INVICTUS

Invictus is a movie about Nelson Mandela and his vision to use the Sport Rugby as an instrument in uniting the whole nation. There are many things that make the movie special, one of them, that's wort sharing is a short Victorian poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley 


Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

KHOJ

There are times when you feel a little low. You might feel like offering Munna bhai a li'l shraddhanjali in this distressed times, and going for a flash back of the happy moments of your life, just to find how different a person you have turned into. My hearty apologies to the blog for bringing with me these not so happy words, particularly when i am visiting it after these many days!! But again, Blogs are the best sink to all the emotions we have hidden within, aren't they?! 
The best thing about poetry is, many people appreciate it, and the writer just hopes atleast some of them understand it. Well I bet it's good for writers like me atleast, who are a literary counterpart to the Sunday Driver concept. These lines were out of nowhere I think but happened to tell a part of the story that my mind's  finding really difficult to deal with. This poem (it's in Hindi so technically its a kavita), I guess depicts my search for answers to some incomprehensible questions, my quest to respond to some unfamiliar thoughts and, thus, is called, KHOJ...
   
patton ke chhour par nachti
shabnam ki boonde,
sooraj ki roshni se khelti hein..
toh mann jaise chamak sa jata hai.


baarish ki boonde
hawa se ladhti,
jab chehre ko chhedti hein
toh dil jaise khilsa jata hai.


doston ki baatein
chae ki tazgi mein ghulkar,
hasi ke pitare kholti hein
toh har bojh halka ho jata hai.


aaj mann tanha, apni hi rah mein
os ki wahi boondein talashte,
sawan mein, boondon ko taras raha hai.
dhaga itna kaske bandh diya, ki ab gadh raha hai.
pagal dil kyuun har baat pe behak raha hai?
tanha mann aaj os ki wahi boonde, fir talash raha hai...

AKHRI CHHUTTI

My blog gave me a weird look when I knocked its door after so many days. For those who thought I had abandoned it, I have three words for ya. “I am back” :P

Sometimes, you take a break in your journey, pull your car to the road side at some tea stall, enjoy a cup of tea, look back and what you feel should technically be one of the following two. ONE: it was one really long, boring stretch of road. TWO: whooo!! Fuck the traffic and the potholes. Well taking a tea break finally, I pretty much find myself in domain two.

My final summer vacation has been more eventful than all the previous ones put together. (If you know me, you obviously know about my previous vacations and the two places that dominated themJ.) My last month has witnessed two hill stations, one huge city, a few government offices (yeh count karna reh gaya), six trains, one flight, and countless restaurants and tea stalls (yeh count karna possible hi nahin tha), not to forget, the railway stations, airports, police stations, retiring rooms, traffic, taxis, city buses, malls, multiplexes, hotels etc.   

From the hills of Darjeeling and Ooty to the traffic of Bangalore, from corruption to pollution, from hotels to P.Gs to retiring rooms, I can say I have, pretty much, had it all for a single vacation. I had a rendezvous with the past and a peek into the future. Arey sahi mein yaar, mat haso! I have spent some priceless moments with my oldest of friends and family, and some equally wonderful time with my college mates. Ghar ka khana, hotel ka khana aur duniya bhar ki chaye! The burp is satisfying (literally).

GOD truly saves the best for the last!   

FEEDBACK

The WORDWEB dictionary defines feedback as

NOUN: FEEDBACK 
1)Critical assessment or suggestions to improve performance 
2)The process in which part of the output of a systems is returned   to its input in order to regulate its further output 
3)Response to an inquiry or experiment

VERB: FEEDBACK 
1)Submit (information) again to a program or automatic system 
2)Respond to a query or outcome

Hey!!! don’t run away please. Neither am I interested nor am I distantly qualified to take a class on English language here. I am here simply to focus on the point 3 under noun: feedback. Ok, enough. I guess I must get to the point now.

It took me 12 posts and 13 days to share my blog with people through FACEBOOK. A big part of me was waiting for the feedback and a really big part of it was hoping it would be good. It was then I started to actually wonder, why am I writing in the first place? It’s significantly uncharacteristic of me to be attempting such a stunt! Being a guy who has never read a single comic book and never did more creative writing than a couple of essay competitions he was forced to participate in, it would be no way wrong to say that I and literature share the same relationship as Gabbar Singh and Thakur Sahab. The more spiritual part in me pops up here with what is apparently a satisfactory answer, to vent my emotions and thoughts. A friendly voice from the neighbourhood supports it saying "you are giving the world a fair chance to know your thoughts, doesn’t matter if all of them out there don’t read it". The “more like me” part in me says “nautanki sala!! Kaam dhanda hai nahin, nikal pada lekhak banne!”. The timidly intelligent part of me attempted to join in with its own opinion saying “it will help improve your writing skills and language in general”. But it was too much for the “more like me” part of me and I haven’t shown any sign of intelligence since then. There were a few other faint chatters I could hear but thought it wise to ignore them all.

Not really concluding much in this regard I diverted my mind towards the feedback that had just come in. The FACEBOOK likes and comments made me feel like I had just won the world cup for India. Some contained heavy words like “respect” and “inspire”  which were as good as a bucket at KFC. (Believe me, a bucket at KFC means a lot more to me than you can possibly imagine.) However, I now realize that feedback is crucial. May be it demands some courage to accept the criticisms and some down to earth attitude to take the pat on the back, but in whatever form it comes, it sure influences the cause. Some encourage, some motivate, some discourage and some go for the kill, but they all have significant effect on what would otherwise have been a very different outcome. It then struck me. May be, this is the true reason I write, to see what people feel about what I feel. Thankfully, the “more like me” part in me came to my rescue at this disastrous conclusion and I was spared a virtual life full of illusion, before it was too late. Though I realize the consequence of feedback now, I am still stuck with the question on my sudden interest in writing. May be “you know what!!” can help me out here.

Before signing off with this “not even a time-pass” post, I would like to sincerely thank all the readers who have lent me more than their time, patience and tolerance. Thanks a ton!! 

P.S: Refer to my earlier posts for "you know what!!".

The World's Not Enough

“The world is not enough” not even James Bond knew how true he was.

Man’s ambition is like a balloon. He, actually we, try to inflate it as much as we can, ultimately blowing it up. But man is also the most determined creature god came up with. As soon as he is done with one balloon, he gets a new one and there is no end to the adventure. But ever wondered where are those burst balloons disposed. Certainly not in this world, where will the ambitious blowers go then? Like every other problem, this problem was also seen and conquered, and ingeniously so. As I’m not talking technical, over the top stuff here, the solution’s really simple.  No place in this world? Create a new world!!  And that’s how the virtual world came into being.

The inhabitants of this Virtual world are characters played by people in the real world. Come on!! This was not that technical. Well, remember the burst balloons? In simple terms, these characters are nothing but slightly modified, more presentable, version 2.0s of those balloons, which are maneuvered by the people responsible for bursting the balloons in the first place, the ambitious blowers. Whoa!! Now that was technical, and difficult, and stupefying.

The greatest quality of the virtual world is perhaps the fact that it’s virtual. The fun of interacting with people without actually getting face to face with them is something that people in this real world will take some time to get bored with. With fingers doing the talking, the screened replies, the smiley disguised emotions, the deceptive profile pictures and profile info are too glamorous to let go. Addiction to this is natural. The day’s not far when terms like “opinion” will be replaced by “tweet”, “thoughts” by “blog” and perhaps “life” by “Facebook”. But one question has become undesirably significant here. With the AUDIOVISUAL aspect of meetings lost, are people meeting in the virtual world actually SEEING each other?

YES or NO, I guess I don’t care about the answer. This new world has added a new dimension to people’s life, gifted them with a projection of their self that they can modify to will without any physical constrains, allowed them to be someone they could never be in the real world. I guess that’s what makes this new world worth spending your leisure time in.

The balloon never bursts in the virtual world, rather it gets big enough to elevate you towards a truly out of the world experience. So, when the world’s not enough, just log in!!  

P.S: The above essay is the author’s attempt to acknowledge the Virtual World that so readily accepted his burst balloons and gifted him with a bunch of new ones. Please don't be technically critical about it.

The Flashback

Turning back the pages of my life, with a hope of an inspiring flashback, I find the negativity in me dominating what was supposed to be a wonderful experience. The episodes that unfold before me are a collection of scattered events without a defined direction. Though there are sparks of brilliance but they are almost all academic, something which I guess has never sounded sweet to me.

For a boy, most part of whose life thus far has been dominated by days of 9-5:30 schooling and a couple of years where he felt getting through some competitive exam was the ultimatum in one’s life, I  hardly see a possible way my life would have become any more eventful.

I have heard a lot of people talking about getting up every morning, looking at yourself in the mirror and questioning if what you’re doing is what you like. My mirror has not given me an answer yet even though I have been quite consistent with my efforts of finding one. I believe the answer to why there’s no answer lies in the movie LAGE RAHO MUNNA BHAI. Yes, it’s the “chemical locha” in our minds that is the CPU to the mirror, which itself is nothing more than a simple monitor.

What I can figure out is the absence of passion and enthusiasm for something in my life, that one thing, I can truly say I love. What I can’t figure out is where to get these virtues from? What’s the guarantee that the stuff I feel is lovely today will be the same way tomorrow? I have somehow chosen the path that’s most travelled by, the risk free one and have identified my comfort zone within frameworks of regulations and order. Neither did I ever have the courage nor the determination to let my life free and enjoy the chaos. Even now, having learnt so much about myself, I surprisingly still can't gather the courage and the determination to be the captain of my own ship.

There’s no way I am a failure I’m sure. But failure’s not the name of the game, it’s never been. The question is whether or not you are successful and the answer to that depends directly on how you define success. The definition of success for a common middle class man living in your neighbourhood will be a lot different than that of say, Bill Gates, even though both are happy and tensed in their own ways. I guess, the definition’s different for each individual and is a function of one’s measure of his own talents and abilities.

But after having pondered so much, I feel, am I not simply making things complicated? Life’s too short for complications. When will we live, if we just try and deal with complications? Guess that’s the reason I’m satisfied with this ordered life. At least I don’t have to worry about how a new day would be, every single day. I have learned living life this way and have learned to decorate it with sparkles of happy moments. The laughter I have shared with my friends, the love I have shared with my family, that first day on the driving seat, the only time I topped in the class, those twenty minutes of our band's winning performance at the fest, etc. etc. are all the li’l stars making this otherwise dark sky, worth looking at again and again. However depressed I may feel for not having achieved that “mis-defined” success, this flashback brings a smile on my face and guess that alone says, I have done a good job thus far.

Lecture

Everything that we do is followed by a question on its motive. A casual “Kya faida yaar?”; or a seemingly cool sounding “whats the point dude?”; or a li’l more indigenously violent “mujhe kya milega?.. kyuun karoon mein bata?”

Perhaps climbing the steps of evolution, walking on the sands of time, blah blah, the self centred half of the human brain has grown upon the kinder one. People think twice before stopping by and helping a dying man after a road accident! What if police comes and we get into all sorts of trouble? Is this not a question on the very humanity of the breed we so proudly claim "social"?

I feel sad reading reports that say people are most willing to help when they find some positive outcome for themselves. The unfortunate affair, however, is that the definition of this “positive outcome” part is unclear, and I guess, exploited.

Even though I am not authorised to, I would like to hereby make a humble request. Just try to find some time off your really busy schedule and give this thing a thought. When I do something that atleast I feel is selfless, won’t it give me the satisfaction that’s good enough to make my day? Well that certainly qualifies as a “positive outcome”. The smile that you would create, the acknowledgements that you get and the respect that you would command would surely weigh much more than any “positive outcome” you can think of.

Whoa!! That was quite a lecture! 

you know what!!

Today, I’m writing on something, because of which a lot has been said and done, but which has never received the acknowledgement that it truly deserves. Just hope you share my feelings!
For me it’s a lot more than the small room by the corridor. It’s the place that welcomes me with the same aura every single morning and fills me with the promise of a great day ahead. It’s the place which gives me the room to recreate the small,  apparently unimportant moments of my life and reflect upon them to appreciate life’s true beauty. It’s the place where thoughts get woven into imagination, where philosophies are pronounced, where novels are initiated, where the forgotten is recalled and where the untold can be expressed. It’s the place where the sick seek refuge and the depressed find solace. It’s the small white seat in there on which I am myself and I’m sure you are truly you.
I just hope a day will come when some great man will say the above words coz I know that behind all great men there might be women but behind their thoughts, you know what! 

P.S: I’m sure you are able to get who/what this article is directed at. If you aren’t, don’t worry coz the time’s not far, when you are going to find peace in the same.

The best days of my life

Being an engineering student may not be the most challenging job in the world but it certainly is no piece of cake… except momentarily on birthday parties where a poor chap is punished, sharp at midnight, for being born, which was not even his fault.

Well let me not divert from the topic. The emotional era, composed of one-liners like “mera beta engineer banega” are long lost. Parents have become broadminded and the children, they certainly know how to live. Engineering college life, the transition phase in one’s life, is characterized by such degree of turbulence that it takes four years to reach the equilibrium state. It’s like the sluice gates of the dam, which your parents built, have suddenly burst open and your life’s flooded with concepts like independence and freedom. There are actually thousands of other concepts that escape the same gate, concepts that external agencies commonly known as professors try to instil into your life. But these are such bouncers which only the most skilled of the players can attempt to play. Those players who at the end of it all are called by the rest, with respect and pride and a li’l “:P”, as “the 9 pointers”. All credit to those guys any ways for having worked like hell, quite literally. 

For an engineering student, tensions are many and pressure equally huge. Grades, assignments, lectures at one end to friends, not so friends, and girlfriends on the other, handling the glamor of college life is certainly way difficult than what Farah Khan and Shahrukh thought. But the reason you never hear a true engineering student complain is that the opportunities that you get are infinitely many, which more than compensate for all the pain in the arse. Forget about academics (if you just did that, I’m surprised you had it in your mind in the first place), what people carry out of colleges is far more valuable than tonnes of formulae and equations. All the li’l moments in the cafeteria, the queue in the mess, the chalk fight in the classrooms, the late submissions following a mass copying campaign, the fests, the tours, the celebrations, and most specially the uncountable eternal bonds that form automatically. May be that's the reason that people get emotional when the journey comes to an end. May be that’s the reason that I am scared to think of the fact that there’s just one more semester. May be that's the reason why these four years are the best days of one’s life.

These years as an engineering student might not make me a good engineer, but will certainly have transformed me into someone who is ending his student life as a Man ready to face the world on his own terms. And that’s why I respect these years of my college life and I always will.

P.S.: wondering who's a “true engineering student”? Refer to the post on "What I don’t want to be". Agey toh aap samajhdaar ho hi!!

from the movie "UDAAN"...

Jo lehron se aage nazar dekh paati
toh tum jaan lete main kya sochta hoon,
Wo aawaz tumko bhi jo bhed jaati 
toh tum jaan lete main kya sochta hoon.
Zid ka tumhare jo parda sarakta 
toh khidkiyon se aage bhi tum dekh paate,
Aankhon se aadaton ki jo palken hatate
toh tum jaan lete main kya sochta hoon.

Meri tarah khud par hota zara bharosa
toh kuchh door tum bhi saath-saath aate,
Rang meri aankhon ka baante zara sa 
toh kuchh door tum bhi saath-saath aate,
Nasha aasmaan ka jo choomta tumhe bhi,
hasraten tumhari naya janm paatin,
Khud doosre janam mein meri udaan chhoone
kuchh door tum bhi saath-saath aate.

What i don't want to be

Heard a lot about what people want to be, read a lot about who people aspire to be. Thus, audiovisually tired, i tried to relax these senses and do a li'l thinking, something my spare parts aren't very much used to.
 

So the li'l genius in me came up with... why not list down what i don't want to be??.. wow!! now that should be interesting!!

i don't want to be...
the ugly fat guy
the unknown corner boy
the nerd
the hinglish man
a spoilsport
an ass, a jerk (won't mind being the one who can differentiate between the two of them)
the chipku
the fattu
definitely not a chaatu

neither want to be unpopular nor the talk of the town
neither a front bencher nor a back bencher
neither wanna stink nor be the guy who bathes for half the day in a boys hostel common bathroom

would never be the guy who breaks the queue in the mess

i dont want to be...
the guy who thinks littering the college campus is fun 
neither the guy who's got the treasure of cheap jokes.. e.g. do not litter, 1l=35 rs :P

i would love not to be the one travelling the road all travel by
and not the one who is over adventurous never to do that

i would never want to be the guy who always thinks about women..
and definitely not the one who never thinks about them...

i would hate to be...
a 20 yr old who cant run a mile
a 25 yr old who's not independent
a 30 yr old who doesn't wanna see his parents
a 50 yr old who has no one to share the morning tea with

i don't want to be...
way too serious
way too easy going
pissed off
irritated
sick

i would die if i were...
a vegetarian,
without a car for rest of the life,
not allowed to talk,
bereft of friends.

i definitely don't want to be...
the guy who spends his time thinking what not to be ,when there's an assignment and a lab record to be completed by the next morning. 

P.S. If you ever try any of the above stunt, all the best. The author of the above post can no way be blamed for the consequences that follow.

Exploring God's own country

The four day road trip exploring God's own country, was nothing less than an amazing experience. When i sit down smiling with all the little memories from the trip, i wonder, why was this trip so very special after all? I didn't have a girlfriend accompanying me, there was not even a booze party for God's sake. Was it the lovely time i spent in a car after ages that made the trip so special or was it the fact that it was a significant addition to the ultra-small list of trips i have had so far? Was it the excitement of exploring new places or the heavenly experience of standing amidst the tea plantations looking down on the soft cushion of clouds? Was it the tiny home stay with the huge bathroom at Thekkedy or the huge troop of  Russian girls we shared the restaurant with? Was it the early morning bread omelette by the waterfall or the wooden toy car I got from that shop at the Echo point?.... It certainly was not the boat ride, and definitely not the hotel room at Munnar without a lock to its bathroom door. I guess I know the answer perfectly well. They were my Friends, who were with me always, through out the trip, manufacturing all those li'l magical moments that now bring me a smile. That tea at the road side, 1700m above mean sea level, the awesome masala Dosa, the perfect bread omelette, even the chicken at KFC would not have been all that great without them sharing the table. It would never have been so easy financially had UNCOOL not volunteered to manage the pool. We would never have captured the incredible moments without BABU and RG's cams. The journey would definitely have been far less action packed without the nauseatic DAISY and the slow JEW. The altitude of 1957m above msl would never have been that interesting without BABY 's GPS and binoculars. Thanks friends for such an amazing time. God's own country would have been so less Godlike without you guys.

poem from "kabhi kabhi"

Kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hain
Ki zindagi teri zulfon ki narm chhaon main guzarne pati
To sadab ho bhi sakti thi
Yeh ranjho gham ki siyahi jo dil pe chhayi hain
Teri nazar ki suahon main kho bhi sakti thi
Magar yeh ho na saka,
Magar yeh ho na saka aur ab ye aalam hain
Ki tu nahin, tera gham, teri joostjoo bhi nahin
Guzar rahi hain kuchh iss tarah zindagi jaise, isse kisi ke sahare ki aarzoo bhi nahin
Na koi raah, na manzil, na roshni ka suragh
Bhatak rahin hai andheron main zindagi meri
Inhi andheron main reh jaoonga kabhi kho kar
Main janta hoo meri hum-nafas, magar yoonhi
Kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hai

corruption... my take on the "burning topic"

A newly started blog really compels you to think of something, to post something. For a significantly average guy handicapped with a below average vocabulary, i now realize, creating the blog was the simpler task. However, giving it a shot, i made a mental scan of various topics i can scribble on. And it didn't take me much longer than a sms tone to arrive at what i have heard a million times in our school assembly as the burning topic.. tana... CORRUPTION.


There's a lot of talk about corruption going on every where…thanks to Mr. Hazare who sure made an impact and created a wave!!... its really frustrating and disgusting to see the country suffering coz the people in the governmental machinery, appointed to run the country, are themselves polluting it. But what can really be done? I kinda gave the whole thing a thought, believe me at that, and… felt that this problem is a lot more deep rooted and would take much more than simply creating another body to fight against this evil. I have just one thing to say…

Papa ko nahin hai pension, ghar mein hazaroon tension...
Upar se bete ka tuition aur biwi ka fashion...
Mujhe nahin dikhta koi aur option…
But corruption. but corruption...

"yaadein" a beautiful poem from the movie UDAAN

In memory of school life :-

Chhoti-chhoti chhitrayi yaadein
Bichhi hui hain lamhon ki lawn par
Nange pair unpar chalte-chalte
Itni door chale aaye
Ki ab bhool gaye hain –
Joote kahan utaare the.

Aedi komal thi, jab aaye the.
Thodi si naazuk hai abhi bhi.
Aur nazuk hi rahegi
In khatti-meethi yaadon ki shararat
Jab tak inhe gudgudati rahe.

Sach, bhool gaye hain
Ki joote kahan utaare the.
Par lagta hai,
Ab unki zaroorat nahin.

mann ki baatein...

mann karta hai ki udd jaoon....
door kahin us gagan mein.
mann karta hai ki kho jaoon...
badalon ke jashn mein.
mann karta hai ki hawaon mein...
apna humrahi dhundloon.
mann to yeh bhi karta hai ki...
koyal sa kuchh meetha kehdoon.
mann ki batein...
mann ki batein mann hi jaane...
mann hi mann jane kitne mann bana leta huun...
apne mann ko toh jann na saka mein abtak...

unki mann mein jhaankne ka mann bana leta huun...