Sunday, August 31, 2008

H2O from the sky

My smile turned into a frown as I opened the door. All this time when I was in safe confines of four walls, it had decided to take a nap and now when I was ready to go, it had woken up from the slumber. I cried out aloud, " Why does it have to rain?". Even a first standard student can write a one page answer on it. And one such first standard kid was standing rite next to me: my nephew. Thank god he didn't start with that answer. But rather asked me innocently, "Don't u like rain?I just love it."

I just looked at him. His awe at this natural phenomenon clearly reflected in his eyes. Even I had loved rain years ago, just like him....going through the puddles that got created thanks to our poor roads. Yes, I surely had loved rain. So when did I really start to hate it. Was it when I got the scolding for spoiling the school socks and shoes for (of course).....wading through the water. No it was not then. Next time I was careful not do it in front of my watchful parents..... Then it must have been when my not-so waterproof bag got wet, and the notebooks having my writing in Ink for the first time got washed away. Yes, I did feel bad for it. But it was surely not then.....Oh, then it must have been when I missed the school picnic because of falling sick coz of getting wet in rain the previous day. May be it was then......or was it when I got late for my college exams coz of it. I don' know. But I remember cursing it when my new dress got spoiled on my way to office, due to - You know who.

I looked at my nephew again. Surely love it while you can. Coz I know u'll reach my stage when you don't know whether you like it or not. Suddenly I heard my aunt behind me, "What r u cribbing about? You r wearing a jacket and have an umbrella. Why shudn't it rain? Our lakes and reserviors need to fill....Else we wud have water cuts....What about poor farmers...." - The one page answer I talked about had begun.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

To be or not to be

'Genius is always uncertain'.....This was actually a status msg of one my friends.Don't know where he picked that from or was it his own creation.Irony is that I stumbled upon it when I was in two minds about some trivial issue. Doesn' t that happen too often? It isn't something that would have a huge impact on r life or work or actually even the next day or hour itself. But still we spend so much time taking the decision regarding it. But reading that quote suddenly made me feel better. Well.....I have no misconceptions of me being a Genius or converse of the quote being true, but i think what relieved me was just an assurance that its not just me but even the genius who can be uncertain.

Hardly had I sunk into this relief when i realised something else; I was being taken in by just 'some' quote. I don't know who wrote it or what the context of the quote was, and here was I getting carried away by it. May be it was just a passing thought of a frustated person caught in an uncertain situation like me. Or may be it was a defence mechanism of an eternally confused person who unlike me had misconception of being a Genius. So i decided to examine each and every genius I knew mentally. But the problem is I find most of the people so sure of the decisions that they are taking irrespective of the whether they are a genius or not. Well, may be it is just that they seem very sure just like I may to some others. But its only I myself (and now whoever will read this blog) who am aware of the foolish battles going on in the mind every now and then.
I suddenly remembered the issue that I had on hand(the one I mentioned at the start). I realised that I was in a dilemna coz I had a choice. If i hadn't had this choice I wud have been peaceful but probably unhappy. Wasn't it the choice that I had always wanted? I took a decision and relaxed.
May be Genius is just the one who sees lots of options or choices for every situation and hence is uncertain. Now I am actually pondering on whether to post this blog or not. Does it hold ne sense or not?Questions galore....But b4 I can have an argument with myself I see the name of my blog page: 'Be what u want to be."
So here it is....

Friday, June 20, 2008

BLANK

Am posting after a really long time. Actually I had almost written a blog but finally didn't post it for the reasons I know best. Generally when I start to write I at least have something in my mind, some idea or some thought which I feel strongly about. Something that has been troubling me over days(Reading this you may feel that I have written dozens of entries ; actually the no. is just 4 ; reminds me of those run of the mill English Boy Bands, who bring out a "Best Of" version just after their two albums ;)

But this time there isn't anything in particular. Doesn't that happen sometimes? We talk even when we have nothing to say, or sleep even when we are not sleepy. Same is the case here. I just want a flow of words. Words,which are not there even in my mind. Its like giving a channel to all your thoughts. And seriously my typing speed is proving to be much lesser. Even before I type whats there in my mind, a new thought ( as useless as the previous one ) has cropped up. Thats why such a self-deprecatory comparison with Boy Bands.
This I define as 'Pure Intuitive Writing'. Many people , specially great authors may have had this. You must have heard of poems written at the 'spur of the moment'. But of course comment on my rendition is best left unsaid.

Now my mind has stopped....Naaah.....Not possible. It never does. Even when it goes blank, it keeps reiterating to itself,"Why have I gone blank? Why do I always go blank?...." You feel it has gone blank coz it is not moving in the direction you want it to go to.

So my mind has also not really gone blank.....I just have more important things to do

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Generally the title comes to me while writing the first line itself, but this time as I didn't know where the blog was going , I didn't know what to name it. There are just so many irrelevant and probably incoherent things in this blog, so I want to keep it nameless. But of course I will have to check whether Blogspot allows me that....I hope it does....Or else I think I will name it as I wanted it to be....."BLANK"

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Mystic Magic

I am a big Harry Potter fan. But don't worry this blog is not about him. I guess too much of the real and virtual space has already been devoted(or wasted) on him for me to add nething more to it. Well...the inspiration for this blog comes from the recent news about the actor Mohanlal venturing into the world of magic. But this blog is not about him either. That news actually transported me back to the first magic show that I ever saw but which I don't remember, at least , not that vividly. But right through the junior school we used to have one puppet show and one magic show to look forward to every year.
As far as I can I remember , initially the Magic Show just filled us with awe and amazement . But slowly as we grew older it was more to do with: "I know how u did it"; at least for most of my classmates. But not for me.....simply because "I didn't know how they did it".This is one big confession I would like to make here:"I seriously couldn't understand how the Magic tricks were performed." It used to happen with me so often. Here we were, watching some silly trick ,of the ball coming out of nowhere,etc; I used to wonder how he did it. But then I would hear others saying loudly:"You call this magic?....It was clearly visible that he brought out the ball from under his cloak". When? Where? How come I missed it? And so the story continued at every magic show.
I am sure people like me are ne magician's delight. A person so easily fooled by even the same old trick of cards and coins. But one day I realised something even more profound:"People who say they know how the trick was performed just think they know how it was done." Once at such magic show some trick was performed. I don't remember what the trick was about. But I remember that just after the trick got over I heard the same old muttering around me and saw the bored faces and I knew that I was again the only person fooled. Then surprisingly the magician asked everyone whether ne one knew the secret behind that trick. All hands went up (i knew i was bad; but this bad?). He asked for a few opinions. People starting yelling from all directions. First of all the opinions were all different. That relieved me a little bit. At least there was ambiguity. He listened to them patiently and removed everything that people said he had used to perform the trick. Then he performed the trick again with the same old results. There was silence. I asked my friends for the explanation as if I was on the Magician's side. There was a looooooooooooooong pause before ne one spoke. After some time there were explanations again showing the same defiance but not the same confidence.
Not much has changed since then. I was able to catch up with a magic show last year and I realised that age hadn't wisened me up in this regard.People say magic exploits the limitations of brain using Science and dexterity of hands.Be it Taj Mahal disappearing in front of our eyes or a person staying without food in a caged box for months and coming out alive. It is just an illusion. But lets not get into the "MATRIX" mode. I will save that for some other blog or on the second thoughts, may be not....Too much has been written about it too.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Train of thoughts

She looked out of the glass window trying to see where they were. But the glass window was more keen on reflecting what was inside than performing its primary duty of transparency. So she pressed her face against the window, curled the palms around her face to focus on what was outside.....
It wasn't nething spectacular....Just small hills and trees , farms and villages, as it had been throughout the journey. But now that they were far off from the city even the small villages were becoming rare and this one where the train had stopped also seemed very small. It was probably not even a village. Just a few huts around a farm. In the dark she couldn't make out whether there was a farm or just fallow land. But about 400-500 m away she saw a few huts. She could barely make them out because of the light lit in those houses. Was it an electric bulb or lantern , she thought. How can people stay like this in isolation? What do they do for living? Do the kids go to school? Where do they get water from? Just one look at that small group of huts and this and many more questions raced through her mind.
Then a small jerk and train had started again. She turned her attention inwards and found people getting ready to sleep and some already probably in their dream world. She looked at the watch. Her cellphone showed the time: 20:00. Most people just sleep away their time while travelling, isn't it?

"Ma....the train left", boy said a little disappointedly and then sat down. There was a long silence and then he spoke again,"Ma...would somebody have seen me?"......"I waved to them....last week an Engine Driver waved to Bhima, he told me."
"Eat now......" Came the reply from the other end. Looking at his sad face, she said " We are quite far away and its dark....Otherwise I am sure the Driver would have waved to you too..... but they must have seen the light in our house." Boy spoke as if after thinking hard, "I am going to become an engine driver one day."

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That was an abstract piece that came to mind.Nothing travels faster than our own thoughts and I don't know how my Train of Thoughts stopped at this.
Whenever I travel long distance by train I am always taken aback by the vastness of the world. In our day to day life we are so absorbed in one kind of world that we feel as if nothing exists beyond it. When I see small villages that we come across while travelling, sometimes I can't even relate myself to them. I can't imagine myself in their place. I wonder what kind of dreams they have. Do they have different ambitions? And if yes.....do they get fulfilled.I just hope they do...

Thursday, January 31, 2008

What's the Use.....

I have come across the above phrase so many times in the recent past that I simply felt compelled to write about it. You will come across it when u try to do something not directly connected with your work life or something that is not going to yield anything important in return in the near future.
So u hear it:"Why solve Sudoku?" "Why learn a new language?" "Why draw a Rangoli?Is there a festival?" and ofcourse "Why write a blog?"
Well....here I am talking about some activity in which some finite efforts are involved and not some passive activity like Watching Movie or a Cricket match. Its not just true for some heavy duty task but even for something as simple as going for a walk. Tell someone that you are going for a walk .....immediate response wud be " Why?What for?".People will immediately assume that u have started walking for reducing weight.......But tell someone you are watching a movie .....Response wud be " Which Movie?" No further questions.
Same is true with reading books.....It has become so fashionable to read Non-Fiction books(Specially self help books) that people seem to think that the one reading Fiction has too much time on hand....
People generally say:"Why are u putting so much efforts into it?What's the use".....
Does everything have to have a motive....One of the times when somebody asked me this Question, I gave it a serious thought and finally came up with answer that satisfied me:
"Just for the fun of it".....Do it because it makes u feel happy....Isn't it a strong enough reason to do it......And who decides whether it is not important or not...You never know what thing that you learn becomes useful for you at what point in time....
I don't know how clearly I have put my thoughts but I just wanted to ask these Questions to myself....So I thought why not ask them aloud...There are still many thoughts related to it that I want to write but I think I will keep it for my next blog.....This one has already become too long.....
So hope to continue blogging " Just for fun".....

Friday, January 4, 2008

So what if i can't write well......

There are somethings that you are good at and you enjoy doing;there are others that you are good at but do not enjoy and lastly there are some that you enjoy but are not good at. For me writing belongs to the last category. By writing , i mean stories , poems,etc....Since school days i had harbored this dream that one day i will write a novel(and that it will turn out to be a bestseller,win a prize,etc,etc,etc)....I still vaguely remember the first story that I had written when i was 6 or 7. Only thing i vividly remember about it is that I had killed one of the characters by making her come under a bicycle(coz i found a Truck or bus to be too violent).Poems i left as soon as i began when i realised writing poems was much more than making them rhyme(To say that I was bad at it would be an Understatement). Even later I used to come up with an idea which I used to think was great. After continuing on that thought for some time(max i have written is 5 pages), I used to see the loop holes in it and find everything extremely childish. In short i was bad at creativity.
Then while reading Ruskin Bond stories I realised that you need not have such a great story line with twists and turns .A simple story with empahasis on detailed description also made for an interesting reading. I remember his story called " The Cherry Tree" which just chronicled the growth of a cherry tree from a seed to the fruit bearing stage. But the beauty of the story lay in
the comparison of the growth of the tree and that of the boy who planted it and his relationship with his Grandpa. So i thought of trying out his style of writing. But i am sure that you have guessed by now that I could not accomplish that too.
I had almost given up on Writing when I saw the emergence of Blogs. Suddenly everybody had there own blogs and were writing on any thing and everything under the Sun . After resisting for a long time to become one of them, i joined the gang.
So what if I can't write well........... I can blog