What you wish for is often what you do not truly want. Like I never wanted many things that I was wishing for. I was getting possessive. Possessiveness brings out the evil in you and you slowly forget why you wished it to begin with. You get edgy and you forget how to enjoy life. Every moment passes you by and you live it, physically. Mentally, you are plotting how to posses something that you are very possessive about. I decided, to let it go. Talked with a few sensible people whom I can trust and who are wiser than me. I like to be controlled by someone. Mum always did. I hated her for that but she is the reason why I don't smoke and still have kept my dreams alive. My wife would love it, controlling me. Yeah, I can imagine that. But girl is not everything in your life. Romance doesn't teach you android or complexity of binary search. That was the realization.
Finally watched Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Nice movie, wayward, but nice. I would have slapped my fiance if she'd have dropped in on my bachelor getaway. Living the moment is what I learned. "Kyon hai koi aah dabi, shola jo bhadake, bhadakane do" Indeed.
During a game of raquetball today, I mocked Arjun for I was 4-0 up. He went on to to lead me 9-14. I remembered a lesson that was a part of my Marathi subject in 9th standard. It was a lesson in badminton and the protagonist, Prakash padukone was also in the exact situation against his opponent. He said "I focused on every point and made sure that the shuttle doesn't fall down in my court". I focused and I won. The point is, focus is not such a hard thing to do afterall. And when you focus, you win.
Live life large and grand. You will die someday. Make sure you die content and happy. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Erratic love story
"Let me go, please." she said, weeping.
He rested the gun barrel against her temple. "Why should I?"
"Didn't you love me?" she was now terrified.
"Yup, I did." He said cheerfully. And then pulled the trigger.
*Bam*
He rested the gun barrel against her temple. "Why should I?"
"Didn't you love me?" she was now terrified.
"Yup, I did." He said cheerfully. And then pulled the trigger.
*Bam*
Sunday, July 17, 2011
I dream of me
We all have dreams. Some dream to be an astronaut, some wish to excel in sports while some wish to be scientists. But like an american moves on in a relationship, we move on too. Leaving our dreams behind. When we are kids, we are oblivious to everything around us. We are shaped in a methodical way that the society decides is perfect for us. Perfection in an Indian society usually means being a wealthy doctor or an engineer. Everything else is looked down upon, ridiculed and deemed worthless. And we Indian children do not resist what is laden onto our shoulders. Parents ask us to choose a career path we love and later that path is narrowed down by them to only two obvious, tried-and-tested choices. We go with engineering. Cheap, easy to get into good/decent colleges, easy to pass out, easy to get job. Easy life.
The struggles for an easy life dates back to the day we enter 10th grade. Everything that we enjoyed, the video game, TV remote, comic books are held hostage by our parents. "This is the most important year of your life" they say with a grimace. "This is the most important year of your life" is preached again after two years. After few entrance exams, we are a welcome addition to a politician's engineering college. Finally. Our parents feel proud. They say "My kid is living his dream". But is that his dream? He's too stupid to think too. He has already seen a pretty girl in college. Engineering was his dream after all. After four years we have a tag. Few people enthusiastically put I am finally Er something something as their status. We bask in the glory of our achievement. We feel proud for fulfilling our childhood dream. Jobs are looming over the horizon now and we get one too. Everyone around you is so happy that you forget to ask yourself if you are happy.
Monotonous but mandatory job training starts. We desperately hope to last till the end. We loose track of ourselves. But we don't notice it as our colleagues are no different than us. They too are burdened with the expectations and a false dream that think is theirs. Sitting in the cubicle, the rebel inside us is sentenced to solitary confinement every day. That's why we crave for week-end. To have some time for ourselves, for once have coffee peacefully without any haste of catching the bus to office.
Then we start to wonder if you belong here. If this is what you always wanted. If this was your dream. Answers are always amusing and never firmly affirmative. Some of us remain deluded, some of us really enjoy it while most others get bored. Deluded ones keep working without an iota of resistance. Those who love it, never stop loving it. This is where they belong. Most others always decide to quit next year but decide otherwise every year. More so, when their children are growing up, like father like son is taken a little more seriously and that poor kid is forced to make same mistakes as his ancestors made. He too is made to believe in a dream that his parents believe. And that's a vicious cycle that'll go on and on till 2012.
Long story short, many of us at this very moment are not living their lives their way. Either our dreams are deluded or we don't have dreams at all. If you are bored of what you are doing, this is not what you are supposed to do. Dust the cobwebs off your dream and give an honest try to fulfill it. Then atleast for few moments, you'll live your life.
The struggles for an easy life dates back to the day we enter 10th grade. Everything that we enjoyed, the video game, TV remote, comic books are held hostage by our parents. "This is the most important year of your life" they say with a grimace. "This is the most important year of your life" is preached again after two years. After few entrance exams, we are a welcome addition to a politician's engineering college. Finally. Our parents feel proud. They say "My kid is living his dream". But is that his dream? He's too stupid to think too. He has already seen a pretty girl in college. Engineering was his dream after all. After four years we have a tag. Few people enthusiastically put I am finally Er something something as their status. We bask in the glory of our achievement. We feel proud for fulfilling our childhood dream. Jobs are looming over the horizon now and we get one too. Everyone around you is so happy that you forget to ask yourself if you are happy.
Monotonous but mandatory job training starts. We desperately hope to last till the end. We loose track of ourselves. But we don't notice it as our colleagues are no different than us. They too are burdened with the expectations and a false dream that think is theirs. Sitting in the cubicle, the rebel inside us is sentenced to solitary confinement every day. That's why we crave for week-end. To have some time for ourselves, for once have coffee peacefully without any haste of catching the bus to office.
Then we start to wonder if you belong here. If this is what you always wanted. If this was your dream. Answers are always amusing and never firmly affirmative. Some of us remain deluded, some of us really enjoy it while most others get bored. Deluded ones keep working without an iota of resistance. Those who love it, never stop loving it. This is where they belong. Most others always decide to quit next year but decide otherwise every year. More so, when their children are growing up, like father like son is taken a little more seriously and that poor kid is forced to make same mistakes as his ancestors made. He too is made to believe in a dream that his parents believe. And that's a vicious cycle that'll go on and on till 2012.
Long story short, many of us at this very moment are not living their lives their way. Either our dreams are deluded or we don't have dreams at all. If you are bored of what you are doing, this is not what you are supposed to do. Dust the cobwebs off your dream and give an honest try to fulfill it. Then atleast for few moments, you'll live your life.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Great expectations
We often meet strangers in various walks of our lives. We know not their importance when we chat, eat, laugh or at times, weep together. We take them for granted. So much so that their presence is like a table in kitchen. Often gazed upon, frequently used but rarely appreciated. And the feeling is mutual. For them, you too become something like that. May be too obvious. They too start getting bored. And then they meet new people, start living in a new environment. Newness is exciting. But, we aren't willing to accept that. We are so occupied with 'proving' our importance to people that they raise their eyebrows and often get frustrated with our attempts to grab their attention. This, in my opinion, strangles any relation. People are important. Both parties should know that. None can perfectly replace the old and older ones can't always match the freshness of the new. But yet they try, and fail only to feel more miserable.
The problem is we expect a lot. From people, from god, from ourselves, from nature and from everything that we think should behave in a precise way as we wish. We have a bubble of perfect life that we keep pumping our expectations into. We don't like when things don't go our way and that brings distress. Then we dwell on what could have been. But what could have been was only the projection of what we wished to happen. Often so, what we wish is far from reality. So we imagined something and expected it to happen the way we imagined. More like Phase 1: Imagine, phase 2: ?, Phase 3: Success. The reason for disappointment is lack of a definitive phase 2. Phase 2 can be getting real.
We also lack patience. The driver who's car is stuck, impatiently tries everything to make it run. Others in line honk their horn as every second is important. Sarcastically saying. Everyone puts their priorities at the top and again expect others to give an inch. The problem is everyone in line is doing the same. Expecting and getting impatient when the expectations are not met. Getting distressed. Their children or wife or pet might get a stick when they reach home.
So, spare the frustrations and toss a few expectations in the dustbin. Just saying. I can't expect you to do it, can I?
The problem is we expect a lot. From people, from god, from ourselves, from nature and from everything that we think should behave in a precise way as we wish. We have a bubble of perfect life that we keep pumping our expectations into. We don't like when things don't go our way and that brings distress. Then we dwell on what could have been. But what could have been was only the projection of what we wished to happen. Often so, what we wish is far from reality. So we imagined something and expected it to happen the way we imagined. More like Phase 1: Imagine, phase 2: ?, Phase 3: Success. The reason for disappointment is lack of a definitive phase 2. Phase 2 can be getting real.
We also lack patience. The driver who's car is stuck, impatiently tries everything to make it run. Others in line honk their horn as every second is important. Sarcastically saying. Everyone puts their priorities at the top and again expect others to give an inch. The problem is everyone in line is doing the same. Expecting and getting impatient when the expectations are not met. Getting distressed. Their children or wife or pet might get a stick when they reach home.
So, spare the frustrations and toss a few expectations in the dustbin. Just saying. I can't expect you to do it, can I?
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Social animals
I glanced up after scoring a goal in FIFA11 to see what the professor was teaching. I also glanced around and saw everyone on a blue screen of Facebook. (Yeah, that's catchy because we have a terminology in computers, Blue screen of death). And I thought why do we want to socialize after-all? Everyone was hypnotized, giggling to themselves as they liked it. Some were just browsing around, visiting profiles, stopping occasionally at the ones that had a picture of a pretty looking girl and delving a little deeper if privacy settings allowed so. That was funny. We are social animals and we love society. Or rather I should say, we love attention of the society and yes, social networking had a massive shift in it's paradigm. It's no more a platform to catch up with people who are geographically separated. Instead, it's a platform to show how cool you are. Yes, deny as hard as you can, but you are no different.
A boy, who in real-life strolls around as a macho-man who fears no one, goes home and likes the album "Cutest bunnies" that his love interest / interest has put up. And he finds that he isn't the only one. Infact he's number 21st to like it and 37th to put a comment "wow they are really sweet". Really? Really they are sweet? And then there are people who like to show they are carefree. I happened to follow few people on twitter and all they could tweet were abuses. Everyone's profile description had very selective yet similar high profile english words like enigmatic, eccentric, overly ambitious. Their tweets, however, said otherwise. Very few of them post something that made sense. Others, reek profanity. Indian youth. I can't blame others. I am no different. I too had my moments of social stupidity when I did what others would like and not what I wished. But yes, a few days break gets you closer to yourself. Sometimes, the best way to socialize is to not socialize at all.
We have become too obvious to each other virtually that we have forgotten how special we are to each other in reality. When you call someone, there is no element of surprise as their life is an open (face)book. You can't talk about what you know through and through can you? You make plans to hang out, but aren't you cautious about doing things that'll sound cool when made public? "Just ate with my friends and drank too. Now driving home, drunk. :P (10 likes)" Bleh. "Cops caught us. We bribed them. Bloody corruption.(15 likes)" Ohh, now you notice corruption? "Came home, sneaked in bedroom without getting caught by dad. (17 likes)" "Monsoon started.. watching rain. So cleansing." I'd would rather go out and play football in rain and enjoy myself than sitting glued to the screen awaiting responses. Surfing the internet has become surfing the facebook.
Look, Society, that we try hard to fit in, is a dog who'll eat you when you don't do things that are cool. Rules of what's nice and what's wrong are written by people who are knighted "awesomely cool" by weaker people who don't believe in themselves. They need someone to look-up to. So if their icons of coolness visit Cafe' Coffee Day or buy flip flop from ink-fruit, they HAVE to do the same and put it on facebook to show the world that they too have similar tastes like the others. And the world likes it. Because everyone wants the world to be as they want to see it. If someone goes against it, he's treated like a pariah, a neanderthal in 21st century.
People argue by saying that they get to know what's happening around and yet we see people on national television who don't have a clue of what happened in Ayodhya. I'd say, bother about your life, not other lives that are perfect, virtually. Because, I assure you, people will never put their deadly demons in public. They'll put those lame angels that'll make them 10+ likable. It's a succubus syndrome.
I must have angered a few people who hold facebook dear. Few must have grabbed the word hypocrite and are ready to comment it. I am not a role model but realizations are always good. There's a saying in Zen. "When you are eating, eat." Keep that in mind.
And ohh, if you love your sister, call her. If you get my drift.
A boy, who in real-life strolls around as a macho-man who fears no one, goes home and likes the album "Cutest bunnies" that his love interest / interest has put up. And he finds that he isn't the only one. Infact he's number 21st to like it and 37th to put a comment "wow they are really sweet". Really? Really they are sweet? And then there are people who like to show they are carefree. I happened to follow few people on twitter and all they could tweet were abuses. Everyone's profile description had very selective yet similar high profile english words like enigmatic, eccentric, overly ambitious. Their tweets, however, said otherwise. Very few of them post something that made sense. Others, reek profanity. Indian youth. I can't blame others. I am no different. I too had my moments of social stupidity when I did what others would like and not what I wished. But yes, a few days break gets you closer to yourself. Sometimes, the best way to socialize is to not socialize at all.
We have become too obvious to each other virtually that we have forgotten how special we are to each other in reality. When you call someone, there is no element of surprise as their life is an open (face)book. You can't talk about what you know through and through can you? You make plans to hang out, but aren't you cautious about doing things that'll sound cool when made public? "Just ate with my friends and drank too. Now driving home, drunk. :P (10 likes)" Bleh. "Cops caught us. We bribed them. Bloody corruption.(15 likes)" Ohh, now you notice corruption? "Came home, sneaked in bedroom without getting caught by dad. (17 likes)" "Monsoon started.. watching rain. So cleansing." I'd would rather go out and play football in rain and enjoy myself than sitting glued to the screen awaiting responses. Surfing the internet has become surfing the facebook.
Look, Society, that we try hard to fit in, is a dog who'll eat you when you don't do things that are cool. Rules of what's nice and what's wrong are written by people who are knighted "awesomely cool" by weaker people who don't believe in themselves. They need someone to look-up to. So if their icons of coolness visit Cafe' Coffee Day or buy flip flop from ink-fruit, they HAVE to do the same and put it on facebook to show the world that they too have similar tastes like the others. And the world likes it. Because everyone wants the world to be as they want to see it. If someone goes against it, he's treated like a pariah, a neanderthal in 21st century.
People argue by saying that they get to know what's happening around and yet we see people on national television who don't have a clue of what happened in Ayodhya. I'd say, bother about your life, not other lives that are perfect, virtually. Because, I assure you, people will never put their deadly demons in public. They'll put those lame angels that'll make them 10+ likable. It's a succubus syndrome.
I must have angered a few people who hold facebook dear. Few must have grabbed the word hypocrite and are ready to comment it. I am not a role model but realizations are always good. There's a saying in Zen. "When you are eating, eat." Keep that in mind.
And ohh, if you love your sister, call her. If you get my drift.
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