After effects

Everything in this world has after-effects. Think about the after-effects of anti-aging creams to nuclear bombs to pregnancy to love.

Let's leave the after effects of anti-aging creams, nuclear bombs and pregnancy for the more eligible class of scientists to explore and prove...

I am just going to take a plunge into the after effects of the non-scientific thing - love.

Pyaar ke Side-Effects toh dekhi hi hogi. So, besides that, well, the first serious after-effect of love is expectation. The world is witness to the fact that expectations in love are the basic cause for a majority of blunders in love.

The second serious after-effect of love is that the love-birds fail to keep track of their friends... Friends cease to exist - friends are no longer inhabitants of the lovers' superior planet.

The third serious after-effect of love is comparison. The comparison can be between times gone by, and the present; or between someone else's lover and your own.

And of course, there is the "heart-break" part of love. Govinda rightly said, "Oye Raju, pyaar na kariyo... dil toot jaata hai". People deal differently with heart-breaks. There are people, who WANT to cry for their entire life, and not think of the future, of their friends' and family's happiness... I use the word "want" because humans are made of a very strong and powerful material. They have the ability to choose what to do with themselves. They can either choose to drown in self-pity or can choose various ways to come out of situations. They can choose to forgive and forget, or remember and regret... Yes, sometimes we do not have a choice, but we pretty much know whether the choice is there for us to make or not. And as if to continue the train of thoughts forward, it appears that heart-breaks themselves have a history of after-effects. I am not willing to get to them at this point of time.

But remember, choose... Choose on the basis of reasons. It's like putting the fors and againsts on a beam balance and weighing them, and seeing which side of reasoning is heavier... Well, at least, that is how I do it. And I think it helps...

We, more often than not, have a choice.

Un-expectations

I have been talking a lot about expectations, and about people failing to meet them. And today, I have been disappointed by not one but two people. Two people, who meant a lot did unexpected things - one spoke something I wasn't expecting to hear i.e. "Stop pretending", and the other has not spoken anything.

This first gentleman, "middle man" as someone named him, was what I thought of as an exceptional friend. He's what almost a six year old friend... Probably he was trying to show me a side of me that didn't exist or that he thought I was aware of, but hiding from him... Probably he thought that my best interest was to know that I should stop pretending and that he had come to know I was pretending... Probably it's the distance that does quite a lot of things to you... I wish he knew what pretense was. Pretense is hanging up on the phone, and blaming it on the network, pretense is knowing someone called you, and never calling back, pretense is gaining sympathy of people when you are at fault. Pretense is smiling every day and chirping the whole day so mum-dad are happy; pretense is running away from everything with the hope to really run away from everything. My life, what remains of it is what I trying to improvise. I do not need comments that make me sit on my thinking chair, and re-picture the worst phases of my life. I admittedly do that without the presence of those comments, and that is something I see myself refraining from doing in the near future. I do not need friends who do not believe me, and of course think I am pretending and also expect me always to take that first step. I am extremely hurt and extremely disappointed.

This other gentleman, oh well, I don't want to say anything about him. He's disappointed me far too much to say anything about him. I am waiting and watching... still. It feels dumb and ridiculous doing so. But I guess his speaking up or not doesn't affect me to the extent that the "middle man's" comment does. I do not need friends who tell me that they are closest to me but when it comes to their-facts-of-life, I get to hear that from other people ... But as I said, I am not hurt - just disappointed.

I've lost faith over love, I wonder how much more will it take to lose faith over friendship someday. I earnestly hope that never happens ...

At First Sight

"At First Sight" by Nicholas Sparks is very captivating, and is the latest book that I finished. Last night I couldn't keep the book down before I actually finished it. It is an amazing story of the ups and downs of relationships, and of love at first sight, and of how that love sustained. I would recommend people to read that novel. It's not an unrealistic romance. And the twist in the end was, I guess so unpredictable. They were focusing on the unborn baby and anxieties of the parents to be, that ABS (amniotic band syndrome) may be a potential danger to the baby, and the baby may end up born with physical deformities, and the extreme rare case, the baby may die! But who was to believe that, when a healthy baby was delivered, the mum would die because of what is called amniotic fluid embolism, and surprisingly, the two diseases are not related.
Another surprising thing was Doris being able to accurately judge the gender of an unborn baby way in advance, and also whether the baby would be miscarried. And her ability to judge so for 93 women under "controlled settings". It was pure intuition, but hey, it worked, always!!

The book mentions that somethings are inexplicable if trying to base their explanation on Science. I guess I have learned to believe that over time. Some things are just meant to be. But even after reading the novel, I do not know whether my belief for "love at first sight" has increased a percent more than what it was earlier or no. You can't have reasons for why you love a person if it was love at first sight. From my experiences in life, if love exists "just because" and there is just no reason why you love a person, you will end up not fighting for that person you love, you will end up not supporting that person. The mind needs a reason for everything, and it's those times when there is no reason that people oftentimes end up walking out of love. On the other hand, knowing why you love someone has you have a reason for wanting the person in your life and of course, fighting for the person's presence right where she belongs. It's plain simple as that. Yes it worked out for Jeremy and Lexie...

I am searching for a good book to read. I may as well read when I can :) Any suggestions anyone?

Mood of the Moment: Doubtful, Questioning

Song of the Moment: Ae ajnabi, tu bhi kabhi aawaaz de kahi se (Dil Se...)

Khali dimag = shaitaan ka ghar

19th August 2008
1:47 a.m.

My first day off work is over. As RA said, "unemployed"! I missed work somewhat... and got bored and well, it's seems like it's been forever since I was actually idle for some time at a stretch.

Just finished watching Singh is Kinng. It was nice and fun, for a change, and for remembrances as well...

People come and people go, but only few leave footprints on your heart...

Aaj jaane ki zidd na karo, yu hi pehlu mei baithe raho
Haaye mar jaayenge, Hum toh lut jaayenge,
Aisi baatein kiya na karo

"What's the limit of true love?"
"Its like the limits of the ocean - limitless."
"Ah ah! There's borders that separates two of them; there's a limit to the ocean - it's not visible to the focuses of human eyes blinded by the vast expanse."

tanhai ki tasveer bana di kalakaar ne
zara mai bhi toh uski parchhai dekhoon
kya woh mere jaisi hai
kya saath mein do ghariyan bitayegi
ya sab ki tarah chhod chali jaayegi??


Translation:
(The artist made a picture of loneliness
I should catch a glimpse of its reflection
Is she like me
Would she spent two moments with me
Or would she leave live the rest?)

And by the way, the title literally means "An empty mind is the house of the devil!" Figured that already, didn't you!!

when the going gets rough...

August 15, 2008
1:07 a.m.

Happy Independence Day India!

We're celebrating our independence by killing our tenants to prove that we can actually shoot as well as Abhinav Bindra - the guy who got us a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And by fighting over religions that actually teach us all paths lead to The One. How amazing can that be? It may seem ironical when I am writing about this from Toronto, and when I actually don't and can't do anything about it. It's the nationalists, the patriotics, that are responsible for the doom of a country.

But anyway, the world's turning an evil place with each passing day. And how people marvel at fooling themselves that the world is still good, and that not every one is a liar. It's the fact that I actually tell people upfront, "Every one on earth is a liar", and they cringe and think, "Oh my good Lord, she thinks like this about me!" I mean come on, we all know the truth deep down, why am I out of my mind when I say it?

Let me leave aside the political turmoil of life, and settle for a bit on the personal turmoil. It's my last day at work tomorrow. Well, actually today. I have mixed feelings. You are utterly comfortable in a niche for a while, when all of a sudden you plan to plunge into an altogether new world, new people, new everything. I have been there for a total of 17 months now, and have gotten used to the environment, people. This describes my state of mind better. Except the voice trailing off portion :-).

Anyway, it had to come, I guess. Better now than ever. And I had to do it this point in time... But yes, I am nervous, excited, sad ... and many more things at this very time.

"This too shall pass!"

Anatomy of arranged marriages

I do not know whether there's any point in my exploring the dark and exceedingly diminishing world of arranged marriages. Dark because it's really, really dark out there. No one really knows what one has to end up with... Diminishing because, thankfully (some) people of my parents' generations have begun to accept the idea of a mutual understanding and feeling of love between the people getting married rather than a burdening alliance between two families.

It's two people unaware of the presence of the other on this earth, unaware that the other is going to mean their life for the rest of it, who meet over a cup of coffee, and decide whether this other is the person they really want to spend their rest of the life with. It's two people who come together not because they were attracted to each other because of so-and-so similarities, or not because they were attracted to each other because of their personalities differing like the north and south pole; it is two people who come together because their families are alike in status, money, and fame, and maybe, because they have a common connection to a third family responsible for the alliance. It is two people who decide to walk besides each other no matter what. And it turns out that in arranged marriages, no matter what" literally means that.

True that arranged marriages (usually) are more successful than love, but what that tends to mean is that people bound in arranged marriages are not divorced, and nothing above and beyond that. That is all the statistics count, isn't it? For one, there are no expectations from each other in arranged marriages just when the blissful years of married life start and thus, since day one, you take to observations and recording of reactions. It's most philosophical to claim that people with least expectations are the happiest. For another, there is also no comparison between the pre-marriage and post-marriage outlook of the other person, which I think avoids a fair amount of hassle. Those two reasons specially hold strongly against people who are tied by the strings of love marriage. In the latter case, there are mutual dreams about the post-marriage life, and definitely there are those expectations and comparisons.


At times, an arranged marriage drags on unhappily, for life, just because the word divorce was never introduced in our dictionaries... What a shame it is that two individuals (or at least one) are let to suffer for life because of mistakes made by their elders. And sadly, they have to endure it all - yes, quietly definitely works best. The world pities them, but no one really dares to take a step forward and free them of the superfluous binding. I mean, I am a believer of Dalai Lama's quote "The purpose of life is to be happy". What exactly is any one getting by torturing those poor souls and robbing them of THEIR life? Guys, you cannot benefit out of their lives!


Anyway, that was an extension of a semi-personal episode, which I have become familiar with recently. Every person should be responsible for what they do, and they should be given enough freedom to live the kind of life they want, and bear the consequences of their actions. People who get married aren't kids anymore dammit! And people who mistreat their "better-halves" should be screwed.


Not that I am against arranged marriages, but I am definitely not for them. They're extremely flawed. People who are responsible for these marriages' going hay-wire will never take the blame for it. And people who are not responsible, are the miserable sufferers. Other than that, life's more of an adjustment for ever, and there's actually less of the substance called life that remains when it turns out to be an adjustment...

For the sake of writing

Song of the moment: Pehli Nazar, Atif Aslam

OK, an insomniac is once again back. It is 2:32 a.m. the 2nd of August. A friend from India tells me it's Friendship Day tomorrow. I was a fan of all Archie-made-days during the good old times in India. I miss the exchange of cards with the most intense feelings and quotations on them. But now, these days just make me realize what I lack, instead of celebrating what I have. The Valentine's day, needless to say, arouses a feeling welled with a dearth of love and well, the Friendship day, a dearth of (true, if I may say) friendship.

So anyway, I finished watching Kismat Konnection half an hour ago. Nothing special in there, except the regular Bollywood lucky people... Do I need say more :-) ?

It's the long weekend, and guess what? I have no plans :). I am almost at the end of the book Two Lives by Vikram Seth. I wasn't much impressed by the author's writing style. I felt it probably needed a better finishing. However, the contents kept me hooked right to the very end. As I was reading the novel, I had been thinking about whether Vikram Seth was married or not. Well, the book mentioned quite a lot about him as well, but didn't pick on the topic. Don't bother too much about this comment about Seth's marriage - it just came to my mind out of nowhere!! And the next book in my queue is Adventures of Tom Sawyers. I am actually dying to start that one. And then, comes Shakespeare. I hopefully would be able to finish these two before I get actively engaged in my future project.

Talking about music, my brother is of the opinion that I have lost my taste in music. Well, I have times when music annoys me to the extent that I don't want to have anything to do with it. But generally, I am pretty much in touch with what's going on in Bollywood music lately.

That seems like quite a lot of insensible jabbering. It's 3:04 a.m. on 2nd of August. Good night world!

Wishing everyone a Happy Friendship Day. May you get *TRUE* friends in life...

Song of the moment: Bakhuda Tumhi Ho, Atif Aslam

Of promises and trials

Have promises broken your heart? Empty and un-kept promises? Promises that the maker knew she would be breaking at some point in time? Promises you believed whole heartedly on? Promises and words that meant so much to you that you actually failed to see the reality?

Have people ever told you how selfish the world is and how they hate selfish people, and have the very same people acted as the most selfish people on this earth?

Life sucks - sure it could suck more than now, but you know, human nature. It compels me to complain about the things that ought to have carried a different course than they actually did. Yes, even after reading about the Holocaust.

I realize how my writing has started to suck as well. There's no rhythm, there's no meaning any more. And poetry has been running away from me, as if there never was a relationship between us at any point in time. See how people and things run from you, run from the relationship, run from realities and brutalities? Nevertheless, it's like my fingers urge to kick the keyboard of my laptop and my mind forces me to jot down my thoughts on this piece of modern paper.

But yes, I am trying. I am trying every single way I can. And I cannot help but fool myself by running blindly behind the extremely bright streak of light left by hope, by believing that some day, one random day, I will be a happy soul with no regrets, sorrows, resentments, and dejection, offered as the gifts of life to all blessed souls...

Man and Wife

And now I pronounce thee Man and Wife.

Thus begins the endless saga of expectations, devastations, frustrations and adjustments. Thus begins the tale of a man who expects his wife to cook and clean everyday for him, and for his children some years down the road, and thus begins the tale of a woman who has to give in to her man's (reasonable or unreasonable) demands, and who has to sacrifice and get subdued, who has to be the quick-fix of the relationship, and who will be responsible for everything that goes wrong, always.

Why is the system so deeply infected by the so called male-dominance? Why does the woman have to be sober enough to give in to her demands and feelings, and always do what the man wants to get done? Why is the woman too much caring and feeling for others and why is it not a man's duty as well to understand and accept his lady's wants sometimes? And men have to act haughtily should the lady choose to dictate her will, and that too, as a suggestion!

What we like to say, on the one hand is that in today's world, both genders are treated equal. But sad as I am when I have to say it, it still remains true - that is not the case. Can you drill down to the expectations that you have for your life partner, if I may say, to see where the difference is. On the other hand, we like to say that it's impossible to survive without the other. It shouldn't be called surviving. It should be called sacrificing because that is what it really is. I hate words depicting deceit.

Thankless??

The Holocaust was so terrible - I didn't realize that until I read the personal experiences of people who underwent the pain. It was in the simplest of words, the most inhumane thing that must ever have occurred on earth, and it was truly the worst and the most disgusting of things that I have ever read. It made me sick and I felt like I should not continue reading "Two Lives" any more or at least, skip a few pages overwhelmingly filled with trauma. But regardless, facts seldom change.

And ironical that it's people like us who complain at the smallest of things that happen!

Oh, I have to wake up early to go to work, and I hate doing that!
Oh, I had to skip a meal today because of blah blah!
Oh, I have to cook food for my family everyday; I so hate doing that!
Oh, I felt hot in the office today - I wonder why they can't lower the AC temperature.

Imagine waking up every day not knowing whether it is the last day of your life or you still have to live with God-knows how much pain before a day is proclaimed as your last day. Or imagine living on a one time diet of very thin soup for a number of days, that too at the mercy of some people. Or imagine not knowing what's being done to your family and where they are, worrying about them each passing second. Imagine an endless craving for being in peaceful and happy times with your loved ones around you, cooking, eating, cleaning, laughing together. Or imagine having to sleep on the coldest of grounds with bare minimum clothing... My heart shudders to think about all this, and I really feel thankful for everything that I have.

What I've mentioned here about the conditions of the Jews is probably a very tiny speck of their endless misery during the Nazi rule in Germany. If you still feel like you have more to complain, I urge you to go find some material on the Holocaust and go through it - you'll probably find much more to be thankful about. And I think "Two Lives" is not an entirely detailed account, although it sheds light on some personal details.

And we say, ours is an adjusting life...

Two Lives is a book written by Vikram Seth, an account of a very interesting life of his uncle, whose wife is a German, and had family who were killed by Nazi atrocities.

Shifting gears

"Life is not a movie... Good guys loose.. True love doesn't win... And love does not conquer all...."

LOL! A reflection? A mirror image? A shadowed thought? An identification? And have all words been said there?

And yes, I meant to portray sarcasm in my laugh... is it the same-sun-sign effect? can't be, can it? who knows... or is it the jinx, that RA's been talking about these days? Or the rahu-ketu effect that Shrey's talked about?

but regardless, i feel pity and i wished i was worth more... and that i was able to help somehow. As a matter of fact I know little about the root cause...

Life is about choices and preferences. An optimist is a person with a blindfold on her eyes... A pessimist is a courageous man who has the guts to say the truth of life... And to quote someone who's been added to the list of nice-ppl-i-know, "Hope is certainly not the last thing that comes out of a man!"

And yet, the foolish optimist people like to go on believing on the wonders of hope...

Popcorn, Movie & Masala

I am writing today because I feel like it. I watched Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na today. Cute movie. And oh well, I did feel like Rondhu, when he mentioned he *too* wanted someone in his life, just like Jai had Aditi and Aditi had Jai.

And do I identify with Amit? His best friend, his sister had found other friends, and went too far away from him... I absolutely loved it when Aditi's brother advises her not to marry Sushant...

Everyone's parents were so cool - Jai's not rich at all - no vehicle, not even a cell phone, but Aditi's parents had expected him to marry Aditi, way before he or she even admitted to themselves that they loved the other. Yea, I know what you are going to say - it's a movie. Anything can happen. And to quote something I haven't forgotten, "Aisi baatein movies mein hi achchi lagti hain".

OK this is not to be taken as a review for the movie... Just a collection of my thoughts together with my emotions.

Soch zara jaane-jana tujhe hum kitna chahte hain,
Rote hain hum bhi agar teri aankho mei aansu aate hain
Gana toh aata nahi hai, magar hum phir bhi gaate hain ...

I have been reading "Magic Seeds" by V.S. Naipaul. An average kind of tale, darker than his "Half a Life", and somewhat broken. It seems like the author had no clue with what to do with Willie's life - he had wasted a majority of Willie's life! But I did learn this big word from there: phantasmagoria. The meaning - go figure!

On a side note, I wonder when Rahul would post something on this blog. And talking about Rahul, I hope these Athenian(?) guys are having a good deal of fun!!

Trying this from Firefox Add-on

Ok I got this cool Mozilla Firefox add-on called Scribefire, that actually lets me write to my blog without actually going on to the Blogger website...

And on a side note, I am loving Ubuntu, except the everyday bugs that one comes across.... like the inability to resume properly after sleep =(

And from the toolbar it seems like it is going to let me add images directly from flickr and also youtube!

ok, that's it for now... 1, 2, 3 post ....

Forgotten words.

ok, hi!
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Bye!


There was something I wanted to say. but like a lot of other things, let's leave this unsaid.

I am missing people

I do not want to go to work tomorrow - nothing unusual about that. I am feeling low - nothing unusual about that too. I am missing tons of people in my life, at this very same moment. I do not think I wish to name all of them.

I so wish to talk to old friends, get in touch with them, find out what waters they are sailing in... I am not doing so for the fear of being questioned... "How's life treating you?"
Well... Period.

It is the awkwardness of that period and the silence after that period that seizes my want.

It's a lonely life, they tell me. And they tell me the truth. Can I bear the weight of loneliness on my frail shoulders? Time, someday, will tell. It's a long life, they tell me, no one can travel the journey alone. I do see a satire, a pun, an irony in there! There are two things - with and without, with referring to not lonely, without referring to lonely.

Rahul, Satish and Shaks are gone as well... Shr isn't here either. Someday, I will not be here too.

us musafir se poocha tha maine
jis raah jaana na tha, uska pata diya mujhe
main bhatak gayee, kho gayee thi
meri duniya hi tabaah ho gayee thi

raste se bhi poocha tha maine
kya koi guzara tha aaj yahan se
jhoot bolna usko bhi khoob aa gaya
bola arsa hua, koi yaha se jab gaya