TIME PLEASE

There seem to be so many hurdles in life. Every time I cross a particular hurdle there's a new one in the propping up near the horizon. And the finishing line for my race seems to be all the more farther.

Well if this seems a little confusing, let me get a little clear on this. Its like I have been trying extremely hard to achieve a particular goal since the last two years. And in these two years I have faced 'N' number of problems while reaching there. Every time there is some or the other new problem propping up, and there seems to be absolutely no end to it. Sometimes I feel like giving up, with a feeling that probably I am just not destined to reach there!!! But every time when I feel like giving up, I turn back and look at the distance that I had already crossed through. It also reminds of the hurdles encountered, and how many times I had stumbled upon, collapsed down, and again gathered myself to walk ahead...

Its this journey until here that doesn't allow me to give up, and I keep trodding ahead. All along this journey until now, I aimed at a particular finishing line, ran until there with all my strength, and when I crossed it, there was one another goal set up near the horizon, and once again I had to run through to cross it. uhhh !!!

Life is too tiring. But probably, I am going wrong somewhere, every time I cross a particular hurdle, instead of looking ahead and feeling overburdened with the next deadlines, I should take a little time off, and rejoice, smile and enjoy that small moment of achievement.. I should regain the strength and only then start running the life never ending race ahead.

Life is such a terrible journey isn't it, we are completely aware that the finishing line is too far off, the way ahead is dark, and full of hurdles and yet we can only walk ahead. It always reminds me of Robert Frost's famous lines:

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.

But life's race can be a bit more peaceful if we just take some time off, relax and rejoice and look around just for a while.
Yes, I just need to say 'Time please!!!'

WAITING ALL THE WAY

Waiting for anyone is such a terrible experience!! I hate to wait for anybody. Especially friends who promise to meet you at some destinations, and everything therein would be immaculately planned. Like they would confirm the location 120 times, the timing would also be doubly confirmed, they'll tell you the exact distance from their house to the destination, in Kilometers (upto the fourth decimal place) and would also calculate the time required to upto milliseconds!!

And then you would also plan your activities accordingly, skip a cup of tea to avoid delays, rush and run to catch the bus, squeeze your schedule, and squeeze everything including yourself in an overcrowded local, and reach the place before time.. And then WAIT, WAIT and WAIT, until your friend finally arrives after making you stand there at least for an hour!!!! He would appear totally comfortable, at ease, and non-baffled, looking exceptionally peaceful, without slightest regret that he's kept you waiting that long, and would ask sweetly (shamelessly) 'Did you have to wait too long??' and even you land up responding 'No not at all, I just reached a few seconds before you !!!! '

Uhhh.. I simply hate these people who cant manage to be punctual enough, and are completely shameless about it.

And one another species of shameless people is the one who forget to give a call. One has to wait for hours together after the pre-committed/predecided time, and then when finally we ring them up they'd come with a standard, classic dialogue 'OH, I WAS JUST THINKING OF GIVING YOU A CALL !!'

Why do people keep thinking ???
Why cant they pick up the phone, dial and speak??
What is really a problem in doing this ???

And there is one another species of utterly shameless people, who would say that I'll call you up, but would never commit the timing just because they hate to commit it, being completely sure that they would never be able to stand by it..
LOOK AT THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL!!! GOD PLEASE TEACH ME TO HAVE PATIENCE OR ALTERNATIVELY PLEASE TEACH SUCH PEOPLE WHAT PUNCTUALITY IS LIKE....

Gods Sense Of Humor

My mother called up this morning, and was sounding totally devastated and depressed, so I had to excuse myself out of a meeting and had to hear to her story. I was ashamed of myself later that I spoke so reluctantly with her. She just wanted to share a sad news that her friends daughter (who was just as old as me) had passed away. Its unbelievable to digest the fact that that this cheerful, and youthful girl passed away so early, and embraced death so courageously.

She was suffering from a kidney disorder, and both her kidneys had failed. Her Mother as well as her Aunt were willing to donate her a kidney, and they had undergone all the tests required for it. It was almost being finalised whose kidney would be most compatible to her, when she decided that she would not accept it. And till the very end she was extremely determined that she would not accept their kidneys, and put them in trouble for the rest of their lives.

Today she peacefully embraced death, and left a terrible chaos out here in our minds.

Where do people derive so much courage !!! What makes them take such decisions and happlily surrender to death?

Indeed our lives are not more precious than our parents lives. I would have never accepted my parents kidney, and torment them for the rest of their lives.

And now I wonder what be an ideal way out of such a situation, accepting a parents kidney, or not accepting it. Either ways they would not be able to live happily!!

I hate God's sick sense of humor, when he puts us in such difficult situations, which are way beyond our intelligence to resolve..

MY INANIMATE TRUE FRIEND

I had been writing in the same diary since last 7 years.

My concept of writing a diary is writing in it whenever I really feel like sharing anything. So I just come back to write in it after 15 days, or may be a month or so. And doing this, I observed that the same diary was used for a period of 7 years!!!

But believe in me reading through it is a wonderful journey. It always leaves me amused when I turn back a few pages and peep into my thoughts in the past. They always seem to be so insane, immature, and incomplete... Yesterday, while I was writing in the last few lines there, I quickly ran through those previous 7 years that were painted in bits & pieces in it. It was a totally incomplete painting, yet extremely beautiful, since it was my picture. It appeared extremely ugly at few places, graceful in the other, stupid at some instances, and brilliant in the others!!! However it may be- for me it was an extremely beautiful painting.

There was however one disturbing fact with my diary, that in most of the pages, I had been extremely lonely or sad. Probably I felt like sharing my feeling in my diary only during those lonely times. Why was it that I didn't feel like sharing my happy or cheerful moments there? It was probably because I had plenty of my friends and family members to share my happiness, but unhappy moments had been totally lonely, and at those times I had no other friend than my faithful little Diary.

Diaries are such beautiful friends isn't it? We can express anything there without the fear of being ridiculed or criticised. We can be nobody other than ourselves there. But don't we expect the same from our friends? In fact its much more better to confide in a friend than an inanimate diary. ( How much I wish I owned a diary like Ginny Weasley, which could respond to my feelings!!) Well looking closely to this, I feel that this is my primary requirement from any relationship for that matter, is that people should accept me the way I am. Well I do need advice, and directions from them, but that advice should not have a note of criticism in it. And also that advice should come with an probability of being rejected also.

But very often my advice to my friends (and vice versa) if full of criticism, taunts, and worst of all its full of sarcasm at times..

Well then according to me, the best way of maintaining healthy relationship is basically by accepting the person (without trying to change him/her) and when we feel that some change is necessary, we should just give our 'OPINION'. But our opinion should not have any kind of criticism or sarcasm in it. JUST PURE OPINION.

Because its not the advice, but the tone of sarcasm and criticism that makes the receiver resistant to it !!!
This is probably the best lesson that my diary has taught me...

TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED

We come across such a wide variety of people while staying in an hostel !!! Being a proud resident of hostel from the last 4 years, I have come across a number of people. And the worst part about it is we get to know people really well here!!! And of all those species that I have met until now- the worst have been of this species whom we fondly call as 'TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED SPECIES'.

My first room-mate was a medico. This girl is an extremely brilliant girl and had been scoring exceedingly well in all her college examinations !!! One night when we were busy studying, we decided to make Maggi in the hostel room. Now cooking in the room, and that too on a hot plate was strictly prohibited. That night I took the entire initiative of cooking (Maggi), and happily delegated the task of washing dishes on my room-mate. Next morning every time we used to switch on the hotplate the fuse used to blow off- and would horribly annoy our hostel authorities, since somebody had to come over and replace the wire after every 5 minutes.

Finally, I had to put all my engineering skills to test and I decided to open this hotplate, only to find 2 cups of water inside it !!! I was really shocked to find water inside a hotplate, and almost had a mild cardiac arrest when I discovered that it was because my dear medico roommate had tried to WASH it..

Imagine holding this hotplate under running water, and washing it with a detergent; or still worse, dip it in a bucket full of water. How clean it would appear isn't it????
I still remember spending hours together trying to dry the water with a hair drier!!!


There is one another MBA (HR) friend of mine who doesn't understand how to insert a cassette in a Cassette Player !!! She always manages to insert the wrong side, then the player automatically ejects out, then she again inserts the wrong side, hits the button with full force, vigor and anger, and then finally when even that doesn't works, decides to reverse the cassette or alternatively asks somebody to insert it in the player..

I used to share a flat with her, and once we had guests at home. Those were the post 26/7 days when we had to boil water and drink. But since we had to immediately offer it to our guests, she had to use all her skills to cool it. She had filled hot water it in a plastic bottle, then corked it tightly to make it watertight and kept it in the freezer !!! IMMEDIATE EFFECT U SEE... I wanted to retain this bottle to show her children how primitive plastic used to be !!!

I have also seen her getting confused between a water pump, and a generator. And I was shocked to see that she couldn't identify the difference even when the pump had pipes running in all the possible directions!!!

There are several such encounters with my room- mates and friends, where I am always left surprised to see that people don't understand even the simplest principles of Physics, or Chemistry (or Common Sense)!! And I invariably lose my temper while teaching them these basics.....

However now my patience has greatly increased after meeting one another girl in my hostel!!! Sadly enough she is a engineering student. She had her submissions the other day, and had not been able to finish the drawings, and like every other engineering student she decided to Glass Trace the drawings ( GT / Topo- whatever people call it). And to my surprise she had kept a 60W fluorescent light bulb in a plastic bucket and then covered it with the glass, only to find that the bulb got so hot that there was an accurate round shaped hole in the bucket!!!!


MAY GOD SAVE THIS TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED SPECIES ON THE EARTH!!!! AMEN......

Mi MUMBAIKAR!!

All my 'Urban Blues' start from the time I decided to move in Mumbai. Actually being from a place like Pune, Mumbai was the last place, I would have ever thought of moving to.

And I still remember the day I had first entered this city, with my father, to seek admission in one of the most prestigious colleges in Mumbai.

My first disappointment was while our train was touching Dadar. There were several local trains running along side- which were packed with people. Or rather I should say 'Overflowing' with people. I had always known Mumbai as a city where Local trains are always full, roads are always jammed, and every resident is always in a hurry to reach somewhere!!! All my prejudices were doubly confirmed when I first stepped on the Dadar Station, and was scared to death that very soon even I would be a part of this Faceless Crowd, dying to reach somewhere....

Fortunately and Unfortunately, I got an admission in Mumbai, and most unwillingly I landed in this city, of which I am now a proud resident!!!The spirit of Mumbaikars has always amused me..

Wonder how they manage to commute for hours together and yet be completely happy about it??

How can they enjoy the process of commuting in those overcrowded trains and peacefully play antaksharies when there's not an inch left to move ??

Just how can there be a magnificient bunglow( of some filmstar), right next to a Jhopadpatti???

How can a five star hotel have a small 'tapri', just adjacent to its compound wall, and both being equally crowded??

How can people work for 12-18 hours a day, and still have time left for TV serials, Jogging, Laughter Clubs and Gossips???

How is that a Managing Director of company and a office boy / ordinary clerk travel in the same train, and be completely comfortable of this fact???

How is that you would have several celebrities and filmstars moving around you and nobody on the earth would be exited to see them ???

How do these Mumbaikar's have an extremely intimate friend circle called as 'Train Friends' !!!

How can an entire family of 8 stay in a 1 BHK flat and still have space for others???

There are several such amusing facts that I cant help thinking about.

Believe in me, I have spent endless hours pondering over these facts, but now I realise there's no use thinking over it, I'll never get answers for any of these questions unless I try to be a Mumbaikar myself......

BETTER BE BEASTS

I have been toying with this idea to host a blog since a real long time, but had been procastinating it for I dont know what reasons. But today when I start doing it- the first thing that I wish to share here is my favorite poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling.

One of the main reasons why I like this so much is the fact that this poem speaks about all the 'IDEAL' things in life, and still it explains that its impossible to be ideal !!! In fact its also impossible to be 'HUMAN'..

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

If this is what it takes to be 'Human', then i would rather be a Beast !!!