Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Looking for Dumbledore

Is it possible to look for purpose? TO feel lost without it? TO expect great things from yourself even in the face of evidence to the contrary? Sometimes it becomes imperative to have that one person who believes in you so strongly that you begin to believe in yourself and can take on the world.
Why are most people in this world only here to cut you to size? Whatever size that may be. Isn't it the most dreadful thing? How are you supposed to take a leap when all you are trying for is get a toe in to stand on?
it is sad and unfortunate when we can not value nurture and help all the talent that we have around us. All this myth about survival of the fittest is always thrown in the face every time you bring up these things. But isnt it equally important for us as society to get ahead? Not just one fittest person at a time but as more than one each doing his or her thing and saving all that energy that we waste on being mean and cutting people to size on our own creative pursuits.

I have been lucky to have mummy and papa then didi and didya then jeejaji and ashu and ishan and bhumi and last but not the least Mehr. Each and every one of them have given me wings. Have shown me the way held me when I have needed that, nurtured me. I am what i am because of all their love and all the wonderful people who have been a part of my life. I know there are so many people who do not have what I do. But I also know how easy it is for things to get better. As I said it is just unfortunate that we have to make do with how things are because we are all scared to be helpful and nice. We are insecure about other people reaching ahead of us, going far, going places in the fear that they are taking our rightful place.

Just a little bit of love, a little bit of push in the right direction. Some one who cares. A mentor. Each one of us is a little harry potter looking for a Dumbledore in our lives. It only ends up being a life long quest for many.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Objective

Objective is the lens piece which is close to the object under study. Objective is also the aim or point of living a life objective above all is also a very wrong and boring word to get or chose especially if you are trying to get out of writer's block and trying out free writing. it is an even worse choice if you are at a point in life where there seems to be a lack of it in real life. It is as if you do exist and carry on being employed and and do things to carry on being that but there is no passion and no interest and there is also a lack of dive to do what you are currently doing. what makes the situation even less palpable is that you do not know what else you want and if there is anything that can help you find what you are missing in life. or for that matter may be this is you life and you are not missing anything. this is all the passion and reason and satisfaction you will even have in your life. now that is one sure rock bottom if ever there was one.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Introduction ...Part 1


This story begins when a collage starts. Collage being a time when there is relatively more freedom in life. Freedom starts with and is not limited to lack of uniformity of clothes and or of background. Different backgrounds and different schools of thoughts bring different people together to suddenly come together as equals under one roof and compete with each other to disprove or dispel the illusion of equality. It is one of the funniest dichotomies of student life.

This story starts with Kira, as she gets ready to hop on a bus to go to collage, the very first day. She is me. Or to be more truthful, she is who I wanted to be when I was her age. If you are not as confused as you should be then there is hope of not loosing you in the narrative. Anyway so she gets on to the bus she is one of the people who was on the waiting list to the hostel accommodation. She had the least priority as her family lived with in the city limits as described by some administrative buffoon as he seemed fit. Drawing a random shape on the map without any logic to the connectivity. So thanks to that unknown face, Kira had to get up early and leave 3 hours before classes began. She still had all the misgivings about commuting six hours in a day and still go on like this without turning into a zombie. Sooner or later she had to get a room in the dorm. She was so bent on the woes of traveling that she had not considered what all a hostel life entailed. All the things that were going to come her way if or rather when she did get her 20 sq.Ft of space that she would have to share with her room mate. Life she thought was best dealt with one day at a time. And sometimes even that seemed too big a deal.

Life had buzzed at such high a speed that she had not gotten any chance to enjoy or rejoice the feeling of getting admitted into the collage of her choice. Imperial collage or the mad cage as it was lovingly rechristened as by its “inmates”. She was soon going to discover how true to its name it was. And while she was at it she was going to realize that how freedom was nothing but an over rated illusion. That is what or how it is more often than not.
Just at the beginning of orientation, the dean said that anyone who feels that they can not go without sleep and can not do without food and water and need at least 7 hours of sleep everyday, do not have place in this batch of 2001, feel free to leave the the class right now. Ya like that was a real choice! So much for the freedom that collage life is supposed to bring for you. All her life she had heard new and updated versions of the line “just get through this one exam and then you will be set in life. How life and destiny will just smile on you blah blah blah…Now finally it seemed to her that this was the proverbial carrot that her parents and her teachers held in front of her to lure her into the ratty race. Now sitting in the big tiered class room being bombarded with information in the name of orientation, she felt that she was already way in too deep to see a way out. Right now she did not even want a way out. But it will not be like this all the time.

She was never a dumb child but she was not very big on perseverance. Things had come easy to her in school. But this was a different ball game altogether.This story was not all about Kira, she did not know it yet but her path was going to be crossed with some of the most interesting people she was ever going to get an opportunity to get to know. The first of those was Kiran. Kiran was someone she instantly felt a kindred spirit with and seemed to instinctively share few of the slangs with! After the ominous warning by the dean as if on cue Kira and Kiran both exhaled all the air in their system with a very fearful and anxious “boy-oh-boy”! and with that pin drop of a silence, they both were instantly aware of each other's existence in the universe. Kiran as it turned out had his own crosses to bear. Yes you got me right Kiran was a "he" and that was one of the biggest and the heaviest if not the only one to bear. When he caught “Khosla ka Ghosla” years later he all too identified with the plight of chirounji lal. Life apparently could get worse, he was after all not called something as inane and depressing as that or for that matter Kunj Bihari, who was going to be his room mate. Of course he so far did not know that or for that matter any of the things that lay in his future.

From here to long lines of the different forms of plugging themselves in the system the first day pretty much kept them all pre-occupied and busy and away from the prying eyes of the predatory senior batches. None of them had any idea how bad or insane can the familiarization process get. Starting from finding out which class is where? What out of those can be bunked? Where to hide your hide while u are bunking and where to get food at 4.00 am in the night or day as you choose to look at it.
Right in front of the ticketing line kira spotted a familiar face Vani. Someone she knew peripherally in school. About whom she knew nothing more than the fact that if there was anything that happened around vani the first person to come to know had to be her mom. Vani was just the kind of person Kira was convinced that she could not survive around. She seemed to be someone who had not yet cut her chord from her mother’s womb yet. In the times of today that had to be just better off than being an axe murderer in hiding with bad breath to boot. Basically something that you would never in you life own up to in collage let alone flaunt; as she seemed to be doing in the full view of the entire batch!
“yes mom, we are almost done with the registration and I-cards...
Only the Library cards. Umm hmmmm and yes I know….
Alright, I will call and let you know later. Talk to you later Ma. Bye.”

This exchange to Kira and her code of life was nothing less than blasphemous. Kira rarely called home, when she was out and to reinstate her illusion of freedom she refused to carry a cell phone. According to her it was the way the grown ups pretended to give you mobility only so that they could trace your every move. Go through your contacts, read your messages and keep track of everything they have no business being a part of. She had however agreed to let herself be gifted one when and if she moved to the hostel, but before that it was just not negotiable. So for Kira it was a supreme effort to not snort and turn around in a huff in front of Vani. Vani as it seemed was completely unaware of this code of life and was equally obtuse to Kira’s intent to ignore and not acknowledge her and their prior association. Luck after all was not on Kira’s side as Vani, spotted her right then and gave her a cheery “hey”!

This was going to be a long day after all. She and Kiran were already making plans to go out after this long list of to dos ran out. Now she had this woman who seemed to pretend that they grew up together. Actually it was not such a bad thing to cross paths with her. But why did she have to give telephonic updates at all times to her mother. Anyway now was probably not a time to pose the question and may be not everyone was as tuned to such forms of parental control as her and had barely heard them. Before she realized what was happening she was a party to their plan to go catch a movie or a bite after this harrowing day was over.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Sisters


When I think of sister there is this movie that i think about „my brother nikhil“ I think it is a very realistic take on a brother-sister bond and the movie explores the relationship beautifully . I think I thought of this mostly because I have always felt that the relationship between a brother and a sister can never be as close as it is between two sisters. Of course that’s not necessarily true but I guess I am yet to see it in first person to be completely convinced of it. I can not imagine that the way I turn to my sisters at absolutely random moments in life that a brother would too.

Calling them at some ungodly hour in the night to ask about a song that I can not completely remember but can really not leave alone either; like a speck of food stuck in your gums! Calling them for just a regular rant about life, about work about love life, husband and yes the most favourite topic lately our mom-in-laws. There is something liberating about having sisters, you do not need to be anyone that you are not, you can be as bad as you want and almost get away with it. The place where this relationship scores over a lot of parent kid relationship is that, they are not as responsible for you as parents hence you can tell them more worrisome things and feel less guilty about the whole thing.

Also they will be the first ones to tell you what is good bad or ugly about you. Weather you like it or not. Infact weather you want it to not, the opinion is going to be shared with you pat... like that. Needless to say anyone can do with that kind of brutally honest feedback. Infact often when I see people dressed up inappropriately or garishly or doing something completely stupid, I wonder if they have any sisters who will promptly and tactlessly show them the mirror.

And that shall I say lack of consideration and tact and love and warmth and all overbearing things possible all rolled into one is how I feel when I think of the word sisters! And brothers although loving and all, somehow loose it in the consideration and tact department. What I mean to say is somehow they are not able to be as crisp as sisters. But then I am not completely qualified to make this statement this is just a strong suspicion at best on my part.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Life-a full circle...


Everyone has a story to tell and every story starts with the time they become an entity different from that of their mother. Weather that is through the tunnel and vagina or escape through an incision. For that matter few stories begin even before that like mine. May be more stories have their beginnings earlier than the people realize. I got to know this when I was 17 years old. In a freaky comment that I overheard my mother make to our hosts of that evening. Without remorse or malice, she was talking about woes and trials of the time around a pregnancy and how difficult the whole decision is. She very matter of factly told the lady that when I was conceived she was afraid of what had happened. She wanted to get rid of me cos I was not part of the plan. She already had two daughters and did not or was not looking for another child. I don’t know what what the context of the conversation was and what was exchanged after this statement. I was more or less stunned to hear it , it hit me like a ton of bricks, and in my melodramatic and thespian tendencies honed by all the emotional upheaval of adolescence it was not less than any calamity, it was like my parents had suddenly disowned me or rather refused to own me. The ground was snatched below my feet, to paraphrase a Hindi idiom.

In time I got over it, I realized how my mom and my dad absolutely adored me and weather the news of me was received well or not I certainly was! Mind you this wisdom dawned on me a good few years later. Till then it was a cross that I bore on my head or chest whichever is more painful.Anyway so the point that I was trying to make was that some stories start earlier, and everything that happens in one life comes on to be a part of the person.

Every story is intertwined with another and there is no beginning and really no end. Its all a matter of perspective and the window of our observation. Everything out of context is only a reflection of our turmoils and emotions hidden with in. What  you see and what you hear may not be the absolute truth. Trust your instincts more as they do not always depend on what can be seen and heard.