Tuesday, October 04, 2011

In pursuit of the rabbit hole

What do you do when life seems to be in a stuck in a dark labyrinth. Every move you make to find an exit only takes you deeper into the maze. Many choose to surrender and befriend the darkness. But for seekers like me there is only one option. To keep stumbling through the dark with the hope that one of the exits will turn out to be the rabbit hole which will usher in the wonderland once again!
I don't really mind this lengthy and painful journey through hell. All I wish for is a happy ending!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Dil aakhir tu kyon rota hai..

Ad mist all the fun, adventure, amazing cinematography and drama in the movie zindagi na milegi dobara, this poem stood out.

Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya
Jab ghum ka saya lehraya
Jab aansoo palkon tak aya
Jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya
Humne dil ko yeh samjhaya
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai
Duniya mein yunhi hota hai

Yeh jo gehre sannaate hain
Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain
Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa
Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa
Aankh teri bekaar hi namm hai
Har pal ek naya mausam hai
Kyun tu aise pal khota hai
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Hyderabad blues!

An year back, the lure of better opportunities (and money) made me pack my nice quiet life in 12 boxes and move to this city of pearls. Interestingly, the first signboard that I saw on road meant Bangalore is left. I slept with joyful pictures of Spain lifting the world cup in my mind that night. Next day, I joined Microsoft.

Well the good vibes faded away in couple of months. And a lot went wrong than right after that. But as Captain Mal from Firefly will say: "There is trouble. But we are still flying. It's enough". So the eternal optimist in me has decided to ditch the "blues" and make this post a recollection of the good stuff that happened over the past year.
 1. Lawn Tennis -- My initial attempt at lawn tennis ended in a game when I could not even get the ball to the other side of net in VNIT. I have managed to do a lot better on Microsoft tennis court :). The midnight 3 hour lawn tennis marathon followed by breakfast at 3:30 AM was totally awesome!
2. Adobe standard-time Lunch -- Our gang had this tradition in Adobe of inaugurating the lunch at 12:30 PM. The talk/gossip/leg-pulling/fun over lunch always proved enough to make us neglect the average food. A bunch of Adobe expats managed to keep that tradition going here for 6 months.To top it up, there was Table Tennis post-lunch!(along with some victory dances :P)
3. Home trips -- Being closer to hometown meant a significant number of trips to Nagpur. After 6 years, I managed to be at home for birthday and most of the major festivals.
4. Bhongir -- Though most of the weekends were wasted in multiplexes, restaurants or home, one weekend stood out. We woke up early morning, drove 100 kms to Bhongir fort, challenged the mighty wind on top of the fort and yet lived to tell the tale.
5. Flashbacks! -- A wise man has said: "The sweet is never as sweet without the sour". Perhaps I understand the statement now in a more profound manner. How blessed one is to be working on something interesting which pays well enough too. Or to be surrounded by many smart and fun-loving colleagues who make work feel like play in spite of the stringent corporate software requirements. Or to be living in a city where nature is 100kms drive away in either direction.

Now, let me end the post here with the hope that the sequel (if any) is better than this one! :)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Quotes from "Catcher in the rye"

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.  You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know.  Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.  Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.  You'll learn from them - if you want to.  Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.  It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.  And it isn't education.  It's history.  It's poetry." 
 
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one"


"Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it'll begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What it'll fit and, maybe, what it won't. After a while, you'll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don't suit you, aren't becoming to you. You'll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly" ~ Chapter 24


"This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.  The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom.  He just keeps falling and falling.  The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with.  Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with.  So they gave up looking.  They gave it up before they ever really even got started."  ~Chapter 24


"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."  ~Chapter 22


Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody.  ~Chapter 26

Monday, May 02, 2011

A kid on the sea shore...

Lost in her own world, a kid on sea shore is building a sand castle. The oohs and aah's of the surrounding real world does not affect her focus.  Little does she know that her castle can be swept away by the mighty ocean with a single wave. No wonder childhood dreams being free of inhibitions are always grand! 
The will to act on intuition coupled with confidence and ignorance drives us to dream big and cruise through life in early stages. Heart is the captain, Head the commander and life is fun!  All college choices which shape our careers are made by simply following one's heart. For example, my hatred of biology was a good enough reason to opt for engineering courses in junior college itself thereby closing all the medicine career options. And my 3 month preliminary computer course motivated me to choose Computer science as my engineering stream. But as college cocoon expires, life happens. The captain gets softened by the significant battles lost to reality as time goes by. It looks up to the commander for advice which tries to make a practical decision by taking mind boggling real world parameters into account. The parameters keep changing and you end up as a mere shadow of your true self. Trapped in the vicious circle of nothingness, all you aspire is to stop listening to your head and once again follow the principles of..... the kid on the sea shore.
Because Life is a lot like Love. Unless you are brave and ready to risk everything, you risk even more!

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Captivated

by the depth of these words. [Source: http://www.dailylove.net/2010/09/91510.html]

Have you:
awakened from a memory
kissing only air
reaching for the darkness
to find that no one's there

Do you:
think back to the whispers
loving words once said
now regretting the silence
which lingers in your bed

Are you:
holding on to nothing
and wishing it was real
damning your loneliness
and all it makes you feel

Will you:
be content to roll over
and fall back to sleep
forget your dreaming heart
and all within it's keep

Can you:
go on like this forever
leaving love behind
just a memory of a dream
playing in your mind 

Saturday, January 01, 2011

New year eve..

It's that time of the year which has been used as an excuse by earthlings to have a party with loved ones instead of merely changing the calendar.

I remember spending this day mostly at home sweet home. The family which used to sleep way before midnight made an exception to make the occasion special. A small cake will be cut at midnight to welcome the new year by 4 of us.

The exception to this event happened when I was studying at IITK. The typical college enthusiasm along with crazy BKT_Lukkhe gang made sure both the new year eves were hell lot of fun. The first (and as of now only) new year eve party I attended turned out to be the one arranged by students in Hall 7.  At the stroke of the midnight, the speakers sung "Final Countdown" and junta ended up giving some poor guy bumps in the spirit of celebrations :P. The next new year eve was spent roaming around on the streets of Kanpur with the same gang.

This new year eve turned out to be a quite affair. A bunch of Adams who still can't find their Eve's ended up having dinner at a restaurant followed by a movie to fill the time until fireworks started in the society at midnight. If it sounds so depressing, let me tell you that food, movie and fireworks all were good. What was missing was the party element. So here's wishing that 2011 gives many reasons for that!