My heart goes mmm mmm mmm

While we are striving hard for making the life simple to simpler with new technologies, why is that the inside of us is getting more and more complex day by day. With so many differences created between ourselves, so many limitations set for oneself, so many rules made to follow, so many codes of conduct to be kept in mind, we are going far from making things simple for us. A clash between the inner self and the outer world!!

I want to follow my heart and I will.
With no other rule than to do what I want.
With no other difference than categorizing what I want and what I don’t.
With no limitations except to harm another soul.

A Tribute...

The dirty white jacket; the faded jeans; the V-neck dark green full sleeves t-shirt; the unpolished, brown leather shoes; the black socks; the wavy, unkempt hair; the randomly cut finger-nails; the sharp features of his face; the lanky figure; they all adorned his beautifully sculpted body.

The purity in his smile, the innocence on his face, the carelessness in his eyes, the restlessness in his expressions adorned his soul.

Those long fingers had a ‘beedi’ between them, which frequently touched his thin lips, giving him a look, which the millionaires strive for with a cigar between their fingers. He looked like a model of some over-priced jeans. The frequently changing postures of how he sat supported my supposition. His teeth being a bit longer than normal shone like pearls when he laughed at some silly joke. The latest N-Series from Nokia looked like something unwanted when the simple gray and black 2300 came out of his pocket to caress his elf-like ears.

Oops!! I suddenly realized i was staring at somebody intensely.

By The Way,

He was the helper to bus conductor of route 319. I thoroughly enjoyed the half an hour journey from Vinod Nagar to Noida. I adored such beauty with a longing in my eyes. This is all I can give him. A blog in my blogspot [apart from the attention he got, which he is still unaware of ;)].

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

My friends are those little pearls which when stringed together and put [rather ‘felt’] around make the most beautiful necklace and in turn make me look beautiful. They fill my otherwise bland life with vigor inspiration and joy. My world has very less of those riches scattered here and there but they are no less than all the riches in this world put together. Why do I aspire to be a millionaire?? I am already one!!

HIM...

We grew up together. He was a constant companion. Making me laugh, cry, love, hate…creating every kind of emotion in me.
Always a funny guy for those who knew him closely… a serious guy for acquaintances …an ideal for youngsters.

Incidents, giving instances of his funny character, form an unending list. I remember, he had beaten me up just because I’d won the chess match against him for the first time. That was my last chess match ever. Another interesting event is when our housemaid was unwell. He had volunteered to bring her the medicine. He came back holding a tablet and a glass of water. She took it and felt instant relief, only to find out later that the tablet was nothing but solidified phlegm. He has filled my childhood memories with disgusting but definitely funny events.

But with due course, I also learnt that, within this guy is a boy hidden who cares for others very much. One incident to instantiate this would be when he was beaten up protecting his friend from some drunken men who were relentlessly beating up his friend for no reason. Doing it at a very tender age showed his courage as well as dedication for his friends. I vividly remember that day when he had returned home with a pair of swollen and blackened eyes unable to open them properly.

He has been a source of inspiration from the time I started using my senses.
If summarized about his character, like others he has also passed through [in fact, may be passing through] different phases of life but has always managed to emerge above the crowd making his identity clearer.

The loner, the funny guy, the handsome, the caring one, the encouraging one, helpful… …the list goes on, but surprisingly, I am yet to find a single word to fit it in this list, which describes him negatively.

Life is taking us in different directions. Although, the root is same, we are past that phase when we can turn back and spend a few good days together. Competing and struggling with this ruthless world, we’ve grown so much apart. But I hold a special place for him in my heart, which is filled with admiration, respect, love and trust which no-one can ever take...except HIM.

Special thanks to :

• Zubin Nayak, for being my source of inspiration.
• Rajat Toshniwal [awesome surname], for encouraging me to write a blog.
• Bhagyashree Wattal, who, i am sure, will enjoy each word thoroughly.
• Mrs. Purnima Pradhan [mom] and Mr. K.C.Nayak [dad], for bringing him into existence.
• All of them who enjoyed this blog.

Conflicts Within

One half a loner, the other, a gregarious one…one part shy, the other showy…a messy one as well as an organized one…too ambitious, too lazy…careless but careful…possessive and magnanimous…impulse driven but planned actions…colorful but white [no color]…forgiving in a way of taking revenge…noisy silence…moody but no mood…prejudiced because unbiased...atheist but God fearing…supportive but back-biter…accolades as opprobrium…stagnant but ever flowing…green forest but concrete jungle…chained for freedom…limited within the limitless…suffocating because too open…cognoscente but ignorant…man of principles because no principles to follow…STANDING ON EARTH BUT DREAMING OF SKY.

Meri kahani..Meri zubani..

[funny title..isn't it!!..hehehe]

Many miles away, after crossing many political borders, there comes a piece of land, which I call mine. I am not talking about a piece of land that I own, but about a land that owns me: My Country.

With my eyes filled with limitless dreams, I’d set out from there, promising that I would come back. Come back to make it a better place, to help my people, to prove my citizenship..

But after arriving here, it seemed a distant dream to return back to my parents, my people, and my country.

I was forced to believe that I was in a dreamland where everything was just so perfect, so possible. But, little did I think about my parents for whom I was the only supporting stick of their old age.

Time has flown by; it is now forty years since I stepped on this land for the first time. Never had I a moment to notice the pace of my life. I found a good job, a beautiful wife, produced cute children and had everything a man could think of..except my parents, who were yearning to see me. But that never mattered so much as to produce a desire in me to visit them. And i ticked on with time; never to be left behind by the world; never to turn back and see what i have left behind.

But now, as I near my deathbed, I long to see my country and my people [my parents died long ago]. Old age changes the way u see the world. The ardor to prove myself had died out with age. I have this continuously growing feeling that I should visit my country and I should be buried there, within its heart so that my heart is at peace. Now, I probably do understand what my parents might have felt when they could not see me before they died. I can feel the gravity of all this now because if I return to my country my children wouldn’t accompany me and then I would be left alone to die; like my parents were left alone. 'Abandoned': this is what they must have felt. "Orphaned" by their own child.

A continuous process, Life, has been a good friend, cohort, teacher, and helper to me through-out. I am learning things now, which I should have learnt many years ago. People who devoted their life to make mine a better one never got a chance to see the results of their effort. And I guess I would also be excluded from seeing my children's life processes. The cycle continues..

It took me 65 years to fully understand the sentence my mother had taught me when i was a kid,"What goes around comes around."

The unavoidable feeling...

..finally, winter has arrived in delhi..not in a full-fledged form but as an infant..
as u go out in the evening..u can actually smell romance/mischief in the air..depends on ur mood..
the milieu is bound to make u feel a bit lonely without your friends or ur partner...
missing everybody i know AND[.] i am far away from..

One more of abstruseness

[It is about that special kind of feeling, which we experience at least once in our lifetime]

“Pure love is sacrifice”.
This is probably the most popular definition of love among others. [Hold on!!! I don’t know about other places, but in India ‘tis quite popular and accepted]. But my mind asks WHY!!!

Virtues and vices equally contribute to this term called love.
Hmmm…virtues…they include trust or faith, determination, SACRIFICE, altruism [for some cases] etc.
Vices are ..Lack of abstinence or we say, gluttony [again, for some cases], envy & how can we forget LUST.

Then why only virtues are to be seen?? Seen a person who has only felt the goody-goody things and never the bad things?? Or why go on others experiences. Can u count on yourself who has only the virtues when it comes to love??

I fail to understand what exactly is love.

Attraction?? I am sure all of us are convinced that this term is NOT love

Longing?? Nope.. longing is longing..right guys!! This is not love.

Faith?? Faith on what?? Yourself?? Or her/him?? Or on the hope that u both will unite someday!

Sacrifice?? “Kuch paane ke liye kuch khona padta hai”. So you’ve been following this??

Lust?? From our childhood we have been given examples that it is not a part of love. But it is; fortunately or unfortunately, only a part.

Is it a mixture of all the above terms?? I guess it is.
And I am sure, for many of us, there are still some important words left out in the above mixture.
And only one term can never define love. Just like if we take only heart or only head, we can never make a living thing out of it..

I really don’t know why I had started this blog and why am I ending up somewhere else.

S.N [abbreviated from Special Note] : this blog is in response to “Kameeni, bas orkutiyao..blog mat likh” by Bhagyashree Wattal.

The Difference...

there may be innumerable differences to find out, but, to me, the most prominent one was....

when u board a bus in mumbai[the economic capital of our country], the sentence which u'll hear the most of the time is 'pudhe chala' meaning 'move ahead'.

but when u board a bus in delhi, the word which is spoken the maximum number of times is 'rokke' [pronounced as 'rok-kay'] in a very strong 'jaat' hindi accent by the conductor indicating the driver to stop the bus..[which also reveals another difference that unlike delhi bombay is so very systematic in all its operations].....

Romance with Delhiites

This evening when I set off from my residence, I didn’t know that I would be enacting this blog in the stage called world!!

As I started from my house, to cross the road to reach to the nearest market place to my house, I saw two of my neighbor aunties walking rapidly (of course, as expected, lips moving faster than legs), taking their usual evening walks with a hope that someday they would shed at least quarter a kilo of their excess fat.

My mom and me had agreed to meet at the market place to buy some household stuff. She was to reach there after her office and I had to go from the house directly.

As I hurried down the road, so did the vehicles, making it almost impossible for me to cross it.I crossed the first one pretty easily. And today, I was determined to cross the second one (the busier one) in my very first attempt. I saw four-wheelers and two-wheelers flying by, with the speed of light. No one ready to compromise. I waited for a few seconds. The traffic reduced a bit. The number of vehicles went down to 4-5 cars and 3-4 motorcycles on the road which I was to cross. With my hopes high, I started to cross but as usual got stuck in middle. Standing in the middle of the road, I wondered whether I would ever cross the road or would have to go back and try crossing from some other point. Well!! I am not exaggerating; I was standing at a junction of the two busiest roads of Patparganj. In the middle of all this confusion, I saw something that made my heart beat at a rate double than normal. It was a Blue Line Pvt. Ltd. bus. Well, these buses have been in news recently for killing people by hitting or crushing them. Thanks to all the news channels. They keep us informed about everything- the necessary as well as the unnecessary. As I saw the bus, I decided to cross the other half of the road quickly or I would die standing. Thus I crossed the road. All thanks to the bus that helped in my decision.

I didn’t know the same bus had carried my mom from her office. I saw her getting down from the bus. As I went nearer, she said,”Oh! That was you”. To this I asked what she was talking about. She said that the conductor of the bus was staring at some girl so intently that even if the bus passed by her, his head was turned and his eyes fixed on her. To this I couldn’t help but laugh at least for 2 whole minutes. I was also thankful that my mom didn’t fuss about it

We went to the market; my mom bought a shelf made of wrought iron. The shopkeeper said it was of 110 rupees. I decided to try my luck in bargaining the stuff. I handed him a 100 rupee note and said that the thing is not worth more that 100 rupees; in fact it should be sold at a lower price (as if I’ve done a PhD on pricing). After some bickering moments, when I had lost the battle, I asked my mom to give him ten rupees more. I could not stand my defeat and I asked him to give me a bill for it. [In the afternoon, I had seen the film Nayak where Anil Kapoor was made a one-day chief minister. He has said that whenever you buy a thing, ask for the bill otherwise all the money goes to the shopkeeper.] He tried to scare me by saying that I would have to pay 12% extra. I said I am ready to pay it. And suddenly he looked a bit scared. He said they don’t give bills for such items. And that he has forgotten his receipt book at house. I lost my temper and started swearing in front of everybody. To that, my mom got mad at me. So we had to leave the place and return home.

But I loved the evening; a bit of adventure and a bit of fun to make the evening memorable.

[aug 22 07]

On a Serious Note...

…she is very fond of beauty; beautiful people, beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, beautiful body, beautiful features and everything associated to the word ‘beauty’.

I still don’t know what attracted me to her, or rather, what attracted her to me. But we both reacted to the situation, just didn’t let it pass by silently.

Ah! Those days of pure bliss, when the world would look full of colors. But more colorful was the way we looked at the world [mind you! There is a difference]. It was as if we had worn some rose colored glasses.

Moments that still crowd my mind are those brief yet invaluable moments, which then passed in a jiffy, but now, will take ages to desert my thoughts. Moments when we would call each other up before sleeping just to say a mere goodnight, waiting for each other to make the first move for holding hands, etc.. Those random gifts, surprise visits, jealousy, possessiveness are some things that won’t leave my memory in this lifetime.

But gone are those days long back. I am still confused about who is to be blamed for this. God or mankind or her or ME!!! Or Ego!! A three lettered small word having so much potency that it tore apart two loving souls.

I have put back all the pieces of my heart to place, but the patches are still visible and they often ache.
That often to make me hate people who live their life in pretention….

[aug 14 2007]

A Piece of Shit

Earlier, in the late teens, when a student, we(me and my friends) had to study endless lists of theorems or already proven hypothesis or some theory discovered by some mad(at least I used to think they are mad to do all this work) scientist. Then, we used to spend a considerable time each day cursing those poor souls who had taken the pains to present the undiscovered knowledge to this human race.

While studying at 2-3 am for the next day exam( or rather for the exam which would start in approx. 6 hrs), we would never forget to use our favorite line, "khud to mar gaye lekin peechhe chhod gaye hamari life hell banane ke liye" [converts to 'they died but left behind their stuff to make our life hell.'] which we thought was a very witty comment on those who had created or discovered some theory which we had to study unwillingly.

One day, in the physics lecture, during that period, our physics teacher said, ”Imagine studying the whole thing again where there are no proved theorems, no discovered theories, where each batch of the college has to start anew from the starting of origin or starting of mankind because if u stick to this theory of not studying pre invented/discovered theories, u would be unwilling to accept even those things discovered by your previous batch, so u will only study what u invent or discover."
I got very happy, but a bit confused, wondering what would happen if this turned into reality. But my thoughts were interrupted by her next sentence, “These pre invented/discovered things are presented to you so that you continue from here, this point onwards, not from the starting of mankind, so that you add your contribution to this point [in time] and take the humankind to the next level on the ladder of technology, of perfection.
My premature brain wasn’t smart enough to understand every word of the sentence. That day passed like a normal day used to pass then. So many things to fit in the tiny head that everything slipped out. Oops!!

Like sometimes, a sudden breeze touches you, today, the thought of what my physics teacher had said suddenly flashed in my mind. I am sitting here in Bhubaneshwar, suffering from the frequent power cuts that actually make your life hell. This one instance in my life makes me understand what my physics teacher had said that day. I shudder at the thought of inventing electricity and using it in one lifetime. It would take me at least a lifetime to get my concepts right to invent electricity.

I now thank all of them who have taken the pains to invent, and discover, even the tiniest of a thing. Hats off to all of them!!

But somebody has said, “Never judge a man 'til you've walked a mile in his shoes”. As a student I know how it feels to be burdened by those endless lists of theorems.

I have learned to accept the two facets of life where one criticizes as well as loves a thing at the same time. I love you life. The best Teacher!!

[aug 01 2007]