collected thoughts long overdue

so many things to write about this night...where do i start?

let's see,how about my recent trip to madhya pradesh?sounds good to me.so anyway,i visited m.p. yet again.and oh yes,it was every bit as enjoyable as the first time,because the company(seven of us hostelmates,a real handful=]) on this trip more than compensated for the lost sheen of a place revisited.and of course this time around,there was the added attraction of khajuraho,and lucknow and fatehpur sikri..

from kolkata,we went to gwalior-shivpuri-jhansi-orchha-mahoba(the coldest weather i have ever experienced)-khajuraho-agra-fatehpursikri-mathura-lucknow-kolkata.quite a packet,eh?you bet.but to be honest,it got a bit tiring towards the end.oh,and the most memorable ingredient of the trip?
playing cards=]...we even camped out in the khajuraho temple complex to play,and some foreigners took our pictures too as we happily played twentynine!

hmm,not a very interesting read,i agree.well here's something-barely 12 hours ago,i was sitting in eden gardens stadium watching sachin and sehwag make mincemeat out of the southafrican bowlers while both cruised to their centuries.my first time in front of an ongoing testmatch(or any international cricket match,for that matter)and i get to witness such marvels.sublime is the word or you might want to use the much liked phrase"lucky bastard".take your pick=]

i apologise to my nonexistent fanclub for not putting up this blog for public scrutiny as promised earlier.the error is regretted and will be promptly taken care of.

i recently watched a movie-the motorcycle diaries.it really moved me.i mean,what young che saw with his eyes are the same things that you and i see everyday.some of us choose not to see,yet it does not mean these things (injustice,poverty,disease,helplessness....)aren't there.but how many of us actually do something to remove these vices?very few,a handful perhaps,but certainly not more.
i read somewhere long ago that until you are someone/somewhere important,it is difficult to help others.and that as a dependent child/student our duty should be limited to noting the things that we would like to see changed and later when the opportunity presents itself,make full use of it to do what needs to be done.
it's all very well,but where the flaw lies in the theory is that it does not take into account human nature,which by nature is selfish and conceited.

once we climb over the wall,we seldom turn to give a hand to those who cannot climb the wall by themselves.

if you are thinking-"that does not sound like me",it could be either of two things:
1>you are one of the chosen few,mankind's gift to man.
2>you are not yet ready to acknowledge your conceit.after you cross middle age,come back and read this blogpost again,and leave a comment,how about it?

the harsh truth is that most of us fall in the second category.

"stooled" blogs

ahh,it is a strange feeling that i have right now.it reminds me of the times in school when i used to feel a bit queasy upon being asked to submit my copy after a class,for i have finally decided to make this blog public.

first things first.

it happened again.i mean,when i needed my luck to fire,fire it did,and how!i had dozed off in the afternoon,i have no recollection of ever having touched the snooze but obviously i did press it,and repeatedly too,'coz when i did get up,i was already late by 30 minutes,and was confounded.the stupid questions like how,or when,and even the suspicious who,chased each other for a while, while i took my bearings=]
i first looked at myself in the glass on the metro's door,and marvelled at my dexterity(with a bulk like mine,i had put on clothes,heavy boots,and had even managed to deodorise myself).at metro station X,the traffic stood at a standstill,and it looked like lady luck herself was on duty today when i caught sight of a groaning behemoth(people kindly call it a bus,but i suspect it's more out of a paucity of time than compassion) going my way,and would you believe it,i actually ran after the bus for fifty metres at least,and caught it running(yes,in case you were wondering,i can move fast,perhaps faster than you would have thought i could,so wipe that smirk off your face).i reached twenty minutes late,and still i entered class in tandem with the teacher(she was late as well, a rarity)-so none of the explanations that i had gone over in the bus proved necessary.

in case you have already started feeling bored with all these (to you,worthless)personal details,please leave this page and go watch tv,or youtube videos,or chat,or pick your nose,for what i am going to write next is for only the most loyal and faithful=P

all right,enough chitchat.let's get down to business.

i rarely write.it needs something very powerful to force me to type/write.and the reason for today's convulsive writing is-BULLSHIT IN BLOGS.


honestly,i feel so liberated right now,you could say that i am on a high.you may ask why.here's my answer-"bitching" can be very relaxing and very satisfying,especially that type where you don't have to compete with others to come out with the nastiest remarks,and what better way to do that than by blogging?

recently,i stumbled across some blogs,which not only declared their architects as brilliantly mysterious creatures,but sometimes went on to portray them as demigods/goddesses.i ask you,how many of us are "special"?we all are,in a measure more or less.but these writers have gone out of their way to make themselves feel special.i know that what i am writing right now is nothing much better than crap but i have the guts/sense to admit it.but these attention deprived individuals are so far out that they have started idolising themselves.
they think their poor excuse for a poem is "cute" and that to copy and paste material from elsewhere is "cool".
some weirdos have even forgotten what they had initially started out to write about and have peppered their posts with pathetic pictures of wallpapers.not me,i know that i started out to bitch and i am still trying to follow that theme, because that is what sincere people like you and me do-even if the job at hand is not to our liking,we don't mind getting ourselves a little dirty,or tired,or bored.we just do it.kudos to us!
well, that is enough for one session.but i sign off with a last snippet,and this one really takes the cake-a blogger with over a hundred posts but with a very unaesthetic sense of layout had very kindly put in a flash game of "tictactoe" for his readers,to allay boredom u might think,or perhaps to kill time while waiting for the next published post of the supposed sidney sheldon?=]

p.s.-if you have arrived here and are reading these lines,then please,oh please,treat yourself to a chocolate as soon as possible.i can say from experience that they do really lift the mood(i am unwrapping one right now!).

christmas eve.......

ahh,so its christmas eve...and i don't have anything to be so merry about right now.

well,first things first.i just survived more than a week of pure hell!make no mistake-sitting for an prof exam is never easy,but 2nd prof is way ahead than 1st prof when it comes to nastiness.true,1st prof has the surprise element but all things
considered,2nd prof is decidedly the more evil cousin.

the routine itself was pretty bland-get up at 6.freshen up and start mugging till 7:30.gobble down some light refreshment and run back to your books.cram away to oblivion by 10 o clock.get ready,and have lunch by 11am,so you can rush to the exam
centre by 11.20.cram some more till a quarter to twelve before entering the arena.
after two hours during which the desire to survive brought out till then undiscovered talents for cheating and writing productive bullshit,we head back to our lairs to choke the post exam euphoria/panic as swiftly as humanly possible.by 5 o clock we were wide awake after a fitful and mostly sleepless sleep,to find ourselves face to face with the impossibly high mountain of workload,of syllabus comprising a whole year of study.start by 5.30 and on and on till its time for dinner at 9.30pm.after yet another hurried dinner,back to books.most of the time,we didnt even wait for the clock to strike ten before starting the torture!why?because even the desire to lie down was pretty scary-what if you coudnt get up from your "little" nap?where would you be then??so, no rest.
trudging on,we came to the magical 12 o clock mark.not the time to go to bed,but signalling that in exactly one hour,it would be time to start cajoling each other to try and sleep a few hours,while all the time dreading lying down ourselves.why?simply because though our aching bodies welcomed the rest,our minds were too choked to allow the waves of sleep to crash against our mind's shores.thus,sleep would not come.and we would each lie awake for sometimes over an hour or so.sad and often dangerous thoughts crossed our mind,and we drifted into an uneasy sleep mainly born out of sheer exhaustion,a sleep which was broken by the shrill alarms of our cell phones at 5.45 am.it seemed that it was only a few minutes ago that we had closed our books and
here we were having to start all over again!
all in all,it was extremely depressing and a very very tiring ordeal.i hope it is a long time before i have to face such a nightmare again.theory papers ended monday,21st of december.

a comment copied....

many a time,words just seem like obstacles in the path of expressing ourselves honestly-however much we exhort,plead or chastise,we feel inadequate to express our emotions or convey our feelings by merely speaking.we have all faced such situations at one time or the other.
in these scenarios, a look,a sigh, a subtle gesture or even a simple word spoken in a special manner accomplishes so much more than words can ever hope to accomplish by themselves.
by the same logic,it is also very reasonable to suppose that a person may be crying,or shouting or just loving us madly without uttering a single word.he/she may be conveying the most complex of emotions just by the way he/she,say, fills our glass with water or looks into our eyes when we make a comment.these subtle and yet not so subtle gestures are not a byproduct of evolution,for you can quite easily observe these forces at work if you take some time to look at the world around you.
for example,a cub comes down to sit beside its mother on the savannah grass.the mother instantly licks away the flies that have been bothering the cub.that is all.but it speaks volumes about the mother's love for her child.
another example.a guy new, to the locality,comes to a coffee shop everyday.each day he sights an old man enjoying his morning cuppa with the newspaper open to the sports pages.when one day he asks around,he comes to learn that in his youth,the old timer was an athlete and quite popular in the neighbourhood.however,age had dealt him a dastardly blow.severe arthritis had forced him to give up sports and work as a clerk in the local grocery store.from that day on,the guy,himself a big sports buff,made it a point to sit and chat with the old man,even if only for a few minutes each day.there is nothing in this story that will change the order of the universe,but somehow the guy's gesture appeals to our finer instincts.
by the same token,when a man,while returning home from work in the evening, was haggling on the sidewalk with a woman over the price of some bangles,a little girl came and asked the street vendor woman-ma,aj kitna jodi bika?to which the woman replied-do.suddenly,the man stopped haggling to save the five rupees.he paid and left quickly.not uncommon but again not many words were wasted.

similarly,when someone is just there for you,doesn't matter if the person is not mouthing one endearment after another,but just standing there like a goldfish with the mouth open,looking stupid,perhaps you will never find someone who will love you more than that apparent geek!
for, though we keep searching and seeking,the things below our feet are the things we never really see.
so,if a quiet someone doesn't always commend you face to face(or with words)on your infectious entusiasm for life,doesn't complement you on your boundless energy each time he/she speaks to you,maybe it is because he is speaking in a language that is much more subtle than mere words....and maybe it was time you listened to your heart a little more and let the auditory canal take a backseat!

while you watch the sunset wishing there was someone you could watch the it with,maybe he watches the sun set every evening thinking only of you.and in the meanwhile, the sun watches both of you, and smiling,perhaps sighs ever so softly...