue. The giggles around were slowly but surely turning into dark silence. The people around were preparing to get back to their respective abodes. And so was I, with a hope of talking to her once, just once. The feet were moving fast. I hated the silence in the atmosphere. So I made sure that the tapping of the shoes was breaching the muteness. I reached my hostel. Guys were still enjoying the liquor. But I had no interest in it. I sprinted along the pavement, reached my room just to know if she had signed in. My heart was swimming in the ocean of hopes. All that excitement on my face turned into sorrow when I couldn't find her. I kept thinking about her, her smiling face, her large wide eyes, her soft voice, her teasing nature, her stubborn attitude, her hastiness. I don't know when the blanket of sleep covered me. It was only the vociferous knock on the door that woke me up. I was pleasantly surprised to see my closest mate in IIT, who had just arrived from his home, standing outside my room. He wished me a prosperous new year. It was certainly a blessing in disguise. But I was still waiting for her...

A colossus in making

2005-12-13T02:09:00.000+05:30

Yeh world hai na world, yahan do type ke log hote hain. ek jo zero se start karke 100 tak jaate hain. Dusre jo 100 se start karke bas aage chalte hi jaate hain.

Irfan Pathan finds himself in the second league, certainly an elite one. His brave 93 on a tough Kotla strip just made his case stronger. Since his very first series in Australia at an early age of 18, he has improved leaps and bounds and it seems there is no end. Sky is the limit.

Not too many bowlers get a chance to make their debut on fast, relatively bowler friendly pitches with some bounce like that in Adelaide. The manner in which he deceived Matthew Hayden with a beautiful away going delivery to earn his first test wicket was just a glimpse of a star in making. Though he ended up with a match figure of 1/160, he impressed the pundits with his lethal swinging deliveries. On any other day with some luck, he would have easily come up with a five wicket haul. But that was just the beginning of an audacious tour for him. He was the highest wicket taker in the one day series with a bagful of 20 wickets in 10 matches. Not a bad show!

But the big one was just around the corner. The Pakistan tour. India had never won a test match on Pakistan soil, leave aside a test series victory. Cometh the opportunity, cometh the man! The heroics of the batsmen made sure that Indians were not losing the test series. But batsmen can only save a test match. It is the bowlers who win the game for the team. Irfan, yet again, showed his hunger for wickets and demolished the Pakistani top order by picking up 12 wickets in the series on pitches that responded only to batsmen and few spinners, but certainly not to the fast bowlers. One can understand the biased nature of the pitches by the mere fact that as many as 7 centuries were scored in the 3 test series including a majestic 270 by Dravid and a mammoth 309 by Sehwag. He even showed his potential with a bat in his hands and scored a crafty 49 in the second test match. But the party was not yet over for Pathan in that tour. It seemed that everything was going right for the man. He played a crucial role in the ODI series victory. He spearheaded the Indian bowling attack thoughout the tour. Such is the influence of media in this part of the world that even a modest effort can lift you to a height never achieved before. He became a hero overnight and was a household name in less than two months.

But, the higher you fly, the faster you fall. After a successful season, he seemed to have lost the touch. In the very next season, the ball stopped swinging for him and the same person started looking like a club bowler. There was murmuring in the media about Pathan being just another bowler who bowled brilliantly in few matches and then faded away. But success is how high you bounce after hitting the bottom. After a lean patch of six odd months, he came back with a handy performance against Bangaladesh and Zimbabwe. Though those performances against minnows were nothing to boast about, those late swinging deliveries had started working for him again. He had started plotting those beautiful curves with the ball again. Those performances certainly induced confidence into him. The man was back. It was the time Greg Chappell started experimenting with the team with Irfan being at the core of experimentation. Not only did he bowl brilliantly under the guidance of wily Chappell, he also came good with the bat. He has started showing the glimpses of being an allrounder. His half centuries every now and then confirms his potential as a batsman. The confidence with which he played Murali can make a top order batsman proud. He has come up with performance everytime Chappell and Dravid experimented with him. Be it batting at number 3 in ODIs or opening in tests, he has grabbed the opportunities with both hands. He has taken batting higher in the order like a duck to water. One can sense the potential in this man while he bats. He has more than a decent technique to succeed with head right on top of the ball, playing closer to the body with still head and eyes on the ball while making contact. He is not a pinch hitter who goes out, lofts the ball over the rope for a couple of times and gets out. Once he passes 20 run mark, he looks to play safely like a top order batsman trying to convert those 20's into 50's and 50's into 80's.

Though it is very early to tag him as an allrounder, he is certainly not just another tailender. The captain and the coach needs to groom him as a potential batter and should let him flourish. His bowling has improved day in and day out. He is learning the tricks to bowl on murderous subcontinent pitches. He is not a Mcgrath when it comes to machine bowling and he is not a Shoaib or a Lee when it comes to bowling fast. But he has certainly bowled well within his limitations. He has a thinking head on his shoulders and given the talent he has, it seems that this man will serve Indian cricket for a long long time.

A common ME

2005-12-10T17:54:00.000+05:30

So here I am talking about a common ME. Though I have never given it a deep thought, I feel I can certainly give it a try. First of all, few quote describing ME:-

It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, what matters is whether I win or lose.
Sacrificing cheesy ideas for greater achievements is not a bad exchange offer. The higher you think, the more you get.
Crushing the pigmies doesn’t make you a winner. Challenge the strongest giants in the business to know how good you are.
Having contacts all around is the most sarcastic (but not the easiest) way of showing your authority and power.
If you can't dream, don't sleep. Instead, remain awake and enjoy a pint of beer in the nearby bar.

I believe you have had enough of philosophy tutorials. If you couldn't get those lines, better leave reading the following lines. On the other hand, if you find ME interesting enough, you may go ahead and enjoy ME. There are quite a few things to share with you. (Most) people think I am too arrogant and egoistic. I don’t disagree. Ask those who know me a bit better. They know I can be a great friend if they can handle the restless soul inside me. I have never been a great "chooser" of friends. Result-> wounds and pain. (Isn't that obvious?). So don't feel absurd if I say that you are just an acquaintance to me. The idea of learning-from-mistakes has always flirted with me and more often than not, it has led to the same result -> wounds. But I think I have grown enough to be rational. Yes, it is the past that builds the future but one can't keep licking his wounds and regret his deeds. It is better to move forward and look for new people and new opportunities. So the whole idea is to learn the lessons and move ahead.(mind you, I have learnt this stalwart art just a few days ago) People say that it is a careless attitude (do you think the same way???) but who cares!!! At least, I don't. If you keep thinking about the rubbish stuff going through others' minds, it is inevitable that you would lose your mental balance one day. Talking about the rubbish stuff in others' minds, the best (or worst?) example would be the Profs (especially in IITD). They say what they know without caring about their practical use. And the worst part of their job is that they (try to) inject those fucking shits in our minds. As far as I am concerned, there is a sea of far more important lessons to learn outside the classroom. Experience is the best teacher one would ever come across.

Some (may be most) people look for quick success. Sadly, I am one of those poor chaps. Despite knowing that there is no shortcut to success, I have always fallen prey to it. And after every single failure while attempting those shortcuts, I have blamed the ill fate and bad luck for the failures. And if I tasted success while following those shortcuts (though there have been very few successful moments), I have devoted those to my long sightedness and intelligence. Surprisingly, everybody around me has always believed in what I said and did. Yes, it is true that the more sins you confess, the more books you sell. But the honest confession is that whatever positive has happened to me has been sheer good luck and all those failures have been the result of my inability to cope up the pressure and faltering when it mattered most. I am learning to take responsibility of my deeds.

Nevertheless, there are people who think I am quite friendly and humorous. Here is a person who has helped people out of their darkest days (and nights as well!!) and will continue to do so for eons. (See, I have a positive side as well!!!) But, it is not in ME's nature to be forgiving. So, people who have tried to act smart against me have been hit on their faces. (Do you want to know the names???). But I know what I do is correct and I have no regrets. I have few aims in my life and I believe I can achieve them (without good luck playing any part).In between, I enjoy my life to the fullest and I expect the same from you. It is already half past four in the night (I think it is morning now) and the strangle hold of sleep is tightening up. So good bye and have a great time ahead. Cheers!!!