Let things be

sometimes it is best to let things be. Especially if they are memories that make you wear rose colored glasses when you look back at them.

So, when someone from the past wants to catch up. you are excited.

After all, it is a slice of life that you have left behind, it will remind you of when you were younger, had more hair on the head, lesser hair on the face, when your 'skinny jeans' still fit you, and when you could hear whistles as you walked by a group of boys.
Who wouldn't want to remind self of such a beautiful time?

And, then.

While you get all readied up to meet and greet this person and your past. You realize. It is best to let things be.

You dont want to see your Ex now bald or pot bellied, or having turned out completely different from how the younger you would imagine he would look like 10 years from hence.

Or Worse. You wont want to know that your Ex turned out exactly how you imagined he would be 10 years from thence, and feel bad about yourself with your receding hairline and your love handles which could seat two, and your disillusioned eyes.

you have what you want on an online photo gallery. you have what you want in the now-manipulated-and-distorted-with-nostalgia hallways of your memory palace.

well,

When you are at your nadir - people who bother to commiserate, and do so genuinely
When you are at your pinnacle - people who bother to rejoice, and do so without malice
are people whom you should never let go. They are probably the only ones who will mourn when you no longer walk the face of earth.

Take it from me - a person who, as a friend reminded, from today is on the wrong side part of twenties.

another rant

well, blogging wasnt really in my agenda today.. but today's events kinda made me change my mind.
You see I HAD let go of my steam somewhere.

I read Sakshi's blog about parents influencing kids, left a comment and moved on, very ignorant of the fact that this particular post was the way my day was about to turn to....

I mean how dumb should one be to blindly follow the parents' wishes?
I agree parents play an important AND a major role in your life, I accept that you wouldnt be where you are without your parents, that you LOVE LOVE your parents, that to you parents are the version of God, and your mom is one of those "because God couldnt be everywhere, he made mothers" I agree I agree I agree.
I goddamnit agree to every single arguement. For Chrissakes, I have parents and like 99.9% of the population on the earth love them to no end. I have a brother whom I treat like a son (esp after dad passed away - always called the kid as bacha, never bro); so I understand how the parents feel about their offspring (okay not 100% know, but atleast you know - know)

BUT

Why the F should you not let your parents see your goddamn side of the coin? why the heck should you leave someoneelse stranded in the bloody middle of nowhere just because you love your parents (like no other homosapien who's walked the earth ever did is it?)
you may go screw yourself in your ass and like I care.
I get all pissed off when you get some poor unsuspecting soul involved, decide that you are the Shahrukh in Devdas and she is Aishwarya, or you decide that you are Hrithik Roshan of Kaho na Pyaar hain and she is some equally disgusting lead actress ... and in your delusion, bunk classes; walk in dark bylanes that only killers frequent, run around trees, engrave your names on their trunks (leaving the poor tree with a little less bark and wishing it could bite - okay PJ- forget it) , promise each other stuff like I shall never let go of you even if the sensex crashes another 4000 points; and look deeply into each other's eyes and sigh and say - "you are the most beautiful creature on earth" though you are secretly imagining her to be Catherine Zeta Jones.
There you get my goat. When you do all that, I want you to enact that scene where the hero/ heroine says "par papa mujhe sirf Rahul/ Gopi/ tom/ his dick/ harry se hi pyaar hain, main usi se shaadi karoongi" and when the bald headed amrish puri styled papa says "ek phooti kaudi nahin milegi", walk into the room, pick up all your MAC cosmetics, all your Ritu Beri dresses and all the matching Tanishq and De Beers accessories in your plush suitcase and heave your bosoms and march out of the house, leaving your dad sobbing for having lost more than 90% of his hard earned money and the guy jumping up in glee (MAC Ive heard sells at a profit even in the seconds/ Garage sale) and mouthing "mujhe sirf aapki beti ki zaroorat hain, uske daulat ki nahin" while eyeing that Nakshtra pendant she's wearing.

On a more serious note - I mean what the heck is the issue ? if you really thought something that you did is wrong, did you not have the brains to realise that in the very beginning?
if you are convinced what you are doing IS correct, then why not let those two people see that you want to make your own decisions in your life?
So, they will be angry? The parents will disown you? Throw you out of the house?
Come on, if I let the few parents I have seen be an example ... I agree they might react emotionally/ violently but after all parents are people who have given you their entire life, they have had dreamt about you long before you were born, all their life has been centered around seeing you happy, making adjustments, compromising on their happinessess, just to make sure you have everything you need.

I fail to see why any sane and rational parents will not sober down if they see their children happy with the partners they have chosen.
As managers, most of us convince people about their careers, about their salaries, about their pay packets and sometimes, when the team member has personal issues and approaches us with those, we venture out to give advice even about that.

I fail to see why, if we can convince a set of people who are only related to us due to a transaction called employment, we cannot convince a set of people to whom we are the centre of the universe?

I also fail to see why someone would give up without trying to do any of this. was it because the relation was a joke? I mean you invested so much of time, effort, money, emotions and yourself into this relation just to play a practical prank? Dude, then that was one pathetic practical joke you pulled out of your hat there.
If it wasnt a joke, why the hell arent you trying to make things happen? you are talking about three things here - you, her/him and the damn relation which has so much of investment locked into it (pardon my business jargon - but *shrugs*) ... you have no right to destroy something that took two people to create; more so no right to leave someone in a state of a nervous wreck - just think of how it would have been if it was the other way round? if the person whom you are dumping actually dumped you? would it still be a joke for you?

Dammit, I could go on and on, but it would just be a waste of my time and effort, and as it is Im kinda running out of steam and have an email to attend to now.

but if you are wondering why all this rant on a topic I usually steer clear of,
it is because, we literally had to PULL and I mean PULL a colleague out of a suicidal mode, just because the girl he liked decided the relation was "not worth" giving a try.
I mean after 4 years of going around with each other .... I shocked to hear that statement, in 4 years, you even fall in love with a pet you have; with a damn animal and this guy is the most doting, loving affectionate and completely selflessly in love boyfriend Ive ever seen.
If I had a guy who showered me with atleast 10% of how much love this guy has for his girl, I would lose all this extra weight that I have incorporated into my personality. No seriously, dont laugh, I would. I would lose the extra 100 kgs I have. I would even go in for a plastic surgery to look like his favorite heroine. No, I would. Seriously.

His lacklustre eyes and his dull statement of "You wont even see me tomorrow" amid tears... havent left me yet. The man was broken, believe me, b-r-o-k-e-n.
I shudder to think of such a day in my life (or wait - have I already gone through it? yeah I have - the day I refused to listen to dad - I was broken; rather, my leg was - in an accident)

Which indirect cost?

Friend: I think I love him

Me : (trying to find out cost pools and cost drivers) uh? hmm? argh!

Friend: Are you even listening?

Me: Yeah, Im trying to see which is the right cost driver

Friend: (taking my notes away) Listen to me, I love him

Me: Him? no, the case is about an apparel indust.... errr.. yeah... him, him! yeah him! love!

Friend: Oho! Do you even know whom Im talking about?

Me: err... (scratches head and thinks of which inidrect cost should go where) Abhishek Bachchan?

Friend: bhaad main jaa tu aur tera abhi-shake (does a li'l jig). arre him .. XYZ, I love him

Me: (Trying to retrieve my notes) Aaahhh, him, he looks like a gorrilla, but doesnt he have a girl friend? She's damn b-o-otiful too :P

Friend: Love Arpana, you dont even know what it means, so what if he has a girlfriend? I still love him ...

Me : Whats the use?

Friend: Not everything is your Balance sheet okay? Not everything is done for "use" okay?

Me: aah, you can dream on, but dawn does break. You can be an NGO, but profit you must make.

Friend: Why the heck do I even talk to you?

Me : Actually, that was so wise! Lemme blog about it yaar .. awesome quote, wait lemme write it down.

Friend: No wonder you are single. (walking away in anger) you will die single

Me: (calling after her) Cleopatra died single .... she sure enjoyed HER life (sticking toungue out)

Later on I pat myself on the back and applaud - wow, what a sentence:
you can dream on, but dawn does break. You can be an NGO, but profit you must make.

On another note:
Rambo arrives in Bangalore on Monday Evening.

Post due on Mona Darling. Do remind me about it. I'll go all senti and teary eyed and all and write about Mona Darling.

And yeah, in case I dont blog in the next few days, run along and have a Merry christmas too :)

"Let there be friends" - God, Day 7

Life can be a err female dog sometimes.

What with the apprisal times wherein you have to get a bunch of people put in random things they'd done (or not) over the past 12 months onto an online format which doesnt allow you more than 10 charecters (the company knows us lot very well :D) and put in those two instances when you worked and the company collectively stood up and shouted out in one voice "please arpz, if you dont do anything, nothing can go wrong... do the favor of not doing anything for us" (they ripped off the first line from the Mr Bean movie, and I told them that.
And then, sud-suddenly, the database decides to take a walk in the woods, it decides to stop at a paanipuri stall where it developed dysentry. No one's seen the database ever since. My computer wakes up on the day of a deadline and says - "enough of working for this moron who does nothing but read blogs and write random stuff that no one reads" and coughs, splutters, clutches its Mother board in a dramatic fashion that Dilip Kumar would be proud of and dies.
The technology guys spend two days playing hopscotch, and only when I threatened to join their game, they agreed to help me out, fearing huge craters in their car-parking space. They are yet to find my teeny cubicle. (if there was a God, he would proove his existence by Zapping every techie alive on their butts ... *waits to see if anyone is struck by a thunderbolt - no one is* see, there is NO God!)
My professor is a poor henpecked husband, his wifey dear (i swear to Lord, this is true) expects him home on the dot of 2100 hours. I know this, because I saw him running around trying to catch a flight that was on time from Hyderabad, when asked for the cause of his agitation, he mumbled about the use of belans in the Indian Economy and the reason for high cost of airfares. ( Mini, whose blog url I cannot provide - she doesnt write one you buddhu, can vouch for this .. well, atleast for the non exaggerrated part of this). He enjoys imagining his class to be his biwi amd unleashes his pent up fury on the biwi (the class) by giving us an assignment (which Im yet to submit and the last date of which was the day when Babar invaded India)which made excel turn around cry "mommy" and run up to Bill Gates.

I love these times, it brings out the she-dog in me, the foul mood, the string of cusses, the "teri naani mari to main kya karoon" look, and also those two nukes I keep hidden under the bed (for aunts need to be silenced when they utter the "marriage" word).

And one such day, when Arpz was threating to blow up the offices of Shaadi.com and JeevanSathi.com, someone sent her an email .... an email that did not say "hey, you have a face of a baboon's back" no, as much as people would like to send that mail, they dont, you see, you cannot say that to a girl who weighs as much as the titanic and not expect her to kill you by sitting on you.
well, the sweet email just asked (in effect not verbatim) - how are you, take care, I love you.

Aah, I think it should suffice to say, the shaadi.com and the jeevansathi.com offices are still standing and the aunts are yet alive. They now recieve threats from a smiling Arpz.

Packaged deal

Browsed through Raj's blog, and saw this post.
Signature Raj, that post is.Straightforward and unbiased.
Hits you where it hurts the most while mincing no words.
Though I set out to write something totally different, and the title should tell you, I'll end up stuffing everything down your unwilling throats, I think its time we actually stood up and owned up to our mistakes.
The first thought that came upto my mind as I looked through all those links and his write-up, was that "bloody corrupt politicians"; the conscience would not let go. "who chose them? your vote" the voice echoed. Every damn politicain is the same; I sighed , the developments in Karnataka (of which you are unaware, then you must be one those M&B reader types, in your own arabia) should reiterate that. "Who made them politicians? " my irksome conscience asked.
Well, the choice of a career is upto the individual - my weak defense.
Did I tell you my conscience is an avid movie buff? It quotes that statement from Nayak about everyone complaining of dirty politics, but no one wanting to do a thing about it.
I agree. I want my brother to do an MBA. Im happy working in a company, the minute whose name people hear go "acha! TV discount pe milega?". I would not want to marry a guy who's career choice is "municipal corporator". What right then, have I to criticise anyone?

While i leave that thought for you to chew on, like a cow chews on the cud;

I shall subject you to yet another torrent of my poem. (Raj who was subjected to the first hearing of this poem has some really nice insights to provide about the interpretation, and as you've rightly guessed, quite unpublishable too :D)

The crease of silks,
The sigh escaping the lips
The moonlight
The silvery night
The night, it refuses to go away.

Thousands of waves, lifting their arms up
Try reaching the sky, to drape the dark satin
I smile at their penance, they never give up
And the night, it refuses to go away

Two parallel lines; run together
The earth and the sky, toward the horizon
I smile at their futility, the moments of togetherness, they try to gather
The night, it refuses to go away

One droplet behind another
Rush out in silent anguish
The light dawns, the strength I try and muster
But the night, it refuses to go away.

(PS - not everyone will get the extremely introspective and unpublishable insights such as my dear friend Raj was enlightened with, but I know, of one person who will. and to that person *hugs*)

As the other 2 of you (cos just four kind souls with way too much time on their hands read this blog) wonder about who that person whom Im hugging above is,

I present to you an excerpt, a very rare glimpse, as rare as Nisha Kothari playing a nun, from my private blog ;
"It doesnt matter if you let go of a hundred "right" decisions because there are times when nothing is right or wrong. What use of a future happiness if Im sad today? My life is here, today and now. I want to be happy today. Who knows of tomorrow? Here and now, I may die. Any moment. I may live to be a hundred and ten too; but how do I know that today's right decision will make me happy on my 99th birthday?Is there is a formula to convert present value of anguish to future value of happiness and compare the rate of return and see which is a better option? Even if there is, I shall discount the future with uncertainty. The future may never arrive. ...............If Im alone and miserable tomorrow, the memories of today shall put back a smile on my lips, for these are all I'll have, the moments of when Ive lived life, for otherwise, I will have waited, waited for something to arrive, and happiness cannot be fedexed, it has to be experienced."

To Pay

Pay,

I wish you were here today and now.
Miss you a lot, dear anklet.

your,
D.

Of 100 Days and Underdogs

The happenings over the weekend and early this morning, have forced me to pen down thoughts which would otherwise have floated off to the "thought cloud" black hole - as I thought I need to take a creak for a week or so ... but oh well! okay - here goes.

This Saturday most of which I spent listening to a CEO of a chemical company at the IIM, saw me call up a couple of friends in Hyderabad and Vijayawada in the evening. I plan to visit the place this November, and wanted to make sure I blocked their calendars three months in advance so they wont have any flimsy excuses for not meeting me.
At 5:30 I call up S; she's excited to hear me, Im excited to hear her ... and the usual ensues

The next day, I wake up at leisure - (its a Sunday) rubbing my eyes and scratching my head, yawning out the bad breath to the world, trying to bring order in the crumpled banian I wore at night, to find that Hyderabad has been rocked by not one, but two bombs for the second time in less than 100 days!
"B-b-but this cant happen! I spoke to S yesterday...I spoke to her! I know I did! this cant be true"
I scoure the newspapers, wide-eyed, I watch television to know that the area near Lumbini Park and the famous Gokul Chat is reduced to a mass of limbs, blood, gore and lost dreams and intact shoes on severed legs.
I thank God, niether S nor the other friend were one among the casuality. Some whom I knew through someone else though, hasnt been answering his phone call since Saturday, my friends and their cousins are frantic ... we later get to know he's okay, but he'd lost his mobile when he left Gokul Chat just a few minutes before the explosion took place.
What about the others though? What about those poor Maharastrian kids who were in Hyderabad on a holiday? What about that mom who, because of a headache, is the only survivor in her otherwise 7 member household?
"Thank God - you didnt go now!" my mom exhales.
I attempt to joke - "I'll be there in November - roughly 100 days from now lady, if I die, be sure not to leave the compensation with the government - take every single rupee"
She's sniffling. *note to self - dont joke on matters of death - as it is she doesnt need a reason to cry; dont give her more*
Bloody Cowards killing people in the name of I do not know what, I doubt, if even they know why they want to reduce the population of the country so drastically.
Bloody traitors - this police force of enunchs who havent lifted a finger for the past 100 days, which allowed these army of cowards to paint the town a grim red.
Admist this chaos, the survivors and the nearby citizen-samaritans who rised up to the occasion; maybe because they know, that you can never know who's next and whose help they might just need.
Looks like the wounds of the partition shall never heal, they shall keep resurfacing in the form of religion, politics, police, politicians and terrorists to haunt us forever.
Ironically, one of the terrorists identified was one among the victims in an earlier riot. Crime, begets crime, evil begets evil; and while politicians hanker after power, terrorists will continue to expand their sadistic army of the undead.

On another note ...

I finally watched the now famous "Chak De India". After avoiding the movie for so long, there was only so much I could do now. I had to watch it - The company decided its a good movie to make its employees watch - so there I was at Inox, watching the movie for free.

Its another underdog movie. A movie that charts the rise of the underdogs to rule the world - remember Dodge Ball? The Ice Princess?Hoosiers? and I could go on and on, but I wont, because Ive forgotten the names of most of them.
Looks like every sports movie ever made has this very theme to it - here's a man who's been prooved a loser ; here's a team/player that will never make it, a team of misfits and bigger losers; here's an undreamable dream - a dream of the ultimate WIN; put the loser and the team together, make them dream this DREAM, and voila - here's your sports movie.

Scores of Hollywood movies are churned out with this theme - vary it a little based on what you want to convey - the blacks over whites? the poor over rich? Adrenaline pumping scenes, nail biting "will-they-do-it?-will-they-not?" climaxes and dialogues that hit you in the gut like Mike Tyson's punch - and the movie is sure shot hit.

Now, add a little local flavor to it, take a game unheard of, use the "religion" and the "patriotism" angle, ask the sexes to battle it out, and some emotion - but go easy on the glycerine - you should see the pools in the eyes, but let it not drip down too much - this is a movie of grit and determination - remember? yeah - now, add a little glamour and a well known face to whom a flop doesnt make too much of a difference.... and hey presto- you have Chak De India.

No. I dont mean to demean the movie, its well made and has the feel-good-factor. I would anyday watch a Chak De India over another Karan Johar's twisted K-logy. The movie has recieved lots of rave reviews all over - bloggers have waxed eloquent, critics have fallen all over themselves and etcetera and etcetera.

Im ready to forgive the parallels to the 2006 world cup soccer and the Indian team's run at cricket world cup (when was it? 2000?) when the only two matches it lost were to Australia. Its a good movie.
What is missing from all these reviews though, is this - THE INSIGHT OF THE MOVIE.
Glaringly missing.
What did you learn from those three hours? That Haryanvis have a funny way of talking? That Jharkhand has elephants? That Punjabi kudis are usually well built?
I'll tell you what I saw in the movie - (and in no order and maynot be exhaustive) - and this is my review to the movie - and let me warn you - it isnt the types where I tell you how people stood up on chairs and hooted at every goal or how someone predicted the box office status by the number of people in the popcorn line during the interval.

"Saat saal , X mahine, Y din"
"Kahaan they tum ab tak?"
"Is meeting ki tayyari kar raha tha"
Small talk gets you no where. Know where you have to go. The Nononsense attitude has never let anyone down. (remember the story of Arjun and the bird's eye?)

When you see an oppurtunity - grab it head long.

No matter who you face - it is in you that you need to trust.

Allow yourself a luxury of a loss. It is only when you trip and fall will you learn to see where you walk - its a small price to pay for the experience gained.

It is not who you were that matters, nor is it who you can be that matters - what matters is who you ARE and how many miles are you ready to go to get where you WANT to be.

Dream. No matter what.
Dream. However impossible those dreams are - the fact that you are dreaming eliminates the first hurdle of impossibility.

Work - else go back to sleep to dream worthless dreams.

Respect him/her - No matter who the other person is.

One swallow might not make a summer, but one loss can certainly break a life, BUT for your grit and resolve NOT to allow it to do so.

Keep that souvenir or may I dare to say "keepsake?" of your loss close to your heart - use it, not as something that will tell you that you will never do it, but as something that will tell you how you have it in you - and how you need to work harder to prove to yourself that you have it in you.

You are the best - but so is another, learn that just one soilder wasnt enough to fight the crusade. Humility never harmed anyone.

Choose - Decide - for in everyone's life this "devil and the deep sea" decision raises its head atleast once -
Responsibilities or dreams? You or your loved ones? Satisfaction or regret? Happiness or Family?
Choose and once you do - look back not on the path you havent taken, for that will get you no where.

Fuck the rest of the world, you do stuff for yourself. It is your life and it is you who you are answerable to - the rest of the world can use its middle finger to fuck itself.

No matter what you do - every action/inaction/ decision/speech takes you either one step forward or backward - nothing is stangnant - you cannot make it stagnant - ever.

Everyone exists - strive to live.

Whats your movie review?

Of NBA Tours,Bankruptcy Claims and Fevicol thick friends

After the 50th post on the 60th year of Indian Independence,the 51st will be random lines about people whom I call friends.

What happens when the blog world meets the real world?
You get to watch a movie exchange popcorn and make random amusing jokes and oneliners.
Nasia, Bullshee and Arpz happened to meet up for a movie. What with Bullshee cozying up between the two ladies, he got to eat both caramel and cheese popcorn, while hooting at the bald and sexy afro-american lady :P in Rush hour three. (I hope Bullshee doesnt kill me for this).
Good movie, great friends, awesome (and expensive) popcorn makes it a jolly good time together.Nasia looks stunning. Yeah she does, Bullshee as his Fan Association at orkut will endorse this statement, looks sexy *tee hee* So, while we plotted revenge against a particular male and made bitchy comments about another female, we forgot to be awkward on a first time meet. Everytime I meet someone from the virtual world, Im usually awkward the first few minutes, but not with these two darlings here - we hit it from the word GO!

What happens when you know someone inside out that they almost become your alter ego? When you need a brain transplant and the doctors do not know where they can find another brain thats as crazy and fucked up as yours?
Ask them to kill him. For he and I are two bodies and one identity.
He's the most handsome man whose ever walked the earth for me - and I'm err... ahem .... the most friendy-friend who'se walked the earth for him (rather made huge craters in an attempt to walk). We uncannily have gone through the same situations together, have had the same questions to ask, the same girl for a friend, the same emotional 'trauma' to deal with ... he's the one man I can talk scandalously and expect a flat voiced "thats saying something lady"
He, ladies and Gentlemen is my friend from school, whose nose at one point of time I had vowed to break- (remember that graffitti on school walls buddy?), he is someone I call my bhaiyya and at the same time flirt outrageously with. -"tu haan to bol, main kabool bol doon"
He is the man whom I'll ask
"kal teri biwi tereko belan uthake maaregi to woh bhi kya tu mereko batayega?"
and he'll answer
"abe! aur nahin to kya? aur kisko bataonga be? tereko hi phone karoonga"
He is the man whom Ive driven to bankruptcy with my Smses that read
call now / can you call now / I need to talk / im damn suicidal, call me/ watcha doin
and he'll call and I'll wallow in his affection until his balance runs out.
his moments of enlightenment that he shares with me, the questions to which he doesnt have answers, but attempts to answer them for me, his voice that says
"ek baar try maar liya, dont try funny stuff again, I need you here lady"
and his To-Do List which Ive handed over to him
"1.walk down to Newyork, stand in front of a certain building and scream out - "aarree agar maa ka doodh piya hain to baahar aa kameeni!" and duel her
2.Take a flight to a certain city in India and stand in a locality and scream - "abe! agar tere bachon ko tune doosh pilaya hain to baahar aa kalmoohi" and make her cry
3.Take yet another flight to another city in India and barge into someone's house, and scream loudly - (anything this time) - the guy will meet his end by hearing a high decible noise."
His habit of pointing out the obvious answers, his way of putting things into perspective.
Allah Talah! Boy! Am I glad I did not break his nose back then at school! :)

What do you do when you realise that you need a man with similar PJQ( Poor joke quotient)? What do you do when you need a practical head on your shoulders? What do you do when you need the no nonsense behaviour of a man and an "I empathise" bitchy gossip of a woman?

You meet this man. This man, according to me, is the most eligible bachelor in the scene yet.
(Everytime I say this statement to my mom, she looks at me with expectant eyes - always wanting to hear this statement immediately after former - "and Im in love with him" )
But seriously, in all seriousness, I say this - he IS the most eligible bachelor in the scene right now. He maybe no Prince Harry or Now married, Now available Brad Pitt, but he aint anyless. The IQ, EQ and the impeccable table manners make a lethal combination, along with his salary (my eyes go - $ $) and his irresistible sense of humor and his affinity to PJs - he's the man. And, he reserves his humility and uses it at places where required with such finesse that humility becomes something through which he shows his flamboyancy
He's also the eternal mood-raiser, the ever-ready to help friend, the Quizzical genius ( only after me though :P)
Okay - why am I sounding like a matrimonial advertisement for him now?
To cut the long story short, here's one shoulder I can always count on, and one brain what will have a PJ and a Quiz question ever- ready for me. Not to mention the open invitation of Vodka and Peach Schannps :)

What do you do when you feel that one mom isnt enough, and you arent getting crushed enough by the embraces of your family?
You decide to make friends with C.
C whose infamous babu was potrayed in the earlier post ... the most motherly friend Ive ever known, always burying the hapless victim in her bosom, stroking the hair - thereby effectively destroying any attempt to have a good hairdo, dropping her salty tears on a brand new salwar-kurta so that the salt stains remain on the dress like a faded dropping of a crow on your shoulder, doing all the crying for the person in question, that the person forgets her own sorrow and spends time nursing C's emotions back to health.
C, my friend C - what would I have done without you if I had not apologised for my boorish behaviour back then some 4 years ago?

And then, what do you do when you want a family other than your own to treat you as one of thier own?
You become best friends with her. Another C, not to be confused with the C above ... is one of the most lovely, lovable, beautiful and the most wonderful human beings Ive ever had the luck to befriend.
To say that I know her inside out, would be the understatement of the year. She was my mischief partner, now is my confidante, she has the hots for the people I like, we used to spend
time bitching about girls at class, now we spend time bitching about imaginary/long lost/ undeserving scoundrel boyfriends, and equally bad peers and bosses at office.
when you have known someone from the 3rd grade - kept in touch through thick and thin of your life, there isnt much that the other doesnt know. Fancy castles, make believe worlds, guys and growing up dreams, reality and heartbreaks everything is shared and held precious by the other.

Friends, I guess are the people who make the wonderland real for you, else Alice would have had to lead a mundane existence in a bleak world.

Tags, Guest Posts, Scribblings

Ladies and Gentlemen ( okay - the not-so-gentle-men included as well) .
Kindly take your seats while Just So hands out the agenda for the day
*ahem - clears throat*
The agenda for the post is - as the name suggests:
1. Tagged - Driving force - Shekhar
2. Guest Post - Driving Force - Lack of alphabet in the English dictionary ( they give me just 26 alphabets and make me write a post a day? bahut naainsaafi hain melaawwrrddd)
3. Scribblings - courtesy - a room cleaning exercise that took place this weekend....err...we'll get to this when we get to this.

Readers are kindly requested to proceed on their own risk. The blog owner shall not be held responsible for any kind of madness/ insanity / lunacy / temporary memory loss / loss of coherent speech,thinking, writing for a temporary or permanent phase of time which might arise as a result of reading the post below.
Thank you.

You gutsy people who have survived the horrors of the warning, God Be With You. Read on.

Shekhar's tagged me to write 8 weird things about myself.
For people who know me, know that EVERY thing about me is weird. Its impossible to pick just 8 of them ... but tags are tags you see and so you will find 8 weird things about me here
( did I tell you - I missed out reading my own name in his post and sulked because he 'didn't' tag me - which in fact he did , and once I found my self tagged, am doing this tag only after a full week lag? So I was in fact sulking for a tag that was there, but I thought wast there, only to realise that it was there, and then realise that I did not have anything to write about and rave about the tag that Im supposed to do) (i hope the last sentence made sense)

1. I have a habit of launching on "nested stories" - if you write algorithms or codes for a living, you know what Im talking about - a story within a story within a story.
So most of my stories go - ohh, I saw X the other day , he was in Forum, he was with Y. They had been there to watch this movie - oh kya bataon movie ka, the storyline is great, but P's acting is awesome,you know P had an affair with Q ..... ( and X shall be revisted with all nested loops within are done).
- this was an example - I DO NOT KEEP TRACK OF WHO HAD AN AFFAIR WITH WHOM, MUCH LESS WATCH MOVIES AT ALL

2. I consider myself a girl by accident - most of my schoolmates and colleagues will vouch for this.
Chandru - a colleague has this story for my "girl-by-accident" theory as well.
Brahma* had this factory where he created people. One day when he was creating me, his wife called- and when wifey calls, even if your job is to create a universe,you better answer her first. He asked Narada** to oversee the process. He told Narada that the sex part was decided - he just needed to punch the final buttons and fit the brain in. Since it was going to be a boy - a pea brain would suffice. Narada ended up putting in a real good brain. Hence I HAD to be a girl :-|

3. I'm totally scared of heights.
If you want to romance me a la bollywood style, rains and thunderclaps wont help. Just take me to an unfamiliar building and make me peek out through the railings of the 1st floor's balcony. I'll come running into your arms.
There, that makes life easy. You wont have to wait until monsoon to propose to me, all the while hoping that the thunderclap is strong enough to both scare me, and show my rain drenched boobs showing through the flimsy saree and blouse to you just before I come running and hold you tight
~~~~ half an hour later ~~~ the author was in the loo retching her guts out having imagined the scene above - rain drenched and all eughhheeehhhh~~~~~

4. While we are at it, I totally am girly when it comes to going to the loo.
I will always drag Indu to the loo when at office, and some random classmate (female classmate you dirty minds) when at IIM.
I dont know why and what of this issue - but I need someone walking along with me into the loo and out of it. NO. I dont entertain people inside. Just in that space where they have the mirror - "please adjust your makeup while I adjust my bloated stomach".

5. Related stuff again - I hate make up
I told ya - Im a girl by accident. I do apply make up. but the only two things I can claim to know about makeup are 1. lipstick. 2. eyeliner. ( Im assuming talcum powder does not fall under the make up category - since most of it goes onto my armpits.) Talk about concealer, remover, brick, mortar, granite and sandstone - everything shall seem Greek and Latin to me. Like those small talk bubbles which were drawn coming out the natives' mouths when Tintin landed in any new shores.

6. Aah - this is easy I love archies, tintin , richie rich
Doesnt mean I dont read anything else. But I love these comics. More than phantom and the likes actually. Tintin is and will always be my fav. I always got confused about richie rich - "poor little rich kid" what the heck is poor yada yada rich anyways? I so totally would remain in my make believe world of Haddock's cusses, tintin's adventures and richie's richness. ( i still go back to that world when i read these comics) and I so hate the cartoons that these bungling idiots have made out of these beautiful works of art.

7. I love unconditionally.
One of the most weirdest things ever.
I cannot ask you to love me back in return, be it a friend, boyfriend, cousin, brother, any damn one. I will do anything and everything I can, if I love you. Whatever you do will always look good to me if I love you.

8. I totally dig old and sad music
I love all genres of music. But if there is anything I would really really Love to listen to, nothing better than a ghazal, or a Kishore / Rafi singing a sad song. Now, this should not be weird. Only except that I listen to morbid stuff even WHEN IM HAPPY. It gives a kind of content loneliness - the types where you are so yourself, that you dont need the world, that inner bliss. If you know what I mean, well.. err... you know what I mean.

All those who survived it this far, are tagged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Moving on to Part Duex of this post;

I am inviting Guest posts on this blog - basically because the people who shall write here, are the people I love to read. What better place to read them, than to open your blog and read them there?
Rather than me being a visitor to people's blogs, Im inviting you all to my humble abode ... grace me with your kind words dear fellow bloggers.

And what shall thou have to do if you want to write a guest post? Leave a comment here stating your interest -send me a mail to just.keepsakes@gmail.com - so that I can give you an invite to co-author - maybe for a half hour window, you can drop by and post your post here.
Whats the topic? Anything that catches your fancy - nothing scandalous - nothing that links me to either chengis khan or hitler. Or maybe a pic that you would like to see here (a la Pramod)

(PS - Ive already nagged one unsuspecting victim to write a guest post for me - It'll be up in just a few days)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Sunday saw me do something that I dont usually do - clean my room.
So until Sunday, all you saw was a pile of stinking clothes and a swarm of mosquitoes, cockroaches, lizzards and books with barely a place to stand in place of a room, today you can see the floor. Actually the FLOOR OF THE ROOM. My mom walked in and said, please take a snap. Im not sure Im going to see the floor for the next one year. *shessshhhh, moms - shakes head*

So when I decided my old stuff so carefully bundled up should go, basically they served no other purose than to act as hiding places for baby cockroaches to play "I-Spy",I found lots and lots of stuff. I found one answer sheet with tic-tac played on it ( which EXAM WAS THIS? how DID I PASS my exams?) One leaf out of the textbook had scribblings all around the edges about the boys in the class - teeheee ... more like This bugger finishes the sum soon, we must do it before him / That bastard stinks , he gets low marks - dont you talk to him / look at the moron - he's looking this way - he probably thinks we're still doing the tax calculations
Now. Which GIRL at the age of 17 -19 write such repulsive stuff when the professor isnt looking? You got it - a nerd like me, and more nerd friends like me :-|

Ohkaay, I wasnt as nerdy always. I found letters written by my ex. At 18 - " your eyes are beautiful" seems to romantic. At 23 ( lemme write this number - wont be able to, after July) they sound corny. Who the hell has the Ex's " I love you, yet cant be with you" letters a full 3 and a half years after the break up? ( oh add - and did not realise it was around in the attic somewhere to that question) - yup - you got it - A DORK.
:-( those words pretty much surmise my life - NERD and DORK.
I added 3 more crates to the existing set of crates of books up in the attic. cool huh?

I also found crumpled papers with random lines I call "poetry" scribbled on them, which I subject you to read.

Woh paas nahin, majboor hain dil
hum aas lagaye baithe hain
har raat ulajhte kaanton se
daaman bachaye baithe hain

Last but not the least - A post coming up on greeting cards and pens - inspired by the ROOM CLEANING EXERCISE. :D

*- Brahma - The Creator of the universe as per the Hindu Mythology
** -Narada - The manasa putra (thought child ??? err .. yeah thats it) of brahma - also a great sage.

And if you have managed to read through until here, you deserve a treat. Lets go out and Yenjaaooyy I say!! Or if you are so far away that you cant come, mail me and I shall send you a cute li'l greeting card :D


PS - those who dont have a blogger id for the guest post - mail the post to me, I shall post it up and credit it to you

Kyon

[ Lalit's editorial skills and some seriously good insights helped make a few random lines a good poem. Thanks for bearing with my incorrect Hindi and random scrawlings and making it a nice readable poem :) ]

khaali dil pe saji sooni khaamoshi hain
khokle waadon se bane lambe raaste hain
laashein bichi hain,
ghav ubharkar naasor bane hain,
jo kahin se teri yaad aayi to
jalti raet main baarish, si kyon hain

aahon ne aawaz di hain
siskiyan karwat badalti hain raat bhar
raat ki maili chaadar ye kahti hain
koi waada ya umeed to nahin
phir bhi aaj dil ko mere
tera hi intezaar sa kyon hain

soone dagar pe ek adhmare ped ki shaaq hain
toote kuch thahake hain, murjhaye kuch lamhe hain
na zindagi ki shor hain yahaan, na maut ki koi aahat
phir bhi ped ki ek hari shaakh pe...
aaj bhi bahar si kyun hain

duniya ki mehfil main,
ruswa hokar meri mohobbat khadi hain
aaoge kabhi tum yahaan,
is baat ka yakeen to nahin
phir bhi teri ek nazar ke liye
ye dil bekaraar sa kyon hain

Miss You

Its like that lump in your throat you cant gulp down; its like that itch on your back you cant reach; its like that uncomfortable underwear that you cant adjust in a meeting; its like that house fly buzzing around in your ear during a power cut.

It is the feeling that you miss someone.
A someone you can no longer call. A someone who would never have thought twice about abandoning his/her life to attend to that tiny rupture on ur index finger which you inadvertently stapled along with those sheaf of papers you held.

It is a void that you try and fill up with hollow words like " life goes on " and " im strong" and " past is past" and " it doesnt matter".
More the words, bigger the void.

It is a tear drop that blurs your vision but refuses to fall off the eye. It is that irritating pain in the chest that threatens to burn up your rib cage.

It is love and it is longing.

I proclaim so much unashamedly I miss people. I just wish, one of them, atleast one of them was around now.
A friend once advised, dont look back , in the process of missing the past , you are ignoring the present, which someday you will miss, for today will be your past someday.
How true. I try and live in the present, and get a jolt when I find no one who would one day miss me, the way I miss someone.

Okay - I need a tight hug now.
Only handsome males in the age range of 25-35 need apply for this.
No cyber-hugs are entertained a hug spelled out and enclosed within 2 stars doesnt quite give the effect.
Actually, forget it ... I dont need a hug. I just need time with the people I miss; and sometimes, I miss myself the most.

Poetic Influences

Happened to click a random link on Shekhar's blog ( I love reading this man's blog - more than anyone elses. Other than him being good at writing and other blah - the most important factor that leads me back to his blog is the element of genuinity and truth in it. The humble pride in it, which makes even a sentence like " I woke up at 6 AM" so true and touching.)
Aah, anyways, I happened to reach here. My first impulse was to write a comment about how much I love the poem too; as I was writing the first few words, poems just came gushing through the mind... and this post is born.

I absolutely love the The mind is without fear that Shekhar's put up there;
I have a print out of Rudyard Kipling's IF which forever eggs me on, to lead a life not of judgement and bias, but of harmony with oneself. I always relate this to the Gita and wonder if there really is a connection - if Kipling knew of the Gita when he wrote this.

You can safely estimate that Ive read this poem atleast a couple of couple hundred times already and everytime, it never ceases to amaze me, the amount of strength you can derive from a few lines.

Robert Frosts poem Mending wall on relationships always makes me stop and think - the line in which Frost says

What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall

never stops fascinating me, always making me think with a myraid of emotions, the walls I have around me, and the walls people have around them - all to protect that small tiny thing lurking in the ribcage.

When he writes The Road Not Taken , He writes for each one of us, the inner need to take the road not taken and chart our own foot prints there in that untrodden path.

Another of Rabindranath Tagore's ( sorry Shekhar - I aint a Bengali) poems that made me wonder as a child was this Prayer... as the years have gone by, this poem has accquired many many shades to it in my understanding.
Funny how words like 'penury' can develop in understanding as you see life go by.
and Funny, how sentences like
"And give me the strength to surrender my strength to Thy will with Love"
can become the basic mantra you live by.

In fact Tagore's Geetanjali, in itself is a spiritual text that appeals to the mind, heart and soul ... moves the reader from sympathy to empathy, from inaction to action and/or action to inaction; worldly to Godly.

How can I leave out Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening when on a topic like poetry? So many times, in life have I wanted to stand and watch the flowers, and the poem has urged me on - miles to go before I sleep

Poetry for its sheer beauty has always entrances the audience. Romance* holds the unsuspecting reader in sway; emotions and the subtlites of the human heart always never ceases to attract - drawing the reader in the imagination which blurs literature and reality, material and the spiritual.

Little surprise then, when I say Lord Tennyson's The Brook made me yearn for the freedom and the permanence that the brook enjoys.

Shelly's Ode to the West Wind is another strong contender in being adequately dark and alluring.

William Wordsworth conjures up such beauty and romance in his words that it is so impossible to write about poetry and not about him; his words transport to an alternate realm of nature, beauty and romance ... be it The Solitary Reaper which all CBSE kids have read at school or his other poems such as I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

Nearer home again, we've had such a bounty of Indian poets , writers and playwrights, that I could list out the names until sundown and yet have an incomplete listgreats such as Sarojini Naidu, Subramanya Bharati, Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Gulzar, Amrita Pritam, Mirabai, Kabir, Tulasidas, Kamala Das, C. RajaGopalachari .. oh, the list is unending.

Poetry, is one form of communication, which appeals to the soul, rather than to the senses. That feeling of goosebumps one gets while reading a poem is because the writer's soul plunges within the readers and touches the spiritual cords that make up the inner most cords of man.

Poetry, which forms the base for music - is a form of bhakti, karma and jnana - a way to meet the Supreme - who in fact lurks within each of us - gaana seva - as it is called in the Indiann tradition - is a way to travel inward, and in the journey, re-discover ourselves in a totally new light.

* - Romance - not the bollywood boy runs across the fields of punjab with a silly feather stuck on his head to please a dark skinned girl dressed in a very silly white outfit.
If you have reached until here, I guess you have a fair idea as to the usage of the word.

Broken

A new song I heard by Radiohead - its named Planet Telex ( correct me if Im wrong though)

You can force it but it will not come
You can taste it but it will not form
You can crush it but it's always here
You can crush it but it's always near
Chasing you home saying
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken

You can force it but it will stay stung
You can crush it as dry as a bone
You can walk it home straight from school
You can kiss it, you can break all the rules
But still...
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken

Everyone is, everyone is broken
Everyone is, everything is broken

Why can't you forget?
Why can't you forget?
Why can't you forget?

Thanks Tapan for this awesomely beautiful song :)

Mug Shot

My superman ( chaddi over pants) Pramod clicked this pic up close

Location - Ranganathitu

Photographer - Pramod

Looks like a Nat Geo shot to me..... Seems like Pramod comes up with yet another ace up his sleeve :-)

( Pramod you better give a nice comment on this one dude :D)