Day 30 : Young Adult Fiction

I guess I am too late in the game here. I just discovered YA. Before you start babbling on about how either 1. it is the world's most amazing thing, or 2. how it is the worst thing that as ever happened to the world since hipster suspenders. I'll just say that I agree, with both of those opinions. In the last few weeks I've seen and/or read eight YA movies and/or books. Two I liked, a lot. Three were just bad. Four had a brilliant plot point but lost its way in the end. And then there was this one which was so good that let's just say it could easily have been good book regardless of the genre it was associated with.

Most YA stories are basically any Molly Ringwald movie meets noir french depression saga, with a happy ending. There is a group of young people, usually friends or soon to be friends, they do something wacky or adventurous that hardly any high schoolers really get to do. The people doing these stunts are usually the ones that come under the geeks or dorks in the food chain. Yeah right, a geek did a B&E into a house in the middle of the night and shaved an eyebrow off of a jock's while was asleep. Would YOU do that when you were in high school?

Then there is this some sad drama in the middle of the story. Real heart wrenching stuff. Something that would make even the hard boiled bros to go get the tissues. Most of the time those have something to do with cancer. Don't ask me why.

Then after all that, near the end of the story, the protagonist gets a moment of awakening. He learns or discovers something about his past or future or his true self. He unravels the mysteries of life. He (or she, for the PC crowd) realizes how all that has happened or will happen, is for a reason. He goes all Zen on you. This is sort of my most favorite and most hated part of this genre. I love happy endings. I love how people get to figure out things in their lives and get shit sorted out. But I also am a realist enough to know that real life doesn't have these moments of clarity.

Most of us are just specks of dust floating about in the air. Sometimes we are soaring with the wind. Sometimes we are on a pile of crap behind old Mac's backyard. Not a lot of us can tell that we have our lives sorted out, not when we were in age of  the YA-target-demographic. We barely got enough hair in our armpits or enough courage to talk to the opposite sex, whichever comes first.

That is why I guess we need these stories, I guess. That is why we need any stories, really. They help transport us into a world that is more magical than our own. There is no pessimistic, nihilistic outlook on life in that world. Everything is sweet, and young, and beautiful. Sometimes that is enough.

(Plus, it gets a few young people to read a book for a change.)

Day 12 : About Depression

The book I am reading right now is about a high school kid who is suffering from clinical depression. The writer of the book has taken a lot of effort to get the reader better understand the pain and hardship somebody suffering with this disease goes through. He really has been successful at it to an extent. There are parts in the book that would make you cringe, some would make you let out a nervous chuckle because you are not sure if something that horrendous could really even be possible. It is. There are some parts that would make you feel to darn sad and forlorn. This is not a happy book. There are parts where you begin to relate to the things writer is taking about. Parts that makes you think.

Depression.

This is the sort of thing that until recently would've been thought as a illness only inflicted upon the weak-minded. People were taught - if you are to be a successful and a respected member of the society, you have to lift yourself up by the bootstraps, keep you chin up, take the best along with the worst, keep the fight going. You know the sort of motivational mumbo-jumbo that they feed you when they get tired of your whining and have no constructive advice to give you. Nobody ever liked to get their hands dirty on somebody else's mess. Don't ask don't tell, didn't always apply to the gay-rights law they implemented in US armed forces. It used to be the norm when it came to many things that made people uneasy.

I am sure that people back then too got anxious and stressed about stuff. But my guess is that they probably had more gumption than us. They had deeper understanding between them. They were able to cope with it, because they were there to help each other when it counted. In today's world of too much, we don't have enough of that. Media, entertainment, gossip, work, pressure, greed, hate, love, anger, fear. Everything. We have lot of those. But people themselves haven't progressed with the pace in which the things around them have. Sometimes it gets a little too much for us. We all have a tipping point. Where our brains just decide that it cannot handle of this all the time. It simply just goes on a snooze. And it blames you for it. Which in turn makes us feel even more shitty.

I guess there is a term for what I am doing right now - Yellderly. But heck, it is the book talking not me. Not entirely.

I really do thing we take on too many stuff on our plates. It would be good to take a break from all of this. They have even started to have these zones in some cities of Europe where they promise to have no tech or internet signal. You just go there and sit and relax for a bit. Get away from everything. Doesn't that sound marvelous.

I guess that doesn't exactly fit the bill for what clinical depression exactly is all about. That's for the doctors to talk about. I feel that everyone has the possibility of being depressed in life at some point. Not everyone always has to face it. But then nobody is exempt from it either. Some do manage to cope with it by themselves. By the help of medication and therapy, or in the case of a lucky few, wonderful friends and family that help through it all. In the end, feeling alone is a lousy thing. And if you have a disease that makes you feel like you deserve to be sad and alone, it makes life all the more tough to handle.

I guess, what I am saying is, you are not alone. Not truly. Whoever it was that created us, created like billions of other people in here just to ensue that we are not alone. And if you just give it a chance, I am sure you will find at least a few people out there who you could relate with and who would hear you out and give you a friendly embrace.

Sometimes that is all that is needed. Listening to each other. Just talking to someone who care about you really does help. Unloading your worries. To know there there is at least on other person on this planet who knows you and the shit that you're going through. There really are such people. Always.

You are not alone.

Day 67 : Poems

I have a friend who is a big fan of poetry. Writes a little of it himself, mostly in tamil. And mostly in old Tamil which consists of two many complicated words that we generally used in common dialogues now. So obviously makes it a lot tougher for me to comprehend. But once he gets around to explaining to me what these words mean, I turn and compliment him on the great poem it was. Then he starts on his usual rant over how poetry is dead.

I am not kidding, this is like a routine now. Every other weak he sends over a text with a peom and voice clip of him reciting it. I reply to him asking a few meanings. He calls up to explain the meaning of them words. I understand them, he reads the whole thing again, I compliment him on how good the poem was. He starts his usual rant. Which goes on for about ten minutes, or the end of the talktime on his mobile, whichever comes first.

I do get what he's saying though. I mean, how many of us really do the whole poetry thing anyway. Everything that we see is in prose (or rap). Even the new Spoken Word fad is really just prose words written in rhyme. I sort of do miss the whole poetry style that we had in the earlier times. And some of them were really good. Poetry can say so much about so many things, in so few words. I love it!

These are the one's that most recently caught my attention - 

Day 57 : Stop Copying

Have you noticed that these days people do not really converse to each other as much as they used to. I remember when I was a kid, where I used to hang out with a couple of older kids. They lived in another apartment building but ours shared a playground with theirs so we would bump into each other often. Mostly near the water tank after playing a game of cricket or football (I was no good at either of them). We used to sit there the rest of the evening with our back to the cool concrete of the tank and talk.

These kids were complete dorks, I realize now. But back then they I thought them to be really cool, they would talk with me about terrorist beheading and animal mutilation and such; things that the adults would never talk about around me. Do remember, I was in sixth grade back then, though I did look much bigger for my age. I felt smart around them too. They used to include me in their conversation. They played video games, were big fans of Contra and Mario. I'd only get to play the game rarely when I was a kid, I've never had a gaming console all childhood, my father disliked anything remotely addicting. But I did get to play ones with them.

We used to play those WWE Superstar Trading cards. You know, my Mark Henry's biceps beats your Triple H's. We used to play cards, abuse each other, talk cartoons and terrorists, drink cola, abuse each other some more, go home dirty head to toe smelling like piss and mud, but happy through and through.

Now, I do not know where those two kids are. And honestly I do not even remember their last names. But I do remember their faces, and the amiable smiles even they know what this kid three grades below them was talking about something completely lame. You see back when we were kids, we were all stupid, we knew we were stupid to some level, but we never made it a thing to point to other's stupidity and make it like it some big accomplishment if were able to make someone feel dumb. We didn't feel threatened by intelligence, we didn't belittle smart people. We were in awe of them. We inspired to be them. We were kinder back then. We were as we were, natural, unadulterated, and pure. We did not imitate. We hadn't yet learned how to.

Today we are so exposed to external characters and their tailor-made monologues that we can choose to portray any persona by just repeating the dialogues of any of the characters we come across. Want to be sarcastic? Copy Chandler Bing. Want to be snarky smart ass? Copy Sherlock. Want to be the seductive female? Copy that lead in Femme Fatale. Want be the big bad man of the group? Copy Tony Soprano. Want to be the adorable nerd? Copy Leonard Hofstadter. Want to be the bad-ass nerd? Copy Walter White.

There is already a template available for all sorts of people out there. I guess that is why whenever you drift off from someone, you always have a ready excuse for it. 'We never really connected completely.' Well, of course you didn't. You were not being yourself, neither was that person. We are all busy trying to behave like some ideal character that half a dozen spent a decade developing, and earned millions off of it, that we think that we can just copy the same and get cool and liked just by its merit. It doesn't work that way.

People like (or liked) other people, by connecting with that people on a closer, more personal level. By trying to be cooler, and fake, you are hiding your true self. You will never act foolish or be vulnerable around someone if you are hiding yourself away behind an image of someone else. Nobody is perfect, and for me at least, that just works fine. I don't want perfect. Perfect reeks of fake.

Today, stop copying.

Day 42 : You Are Your Own Best Friend

There always comes a time in a person's life when he comes to terms with what he/she really is. Sure there is a decent possibility that what you must be today would be a lot different than what you would end up to be tomorrow. We are all each day evolving and reacting to the things around us and happening to us. Our turmoil and joy never really stays the same year round and so neither does our personality.

If you were to look back at the person I was even last year and what I am now. You wouldn't really notice any stark differences. I'd still be the tall, big, loud guy who laughs at his own jokes. But once you get more than just skin deep, you will find a lot more things amiss. For instance, I abuse far too less now. People from my college used to have a wager on how long I could go on without abusing someone. I never lasted more than a couple of hours. But now my language has become so tame, I even use the respectful forms of all verbs in the sentences. I only abuse around a handful of people. The ones that I am really close to. Once you get a swear word out of my mouth; Dude, you're in the inner circle.

I am sure you'd find a lot many things in you as well that you feel has changed over time. And that is not essentially a bad thing. I guess changes are good. They keep you learning new things about yourself. You begin to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and also begin to gauge your thresholds when it comes to the many emotions your heart and mind is pounded with on a daily basis.

You see. One day, when the time is right. Your happiness and your sorrow will just come down to how much you have understood your own being. After all you are the only one who has the weapons to let yourself be hurt. And you are the only one who ever has had enough cause to keep you happy.

You will always have people around. People you love. People you hate. People you respect. People you look down upon. People you want to throw off the roof of Burj Khalifa. But in the end, none of them really matter do they?

You only live life with you yourself for company, and to hate. So why even try to understand anyone else thinks of you.

Today. Believe, trust, and love yourself. You deserve it.

Day 34 : Look Up From Your Mobile Screens

My daily commute to work my favorite part of the day.

I travel by train for thirty minutes to reach office. There is a lot disruptive internet connection along the way so I turn off the mobile data. This in turn gives me half an hour of social media black hole. No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, more importantly no WhatsApp. Darn there are way too many groups and people online everywhere, leading to a bunch of useless notifications propping every few seconds. And as much as I try not to, I do end up unlocking and checking the notifications out of habit to see if anything has come up in my direction. For me it has become like a second nature now. It’s a disease.

There was this really awesome video on this - 'Look Up.' A spoken word film for an online generation

This was a hard hitting video on how our online presence in social media is damaging this generation's interpersonal skills. Inevitable went on to become viral in YouTube, Facebook and all the other social networking sites. The sites that played villain in this film. Humph, ironic.

Anyways, coming back to talk about today's train ride. I was as usual sitting there with a song (Rahman’s) blasting away in my earplugs, idly watching out the window to the buildings and roads running past by the railroad tracks. Soon got bored of it, and turned my head into the compartment for another of my favorite daytime pastime; people watching.

Almost everyone in the train had the earplugs on. Almost everyone had their heads bowed down in utmost reverence to the little rectangular idol spurting light and words like LOL and ROFL and GFY. Some people I could see were mating little images of candies to each other on their Candy Crush apps, quite obsessively. Some were watching TV shows or movies on their mobiles, which I personally feel is a grave insult movies were not made to be watched on such a small screen.

The crowd that made me feel most uneasy was a bunch of college kids. There were nine of them. I could easily make out that four of them were a thing, as in GF/BF, and then there were three other guys and two girls who by their looks of uncomforted were naturally the third wheels of this group.

The thing that made me uneasy was not disparity in their amorous equality; it was their lack of attention to each other. The third wheels naturally were doing something of their own to occupy their time. This mostly should include pulling each other’s legs, especially the couples, raunchy jests at their professor’s expense, the like. But here, they were all also bowed down to their mobile screens. Yes, there was always someone saying something and the rest listening or at least pretending to. I am sure no one had any idea what the whole conversation was about.

The couples were no better, one pair had a girl who was shopping for something on the Flipkart app while the guy who had been trying to say something to her, soon gave up and plugged his earpiece and started watching out the window. In the whole group the other couple were the only people that showed some potential, sure they played that Surfer game for a bit but at least they were doing it together.

Now I think I hated seeing them. Their lack of friendship. I'd like to think that it was just one of those days when they all had something to do than spend time with each other. But when I sit and think of the things that they felt were so important than spending time with each other, I feel queasy. Come on, you can always play that stupid game when you’re alone. Is it that important to do it right now?!

I don’t think I have any right to accuse them of anything when I’ve done that so many times myself, especially at home when there is a stupid movie going on. Movie watching has always been the family-time in my household. I sort of see it slipping away.

I believe Gary Turk did mean something by that video. I think we are all going down a very troublesome road.

Today, I plan to shut off the notifications on my mobile. And hope to keep my hands off of it more each day.

Day 33 - To All The Pricks Of The Planet

I've always seen happiness as the thing that is supposed to enrich our standard of living. When we are cheerful it rubs off on the people around us. We treat them with more warmth and compassion, we have more affection to go around and we always have a kind word for everyone one. Our world is one big happy family.

Then there are those have a different world around them. My assumption is these are the ones who have this inane desire to be a jerk. The ones who are simply not having a happy life or are so not content with their own lives they take it upon themselves to spread the gloom around them. They not only whine about how they have it bad in every which way, but also are in a constant state of crap-mouth. They will put you down, treat you like dirt, and take every opportunity to point out your faults.

They think that by doing this they accomplish something. While honestly it kind of is the exact opposite of that. By doing all this they are just alienating the people around them. People are one of the basic ingredients for happiness. Shoveling themselves into a corner hole, from which there is no coming out just more depth of wallowing, they are just ensuring they never ever find happiness in their life at all.

I wish sometimes I could take these people by the shoulders and give them big a mighty shake. Dude, chill! You're going stroke yourself into an early grave if you keep going down this road. Be a little more gentle with the people around you. Sure you're not obligated to, but you surely are expected to be human once in a while. You are still human, aren’t you?

Being a crude, brash person is alright; I am one. But being a crude, brash person; with the sole intention to harm someone is not really a good thing. You are just showing the world how diminutive you hold your own self worth by having to pull down other people to your level to feel good about yourself.

Help people up, it will only heighten your place in the world. Putting people down, will only lead to gradually dragging yourself down.

Be good, my friend. As overrated as it seems, goodness does have its advantages. If nothing, there is an instant feeling of cheerful accomplishment in it. That’s not it. Well I wouldn't know how to exactly describe it, hope you try it some time and experience it for yourself.

As for others..

Today, have some sympathy and understanding for the pricks of the planet. They need help.

Day 30 : Good Things Come To Those Who Wait For It.

When we were kids we were repeatedly preached that the best things in life come to those who work for it.

Then we came to learn, there are not many things in life that can be titled as "best". Even what we think is the best right now, might get replaced something shinier and attractive somewhere down the line. The "best" thing is only so perfect for us until it is the only thing that holds our attention, once something more interesting comes into our lives these things lose their glitter. And so - out of sight, out of mind.

Next we came to learn, there are a lot many things in life that won't be coming your way no matter how much you toil for it. Some things are simply always out of our reach. It stays dangling there like a carrot in front of a rabbit, and we are destined to eternally race towards it. We'd be so much better off not dreaming about these things, no matter how desirable they may be. Because more sorrow is caused by these things that we desire, than those that we deserve.

This should be a good point as any to insert my take on this:

Good things come to those who wait for it.

There is nothing more important in a person's life than having that feeling at least once in their lifetime that they've finally accomplished something worthwhile in their life. I think that is what we all live for, to die knowing that when we finally shed our mortal coil, we leave behind something for our fellow men to remember us by. Nobody likes to be forgotten.

But when you come to think of it, there are around 7.3 Billion people on this planet right now. There must have been probably a similar number of people passed through this planet since the dawn of time. How many names of these people do you know? Okay to make it more practical, let's assign each person on this planet to write down all the people they could think of, historical, blood relatives, that-guy-who-brought-the-milk, anyone. Do you think if we combined this humongous list together we would be able to find every man or woman, or others, ever lived on this planet?

Probably not.

So what is the point? What is the whole point of your planning, backstabbing, scheming and conniving your way into the history books? What is the whole point of competing with the guy next to you to achieve that something that given time would be easily forgotten?

Sure you will be remembered today, tomorrow, even for a couple of dozen years after you die. Does that really mean that much a big of an accomplishment?

I don't know. I think the best that we can hope for is do good by the people around us - the people whose lives matter to us and to whom our lives really do matter. During our own frigging lifetimes. Once I do pass away, I don't think I will really know if someone spells my name wrong, or if someone spreads the rumor that I listened to Justin Bieber. Frankly my dear, I don't think I would give a damn.

Our lives are really quite amazing. And if you are reading this, it would be safe to assume that you earn enough to have a computer or mobile phone with Internet access. There are people much worse than you. Yes, like people who do not have a Facebook account. So be grateful that you have a better life.

Instead of complaining and whining all day about not having that special thing that you worked so hard for such a long time; why don't you take your folks out for a dinner tonight? Or simply order in a Pizza, rent a movie and veg out in front of the television with you arms around a loved one. In the end, these are the only people who are going to think of you the longest and remember you for what you truly are. Love them, and cherish them with all your heart. They matter.

Today, make plans for doing something special. And actually do it.

Day 18 - 25 : Old Friend's Wedding

Ah. Where shall I begin?!

This past week was so freaking amazing. Visited Gujarat after ages. And darn was it AWESOME!

Nothing compares to the feeling of belonging when you are with old friends. It's almost like coming home. The same old familiar jokes, same old familiar stories, and the usual banter and pushes and shoves. And if these friends happen to be of your college times, you can be guaranteed that things are going to be all the more eventful.

I remember one of my uncles’ say how the best times he had ever had and the best friends he had ever made were of when in college. Back then I was in high school and I sniggered at him thinking how I'd had the best gang of mates while in school and nothing would beat roaming around town with them in a borrowed cycle.

The wedding I was to attend was of a pair that had met in college and have been together ever since. So this wedding also was a special one. More of the old faces were compelled to make an appearance like me. The more the merrier.

When I looked around the dinner table when all of us were seated. I could see how we all were now in a very different place in our lives than how we were in college. A few of us married for a while now, a couple just newly married, no children as of now; but then that could change anytime as well. A few new marriages in the pipeline, by the year's end exactly half of my original group would be married. And why shouldn't it be so, after all it is nearly five years since we left college.

Damn. That’s a long time.

But I still feel overtly nostalgic about those times. We all do. We still recall the midnight card games, junk food, assignment completions. We all go gushy over the times when one of us got the kick by a girl, or when one of us actually got to go out with one. We all laugh of the times when we goofed off in class and pulled pranks on each other.

Damn. There are so many things.

But I still think not a lot has changed about any of us. Maybe we're all the same as we always were. Sure we've got fat, slim, rich, poorer, stingy, whatever. But we are still the same with each other as we were. We still torment each other with the same lame topics as we did earlier. And we still like and hate the same things about each other. I guess that's what friendship's all about. Being the same, always.

Today, I plan to spend a lot of time revisiting the old college picture's folder.

Day 17 : Mr. Mopey Vs Mr. Cheery

Things have a way of coming around to to bite you in the butt sometimes.

I remember this one guy from work that had a serious inferiority complex with respect to another co-worker. Both came from the same town, same university, both even looked the same - short and stout, similar family background, drawing similar paycheck each month, working on same technology. The only difference one was a really cheery happy-go-lucky guy and everyone's fav guy. The other was sullen and silent, that guy in every group picture who's too shy/pompous to smile for the camera. You can never make up your mind whether you like him or not.

The sullen guy, we'll call Mopey, puts in extra hours at work does all the tasks on time, even earlier than most. Rarely gets up from his seat even for tea breaks, when he does he always goes alone. 

The smiley guy, we'll call Cheery, rarely stayed overtime, went for tea breaks and lunch like clockwork with a big group of colleagues, and still gets his work done by the end of the day. 

The only difference here was when people here knew who Cheery was; they just tend to think Mopey was part the office furniture.

Mopey didn't like it one bit. He tries, by God does he try. But I guess its just the way some people are and there is just no changing what’s in their nature no matter how much they themselves want to. He tries to speak with co-workers, opening up to people about him selves, trying to listen what they did over the weekend or when they crib about how the client is over-working them or how their wives are being a big nag-machine of late.

But he soon gets tired of all the talk. His mind drifts off to someplace else, and starts taking glances at his mobile screen checking out the time and everyone knows he is not listening to single word what they are saying.

That's where Cheery really trumps, he listens. He knows everyone's story. He knows whose relationship sucks, he knows who is dating who at work, and he even knows if someone likes books or shoes better as a birthday gift.

As a little getting back for being so awesome, Mopey pulled a nasty trick on Cheery last week. He overheard someone speaking to Cheery in the cafeteria, sitting on the next table to him while he was on his lonesome as usual. He came to know of some little secret about this someone, who was only comfortable sharing it with Cheery here. Mopey spread the little tidbit around office. He was real sly about it as well, proud of his own genius.

Well it worked it seemed. This someone and Cheery had big falling out, everyone started to wonder if Cheery could really keep a secret. Cheery started to lose his shine.

Mopey forgot one little detail. He doesn't talk to people much. When he does, the other guy remembers the conversation pretty well. And everyone was much better friends with Cheery than to him. The story un-puzzled itself before the work-week as up. Everyone now knew how Mopey was the real culprit. And now everyone is farther away from Mopey, and closer with Cheery as ever. All was right again in the universe.

Lesson to be learnt - before entering a game you don't know the rules to, ensure that at least you have you butt covered in case of a backfire.

Today, was conspiratorially enlightening.

Day 14 : The Paper Presentation

I knew this girl when I was in Chennai. She worked in her parent’s tea shop near the neighborhood where I stayed. It was during the first weeks of my moving there so this establishment was the only one familiar to us and we used to frequent it each night post dinner - me for hot cup of masala tea, others to puff their post-supper cancer-sticks.

The store was run by a Telugu family. I hadn't heard the language a lot before coming to Chennai so had to use a mix of Tamil and body language to get them to understand what we wanted, they didn't speak much of Tamil either. But since this had become more of a routine for me, and I had ended up becoming their regular customer and was was beginning to get a hang of their language and these people itself.

The girl I mentioned earlier was in her early teens, fifteen I'd guess. But she looked and behaved like someone who was much older. She had the grace and confidence of someone who knew exactly what's on her mind and how to express it. And was never embarrassed that she didn't know the language she was trying to communicate it. I thought accomplishing all that was a big feat, as most of the southies I meant in my time here were really shy when it came to communicating. She was in some distance professional education I don't remember which. And by the looks of it, she was pretty serious about it.

One night out of the blue, her father came up to me while having tea. He looked like he wanted to speak to me, but was unsure of how. So he simply handed over a pamphlet to me he was carrying for me. There was "Paper Presentation" written in bold italics at the top. It was an advert for an inter-collegiate technical paper presentation competition in a local Chennai university. Apparently he thought his daughter wished to enroll in it. So I took it from him and went over to his daughter who as usual was seated at the cash counter.

She took once glance at pamphlet, and the look on her face said clearly how sad the sight of it made her. "I no go, no money for printout", her reply was barely a mumble.

Then I somehow asked her about the topic that she was thinking of presenting. It was about some sort of cleansing process that reprocesses domestic household waste water for agricultural use. She had already prepared clippings from her textbooks and some Xerox pages from library books. It was almost all done really, just needed to get it all put together on a document. It was a Friday anyway and it was only a little past 8 at night and I didn't have anything else going for me. So I thought, what the hell. Let's do this.

I got her to carry her pen-drive and materials to a nearby internet cafe. I asked her to sit with me and recite the whole paper. Within a couple of hours the whole thing was done. It was not more than 25 pages really. Not too much of a worry.

I got it printed, spiral-bound and gave it to her and sent her on her way saying I had some of my stuff to do online. A few minutes after she had left, I got up and went over to the counter, the guy just asked for Rs.213, which is less than what I'd spend on a McChicken burger. But somehow this felt a lot more satisfying.

She didn't win the presentation, yes. But she'd win one on her third try, which was just a couple of month later. She learnt fast.

Today, I added her on Facebook. We chatted for a little while. She has completed her course and is now working in a university in south Tamil Nadu as a research lab assistant. Her English has gotten much better. She even used a word that was new to me - abeyance. Normally that would make me kick myself. But today I sort of felt pretty proud of her. Good going, kid!

Day 11 : Creatures Of Routine

There is this song I heard recently. I am not sure who shared it, or from where I got it. Do beware it is not all that great a song to write home about (or a blog about). A couple of lines from it did stick with me though.

Judge them not by their beliefs,

The creatures of routine are lost without their guide;

Be aware that underneath,

Lies a longing left forgotten under fear and pride.

Today I had a sudden urge to Google it up, hated most of the band pictures. Never liked punk. But still I liked the first verse of the song. Sounds pretty accurate don’t it.

We are all creatures of routine. We are all guided by the comfort that we feel in following the same stride we've had for ages now. We don’t really plan on changing anything anytime soon. Because we like the way things are now, it is good because it is familiar. Some things we are really not very happy about in our lives stay with us because we are afraid to break the chain of familiarity. If we decide to get rid of this thing, we will have to face with the burden of choice again.

And no one likes to be the one who takes the wrong choices.

The ways our lives are led are really ours to mould. We are the creators of our destiny; yes I read that in some newspaper commercial. But that doesn't make it any less true. We have the choice to build a wonderful life for ourselves and the only think stopping us is ourselves.

I don't imagine it is going to be any easy for anybody to just go up and rid their lives of everything wrong in it that has stayed on just because we are used to it. A vice that has become a daily habit is much tougher to get out of than some acquired as a passing phase. Ask the guys at the rehab centers if you don't agree.

We are all creatures of routine. Afraid of our own shadows just because it shows us just what we are. We are shapeless pointless things in the immense width of creation around us. Just a speck of dust in the grand scale of things. A shadow cannot decide what shape it would take. The way a light falls or the distance and many a bunch of other stuff decide things for it. Just as us.

We are all creatures with very less choice of what we get in life. The best we can hope to do is to build something worthwhile with what we have. That is really not going to happen if we are stuck in loop like a tape recorder, doing the same things again and again; and playing to the same music again and again.

Today, I would like to add some jazz and folk and Spanish guitar to my playlist.

Today, I would like to try something new.

Day 10 : Be Patient

It is quite interesting to see the lengths to which we go to salvage a situation. You know at the core of your being that it is not going to work out. The time for any rescue is way past. There is no way in Dante's hell there is going to be happy ending to this story. But all the while, knowing all that, you still try every trick you can think of to sort it all out.

Most often than not, it doesn't.

You go ahead give it your best shot anyway, but then realize that your best is just not good enough anymore. Things that used to come so easily to you in the past are just not working anymore. The spark is gone; you've lost your mojo. Well maybe you did not lose it. Maybe it's time has passed. Everything comes with an expiry date.

Still being the optimist you always were. You give it an extra try. And you fail. You give it another go. And you fail. But when you try once more and still fail again. You should be already starting to see that something is off.

Some things are supposed to get screwed up over time. Some things you are supposed to suck at. And once you lose it, it does not always come back to you all peachy and happy happy during the climax. Life is not Notting Hill. And you are by no measure Hugh Grant.

You see, the world is a mess. Chaos rules all of creation. And in all of this chaos if you think this one thing is any different. Buddy, you're a fool. You've been played by your own faith in a person's capacity of friendship.

The best you can do in this scenario is to just let burning timbers lie. Let it flames burn through high and angry. Because in the end, all that would be left of it is a pile of grey ash. This would eventually be swept away by the winds of time.

Today, be patient.