Just one more!

Most of the blog entries in this page seem to be alluding to the past, or keeping it as a reference to current and future happenings. I am not sure if that is the way I think, write or wish the blog to be. ( However one-dimensional my thinking may seem, it's my blog, so there's no other go but for you to read it. Follow that up with a "smiling" smiley! ) It sure does make a lot of sense to me, to learn from mistakes and keep on improving. Yet again, this little scribbling would also allude to a minute reference from the past, to put my idea across.

I am sure every one of us would have had to listen to our headmasters and teachers lecturing on discipline, way back in school. It would be easy to guess how many of those lectures during the daily morning prayer/general school assemblies we would have paid attention to, and how many of those we would remember till date. Sometimes I feel sad when I realise how much efforts they take to direct us onto the right path, and how passive we are in our response. It could be the age where we couldn't concentrate on lectures, it also could be that we feigned hearing to them. But over the past few days I got to know the extent to which it could help a person , if he had paid attention to as small as one statement in a teacher's peptalk.

"Whatever you do, keep telling that you can push yourself more- and go the extra mile. Be it an exam where you don't know all the answers. Be it in sport where you are leading the pack. Be it at the track where you run for 20 minutes- run the extra minute. Be it in doing good for people- you can always do more. Be it when faced with repeated failures- do not give up, you never know if your next try could lead you to success! Be it in life, where you need to keep bettering yourself. Be it when you face death- by choosing to push yourself to live that extra second."

I remember the headmistress speaking these words at one of those peptalks that my school organised before our 12th Standard examinations. Frankly speaking, I was never a fan of hers- but chose to keep these words in mind, and live by them. There's been many a time when I've thought I should stop writing- for want of time and concentration, but every time that happens I've promised myself to write just one more.

By the looks of it, this shall keep happening all my lifetime.

Getting Habitual...

It's been one year now, almost, since I came to the United States. I know that many of the people who are reading this blog would also fall in the same category of "studying-away-from-home". True that we all miss our homeland, sometimes to the extent of thinking why we came here to pursue our dreams. But then, after a while, we all tend to get used to it.

I remember the days I used to go to high school, which was about three kilometres away, every morning- on my cycle. There used to be a set route which I used to take, and I knew every little pothole on the road to avoid, leave alone the signals to dodge so that I could get to school on time. I felt as though all the scenes in the vicinity were programmed into me, so I could easily find out which shop had been shifted recently, and which was closed on what day of the week. Beautiful days, those. I remember having races against myself so that I could keep bettering the time I took to reach school from home.

The fact is that I had gotten used to the people, the places, the sights and sounds of the environment around me. To the extent that I could tell the schedule of the city buses which ran in the mornings and evenings, when I used to commute. That's one beauty of city life that I miss, being in a suburban Texan town.

One year into my life here, it somehow feels good to tell that I have got used to this place. There lies a pleasure in seeing things and people, daily - that you know you will not continue to see all your life., a pleasure that we sometimes miss to spot in our busy lives. This one year, I have surely missed India, but one year later when I am out of this town, I am sure I will miss the beautiful memories that it gave me, too.

Keep the faith.

Lost for words to open this blog entry with, I could not find any other way but to foist in a brainless philosophical reference- " Revelations can occur to one anytime, from anywhere and anyone. "

Assuming that all the readers of this piece of writing would be atleast into their teens, and through with atleast one and a half phases of their lives by now- I go ahead with writing this.

In this journey called life, there are quite a few stages, like Shakespeare alludes to, in "All the world's a stage". It is interesting also, to note the metamorphosis of the environment around a person as he grows from being a toddler, to a boy, to a young man, and all the way till the end of his lifetime.

At every such stage of our life, occur various events that lead us to confide in a few people. Sometimes these people may remain the same for years altogether, some other times they may leave midway to return back- the worst case being they do not return back forever. Social circles tend to change, with the wrinkles on your face.

I am sure we would all agree to the fact that there do exist certain people- whom we used to give a lot of importance to, but now we would not. The vice versa would also be true. You may have been close friends with someone a year back, but not now. You may not have known your soulmate a month back, but would be willing to do anything for him/her now. Weird is the way of life.

What this teaches us, is that the key to being a balanced individual, would be to keep up the faith with the same person(s) you confide in, all through your life. Trust them, keep in touch, and express to them that you care, no matter what. Unfortunately the writer of this blog had not realised about his lack of expression until he was brought crashing onto this fact by a dear friend of his.

This Day, That Age..

With the sun beating down like there's no tomorrow, and the weight and heat of a black-colored backpack threatening to vaporize me to nothing- I finally managed to beat the irritation to get a DVD box-set of a reasonably old Bollywood movie from the university library. I should admit, the predominantly American support staff of the library mediastore were finding it very tough to understand a huge phrase with big "oh-so-obvious" Indian words. A deadly combination, that. I had to suppress a laugh when I ventured out to find the English translation of the name for them. It said "Brave hearted will take the bride". I just could not stop bursting into a laughter characteristic of "Hey Dude, we call it DDLJ, got it? Now go get the DVD up for me!"

I remember the late 90's when DDLJ came about. It was the age of the perfect Bollywood song-dance-melodrama blockbuster. Three hours of singing, running around trees, symbolic love scenes, sister-brother sentiment, villain bashing and a happy ending. Add a local theatre and the entire family for company, and you had the perfect moneymaking machine for the film distributor. Bets were placed on who would watch DDLJ or HAHK the most number of times. ( local cable TV viewing of the movie would count as a negative ). Funny times, those. Even film extras oozed with makeup and glycerin tears.

The last time I had watched this movie, was back in 1997/98. After an eleven year break, here I was- watching it again, in a different age, in a different milieu- where we used to go to theatres to watch movies with family, I had a laptop and nothing but my room for company. The movie by itself, surprisingly, failed to impress me. I could not believe I had watched a movie and liked it for the first seven times, and hated it the next time. Surely something should have gone wrong somewhere- I cross checked to verify if I was indeed seeing the movie or its blooper DVD.

The DVD of the movie it was, alright. But maybe, all these years of my life coupled with movie watching had tinkered with the way I look at things. Where I used to see joy and color, I now saw garishness and a surfeit of non-detail. Where I once saw love, I now saw just two people acting what someone else told them to. Where I saw jokes, I now saw boredom. Some things in life never seem to change. Age doesn't seem to be one, unfortunately.

One Last Time..

Most of the regular writers suffer from a range of dilemmas, before they set to write on a topic, or on perhaps no topic at all. A strange one I was suffering from since the past one month- was a lack of resources, and proper personal time to transfer my thoughts onto a blog entry. I should also take up some blame for being lazy to write, and thus depriving you of some much needed boredom.

In the meanwhile, life has chugged on - offering new insights, and experiences. But there's been one thought which has plagued me over a long time. The recession, as we all know has affected all and sundry. It also means a lot of opportunities for budding graduates from universities have been nipped in the bud. Sounds scary for the current crop of students- we live in a hope that good lies in store for one and all.

In a flip-side to the recession story, I probably have met many people for the last time in my life- or theirs. (Whichever ends earlier) A lot of the people I met after coming to the US, have had to go back to India due to the lack of opportunities. Extremely unfortunate for them, and I am aware of the practical thought that I might be on the receiving end before I say snap. This post is dedicated to all of them, who came here, worked hard, gave it their best shot- but could not make it due to a reason beyond their control. A natural flow of thought would establish the fact that we may or may not get to see them again in our lives, even if we go back to India, someday. Weird thought, but most of us would know it is true.

This post is also dedicated to one of my kin, a wonderful person who loved me a lot and showed me what rural India was all about- who passed away earlier this month. Unfortunate that the last I saw of him was when I left the shores of India a year back. Wherever you are now, this is for you- from someone who is indebted always.

The irony of life - they say. How more different can the same circumstance of "seeing a person for the last time", be?



As this post ends, I remember myself looking down at the distant winding canyons dotting the earth , from the confines of an otherwise uninspiring airplane. I do not remember caring about comfort, as I never know if I may see them again.

Itinerant..

However good or bad one's past might be, it is common wisdom that one should not live in his doings of yesterday or dwell in the dreams of tomorrow, and rather concentrate on whatever is to be done at the moment. It is another story as to how many actually follow this saying. I believe a man is today because of what he did in the past (however immediate or far that might be) , and his present impacts his future standing.

Travelling alone often presents us with an unusually (continuous) block of time to spend with ourself. Some might choose to read a book or listen to music, some others defeat the concept of "personal time" by talking or texting over the phone, few introspect and dissect their actions. When I was just starting to wonder what of the above should I be doing, a brainwave came by. Why not rummage through my wallet, for a change? I had hardly bothered to check its contents over many years for now, except for the odd currency and ID.

The first thing I could get hold of was a bunch of photos of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. I remember my dad giving me a couple of those on the day my tenth standard exams started. I was to recieve another couple of them from him when I wrote my twelfth standard Board examinations. How we struggled to keep our tension and anxiety in check the morning of every one of those exams!

A faded out Identity card revealed a younger me- it appeared to be the Southern Railways ID card I had got in my first year of engineering, to travel to college. 155 Indian rupees for three months of unlimited tension-free airy travel with a lot of college mates for company - not even the best seat in Kodak Theatre would get better than this.

A wad of tickets came through- of varying types. Tickets to the IPL season one which took place in 2008. Splendid memories of a hoard of friends and a lot of sporting fun. Tickets to the Chennai Tennis Open, to which I had been to every year. Tickets to a test match at the Chepauk cricket stadium, where Virendra Sehwag famously scored a triple century. I remember cheering with every one of the 50,000 people in the stadium for it. A bus ticket for a ride from home to my grandparents' place, which I visited every fortnight. Tickets to a movie I remember seeing first day first show- The Pirates of the Caribbean- at the best theatre in Chennai.

A courier receipt turned up- of the consignment of paperwork I had to send across to universities, for my higher studies. An autographed piece of paper from one of my friends, wishing me best of luck for a second year engineering exam.

The next thing I know, stewards were shooing me off the Burbank (LA) Airport Runway. Travel can be lonely at times, but whoever said it bores, probably never meant it.

Past the prime..

One of these days, we had to go out to the mall for some general purchases, and groceries. Going shopping with the fairer gender has an obvious downside for the males accompanying them- but surprisingly enough, I was to find out later that there was an upside to it, too.

When was the last time you had time to look at the price gap between an in-house brand of cornflakes, and an established one? When have you ever noticed the difference between the nature of various brands of kitchen tissue paper ? (the toilet paper is another story, altogether!) Would you care to look up those arbitrary coupons left on the shelves and get the exact brand of Granola bars, and the exact quantity, to save a relatively paltry twenty five cents? Never. That is, unless you are left to grocery shop an hour instead of the customary once-per-week-ten -minute routine.

Aimlessly staring at an aisle filled with a surfeit of dogfood, I walked the entire twenty metre stretch without realising the fact that neither do I own a dog, nor am I one-technically. (Some people may tell I am one, but then I hate to think how my consort would be called as, if I was indeed a dog) Half-lost in a world of nothingness, I wandered along just to remember that I had to pick up a carton of milk. So, the milk aisle I went- I had eternity left for the bus back home, and just one item to purchase, before the others returned. (for LOST fans- by "others" here, I just mean my friends.)

Maybe it was the music playing on the headphones, plain curiosity, or the level of boredom in me- I actually bothered to check the "Sell By" date on the carton. Philosophy, they say, can strike the aimless mind anytime. I second it- down went a spiral of milk , Bollywood Flashback style..

A friend we loved, the camaraderie we had with some people, all those weekends we just lazed around on the lawns waiting to be fed with good food, the talks we had with someone who's not with us right now , the puppy love which blossomed in school, the nights spent talking absolutely nothing over the phone, and umpteen more occurrences in life - would they be remembered by us if they had not ended? Would they be treated with as much nostalgia and love if they had become a routine like a daily bath ? ( only for people who do that ;) ) I reckon the answer would be a unanimous no.

Maybe....Maybe, things are valued only if they have a Sell By date. Be it a carton of milk, or life.