#15 (?) A break, a change, a need

I've always tried to write my blog posts such that they be well-written, well-versed and well-behaved. But I think I've had enough of that. I'm going to start using my blog more as a blog from today on. Lets see how that goes, no promises yet.

So recently, I've seen the movie, 'Rajneeti' and it made me see 'The Dynasty: Nehru-Gandhi Story' and 'Operation blue star' back to back with the film. What amazes me is how we are so young in terms of the amount of freedom, we've got. We, referring to Indians. Its been half a decade, and so much has changed. Ofcourse, there are still parts that showcase the novelty but yet, it kept me wondering about how India was transformed  through the years, to the good and to the bad.

Mr.Nehru, or Chacha Nehru, when I read about him, seems like a hero - one who led the new-born country on a road that later took so many turns but still managed to mark its presence in the global traffic. Anyway, he as a person, and in my opinion, was certainly a hero, and he is going to stay in my thoughts for a real long time, irrespective of anything.

I read that he loved these of Frost's lines a lot:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

This is the complete poem written by Robert Frost, they were taken from:

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

I've known another of Frost's poems that was taught in one of my English classes, about the Road Less Traveled by, which probably is more popular. I'm gonna look out for more of his works.

Its thrilling when you look back and see that these people like Nehru were just a generation away, and they've truly lived over. I'm still trying to figure out my road, as the woods seem lovely, dark and deep. Will I ever find a way out? I'm not sure but somehow there is a small ray of hope that keeps me going, and I'm hopeful.

Miles to go.

#14: A lil of hike and a lil of haiku

It’s been more than 6 months since life has re-begun. So much has changed both in and around, that its getting difficult to even recollect all of it. Well, not all of it was welcome, but if all of it was indeed welcome, it’d just be another monotone. So, its fine the way it is.

Rewinding…
Aug 8, 2013. The day I landed here in the ‘mighty’ states after an yearlong hustle-bustle of running around – sbi branches, passport office, loans, visa, tons of shopping and not to forget the shed of tears as I was sent off. It was weird.

I’d no idea what I was set out to do. Yes, there were new horizons, new colors and new traffic rules but what of these do I absorb and what do I adsorb. Clueless, I just plunged in.

Current day…
Past few months, I’ve seen, studied and perhaps, understood people, life and dsp from different angles.

Ofcourse, my dsp endeavours with speech, image and graph brought a much sought out solace after a year of separation. Uh la la baby! (Though the job scenario does give creeps at times. [read most of the time.])

People. Roommates, neighbors, friends and friends of friends coupled with fried rice, Sāmbhar and a cup of tea. That I was still fresh to bind, that I was still ripe to bond, that co-existence is beautiful and that it defines life – I never knew.

Life. Oh, don’t get me started on this. One of the many realizations I had was how powerful a few lines of poetry (also termed ‘haiku’) could get. This was my first.

'To not do what you don’t want to
To work and not judge
To love and not lie
To live and not die.'

Its supposed to define what it means 'to be' – that one shouldn’t let any force external or internal, make him do what he does not want to, that one should allow himself to enjoy his work, without any comparisons be it social, financial or whatever, that one shouldn’t let himself go so low to cheat the ones he loves, that one shouldn’t grow so weak to commit a suicide, but instead just live.

Well, it was an eventful few months. But among all of them, the most eventful was the winter break last month - unexpected, and with a lil bit of exaggeration, unreal. With a few road trips and a few roadies. I’ll end it here with another haiku.
I call it ‘the winter break’.

'Of towers and the night
Of shivers in the white
Of blur and the bur
Of love and its err...

Are tales untold
Too rigged and bold...'

Till time calls dibs next,
Shampoo

#13: grep purpose ./life

(The usual disclaimer remains put - reader’s discretion advised.)

Its been 6 months(o,yea!) since I have been ‘corporate’d. A little retrospection coupled with a little too idle a mind, makes anyone think a lot – like A LOT and explore the omni-present devil’s workshop inside. A new life, new gang, new topics of discussion and a new lingo! (trust me, it happens.) Whatever it is, the one bug that keeps failing my daily sanity test is this question, (which actually comes up in a song) – Where do we go now?

At this point, there is no directed answer. Never came across these kinda weird cross roads with no information whatsoever, on where each one leads to. Till now wherever I have been, the roads were laid out pretty well and were all already taken, atleast by a few – yea, some were tricky and painstaking but they did give out a disclaimer, warning people who were bent on choosing that one. This current situation is almost killing the – emm, lets call it sugar, kids – killing the sugar out of me!, thanks to my very well-nurtured ‘inquisitivity’ issues.

So I thought let me lay them down for myself, without giving the world any sugar. The one obsession I possess has got quite a lot to do with people and their apparent successes. The other of books, and yet another of songs and of Physics and sitcoms and Rafa and – OH GOD, lets just leave it at that. As you can pretty well figure out, I am obsessed with a lot of things. After a little of filtering and pre-processing, somehow managed to figure out the layout of the cross roads:

• Road#1: Beat Zuckerberg at the stocks! :P Yea, envy his luck. Being Smart & Being Intelligent – He simply shows the difference. Smart chap. 
• Road#2: Become a She-Rahman. Never seen anyone so versatile. Respect. Deep Respect, always wondered how he manages to do it and whether it is humanly possible. :O
• Road#3: Contribute to India. Not just monetarily but otherwise. The ever-growing migrant population irks me. Just one question to that folk – really, you aren't smart enough to live well off right here? Well, pity you. 
• Road#4: My personal fav. Stay on the road forever, a world tour like Liz Gilbert, writing and pausing only to eat/drink/sleep. Wanted to tour-de-Europe someday. Will get back on how that works out.

That said and done, looks like the cross roads have somehow, become too big to cross over :P, so maybe I will just take to the woods in between the roads for now, and stay oblivious at the end, watching over and doing Physics! :D

See ya again another time when there is a sugar-load enough to blurt out,
Shampoo

#12: The push-pull battle.

(beware: do NOT look for sense, logic and the like)

After the last piece on how writing can get tedious, there is no need to ponder over why my update took so long to shape up. Agreed, closing on a topic is a Herculean task, but oh dear, the next phase eludes Mr. Hercules too!

Say you do eventually make peace with the irresolute(the intransigent greys) on what to write about, the extrasensory perceptions get ready to thwart upon thee as much as they can. Some push you so hard you might end up considering a course in literature, while the others pull you back arousing the hedonist inside(o who cares if the world is unlucky to relish thine virtuoso) . And there the battleground stays put for the push and the pull.

The main contender from the pushy side is the need for a vent. These days, the world has become so numb physically that to poke or to tweet, you need a network. In the milieu of such dire circumstances, its both pragmatic and efficient to make your point on a similar forum. There is a chance you could remain unheard but hey, you did blurt it out. A rare subordinate at times could be the passion to write, where there are people who want to write just for the sake of it - and am not talking about those who take up writing as an art.

The pullers, on the other hand, consist of the unremitting showers of lassitude, making you distend and fall back onto the bed to shut them up. These are the monolithic fighters that one cant generally beat. Wonder how the inveterately pushed(avid bloggers) arent so sentient. Another player is one who works with the 'Dravidian' reference frame, where everything around seems to be going fast enough except you. Once you start looking at your writing from this frame, trust me, there is no way you will see the pavilion. This can easily make the pull win without any effort. The other members are those when you start hating the topic you chose after a little dive, or maybe when you love it so much that that you fail to express it.

The result of this battle, quite often, is trivial but it could get atypical at times like these when the push takes over. :) and So..
Here you go, phew! (thanku thanku.. a sublime moment! :P)

See you again when my push wins!
Shampoo

#11: How difficult it is to write.

[Un]Fortunately, one of my friends had to write an article for one of our magazines. How does that matter to me? Come on, I am not one of that kind who would worry about others’ jobs. Else what? Well, fortune kicked me out and took him in when he got a call from the IIMs and had to leave. And the rest is mere trivia that I do not want to explain here as people already think I am verbose. :\ I D C D anyway.

Initially hyper-excited, thanks to a few written flukes in a course, I promised him that I will write an article in place of him in a day or two. Boo! Then started my journey to the No Man’s Land. (Don’t go trolling about the man-woman concept now, I am already vexed enough.) So, I started ‘brain storming’ about the topics to write. Before I tell you what all ideas ‘possessed’ me, its my duty to warn you that I have some very weird qualities and Its OK to have them – and I am perfectly sane for all those who think it is gonna be lame, see I started to rhyme, and plz I don’t need a dime(have patience brats!). 

First and the foremost, I have a very uncanny habit of giving anything and everything I see, a twisted philosophical touch and feel extremely bewildered about the realization. Add to it, all the psychology I learnt in two courses. My thoughts found a new vent and boom! It started with a friend talking about how bad and sad her life is. After giving her an enlightening lecture till she threw me out of the room, I decided to write on “Life and how people percieve it”. (heavy sigh- :\) I started with “Oh God! Why did you give me this life?” and surprisingly ended it there as I couldn’t think of which of the myriad number of instances I should quote. Damn.

The next thing that makes my hair go hay-wire is when I hear about prodigies who achieved so much in life at a very early stage. I sense a mixture of envy, jealousy and all such –nessnessness feelings in myself at that point. And those are what led to me to write on “Why couldn’t I have done it?” And with a strong push of adrenaline, I started – “I donno about you but whenever I have an encounter with facts like these, I am no more what I was the second before- one would find me go silent and numb for a few seconds- in a state of deep self analysis that WHY I am not like them. After a lot of - ”?????  After a lot of what?! @#!@!#! EnougH! Period.

Installing a last ray of hope in my otherwise ‘blue-dead’ system, the feminist inside me spoke and said – ‘Being a girl’. And then I waited on and on and on. It did not speak again.

Then I tried putting a stop to my grey cells which were apparently turning gray :( But still, they didn’t listen to me. Things ranging from – ‘A Jekyll and Hyde Realization’, which was supposedly supposed to be on the different angles in a person inspired from a course, ‘The Hype tributes to Celebs’ on why the celebrities are hyped so much when they in reality are simply doing their work like anyone to abstract stuff like ‘etymology of words’, which I guess GRE prep gave me and then to ‘solace in solitude’, on how and what different people do to win over solitude, and to even worser ones where I ran the whole wide circle and ran back to pavilion into philosophy. 

After all this drama, a brilliant idea finally came to me- and that was.. to search on the internet! (:\ yea, it seemed brilliant then) And so I went ‘onto’ the internet and searched, never did I even dream I would do it, but I did about ‘Topics to write’ and Ka-boom! A flood of them out there like ‘How I use Facebook’(yeah right!), ‘Ten Guiltiest Pleasures’(pardon me! WhAt!), ‘Who knows me best?’, ‘An unforgettable dream’and then URGH!!!

Then at that point I felt it. Infact, I knew it from long. The ugly blatant truth. It is very difficult to write. A final Period.

Abbreviations: I D C D: I Don’t Care a Damn; Courtesy: ask any ’12,iith being.

#10: Life enroute

Too many things going on in my world right now.. (reminds me of my travel back home.. dont let any questions crop up.. have some patience) Suddenly it feels like it has drifted into a new dimension with things upside down.. but all u need at that time is a Jack Sparrow to bring things back into place.. guess i do have one in my own world.. and voila! thrz my post after a long long time. :P

As I did mention before, the traffic inside my brain reminded me of the traffic I witness on the way home. There is this road at the railway station I have to cross to get to the bus stop.... that road is the busiest i have ever seen till now.. and mind you! every damn minute of the day.. so full of life!

it starts with these irritating pedestrians who keep crossing the roads as if some tiger or a lion is chasing them, with the only motto to reach the other shore, they march on, irrespective of the traffic.. all the more irritating are those pink shirted ladies with goggles, sitting in the cars, one in each with an ugly scorn.. i wonder how peaceful, it actually might get when they start using their feet to travel someday.. m sure they wont even occupy 1/10th the place their cars do.. if they would bother atleast a millionth fraction about the size of their cars instead of theirs and how uneasy it gets on roads like these.. phew! life wud be better for all.. then ofcourse, we have our very own roadside vendors marking every inch of the footpath they discover into their territory - one positive point about this is that they make sure there is no room for people to flock around any corner.. but we, humans, dont really need a corner.. coupled with a few, we can keep on bargaining and fighting with the vendor infront of his bandi, even if it means blocking the road!.. then the actual bandis go 'honk!honk!' all around the place amplifying the already ubiquitous irritation.. leaving them alone, these days with the 'aping' season on.. one who travels on Indian roads sees a lot of male and female buddies hanging around almost everywhere.. yes, i AM talking about the great Indian roads, dude, it was alien-ish when it started, but now its more of an eyesore.. Amidst all this, there is a temple carved along the side with all the footwear decorating its outside, every passer-by stops, removes his chappal, puts a namaskaram praying the Lord to grant his wish of the day and moves on.. and yes where there is a temple or any 'life' around, there are inherently our road mates - the beggars - some are authentic while some actually threaten you till you lose some of your hard-earned lot(if at all you are one who do that else there is no big difference where the money goes)..  And by the way, did I mention that this small thing(road) has a divider in between too! So, its when I reach this place that the sense of 'going home' dawns in.

There is a lot more that goes on around the place.. and its best seen than read. So, anyone who wants to make a visit to such a 'lively' place, can contact me anytime!

Waiting for a good response :P
Shampoo

#9: The ruccus on-board!

I should rather say overboard.. or may be over-boreddd i think.. hmm anyway getting u back to my arena.. well.. the pitch looks rather bad.. not fit for another innings but the two sides are strong on playing and the decision is taken! damn.. left to the players luck now! the ball could bounce, spin or fly however it wants!

dude.. i haven't yet gone crazy but a lot of cricket watching and 'anna-hazare'-ing does motivate u to do something like this! kinda showing off u know. ;) coz it looks like there is nothing else left.. what a turn of events.. m i watching a movie? then.. must i say, God.. u r the awsomest director i have seen. so much entropy.. apriori as well as aposteriori.. damn! (explanation follows.. patience....)

lets rotate around some 'morteins' and get back to the time before cricket and any other rukkus.. life seems to be at peace.. project goingg ok ok.. acads too a lil better.. and recently an intern confirmed.. phew! and i lived on n on.. only to realize had to wake up later.. the intern said lil difficult when its time one packs up.. so tried for another.. it kept me dangling till a three days before the start of my innings..(endsems!).. n then acads... this whole one midsem concept.. donno what effect its gonna show..  my last chance to prove to my ppl.. (hope my 'boys' [-incidentally i don't have a lady prof-] will do a great job with the papers.. :P) .. they have turned out to be more uncertain than the conditions in Japan.. m so tired of doing things over n over n over again when i clearly know what difference it makes.. well.. some say these do not make life... so chill babe.. then temme what do make life?? please..

M waiting!
Shampoo

P.S. - Sometimes.. uncertainties do make life interesting init? never thought I d blog again but damn I so am.. the moral is - it never is a stand-still... you r surely on a positive or a negative slope.. but watever it is.. it cant go more than pi/2.. so try reaching pi and keep your mental state there.. ;) :D
'preaching is easy', somehow is making a great deal of sense right at this moment, right?! well.. something izzzzzz.. :D