Problems?

I see all around me, people with problems. For a fair good reason that includes me as well, just like everyone else who would fall under this universal set.

Problems…PROBlems….PROBLEMS….P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S!!!!

Problems of varied shape, size and bearing…it surely is a vicious circle that never come to an end. Nope – Not even close!

Work related problems, family problems, relationship problems, financial problems, the ones with your lousy and loud neighbor and the ones that you have with a jammed window scroll of your car.

There’s always something to be unhappy about. That hot-seat called “problem” in one’s heart never seems to be unoccupied or empty. Sometimes the intensity of these problems goes higher up to such an extent that it takes serious toll on your mind, body, heart and soul. And inevitably you find yourself welcoming insomnia into your life slowly but steadily.

I don’t know if there’s anyone capable enough to answer the question – “Why do we have problems in life?”

And if I am to say I learned to face problems from the problematic but I am still learning how to handle these problems that would probably make me Half-Gibran. :)
No kidding, I really am fascinated by his words when he said “I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”

Isn’t that so true to all of us, A crisis is what leads to a new experience and a learning in turn. Doesn’t it mean that problems are in a way a medium for you to understand the way of life?
Problems are always closely associated with every little event/incident/happening in one’s day to day life.

Running away from them is going to make you weaker and despaired keeping you as far away as possible from being Strong and Resolute.

The intensity of a problem gets real and big as a blown-up balloon when the knights of responsibility knock your doorstep at the hour of need. And that’s where most of us fail radically. I still stick to “most of us” usage here as I've heard of people who have endured, proven and shown the grit to fight life's shortcomings and sustain the lassitude and weariness it offers many a times.
Fact states; the impoverished and destitute lot have more problems than middle or high class society. It’s about survival and sustenance. But, they don’t seem to give-up on their problems easily. If they had, then the world would have had to handle a lot of deaths (of all the poor and under privileged population) or a perfect paradise where everything is just so right for everyone and no one even knows what “A problem” is.

If you cannot handle a day’s chores when your mother is down with sickness, how would you manage things when she’s not going to be around forever?

And that is just one domestic problem that everyone who’s unduly dependant on someone will have to face, when the bleakness of reality hits hard & purple on your face some day.

Undoubtedly, there are millions of such day-day problems that needs to be faced, absorbed and resolved with grace; not to forget that you must keep your sleeves rolled-up to face similar combat(s) every dusk and dawn.

And then obviously, there are people that don’t want to do anything with their problems, neither welcome it, nor push them away. They just sleep with them as though they are your pillows of comfort and end-up being super self-indulgent and austere about things.

These can be people who are not happy in their relationships, people forced into long distance relationship for no fault of theirs, people who are forced into divorce, people who long for love, people with financial commitments, people with burdens, people being cheated, people being forced to do what they don’t want to, people with unsupportive parents, people who are so lonely, so on and so forth.

It is a rarity of character that is found in very few people who handle crisis situations without falling apart.

Evidently the key lies in believing that “this would pass” and that things would take better turn during the course of time’s tide.

But, it’s the wait that kills many. We just don’t have that persistence many a times as we are gifted with 6th sense and we humans believe only in the happy format of the life. One exceptional or erroneous scenario “boom” we go losing it all…

Even smallest act leading to an event that ends up being a sweet memory counts during the time of crisis, to collect yourself and lead you with determination and willpower.

It counts for the fact that someone cares about you…
It counts for the fact that someone down there needs you..
It counts for the fact that someone down there trusts you..
And it definitely counts for the fact that someone down there loves you!

Spill the Beans

In a form of social organization in which Man is the supreme authority in the family and descendants are strictly reckoned in the male lines alone, hailing from places where men always had the authority over women and children of the family, you can’t expect any better than a right-winger to be countering on your arguments of girls taking to modernism. By modernism one need not necessarily mean taking to western-ways in maintaining a lifestyle and personality; but it could precisely be just about being themselves in spewing out profanities when they are angered or roused. I have always been sassy, slightly irreverent and fearless in making fun of everyone, even if it means in a little harsher way, including myself. Of course, that doesn’t make me a loathsome deriding pervert of the worst order, not even close!
And this is not necessarily because I am actively keeping my radars on to display my witticism to the general public, but it’s also a way of identifying myself in a big crowd or something like a Unique Selling Point that I have to relate to the “real me”.
Now, after having lived for quite sometime in this backdrop, a strange melodramatic question pops inside my head…. “Am I tired of this compulsive audacity?”
Of course, with all my consciousness including all those last-minute-ditch-efforts
Well, No way… not at all, I would rather say pretty loud, sound and clear that,
"I never seek confrontation on my own, but when it comes I won't shy away from it."

Honestly speaking, in some way or the other, most of us don’t welcome confrontation with a happy face. And I am no God here, nor do I beg to differ! :-)

This could probably be one of the reasons I creep under my sheets and start jabbing away endlessly at my keyboard. Or do I?

Although writing is therapeutic for I am most of the times so very boorish about the columns on my blog, I do feel that it’s an act of amplifying my voice to an extent of exclusiveness of its own kind.

I really don’t care about my target audience here. I don’t even want to be heard.

All I want is the right to express, if I may say so – Just so you know – Mr.Bugger!

I don't remember anyone suggesting profanities are purely gender specific in some strange and twisted uncomprehensive manner to be uttered & muttered only in the mouths of the

MALE COMMUNITY!!!.........

Why "HER" ?

I am surprised how one can so easily get on to a total-surrender mode with another without having any expectations in return.
Being a feminist this thought somehow bothered me to a great extent. For someone that believes that things work as per Newton’s third law viz,
“Every Action Must Have An Equal and Opposite Reaction.”
An Absolute-Surrenderundum seems to be a perfect place to be…….
“No Sire! Not me!”
I don’t venture into one’s private zone unless I am forced to do so on exceptional scenarios that would go something like those peeping-toms bad-mouthing my personal and private life for some reason or the other.
Yes, like all other super-hyper-reactive creatures on this planet earth, I get instigated too, when such prying eyes keep snooping about my life with their probing ears and intrusively long nose that keeps dangling and sniffing about for spicy and juicy hot gossips of someone’s personal life or for that matter mine. Isn’t that an absolutely terrific thing to do for these insolent souls! So very MATURE!
But trust me when I say there are such creatures that scythes, gnaws , sucks all the juice out of this small mole of an useless information in an effort to construct mountain out of it, will even store the residual crap in the refrigerator for future use.
Anyways, coming back to the capitulation mode, speaking of which always reminds me that we are in the 21st century and I always thought this was not expected of anyone in this latest stage of a multi-civilization eras that man has come-across so far!
Phew…. Pretty sad that even after ages of “Sathi” being eradicated, we still see male species egg-on the females to adhere to and abide by the blind sighted (and in a way unwritten too) laws that loosely relates to the ancient past of the “Sathi” days.
What troubles me the most is the female species being demeaned to such an extent that as if their mere existence is an unacceptable crime or similar such.
That is completely ridiculous! What these deriding morons fail to understand is, the raison d'être behind their male-chauvinistic-piggish behavior today wouldn’t have been possible if not for a FEMALE species that engulfed all the pains and let him crawl in this wide world. I am seething with anger that my words are failing here, hence I am no more expressive.

What Lies Beneath...?

“What??”

She squeaked with her voice sounding a wee bit more shrilly than she had wanted it to be.

When he didn’t respond and continued to stare at her fingers deftly curling the ends of her long hair to form cute looking short ringlets and by then she had done with a half-a-dozen tufts of hair shaping up into ringlets bouncing on her chest already.

Noticing his long gaze, she stopped curling up the ends of hair and looked at him and asked “Heyyyyyyyyyyyy, what are you staring at????”

No response.

She moved, got-up to a sitting position from the floor, with her long hair brushing his
out-stretched hand and the ringlets she just created getting caressed while running through his fingers.

He continued his unperturbed gaze at the cute ringlets that bounced back to shape after his touch and rested neatly against her white breasts.

A little annoyed she pushed his left hand away that was resting on his thighs, on a one-sided lie-down posture he was in. That had the desired effect and he looked up at her and said,

“How do you do that?”

Puzzled she asked “Do what? Pushing your hand down? ”

“No, That…” he said pointing to one of those ringlets that was dancing right in between her forearms which formed an inverted “V” shape as she had leaned forward to cup her palms and rest her sharp, pointed chin of her oval face in them.

She bent down slightly to see what exactly he was pointing to and still unbelievingly picked up the tufts of her curly hair and asked doubtfully “This one?”

And he nodded.

“Oh, I er.. don’t know.. I just have been used to doing it since childhood, I like it curled up like that…I thought it looked good on me… don’t you think so?”

He replied “Ya, I sure do think so, it is good, I was just wondering at the loveliness of those beautiful curls at the end of your long hair which is the first thing that I liked in you!”

She blushed for less than few seconds, and asked “oh yeah?”

He noticed her short blush and smiled at her admiringly and said “Yeah, Yeah!”

She rolled over and rested her head on his waistline and started curling the ends of hair at where she had left them when she got up from the floor to grab his attention a while back.

This time he offered “Can I try that once, if you don’t mind?”

She laughed…. “Whoaaaaaaaa…… what???”

He flustered and asked again “I asked, if I can try curling-up your hair like what you are doing right now?”

She laughed once again but stopped short when she noticed that, he didn’t get what was going on.

So with both her hands put-up in front of her in a push-out gesture, she controlled herself from laughing again and said “okay, okay…..I am not going to laugh this time, I promise…..1,2,3….there you go… no more giggle-pots”

“So, Mr.X since when did you start getting so formal with me, like “Mind if I use your loo?” “I beg your pardon” “Could you please come again” “May I have a cup of coffee” bla bla bla…….. so you are playing Mr.Formal today eh?”

“Well, my wife has this strange aversion, I do not exactly know the root cause of it, cos of which she wouldn’t let me touch her hair and it always stays a short pony tied behind, all the time….um.. And so I thought its manners to ask before I did something that displeases a lady….I wouldn’t want to see the lady I like to be unhappy ”

“Well, I am not your wife!” said she.

“Ya.. Um.. I know that… and um.. I’m sorry” said he.

There was suddenly an unbearable silence that invaded the space between both.

He was the first to break it.

“So, I was saying that I was quite fascinated by your long hair, which is the first thing I like in my woman or for that matter any woman”

She raised a brow and tilted her head to sideways and looked at him “oh wait, now should I get offended for the usage of “any woman” that quickly followed your “my woman”? ”

Without waiting for him to answer she bounced off with one more question

“So, What am I? “Your woman” or “Any woman”? ”

Again without waiting for his answer she winked at him and said “tough question eh?”

Now he grabbed her by her arms and pulled her up so he could face her with their eyes at level and said,

“Hold it lady, will ya?.... One question at a time… I am not in my teens; I am more than a decade past that age, so I can’t possibly go slam-bam like you!”

He lifted her chin and held her face in his hands and said…. “Here are the answers to your rapid-fire questions ma’am, One - you shouldn’t get offended for the usage of “any woman” coz it was an objective reference. Two - although I cannot claim rights for you being my woman totally, like how a cover claims its association with a book from the first to the last page, I would wish and love you to be my woman any-day excepting this incarnation and Thirdly, I don’t think it was a tough question cos, there I just answered it!”

“Ahhhh, that wasn’t very neat, and a tad bit clichéd too!” She remarked.

“Umm-Hmm” he sang thoughtfully…. “So, what now lady? Crucifixion follows?

She looked deep into his eyes and paused….

He looked back at her and hummed “I’m waiting……waiting…waitin…wait…”

She let out a short laugh and said “Well, Well. All bets are off. So, what happens when lust and desire collide with marriage and power?”

He almost instantly replied “Creates a Male-Prostitute”.

She was shocked and asked unbelievably “A what?”

“Oh.. I didn’t know you had a hearing ailment… I said my best bet for the outcome of such a situation is the creation or formation of a “Male Prostitute”… am I loud, sound and clear enough now?”

She replied thoughtfully, I don’t why but I am reminded of this quote by Andre Malraux ---

“The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”

Silence prevalied for a long time after that......

Recession Hits?

Scene A:
I drive my car in to the parking lot of the office and see that most of it is already occupied, when I was about to take a reverse gear and head to Parking Zone B to park my vehicle there, I find the security guard rushing over to tell me,
“Sir, yours is only an Alto, there’s a 6 and a half feet gap at the end of this aisle, your car will need only 6 feet Sir.. hehe…so you can park it there araamse…plus from today on, the Parking Zone B is only for big cars like BMW, Audi, Sonata, Benz…”.
I was shocked and taken aback at this discrimination and decided to bring my two-wheeler from the next day on…
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?

Scene B:
I enter the rest room this morning, to my surprise was taken aback with the way the loo was highly down-at-heel and unkempt. I muster my guts and proceed further to open the first tap…. “No Water” …..move on… open the second one…. “No Water”…..move on once again to open the third one.. “No water”…..frustrated…I try the last one… “Swhsssssssssssssssssssssswwkkkkkk” …..A splash of turbid reddish-brown water sprays hard on the basin leaving its remains on my face and on my formal shirt. I curse the idea of washing my face first thing in the morning after entering office and step-out dejectedly.
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?


Scene C:
I swipe-in and come inside my bay…. It’s entirely dark at 9.30am in the morning. I can hear the ‘tik-tak-tik’ of the keyboard strokes though… I stare hard to see a couple of employees already working in the darkest corners of the bay without even bothering to have the lights on. A little annoyed, I walk-up to the switchboard and flip the lights on, couple of them go – ‘blink-blink-blink’ but fail to rest, one of the employees (without lifting his head from the screen that he was lifelessly staring into) says “It’s better to work without them instead of that non-stop flickering bothering your eyes while you are working, they haven’t mended this for quite sometime now….” Shocked…I turn the lights off and walk back to my desk.
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?


Scene D:
Later in the day, I get a call from Credit-Card female-rep asking me to apply for a Gold Credit Card. I agree and ask for terms and conditions, she says, “5 months of salary slip, proof of possession of two-wheeler and four wheeler, proof of possession of a own house, copy of an existing Credit Card from the different bank that I hold, Govt. of India recognized TWO photo identity proofs (either driving license & Passport, voter id and Passport, or Pan card and Passport)… if you don’t have a passport then, we may need to check if you are eligible for getting a Credit Card or not.” I was shocked and ask her why so many document proofs are required & she says, “Yes Sir, the rules are changed now as Global Market is down its not very easy to know who’s still working (especially in the IT Sector) and who is not….Please provide all the needful Sir, when my rep meets you tomorrow sharp at 2pm, if you don’t have any documents then please be informed that we would reject your processing.” And I hear a “Beep….Beep…Beep” at the other end of the phone line before I am even done reeling from the shock.
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?

Scene E:-
As my office is in the 7th floor of the building, elevator becomes mandatory for many people like me. Like all other days, I finished my work and stepped into the elevator and pressed the “0” button. After stuffing the books that I had take from library, into my backpack, which could have taken about 3-4mins time, I looked to see the floor indicator on the elevator still standing at the 7th floor. Shocked, I pressed the “0” button couple more times – Stand-Still! Nothing happens…..Panicked I step out of the elevator only to see a sign-board written in a very small font and hanging at the far-end of the elevator doors, that read :
“Elevators will not be available after 5pm and before 8am, Please use steps, as we are facilitating fitness for associates by going Green during the off hours of work and also ensuring comfort for associates to reach their desk quickly during the working hours!”
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?

Scene F:-
In the evening, I go to a restaurant, for having my dinner and place my order for a “Masala Dosa”. The Sambar is overburnt and the chutney has a foul smell and the Dosa is undercooked. I call the waiter and ask him to check the stuff he had got me. Without taking a second look at the Dosa he replies “Sir, its 10pm in the night and for 35rs these days what more do you expect? If you don’t like it; you can pay and leave as you have already been billed for this item”. I was speechless, to satiate the growling stomach and lack of cash in the wallet, to try out elsewhere, I bit into the bitter taste that had formed in my mouth and chewed-on the so called “Masala Dosa”.
Is this one of those unexpected outcomes of recession?

Will this madness ever end?????????????? - Are you entitled to ask that question, that too with so many “?” marks?
Oh, I need a break from this!!!! - You sure? Cos, you are gonna be sacked!
Can I venture into other fields like Agriculture, Running a Garage, Real Estate, Mini Restaurant, Chaat Bhandar??? – ohhh, so you are actually filthy RICH…. then what on earth made you to be an IT Professional?

Story of a Farmer and The Old Mule!

Have you heard that parable about a farmer who had an old mule?
Well, it goes something like this…………….

The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule ‘braying' or whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After assessing the situation, the farmer sympathised with the mule. However, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of keeping them with him. Instead, he called his neighbours and told them about the mule and the well. Once the neighbours came, he took their help in hauling dirt, sand & debris to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.
Initially, the old mule was hysterical. But as the farmer and his neighbours continued shovelling and the dirt hit his back...a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back..."he should shake it off and step up". This he did, blow after blow.
"Shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up!"
He repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows or distressing the situation, the old mule fought ‘panic’ and just kept right on shaking it off and stepping it up.
It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped off triumphantly over the wall of that well. What seemed like it would bury him actually had bestowed god’s blessings on him to strive, fight-back and survive!...All because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.
That's life. If we face our problems and respond to them positively, and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness, or self-pity...The adversities that come along to bury us usually have within them the potential to benefit and bless us!
Always remember that duty-faith-prayer-hope, forgiveness and praise ... are excellent ways to shake-it-off and-step out of the wells in which we find ourselves in.

The Art o Saying "NO"

If you are one of those, that have difficulties in expressing a negative reply or a rejection to a group or single person, Welcome Aboard! :=)
I have tried a set of small, but useful experiments in my life and it had turned fruitful, on 98/100 situations. Well, on the other two occasions I didn't even give it a try! :=) (Meaning, I just gave in to it!)

As most people think, Saying ‘No’ is not just an art, but is also an etiquette. And it is also important how you say it. You should be able to deny or reject politely without hurting the person at whom your refusal is aimed. You may wonder why this is important. Well, put yourself in the other person’s shoes (let's forget the sizes here ;-) ) and think, what would you prefer – a rude refusal or a polite and courteous one? Undoubtedly the latter.
As it has been said – “Do unto other what you would have others do unto you.”
Be courteous is the protocol to follow. The reasons for your refusals may vary in a sizeable manner from being a minuscle ripple effect as that of a small stone thrown in a pond to an adverse tsunami effect caused by natural calamity in the Oceans. Ideally, you must adapt to the situation and act accordingly. However, it is essential to keep the basic governing rule the same – be courteous. There is no need to alter your stand if you are justified in refusing. If you are convinced of your justifications, be firm in your refusal but try not to hurt a fellow human being with harsh words.... Absolutely, but for how long before you loose control of your temperament, when the other person turns completely deaf ears to you and to top it all, is tossing out an indifferent stance towards you. This is the most important point, where in all of us tend to tremble being at the threshold of our temper check...end result - slash out with harsh words, throw out things, shout, scream out, yell at the top of your vioce, give up and walk away quietly....How many of us actually have been at the best of our cool to handle these situations with ease?
How many of us actually know, how to deal with people, especially when it comes to a denial being put out to them in a not-so hurtful manner?
How many of us have actually been successful in saying a "No" without hurting the other person?
Take this situation, for example. Sue had applied for a job interview and got her call fixed on a monday. Unfortunately, she meets with an accident over the weekend and is unable to attend this interview call. She calls up the HR of the organization to inform that she wouldnt be able to make it to the call as scheduled.
The HR person of the organization, being an elderly lady, took advantage of Sue's young age and responded back rudely. “Do you not have sense? What kind of accident can have you make you a phone call to us to inform but not come and appear for the same? If you were really not interested in applying for this job, then you shouldn't have, why do younger generation of these days have such a reckless attitude towards everything in life, I don't understand it. Just because you met with an accident is not going to make you invalid I am sure, why don't you let someone accompany you and attend the interview personally as planned?
I know you won't do that, as this was all a silly game that people like you love to play, fix an appointment and keep cancelling it as if we are here to entertain you all your lives.
You are behaving like uncouth villagers and not like the educated people."
Sue was very hurt and didn't have words to say and apologized over and over... All of it in vain as call was disconnected soon.
Problem here is that, Sue's recent bereavement was made out to be a matter of no consequence, which would have hurt her terribly. Moreover, the after-effects of an unpleasant encounter leave bitter feelings in their wake for everyone.

Monitor your thoughts and your words, as words once said cannot be taken back and unpleasant memories last long. We humans are essentially tender and sensitive, regardless of the tough exterior that many of us exhibit. And words are the sharpest weapons that can pierce the toughest exterior and cause an unseen wound that would take a long time to heal. It is thus extremely essential that the words that we utter should not cause harm to the sensitivity of another person. And it is not very difficult to watch your words either. The words we utter are a direct manifestation of the thoughts teeming in our mind. So it is your thoughts that you have to steer on the right course.
When faced with the task of conveying an unpleasant message of refusal, press the pause button, collect your thoughts, let compassion for the other govern your thoughts but not alter your stand. Now when you speak, your words will reflect the compassion you feel even while you are communicating a negative message. ............. Isn't it pretty difficult for a real life scenario? Sure is.....but not when you have practised it!
Refusal when implied in gentle words falls easy on the ears and the other person will be able to see your point of view. Always remember, the person will be disappointed on hearing a refusal as is, do not compound his distress by being rude and impolite, cos what you give is what you get, remember Nicolaus Copernicus who figured ages ago that the Earth has a planetary motion to go around the Sun....! (Doesn't it mean, what goes-around comes-around too? ;-) )

Curse?

“I was once again hit by the maddening curse that has reared its ugly head again and, considering all my pain and suffering, how it makes me laugh hysterically, but then this girl in her rags at the traffic signal surely enough beats me to it....savor me!
damn you, damn you, for sucking my fun away...the dragon inside my head wants to unleash roaring and spitting out fire relentlessly - no voice of soul...no plea's of the heart seem to be having an effect on this predator who has invaded my brain neurons inch by inch...the marauder had turned his deaf ears to my appeals and was headstrong in burning me to ashes. I was helpless, I find all doors ahead of me closed, I have no one around to help me out of this mad abduction by a seething, furious demon.”

“Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”

I snap-shut the blaring alarm without willing to even get my head out of the covers.
This is probably the 8th time I am having the same dream, which stopped abruptly at the same place on all 8 times when I had it.

I am now trying to figure out what it means. What could it possibly mean to the aggravating emptiness in my life of late and the lack of happiness as a whole, losing the touch of a fulfillment factor to serve the purpose of life?

There’s everything but there’s nothing.
So many things and so little happiness.
It’s like you are in an ocean and are looking for purified/clean water to drink!

Double-Salaried!!!

The month of September-08 had been eventful for me. Both in professional and personal terms. Personally because end of September meant just two more months left with me before I turn into a Missus from a Miss status. But then life was never always the same with whatever people had to do in their profession. Such is the providence of life.

On a not so emotional note, and on a lighter vein, when I happened to check my salary credited for this month online, I was shocked to see my salary credited twice in to my account. Check this snapshot below, for those that dont believe my words and have that smug smile on their face reading this.......

For a crazy second, the monster inside my head let out that villainous laugh, elated with the site of the extra “$$$$” materialized into my otherwise unexciting and lean salary account.
Just when I was getting myself soaking with the momentary visual pleasure, to my utter disbelief, I saw the page getting reloaded/refreshed on its own only to show the new transaction item as a Debit of the extra salary that was mistakenly credited for the second time into my account!

Dohh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much for a momentary cloud-nine experience :-P

How Do You Relate To Your Partner?

• Sometimes you need to make a lot of friends and influence or attract people with your spontaneous indulgence of quick wits and on-the-fly-street-smartness.
  Other times, you should just test drive them and push their buttons, to see their real performance.
  
  The art of irritation can, in fact, be just as valuable as the art of persuasion. How so? Let’s start with the problem: people are good liars and actors…but remember, only up to a point where in they have reached the saturation point, where-in the elasticity gives-up snapping at your face smugly.
  
  What if it were possible to fast-forward relationships, whether with new friends, business partners, or romances?
  
  What if in a mad pace life’s frames just roll by to get past the celebratory fascia of minutiae and let us see their true tendencies underneath all those bitter-sweety or sweet-poisony relationships?
  
  I’ve been experimenting with methods of “Tearing the veil apart” or “Ripping the mask off” as you might say, and after all those back-breaking, mind-numbing, number-crunching statistical bar graphs and pie charts that I had to come-up with on “Behavioral Analysis of Male Sapiens”, I here by conclude that, this test can be carried out successfully without having to pawn out your entire life, in the process of understanding or getting to know each other completely, just like those underdone blocks of bricks staggering all the way through their life, until the last minute, being under a stumbling down building. A hedgehog must know better than to befriend a fox and get peed on before getting preyed on!
  
  Relationships comes out with a price-tag of supreme attention and time, and I would rather want only those people in my life, whose personalities and intentions will uplift and strengthen me instead of draining and demoralizing me.
  
  Identifying problems early begins with recognizing a banality:
  
  Dealing with adversities doesn’t primarily build one’s character— it ONLY reveals it.
  Therefore, by putting someone under pressure or in a difficult situation, you can pull back those glossy and dazzling outer covers and get a glimpse of what’s lying beneath, that would surface a few months or years down the line. And because little things are smaller samplings of the big boulder sized things, you can always choose to do the Sampling Test.
  
  These tests may include simple things like,
  
• Judging how they react to last minute changes in your dinner/date plans.
• Gauging their reactions to sudden/unexpected monetary crisis situations, like making them pay for your treat in the last minute, as you realize and apologize profusely that you have forgotten your wallet at home. As the adage goes, some wonderful human beings turn into irrational idiots for matters involving few bucks.
• Testing their patience at public places where-in you have to wait for long to get your turn for the service in a Q-line or at a restaurant.
• Trying to figure how they react to a loud-mouthed or dominating family member of yours.
• Evaluate their biases against specific races and social classes, which are usually fast to emerge after there is any unexpected physical contact. Take them somewhere extremely crowded where they’ll be inadvertently bumped, preferably where they are exposed to people of different races and of lower socio-economic classes.
• Assess their determination for hygiene, sanitation and need for quality over quantity by suggesting to go to a dirty-local-crowded-cheap-cost market for shopping.
• Weigh-up their takes on the most disagreeing topics. By exploring the most controversial topics until you come across a subject that you both find most conflicting.
  
  Being civil, good at listening, weighing the pros and cons of a subject in discussion, being unbiased in making decisions, being a bull when provoked for having healthy arguments which brings out the intellectual thinking in both of you and finding avenues for compromises as soon as the topic drifts away from its predefined boundaries. One needs to be good at identifying a common ground for both parties to agree upon while still fighting for their stand in reasonable cases, and laughing off the unimportant ones. Take care not to lose control of their emotions by making hurtful personal attacks or generalizations. Do not take on guilt or other negative emotions instead of discussing things logically. Ensure not to hold personal grudges to be held-back for future-stabbing purposes.
  
  Needless to say, no one sane would recommend you to shove all of these into a single meeting with your potential partner (well, not unless you want a purple striped cheek), but the hypothesis is pretty simple if you look at it: life is both too long and too short to suffer through noxious relationships. The sooner we have an accurate read on someone, the better. Rather than hoping for the best and getting trapped in relationships you are unwilling to end due to guilt and indolence, you can test drive using a few specific situations and get a taste of what’s awaiting. One could realize how revealing the above scenarios were while traveling, as they came up geologically with the inevitable mix-ups and occasional bouts of bad luck. It makes one to wonder, if you can go about glimpsing someone’s true personality in a more reliable way? That said, there is no need to organize bad service at a restaurant, for example, if you can achieve the same output doing something fun but uncontrolled. A good long weekend of getting lost with someone will reveal most of the character you need to see. Just ensure you expose them to adverse conditions or awkward situations, to make the best of it.
  Most people spend a lot of time planning their weekends than the status or importance of their relationships. Don’t be the one to commit the same mistake. You are an average of the kind of people you associate yourself with most. Make your choices to reflect the wisdom you possess.

Where Art Thou?

There weren’t any veiled notions,
In my heart, the pedestal of emotions…!
It could hold no more sweet words,
For it was tripping and falling backwards….
It could not embrace the unbridled passion,
For the love that was greedily consumed….
It could not withstand the will to cease,
For the life that was lived; not with ease…
It could not handle anymore white lies,
For the words of yesterday remain as blues…
It could not witness the grand parade,
For the chariots of love have gone askew…
It could no longer wish to be on Neptune,
For my life is soaked in volumes of misfortune…
It could not set things right in its reign,
For all those efforts of the past were in vein…
I die not, until I make my stand clear,
Where art thou? Am waiting to hear….

The You in Me!

Insanity healed the black spot in my heart
Was it a drill or a chisel that drove deep with an iron hammer?
I wouldn’t know; maybe it was both; taking turns,
Clearing the leaks, I slithered through soft tendons…
There it is: the full spot; its presence like, swirls of smoke disappearing into the sky.
It was worth seeing the spirit of my uncontrollable desire
Like the fine edge of the sword to unfurl from its sheath
A novice that I was, still taking lessons from the school of hearts
I only know what is gone, is lost now and what I had is mine no more.
The veil I wore; coined for so long and so wrong - as hypocrite,
Concealed the brandings of my embarrassing nakedness
For me, any other attire meant a disgrace to my existence.
Through love I tasted the fortitude of my life.
Curing one, it yielded another incurable pain.
The agonizing heat of love burned my heart cruelly,
Quite soon, before I could hold it firm...
And there like a smoldering fire, it withered away to ashes
Withstanding the pain it left behind;
All I had were the scars, for all the years to follow...
That pains not the external flesh but the internal heart!

Missing Someone

Hi……
I know I can’t imagine myself to be this way…but then I really don’t know ..rather didn’t know that this would ever happen…..The missing part !
Every time I said you are wasting your time, energy and money unnecessarily…I guess I was so right cos maybe if you had given it a thought back then…I (we) wouldn’t have ended up missing you(each other) this way…hey but I’m not blaming you or anything here…but it’s like….you know…gets pretty difficult for me to cope up now..at least 8hrs a day you work…I’m totally idle..Doing nothing…& nothing at all…but feel bad and recoil...the past & miss the fun filled days we had.....

Hmm it’s like, how do I say…I am not very sure I found the rights words to describe what I am going through… I maybe wrong here in making the best choice of the words…but I am sure you would know what I mean…coz, I literally grew-up with you. I spent the prime years of my life with you, the time that every human needs to define themselves, to identify themselves, the time that makes you feel that you belong to a certain specific group, where in you are being liked for the person that you are….

And it was always you, who helped me shape-up my life better… you were like my diary….every day I “bla bla bla” to you about what I had been through the day, my likes and dislikes, my positives and negatives, my little fetishes and my absolute turnoffs, cribs, gripes, concerns and “what-not’s” and then you were there….Always!

You were the best listener I’ve got so far…As far as I cud remember I never let u speak fully, properly, clearly as in from the beginning to the end with a formal opening note and a conclusionary one…I always (Still do!) had this bad-bad habit of cutting in between when you are about to say something and start yapping away to glory until I run short of stories or I’m drained out of energy…and during all those time you have never complained…not even close to that..Thinking back, realization strikes about the way I’ve been….I know…I feel ashamed to admit it, yet the fact remains that I’ve been so selfish about doing all the talking and letting play the part of being just a listener and also a mute one at that …and u didn’t even mention it as a smallest concern to me…..Why?

I know it probably sounds stupid or silly maybe and I am sure, I shouldn’t be saying this…but still I really wonder what is it that really impressed you about me…coz…honestly I’m not as generous you are..…as helpful as you are..as kind hearted as you are …as open minded as you are and of course, not the least, as brainy as you are ! And I damn sure know that you wouldn’t buy any of these statements…

I feel like crying, even with it, I realize the teardrops trickling down my cheeks involuntarily when I say all this..I really don’t know why..I never thought missing people would still be one of my weakness’s in life…but looks like it still exits and it would go on and on…I feel I’m not so ready to make good friends with strangers……as for me…I just want to save up the few precious ones that’s left with me…..don’t want to add new ones and eventually lose out on the old ones…NO…I don’t want that to happen…I don’t want the time factor to curb all my valued relationships with the people I really care for !

As much as you miss me I do too…I really wanted to meet you and talk to you and all that in person..but then the essence of stipulation was also to be thought of in deciding on the most sanest option….anyways if I am very sorry if I had hurt you in manner...I really didn’t meant to do so…but I was just trying in not letting you to spend an extra buck on me with your stiff financial state or an extra hour on me which only adds more to the mounting frustration that must have been build up during the years.

As I see it today, You have done a lot to me already....and I really am in debt !I don’t know how I am going to negate at least 50% of what you’ve done so far.......and that is the main reason I miss you all the more....coz I feel I’m totally dependent on you sometimes...though I constantly keep reminding myself I shouldn’t be so...
Hope you won't forget me with time & years to follow…. I am not sure if I would be able to take it, to know that you have forgotten me!
Missing You Terribly…..
Ever Yours,
XXX

Easy Living?

What can you suggest as a simple solution to an easy living??

Easy living? What’s easy living....what kind of living is easy on this earth?

You want people to talk to you...but sometimes you don’t want them to talk to you and would like to be left alone all by yourself?!

You want people to spend some valuable time with you...but when they actually come down to spend some good time with you...You are no more interested or you are just-about over and done with your time-out session.

So where or how the hell does it seem easy ?

It’s fucking complicated all over...and you are not a perfect soul to turn everything into gold and make miracles happen at the click of your fingers or with the flick of your illusionary-magical-wand; oh come on! Give it a break…. This aint any fantasy drama!

Often, when you are down to the core, drenched with frustration and even more of them surfacing newly like those pearls of water particles dripping from the end-ringlets of your freshly showered hair…You think, think and rethink... All you can figure-out is that....At the end of it all.....You can’t crib , You can’t complain...nor can you run down in the dumps seeking solace....because you are just one of those cheap-attention-seeking-social-animal; being keenly watched upon by many bunches of never closing eyes...who are always ready to pounce on you with their caustic comments or witty wisecracks making you the clown of the crowd and then you have a so called fucking status, a grade to maintain, and not-to-mention a self-esteem not worth a penny to uphold for, so you just stay there all smiles being splashed away with sugarcoated, subtle remarks often doused with a paroxysm of sarcasm!

yeah, yeah sure......why not....after stomping well enough on all your emotions and feelings which forms the fulcrum of your life...You can sure as-hell do so much more to maintain all the external extravaganza that would add more value to your communal crap life !

Well, what’s my botheration after all, I being the I, that I am, for the past 26 years now…I am not REALLY used to keeping quiet…I am used to making a lot of noise… A lot more of noise when things aren’t going the way it actually is supposed to…the noise turning into a racket or tantrum all the more possibly when there isn’t a positive response for my yelling!

Yeah… Yelling and Screaming and making a lot of noise is my way of taking out my anger….. Do you have a problem with that dude? I don’t care if you do… Coz, if you did, you are free to go screw yourself royally or otherwise!

...Speaking of facts, once can’t really be saying such things or gesturing about with the renowned finger all the times; it certainly cannot be considered sophisticated when we are to deal (clean-up?!) the fruit-smelling-pleasant-looking load of high-class erudite and cultured shit.

I only cringe at being left at such a situation where in I can’t utter the most needed, most apt word, ya obviously for known reasons of the kind of people one is forced to deal with....and I find myself at such kind of fixation...and am helpless to retrieve myself and get back to the normal mode….coz, “Cringing is bad for health, It’s probably worse than caffeine, and you don’t even know!” - Habitually, both my palms go right up to shut my ears as tight as they could from these warning bells of the inner me!

I'll tell u....as long as something’s clean and clear....it would be valued...anything ambiguous is a disheveled mass of junk…A piece of cat-crap beautifully sitting on the fresh plate of your dining table on your breakfast, on a brilliantly bright morning!

Awwww!!!! Someone said “TAKE IT EASY”..........Nothings EASY dude!!!!

Nothing’s ever a piece of cake, it’s always a piece of shit that you always chase around and wipe it clean to get the small-buck lying beneath it. And hey, look are you trying to tell me that's coined as "hard-work"????

Every darn thing has its own goddamned complexity to drive people crazy or get them out of their senses, all of a sudden!
Now, who can help if your taste runs down to chrome and plastic...and forget the essence of actual deal behind this lucrative business?
Well, to me chrome and plastic means – materials… being materialistic isn’t a very bad thing to do as all of us for some strange reason are happy only through material means, good food, good clothes & good shelter… one of those or two of those…sometimes even all of those…!

And talking about business, why yes of course, Life is a business….if it possesses all the busyness that would keep it going….why not??

Ya...........IF it gets to that....I WUD MAKE SURE TO PAY MY SHARE!

A probable bait for the EASY-LIVING fish that I am looking out for?

Office Romances & More....

The only dismal thing that can match remotely to learning “Garbage Disposal Techniques” are my office gossips. Now - I do know it very well don’t I? What with my notion of perfecting in the art of story telling, I am always super-keen to yarn the incidents with a little nuance of austerity and loads of subtle sarcasm as some might call it.

Well yes, for those that are alcoholics of work and those that aren’t, office is an inevitable part where maximum of their active time is being spent on work or on other things – they get to choose!

By far, in the closely knit clan of veteran software professionals, most of their life’s interesting incidents, both pleasant and unpleasant seem to happen during their office hours.

In a cubicle of 6, more than 3 are either in love or about to get married or already married after going through the saga of “I came, I saw, and I conquered the love!”

And for the rest of the 2 or 3 that are no more than bottled specimens labeled as “Chemically Ineffective”, have nothing interesting in life to do, as neither could they fall in love with someone apart from themselves nor could they stop themselves from brooding over or bickering about their (happy) counterparts.

Eight hours of work demands 3 coffee breaks and one lunch break, at least for the beginners… !

And these are probably the most monumental time at work where in gossips across Accounts/Projects/Cities/States/Continents are being discussed.

“Hey, wow your turquoise blue beads necklace is looking amazing on you!”

“Wow, what a vivacious olive green nail paint color Revlon has launched yesterday…. did you get a chance to see that new commercial ad on the TV?”

“Oh boy, did you check-out Harry’s new Tuxedo in last evening’s episode? Wasn’t he looking stunning?”

“BTW, Lisa dumped that Wild-Life Photographer boy friend of hers and is into this young businessman that visits her place often during the evenings…. Hmmm… I just happened to peep outside my window and he was there at her doorstep loaded with big gifts and flowers. Boy, he’s quite something…..no wonder she’s laid her eyes on him!”

“Tina got married to Arijeet last weekend, neither of their families are aware of this and you know what????? She is been put-up at Arijeet’s place even before they were married…that’s something her parents should not be…………..”

And………Kweek kweek kweek kweeek kweeek …screeching away like an audio tape that lets out a sound when fast forwarded….

Well, obviously there are these moderately handsome guys who almost always make sure to pass-by these chemically-ineffective creatures aisle, just to ensure that they’re being checked-out for at least a half-a-dozen times on an average in a day, which gives them a perverse kick to derive an evil pleasure out of and subsequently bloat about an inch or two with the pumped-up ego!


Couple of such days, and then these chemically ineffective creatures struggle hard to concentrate on their work, but end-up failing at it miserably almost always………

Pantries are entries for budding love…

You get into this pantry trying to get a mug of coffee for yourself but
not-so-accidentally bump into this smart guy who’s trying to get his drink too and then happens the introduction scenes, followed by periodic coffee breaks as a port for checking the guy out (or Vice versa) and then getting to know each other….and then dating each other… and then the seeing each other…and then the commitment mode…which then strangely and viciously transpires in to the getting married to each other mode or at least one step closer to it!

Similarly, Lunch hours are the times for these software buddies in unlocking the zip-locs, which result in the eye-locks; from there on progress further to lip-locks and eventually turn them into bed-locks….which may or may not end-up as
wed-locks!

And there are these Classical Office Romances, that which are truly geeky in every way…

Endlessly tapping away on the keyboard, and staring hard to blindness into the monitor, to give out the best deliverables and staying over the night for completing such tasks, for which obviously a company is more important than food. And a subtle relationship blooms there, sprouting from a sweet admiration at each other’s dedication towards work and moves further on to the next stage…. Man, this cant really be avoided…...No wait, if that ever happens that would only make them retarded or stuck in a time warp and or clueless, or all three together, welcoming them as a highly dignified golden member of “The Club of Insane Genre”.

Every relationship that a man and woman shares, are bound have some unwritten yet mandatory rules. If you fall for someone who’s extremely far better qualified and high in designation, your chances are abysmally low with that person for he/she would always look for someone who’s at the very least on the same levels with him/her.

And then there are these snobbish, high-hat crowds that don’t gel well with the redneck bigots who are usually of the mass lot unlike these class lots....its so much fun watch them both grimace at each other for obviously same reasons with an opposite effect though!

Office is indeed a colorful place to begin your life or rather look out for beginning your life, if I must put it right!

After 23 Days.....

Ummm, Yeah! It's been 23 days since the wedding bells rang rather very loudly with lots of cheer and a lot more of inviting the people, meeting the people, greeting the people, eating with the people, photographing with the people...Ufff!

The big day finally got over with not many of those extremely hair-splitting or nostril-flaring or ear-burning petty squabbles between distant cousins of the two families or a reunion set stage on a bad-note due to a biased or wrongly done "Will" of an ancestral grand father!

Many unexpected faces..... with a quite a few missing ones though... made the place seem overwhemingly crowdy and noisy!

Why yes, certain not-so-essential things as they came with a tag marked “rudimentary” so as to give it the density that it otherwise would not have deserved on a normal hour of the day, were anticipated to be done in the 11th hour, not that there was someone actively involved in having this plot set, to be blamed for, yet it wasn’t definitely a happy sight to see a single lady managing a handful of too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth situations in a pandemonium that unveiled itself on the stage that was set for the D-Day!

And then there was too much make-over making one loose their identity to such an extent that, the friends and relatives keep gaping at you for so long that you feel you would rather melt away like a cube of butter dropped into a red-hot pan. So much for the mini-trapeze look alike set as my hair-do for the reception, with bunch of flowers adorning around it, from where the cascade of free-flowing, thick long-hair (artificial of course) was set. When it was over a quarter to 11pm, I was a herculean task to recover my original hair in its original form as in the process I had lost strands and strands of my priced possession - Thanks to those maniacal hairpins & clips that was professionally adorned by my make-up artist!

Resting for about an hour or so, for the auspicious time that was set for the next morning between 5.30am - 7am(for my marriage), I was woken-up by a jerk that shook me wildly in the name of getting me out of sleep as quickly as possible, god bless the soul for I have never in my life reacted so sweetly to anyone who has tried to wake me from my slumberland!

For further details contact my mom.... She could write journals of "Miss Sleepy Sal's Tantrums" with the rich data she possesses!

Blame it on waking up from the wrong side of the bed or the noble-jerk that did the honors ..... I was somber-faced all the while as if I am expecting something dismal to break-out any minute...

Proof: The Photgraphs taken on 8th Dec 2008 between: 5.30am - 9.30am.

I sincerely hope that god for once forgets to bless the moronic photographer who hadn't had the least bit of sense to get the bride smiling or have her hair set right when he was capturing her life's most significant snapshots! Worthless snaps for a fat 25k spent on these shit-heads!

Friends, Colleagues, Friend's Parents, Cousins and Relatives.... meeting them all was one happy thing that happened in those two days if you ask me personally.

The fact that the marital status was changing from a so and so miss to a so and so mrs was in fact pretty strange. I couldnt place it right then..... still cant..... I am used to being Saloni Ramachandiran.... would love to remain that way.... I mean.... ya, now that I am married and all that, does it really call for a change in each and every thing that I was out-n-out used to for the past 26 years of my life.... Don't think so... Few things change yes..... Marital Status.... few other assorted things that goes in as a package along with that one..... but the rest.... the real me? the one that I always was? The silly me? The philly me? The sleepy me? The grouchy me? The whiny me? The tomboyish me? The tantrum-throwing-devilish-mischievous-mostly-witty-partly-nutty me? The snappy me? The sarcastic me? The ever bubbly me? The always-smiling me? The noisy me? The talkative me? The ....... ...... ..... .... ... ... .. .

I do not know, losing the "Single, Virgin" status meant losing some definitions that characterized you as a person, which helped to identify you from a huge crowd! I haven't lost any.... It has only gone to a dormant state..... Hey look this is no altruistic or prudence talk...... Could possibly be tagged as "Matter-of-factly" coming from a Missus if I can endure it!

A Liaison

I didn’t realize until I took a long, passably deliberate look at him on the third day I met him, that he resembled one of my closest friends from college. It was a pleasant shock, that realization… the one you encounter at the verge of an utter disbelief, deceiving your senses for a wee bit, in turn giving room for those skin-tickling goose pimples to rise and fall throughout your body! But definitely one solid fact I came to realize in the recent past about people looking alike is that, they definitely, definitely do not share same characteristics – now, however dumb or not-so-dumb that may sound to you!

Well, it was intriguing somehow for me to share a pleasant acquaintance with this chap, a little older than I am, married for 2 years and no kids, yet young, handsome, friendly, accommodative and most of all “TALKATIVE” – which easily grabs my attention towards a guy!

I don’t really know if it’s true that you cannot be in love with two guys (or girls) at the same period in time. I have not experienced it personally. So to speak, of this person I am talking about, I was very thrilled to know that it was quite easy and smooth for him to handle two ladies, “A wife and A mistress!” he winks and tells me. I was perturbed with his latter reference to a lady although unknown to me, I felt it was unethical.

“How could you classify a lady as “A Mistress” ?... I demanded.

A pause, A scratch of the chin followed by a slow and intentionally thoughtful smile…after all those series of expressions and gesturing he responds peacefully,

“It’s pretty simple. It’s what the lady actually wants to be referred to as. She’s unmarried and doesn’t want to marry me either. But she likes my company and so do I. I asked her to define her relationship with me and I wanted to know if she would like to marry me one day in future or if it was even there in her kitty bag. But she plaintively refused and said that she just wanted to be what-ever she was and is not interested in a nuptial relationship and would be very happy to remain as my mistress and only mine at that!”

He looked up at me from cleaning his mug with hot water at the pantry counter of my bay and unfolds a smile, one of his favorite angelic ones, and asked, “ So, dear lady are you convinced with my explanation for your acquisition of calling the lady ‘A Mistress’ ? ”

He waited for me to respond, while I was lost trying to place his answer somewhere inside the premises of “things-that-make-sense” stacked up at one undetected corner of my grey mass…while he tapped my shoulder and raised his eyebrows gesturing as if to mean if I was “Okay” with the answer he just gave.

I smiled back at him reflectively and said, “It kind of still feels so convoluted to me….that relationship and the naming of it!”

He said, “Dude, it’s a debate between “Seeing What You Believe” and “Believing What You Experience”, when you strictly observe the former, I stick to the latter… and that makes the difference between you and me!”

My Transcendental Patience Practice (aka TPP) is definitely not up to the mark!

On Choices & Priorities....

I've lived most of my life having only one option in my hand, I never had many choices, and even if I had one, things/situations/events just seemed to point in only one direction. So I never did too much proactive thinking on the choices I need to make with my life. And sophistication to me always meant the ultimate zenith instead of an elixir. One of my friends rightly called me as a dame who dwells in the past.

I thought that was the way life is going to be, whenever I used to plan anything, things never got executed in the same way, the way I expected them to be. So I started expecting the worst, after all how low can things get. It took me a while to get over with that kind of living, where you can never dream of something and eventually realize them. And after all these years now, I'm still the same dame who lives in the past, just that the memories are bittersweet, and I cherish the time I had spent over the last decade, which defined me into whatever that I am to this day. And I look forward to spending the time in the same way, and much better in certain areas where I need progression, as a learning from the past :-)

However, I'm starting to get confused now. I'm used to doing things in the only-possible-way mode. Now I have a few options which I need to ponder upon, and make a decision. And I'm not able to do that. Is that what one calls “Lack of Experience”? I don't understand how people can prioritize things, how they can put something on hold for some time, and carry on as if nothing has happened. I always wondered, How can I do a thing, turn around and forget it for sometime, while I do something "more important"…..And then afterwards turn around yet again to resume from where I paused with the earlier one… Pretty confusing eh? But I rather find it a tough one to handle.

Well, the good news is, I'm learning...S.L.O.W.L.Y!

One of my friends recently said:

“I don't want to change my life coz something has happened. I still want to hang-out with my friends they way I did whenever and wherever I could, I still want to sleep till Sunday afternoon and have my breakfast/lunch on bed watching Cricket/F1/Football and see my favorite teams win. I still want to call up friends and talk to them till early mornings. But I realize life is more than just about these things. And I ought to learn how to put things in different perspectives at different times and act accordingly.”

This isn’t probably something like an immature man turning into a mature mode becoming a oh-I-am-so-responsible from this day till I die, at a click of a button.

And in this process of putting something’s in front and something’s in the back, we end up disappointing people or at least some.

While at school I never could buy the idea of studiousness and freak-out nature would go hand in hand. To me they were two extremes that can’t fit in to the frame when one is already in. Getting into college when I saw the batch topper partying like mad, having all the “Funs” of life without having to miss any of the academics at the time kind of stunned me to an extent, to speak the truth. I did not believe it could happen until I witnessed it myself.

Someone gives me a definition from behind me while I am typing this, calling out “This is what is called as “Dynamism” or “Versatility”, in cricket All-Rounders have it. It’s like when you know the game know-it-all, leave no gaps!”. I turn around to see it was one of my friendly colleagues who was waiting for me to accompany him for lunch.

“Interesting, I don’t think I am still a versatile person..” I said.

He smiles and replies “ I don’t think so. You are wrong. You probably are not aware that you are capable of multitasking. You are of course versatile, otherwise how could you manage to come-up with a post as well as the tasks for a day that you need to accomplish as your work demands”
Thoughtfully I descend the steps, as I still couldn’t relate to it clearly enough!

Growing Up?

Why do we grow-up?

Is it because people want us to be matured?

Is it because there’s an inherent expectation out of every individual as he grows older that there are a bunch of kids from the next generation that often look-up to you and want to regard you as a role model to strive in their lives and set out to achieve their goals?

Why do you stop behaving like a kid after a while?

Why do you stop whining or throwing tantrums for eating an ice-cream or going out for a movie or watching your favorite cartoon?

Why do you stop choosing the best colors that you once loved as a kid?

Why is it that you have to stick to the so-called Decent, Dignified, Decorous and Distinguished form of you although that’s not what you really are or really want from with in?

Why do you stop picking a fight over things like someone using your Pen or Pencil or Eraser?

Why do you stop fighting with a pillow or tugging at each others hair over a period of time after you grow-up?

Is it the Society?
Or
Is it the Status?
Or
Is it Ego?
Or
Is it the Education?
Or
Is it the Job?
Or
Is it the Experience?
Or
Is it the Age?
Or
Is it the so called MATURITY, which forbids each of us from what we are to the other person with time?Most of us don’t do much, to counter this so called time-warp that beats us out of shape from all the virtues of goodness that we possessed as a child and end-up being resigned and stay-put with the offer of being a victim to the nasty Mr. Big-Fat-Fate!

What with this entire growing-up gizmo that’s convoluting into an irresolvable dispute of the mature and immature thoughts teaming-up against each other and setting up a grand stage for a knock-out session…Ha Ha!

There’s a strange design pattern that’s woven intricately inside every grey cell that each head possesses, thanks to the single mechanic sitting in a far-away land driving this so accurately and perfectly in all the human machines flawlessly over zillions of years now. Now, someone said on my journal that the Jewish Carpenter who died at 33 was his favorite hero!

I sometimes feel at the lowest ebb of my world, when I see the ‘childish me’ fighting over the ‘matured me’ at a lot of occasions… and when I am forced to snap-shut the ‘childish me’ hard enough such that she doesn’t re-surface again...it hurts somewhere deep down!

I have more often than not, controlled my real emotions, actual feelings and the true senses from with in and have been someone that I am actually not… Thanks to the “Matured Lot”!!!!

I agree to this day that I have been a lot more than suave on many occasions…..all attributable to the so called “MATURITY” factor!If asking for an extra dosage of “Sweet Candies” or “Lollypops” or “Flying Kites” at the age of 20 odds is coined as immature, I would rather stay that way forever!

Ugghhhhh….To HELL with YA all!!

Memorabilia

In one’s life there are always turning points, defining periods, molding times or curing phases. Oddly the best of the incidents and the worst of them all are always remembered by us. This is only because of the impact that incident had caused in our lives and could also be the importance of the person/people involved. It’s us who define what dark periods are and happy ones are. Not so surprisingly, all the happy-endings like participating and winning in events & contents have always stayed on etched to the memory as the cheerful moments, while farewells, last-day celebrations - although named as “celebrations” don’t really make us happy, even while remembered, as they are all conducted with a sole motto of “bidding-adieu” or “sending-off” or “ saying goodbye”.

There used to be a season, in the last part of the final year, of the schools and colleges where the stationeries and notebook stalls had their day of best sales of certain types of Notebooks: Autograph Notes, Scrap Books & Address/Phone Notes. These kept passing between folks of the same batch or different streams but from the same school or college.

Some wrote meaningful notes, filled with heartfelt emotions for their friendship, while some utilized this as the best opportunity to open-up their hearts to the ones that they have been dreaming about privately & secretively, being one-sided of course, which otherwise they wouldn’t have had the guts to talk about. There are also some who for some strange reason wrote undecipherable “Quotes” or “One Liners” and left the owner of the book with split hairs.

Funny and memorable those days were, one could also come across some Stone-Cold-Steve-Austin’s who for the sake of maintaining their hunk-status never indulged in such kind of childish activities like filling their journal books in front of everyone, but funnily and idiotically used one of those harmless-huge-goggled-soft-spoken-studious wisdom turned principles-of-life souls (who almost always came in the package of a batch of students) to get two autograph books signed. Girls, often never questioned such harmless souls for they thought it’s probably one of the guiding principles of such soul’s to keep autographs at an even count.

One such interesting farewell note, which touched my heart, is as written below.

Analogy:-
A fountain pen, when filled fully with ink, writes like a dream. Smooth flow, precise width, crisp lines etc. But when the ink is running too low, there’s a lot of atmospheric pressure on the ink inside the barrel and hence the pen leaks as a result of the ink being pushed out, pressurized heavily to come out. The Lines become thick, ink smudges all over the paper and finally everything stops! No more ink!

Relating Story:-
This is exactly the same situation I am in right now, writing this autograph only makes it worse. It’s the sense of inevitability I guess. A smiley. Back then, during the initial years when we had a lot of time to be spent, our friendship (the Pen in the analogy) wrote smoothly, but for the occasional bitter incidents like groupisms, fights, misunderstandings (the bad papers in the analogy). But now, the time is coming to an end or getting over (the Ink in the analogy) lots of things are going astray. This may sound silly. But truth is I felt like I was 4 yrs old again. Clutching on to my mother’s hand and crying because I had to leave her and go to school…but then I had to let go…LOL…It's not me… she let go! Felt bad, angry, sad, etc then. But thinking back, it had to be done, as children should go to school, one cant deny that!... so are friends I guess, cant stay back once the course is over for the sake of studying together all over again!

My favorite song:
Rook Rook Na Na
Jhook Jhook Na Hai
Chal Na Hai Chalte Jana Hai
Jeete To Jeete Hare To Hare
Har Dil Ko Apna Bana Na Hai
- JHANKAAR BEATS

The above lyrics aptly sums up the attitude of the best way to look forward to life… “Life Carries On!”

I got this from a friend, “Life is a train journey, stations come and go, new people get in, old ones get off… but the train goes on & never stops for a longer time for anyone...." But what I really didn’t clarify with her was what if my destination is same as yours…. You may call it sarcasm, but it was a genuine doubt of mine! A smiley. Anyways, your motto must be “Happy Go Lucky, Where the Life Goes On….Stopping for None!”

This day, I sincerely wish you "All the very Best" !

Although to some of you it sounds stupid and juvenile, it means a lot to me, coming from one of my best friends, I know what it means especially when you both have traveled the prime years of your life together and are at the end of the long sojourn parting ways!
Cheers to you dude, wherever you are and whatever you do! :=)