I celebrated I-Day

Well- there is nothing like a holiday standing in the middle of a week. I love it much more than an extended weekend. And this year India’s birthday fell on a Wednesday much to my joy!

Ever since 1^st August, I was looking forward to the 3^rd week. It would be a much shorter working week :-). An extra day to rest, extra hours to unwind, extra time to catch up on pending chores (thankfully no trips to the bank or the post office for me :-).)

Start of the 3^rd week of August – and office started loosing its tautness. My manager timed his vacation in this week - leading to a general slackening in the team’s interest to work. And since 13^th I was all agog for the 15^th. I was literally urging the Monday to pass.

Come 14^th morning and the newspapers were vibrant with the colors of the coming Independence Day. I don’t know whether the articles were thought provoking and compelling (because it being the 60^th year of India’s independence) or I was in a heightened state of consciousness – I could feel the patriotic fervor. So much so that as I was picking what to wear to work, I gave the western formals a pass and chose an ethnic Indian attire.

Towards the evening there were some celebrations in office with performances by live band etc. I gave the events a miss but in spite of that I could what shall I say – feel the thump!?

15^th morning – holiday : -). Customarily I hit the newspapers with my morning cuppa. And I could feel the hair on the back of my neck raise as I read the articles. Some good some bad, some touting India some deprecating. But each letter made an impact.

As I was reading there were strains of Aye mere watan ke logon, Jhanda ooncha rahe humara and the like wafting from the nearby school. The air had a tinge of chill (pretty unlikely I feel in the middle of August that too in a place located at 17.20 N latitude.) There was something different about the day – I kept feeling.

60 maybe is a big and important landmark to cross.

And evening it was the movie Chak De India for me!

Could not have asked for a better way to savor Independence Day. And could not resist uploading this picture :-) At the beginning of the movie as the entire auditorium stood for the national anthem, I felt so Indian.

I did not wear the tricolor on my shirt, I did not go for a flag hoisting or watch the ceremonial parades on national TV – but throughout the day I felt proud and strangely happy. I feel I celebrated I Day.

Tears

They don’t seem to stop some times. In spite of all my attempts, there are times when my lachrymal glands are just not under my control. The tears just roll on and on as if there is no tomorrow.

When I have such pangs, I literally clutch my heart, lest I choke myself. There is an upheaval within me which if I don’t let out, threatens to suffocate me. I feel shrouded with grief. I feel I will never be able to come out of the envelope of sorrow. I beseech the heavens to relieve me of the pain. I think of brighter times so that I can feel better. Sometimes in a masochistic stint, I scratch the wound even more. I try to prod the cause of distress and cry it all out, so that my eyes are dried of the tears.

But no. Nothing works.

With my will failing me, I just let the tears roll on.

Oblivious to surroundings, unconcerned about what people might think – I just cry. I have cried unabashedly on the benches in a teeming mall. I have cried inconsolably in the departure lounges of airports. I have cried with reckless abandon in public transports, telephone booths (prior to the age of cell phones); eat outs and many other places under full public glare. I am not a person who is comfortable displaying her emotions and would prefer to drench my pillow rather than create a scene. But some times in spite of myself, I have had such uncomfortable instances, where I seem to be under free fall under the influence of the feeling of despair.

Generally after this emotional catharsis I feel drained.

The analysis of the events that lead to ‘pain causing situation’ wrecks me.

Insignificant things keep reminding of what went wrong, or how things might have been.

I fall into a reverie and feel a stir of distress at ubiquitous sights and sounds and smells. The heart inundated with pain, takes time to see the sunshine over the horizon.

I pray to God, after each such episode not to make me pass through such trauma again. But then… life’s sky is not always azure…

The ones who never saw the light of the day...

I am generally pretty indecisive as a person.
It takes me eons to decide on the most trivial of things.
And I have not been able to zero in on a blog.
There have been quite a lot which were in my mind as nascent ideas. But I never summoned to zeal to give shape to them as words. The drafts of the wannabe blogs buzzed in my head during long train journeys or when I brushed my teeth or worst of all, while I read the newspaper.
But some how I never managed to put them in black and white.
Either I was hard pressed for time, or I found the ideas too mundane to claim space in my blogosphere, or they just skimmed into a nebulous form when I attempted to give shape to them.
But there were a few lucky once who passed through the initial draft. But then when I got to read them, my very first response would be "NAYYYYYYYYYYYYY".

Many a times I did attempt to add another line here, edit a paragraph there – but the results lacked sheen. So I gave up further attempts at improvisation.

So this blog goes out to all those who did not make it. :-(

Auto Mode

Been there Lived there

Horror And I

Profundities

Scent of a Moment

Summer of 03

Hope some day I have some postings with these titles.

Till then, rest in peace. :-|

24X7

When I was in school, during a moral science class, our teacher asked us a question, “What do you all think - is life too short or too long?”

I promptly raised my hand and said, I think it’s too long.

A lively debate ensued, and I gave a plethora of reasons for my stand. There were some who rebutted me and many who joined forces. We did not reach a conclusion, but the teacher concluded the class by stating, life is too short to learn about God, so spend as much time as you can each day with Him.

It was a moral science class, so as per norms it ended up with the matter boiling down to The Divine.

But the question persisted in my mind.

When I came home, I asked my dad what he felt – Is life too short or too long.

Dad said in his usual nonchalant way, still poring over the newspaper, with out even lifting his head from it – depends, if you have work, it s too short, if you don’t have any its long.

I thought that’s it?!

That’s all he has to voice on a question that bothered me through the entire ride from school to home?

But today when I have my both hands full of work and commitments, I feel yes, maybe what Dad said does sum up how life seems.

Here I am jostling between a job, tasks at home, my hobbies and interests. And each day I wish there were a couple of hours more in a day or some more days in the week.

Alas! 24X7 is all I got : (

Guru

I took a .Net training session for a batch of fresh graduates in my organization. And they gifted me a key chain. It has a lovely quotation inscribed on it, “Blessed is he who receives education and thrice blessed is he who educates”. I don’t know if I am thrice blessed because I don’t think imparting some mumbo-jumbo on .Net framework makes me worthy of that ( and since I am doubtful even if 2% of them will end up working on .Net technology :| ). But I would say I have been blessed in my life with some wonderful teachers who have – though it may sound clichéd- made me who I am today.

My first love is English- I am simply in love with the language. And it was my teacher in school who instilled this love. Miss Sharda Chadha- she epitomized perfection- be it her vocabulary, her diction, her thoughts, even her wardrobe! My best friend, Sameepa and I literally used to drool over her. English classes could not have been more interesting than Miss Chadha made them. She not only used to give some invaluable insights to the works we used to study, but what was more innovative was her logical bisection of scenarios. I still remember when she was teaching the poem “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. (For those interested, here is the link to the poem http://www.teachersfirst.com/share/highwayman/st1.html )

At the end of the discourse, she posed a simple question,” Do you think the Highwayman was true in his love”. This led to a pretty animated debate, but I was impressed because she questioned an unstated assumption. She drove logic into literature - and nothing can be more engrossing.

My professional education career hardly had any “educators” making a scratch.

As I moved on to work, I enrolled for coaching classes for MBA. Life was totally changed after that! When I was at home I used to plan how to get the job done at office and when I was in office, I felt like a prisoner. Every passing second made me feel like leave the very chair and rush home to DI, Quant and Verbal Ability. I was worse than a junkie experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

And to make matters worse, I had some pretty ungodly elements at work to completely upset the apple cart. I went to my mentor at the coaching centre Sajal Mitra. He had the élan of a celebrity, but the intellect of a sage. At a stage when I was unable to cope with the pressure, he made me see the daunting task as a challenge. He literally made me feel like a phoenix and pushed me to push myself to the levels where I had never dared. He told me,”You will have troubles, but you will fight. You will show yourself and the world that you won’t crack. You will give CAT your best so that at the end of the exam you don’t regret not having put in your best.” He even went on to draw my plan of action. He made me pull in 18 solid hours from the 24 hour day and helped me allocate time to every aspect of the preparation. It was really amazing to see that so much can be achieved within the time we got also. I did not manage to get any calls from IIMs but I did not get an ignoble score as well. In spite of the trials I can say that I managed a decent 89 percentile; more important than that- I gave CAT my very best. Nothing can be more fulfilling. I still have the spark that he instilled in me and intend to attempt to “bell the CAT” this year. Hope this time I can convert my efforts into results.

The next person to cause pedagogical ripples in my life is Giri Sir. He is my swimming instructor. (Yes I am taking swimming classes :)) The sheer patience of this man amazes me! Swimming is a very tough thing to teach. But he has the utter patience to go on and on. I get frustrated with my lack of control on my breath and inability to move my left hand while swimming, or lack of coordination between legs and hands, but Giri Sir just does not give up. On one hand he is full of advice and on the other with encouragement. And not only for me, he coaches a 50 year old lady and 5 year old kids with the same dedication and determination. I can’t stop eulogizing the spirit of the man who is so true to his profession and an inspiration to so many.

It’s said a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Truer words have not been said.

Never say GoodBye....

I was tempted to name this blog Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. But it being the movie people love to hate, I did not want this blog to turn out the same. Though I feel even people who love me are gonna hate me for having written this.

KANK is movie that has received a lot of brick bats. KJo managed to get good reviews for the movie though it was lampooned by the general public. I am not a KJo fan and I feel he degraded love by making a movie as crass as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I am also not a believer in the concept of soul mates which he touted in KANK. In spite of all this, I liked KANK.

I can hear some say what? Come again. Well I liked Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

I found it the first and the most mature movie made by KJo.

Be it the highly uppity Preity Zinta or the self deprecating Rani Mukherjee, the child-man Abhisekh Bachchan or the utterly bloated and repulsive Shahrukh Khan - I found each character real. The fact that the audience found SRK irritating or Rani Mukherjee a schmalz I think just proves that they delivered the character they were supposed to. But in KANK we had stark reality.

The couples in the plot were the most ill matched ones personality vise, but I think that’s how life is very often. It’s a different matter that we rarely see them in candy floss cinemas.
In Indian marriages we have an unwritten code of honor “Adjust”. But the characters in the movie were not taught that I suppose. And that made them jarring and aberrant. And that made sense to me.

The audience sympathy was with Preity Zinta and Abhisekh Bachchan, because they had not erred. They were the ones wronged against. Again I felt that’s a very human trait to cling to the first support one finds. And that’s the characters of Rani Mukherjee and Shahrukh Khan did. They found support in each other and broke the sacred vows. I am also an Indian to the core and don’t corroborate what they did, but on a logical after thought, I would say what they did was attuned to the concept of one making relationships rather than having relationships thrust upon oneself.

I simply loved Shahrukh Khan in the movie. Being an ardent admirer of his, I hated his character; which just proves how very convincing he was. Usually as one of my friends says, “his performance has layers”. It’s not a simple one track depiction of a character. He makes it realistic and puts a lot of zeal and feel into the depiction. So every time you see his work, it’s like a different and new perspective of the character being unraveled each time. And KANK I feel had the multi dimensional SRK at his very best. The first time I watched the movie, I detested him. He seemed as a term goes – an MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig – for the uninitiated). I found him weak and loathsome. But the second time I saw, I was hit by the pathos in his character. And the third time around I was gaga about his perfect timing of comedy. He just gets better at reinventing himself with each movie :).

[I know when my friend Ashma (an Aamir Khan fan) reads this, at the above line she would have the best frown a girl can put on her face.]

Some characters were redundant and not so well etched out like that of Amitabh Bachchan. And the ending could of course have been a bit sleeker. But I think KANK would have been much better received with out the prevalent multiplex culture. Because I feel in a multiplex one is too affected by group behavior. You see one person letting out a yawn and fidgeting and your attention level drops. It’s so easy to get influenced by the person seated beside you. And matters just get worse if you have a big group along with you. Under those circumstances the movie has to fight for an equal footing with the pop corns and colas moving between the chairs. KANK on the other hand deserves ones undivided attention else or none at all. I being one who watches and not sees movies, felt the small screen does more justice to the script of this movie.

I hope with this blog I might have opened a lot of debate gates :). I also hope some will give KANK a dekko again.

Gandhigiri

As a student of history in school my heart went out for the militant nationalists. Because for me they were men of action. And I held a very strong dis-enchantment and antagonism for the Nehru Gandhi family.(I still do :) )
But yesterday I was taking my monthly pass at the railway station. A burly man brushed past me to get the ticket. I did not flinch though my natural response would have been a harsh "EXCUSE ME!!". Maybe I was plain lazy to respond. So I let him go ahead.
As he was getting his ticket done, he looked back and said,"I am sorry". I nodded.
Once his ticket was done, he turned back and said,"I am really sorry, I was getting late so I barged in." I told him it was OK.
He moved on.
But I think what I was in his eyes was compunction.
My first trial at Gandhigiri (inadvertently though) and it was a success!