They said so

Following are a few excerpts from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. Each one of them is highly thought-provoking and brilliantly written. No comments from my side:

"...which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating."

"It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do."

"...(she) went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task dear friends--a mammoth task."

"Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them."

The third one is much more special and conveys a lot more than those few words.

Meandering through

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अस्थिर अशांत सा इस बियावान में
लहरों सदृश हिचकोले खाता
बेचैन मन,

घृणा, तृष्णा, अंधकार, हाहाकार...
अब तो इस बीहड़ से
भाग उठने की लिप्सा मात्र है।

धरा पर बिताए इन कुछेक वर्षों में ही
लगता है जैसे -
सत्य की पराकाष्ठा समझ आ गई हो...

संस्कृति एवँ परम्परा का झूठा दम्भ,
मखौल बनते मानवता एवँ निष्ठा
सरीखे किताबी शब्द...

एक दूसरे को ही नोच
खाने को आतुर
गिद्ध की तरह डटे लोग।

निरर्थक से किसी लक्ष्य को
प्राप्त करने की होड़ में
कलपता अंतर्मन...

एक पारदर्शी छवि प्राप्त करने की आकांक्षा
परन्तु फिर भी बाकि है।
कभी तो प्राप्त होगी वह
अलौकिक जान पड़ती दूरस्थ आकृति...

कभी तो मिलेगी वह विचित्र अनुभूति...
इसी पागलपन के मध्य
शायद कुछ वर्ष और व्यतीत कर लूँ!

Friends drifting away with time

Ever noticed how at this stage of life one by one our friends have started drifting away from us - transforming into formal acquaintances from close friends? Some reason or the other, we are getting separated from each other. It troubles me, might be because the adolescent kid inside me has not yet been able to give way to adulthood so as to have enough strength to face these harsh realities. I still find myself immature, troubled with slightest difficulties... In about an year, I would be away from the close ones in my alma-mater. Few of them from my school are even getting married! And it descends upon my heart like a melancholy for no obvious reasons.

Will friends stay close with the passage of time? Its difficult to predict, even more difficult to observe yourself. Sometimes I feel I'm getting too much involved in things, or getting too much social, but what's the problem with that? I wonder if there would be a day when everybody would be busy in their professional lives and would lose meaning of our friendship. I just wish that never happens. I read somewhere - Friends don't drift apart universally with time. It's your own decision to shut off your eyes, so that you don't acknowledge them.

P.S. I don't believe in star tracks, but just after finishing this blog, here's what I found in today's Graphiti -

Virgo (August 21 - September 20) This week Virgoans are on an emotional roller-coaster. Cast aside insecure feelings. Draw comfort from family and friends. You may also feel lonely or unloved, but do not slip into a depressive mode. You just need to ask yourself whether this self-pity is justified. Chin up!

Quoting a line from my own previous post - you start believing in everything when you want to.

My friend gets married!

This wedding I attended was entirely different from all my previous experiences of such an occasion. Earlier, on all such occasions, I had been with my family, going for a maximum of 3 to 4 hours, rhetorically respecting entire family members gathered and returning back to enjoy a good night's sleep after a tiresome day.

This was different in many aspects - first and the foremost, I was well acquainted with both the bride and the groom. The bride happened to be a close friend from my school, and the groom is my senior. Its a nice feeling when you are in a situation like this, being known on both sides! Next, the meeting with seniors from my college in the evening - I re-experienced the same senior-junior relationship tradition of ISM about which each one of us are proud of. I had never seen or met anyone before, but we sat together, chatted and drank like we had known each other for years.

Then the baraat - for the first time I attended one after consuming a little alcohol! We danced a lot just like any other party at our institute, but there was a difference - there was a camera rolling! It was fun, dancing on band party instruments is much more exciting than even a DJ.

It was different, I saw her in that bride's dress and she was looking beautiful with a handsome match standing besides her. I was happy for my friend, she's stepping in a new life. Congratulations Madhu!

The WET Friday

Myself and Chandra hosted a small party on the occasion of our campus selections. Too late, of course, its been 5 days since we have been through, but the sequence of events during the week didn't allow us an early treat.

Alcohol in all its splendour, people with all their emotions, we drank and spoke our hearts out. A blend of everything - happiness and pain, frustration and exasperation, love and longing - all present in many flavours. I had witnessed the failure of a brilliant mind the entire week, I can see the agony of separation with the seniors, I can feel the terrible time when we would separate from our friends in just an year, I can't stop my tears looking at my frustrated friend....

We danced, we drank, we cried, we celebrated, we encouraged, we separated .... and all this from dusk to dawn. A warm cup of tea at Ramdhani on this Saturday morning marked an end to the wet Friday, but the feeling lingers on.... and it pains in the heart.

And finally a success

The pursuit of success is far more exciting than the success itself.

Today, I landed up with my first job - IBM Global Services.

Friends ask me - you must be feeling in the airs, huh? And I can't explain to them, not at least in words - that I am not feeling in the air, but firm on the ground, firmer than I ever felt. Its an achievement, of course, but it hasn't left me that happy that I would jump around. The pursuit of success - I was enjoying that part. Preparing for the campus selections, going through everything about the company, and finally gearing myself up for those tricky HR questions, it was wonderful! And it was troublesome. Anxiety day and night, mixed with a fear of rejection - I myself did things which appear strange to me; like trying to feel confident even though a part of my mind never was! Analysing yourself, short term and long term goals, strengths and weaknesses.... All those things which are the toughest to think about! Who can think of his own weaknesses? Even if you think of many, babbling those in an interview would lead to nothing but rejection. Analysing myself! One thing which lacks in most of the humans - swaadhyaya as it is put by Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati. The day I learn that, 90% of the troubles would wither away by themselves.

The success itself? A little masti overnight with friends, a little consolation to those talented ones who got rejected, and finally a good night's sleep after days of examination. The end of success celebrations! Who would say I am feeling in the air?

But one strange feeling dawns on me - how a yesterday kid of a small locality is getting transformed into a professional. I imagine myself playing cricket in that nearby ground and attending school classes in that sombre uniform I always disliked - and then here I am - soon to land up in a job like the uncles in the colony do, soon to attend a conference in Europe... and soon to get out of my college as an engineering graduate. Things have changed, and possibly my perspectives as well. There is much more to come in life!

Tera peechha na, main ...

I think he is angry with me because I never quoted the full law, but just babbled out how it affected me in all my previous posts. In the simplest of terms (it can be much more complex at times!), Murphy's law states that - "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong." And this month, it has untied all his strings to show me to the fullest extent how devastating it can be.

Starting off with May 1st. The May Day - the labourer's day. I was doing more than required labour for the semester exams starting from 2nd. When you are in an engineering college, you must learn how to avoid studies the entire semester and then how to complete everything in a single night. Its a difficult task - but engineers come to the rescue for every difficulty in the world. So, lying on my bed with a chotha (college slang for every type of study material except the required textbook) in hand, and with my legs doing slight aerobics in the back when my head was juggling with something called Digital Communications, the right leg struck something kept on the window. My mirror fell on the ground and the head-on collision broke the glass into two pieces. The pieces didn't fell apart but remained in the frame and I decided to use the mirror until I got time to go to the market and buy a new one.

The next morning, May 2nd. The D-Day - the start of semester examinations. At about 3 O'Clock when I was about to go to sleep, I pulled the curtains and the thing fell again. This time, the mirror was broken into pieces and I had no option but to throw it out. I don't believe in superstitions, but you start believing in everything when you want to. Somebody had told me that a broken mirror is a bad sign and had suggested me to throw it out immediately when it was broken the first time. So, to give myself a reassurance (and others an explanation!) when I would be doing bad in the exams, I decided to remember it as a point to be mentioned for the reason of my performance. Then came the exams - I answered so badly that I am flunking in the paper! The first time in my life - I am failing in a subject.

May 3rd. The Asthma Day - no correlation with my sequence of events. The next paper - VLSI design. With half of the sleep required for a normal human being, I went to give the exams. After about one and a half hours, I got a terrible scolding for using unfair means in the examination. That's one terrible thing on part of the profs, they happily segregate even the tiniest of acts performed in an examination hall as unfair means! After a long lecture on honesty and all, I was atleast allowed to answer the paper.

Tomorow I am appearing for Microprocessors based systems. The syllabus is a complete epic in itself. Let's see what's more in store to come during this entire week!

Purani Jeans

We all were sitting in a room with seniors of the outgoing batch. There was a small party arranged for us as Thursday was the last working day for them. This particular song from Sandesa sung by Ali Haider was being played many times and we all were singing together...

Bas yaadein
Yaadein
Yaadein reh jaati hain
Kuchh chhoti
Chhoti
Baatein reh jaati hain
Bas yaadein..

I could feel the emotions in their heart. The pain of being separated from their alma-mater, the farewell to the four precious years of full throttle enjoyment, the agony of being parted from the great frineds with whom they have lived each and every moment of their stay at this place - all could be clearly felt in their voices. We were feeling almost the same. We would immensely miss our great share of times with them; there would be nobody on top of us to throw away all our administrative troubles, to get free of cost pertinent suggestions on academic issues, and above all, these great friends of us.

Everything which has a begining has an end. For them, this is the end of the four years of a rosy world where everything seems perfect and great - to a begining of the realities of the harsh new land outside. For us, this is the end of our share of treasured moments with them, after which we would probably just be friends with a telephonic contact. We would miss the treats, we would miss the alcohol, we would miss them.

To Hell with these bugs..

I thought I would abstain from telling this openly, but its better to puke out what bothers me terribly. I can't withstand the bugs. These tiny ugly creatures literally give me shivers. The world would have been much more beautiful without them. We wouldn't have bothered to shove them away everytime they landed up just anywhere without permission! And count on that the trouble caused to your hands when you have to move them all around behind your neck or your spine in a rapid swift motion before they dare to enter (highly unashamed as they are) inside your shirt. And a few even notorious ones take the liberty to fly and sit peacefully on your hands when you shove them. A few real ugly ones make your fingers smell so badly that you would faint if you didn't wash your hands immediately. They show their presence everywhere, falling in my water jug, anytime I forget to cover it, and sometimes even in my glass of milk left for a few minutes to be cooled off. (And, it costs me Rs. 5/- per glass!) Sometimes, they can be found comfortable on the bed meant for a single human being.

You can't even kill them. I once saw a friend crushing such a creature with a book which sort of squeezed out a jelly-like thing from its pulp-like body and the scene had enough potential to make anyone puke! I am helpless at the pathetic sight of these bungy-jumpers on my book, challenging any human soul trying to concentrate on it. And, the problem is even worse because I use a table lamp. Anyway, I have no other option but to bear these dirty things until my exams are over because this is the small period when my table lamp glows.

P.S. : I can't even close the window to prevent them from entering the room, it's too hot!

200 seconds drenched in emotions

It lasts for just a few seconds over 3 minutes, but is sure to remain in your mind for another 3 days. The desolation, the longing, the desperation and the agony - all beautifully interwined constitute the following song from Raincoat.

hai kitne baras beete tum ghar naa aaye re ..

hai kitne baras beete tum ghar naa aaye re ..

raah dekhe saawan bhaado, dariyaa pahaad ..
raah dekhe saawan bhaado, dariyaa pahaad ..
o re tere liye raah dekhe sajnaa saara sansaar re ..
dil tarse, phir barse mere baalam ke liye ..
dil tarse, phir barse mere baalam ke liye ..
hai kitne baras beete tum ghar naa aaye re ..

raah dekhe kaale meghaa, nadiyaa kaa paani ..
raah dekhe kaale meghaa, nadiyaa kaa paani ..
o re tere liye raah dekhe balmaa saari zindagaani re ..
dil tarse, phir barse mere baalam ke liye ..
dil tarse, phir barse mere baalam ke liye ..

o re laut aao sajnaa mera dil bulaaye re
o re laut aao sajnaa mera dil bulaaye re
o re laut aao sajnaa mera dil bulaaye re ..

The song is written by Rituparno Ghosh who has directed the film himself. Debojyoti Mishra's music together with Shubha Mudgal's poignant voice accentuate the thwarted love affair. And, if you have watched the film, rethink about the situation in this song! If you haven't seen it, you are missing something great.