Free from you - I am !!

I woke up today to miss no one……I was surprised. I did not know what I was waking up from? A dream or a reality.
Have i been gone too long that I missed no one? Have I been alone too long to miss any one? But who would I miss??... I've never had you so close to miss you when you are away.Never felt you as owned. What is you? Who is you? I do not know what to miss…..now. Your absence has passed through me in a painful way, more than we have imagined.
We all continue to live with some pain. Some shared…some buried deep within. At times we get the opportunity to throw the pain and garland of blame to someone and forgive our own self from the burden. There are times when we don’t know whom to throw the pain on and whom not to garland with the pain. There lies the strength. The strength of being able to uphold it and cherish it as if nothing had even been wrong between me and my pain.I have never missed you......I am free.

Walking towards my years of Love @ 30

It’s been a long time that the age transition has passed me by. The excitement of Teen Age was a feel good factor I used to wait for from long before I was a teenager in person,
When it really happened, I was rather disappointed. Other than the typical hormonal changes, I did not see much of a reason to be so excited about the time.
Parents become cautious; teachers become stricter, every person we have known around us took charge to advocate the teenagers. No one really understood what actually was happening. I remember my best teenage day as the when I became thirteen, That’s it…the end.
End of teens went worst. Strangled with too much expectation and much more challenges to fulfill the expectation. What do I want always remained in the backseat. What could I want? I did not know the world. I did not know how thinks work. So why should I know what I want. I was surrounding by people who knew and decided on what I want.
I hated my Teens….and I wanted those years to vanish from my life for ever. It happened gradually with time. Exhausting me more than what I expected. The 20’s were a dull welcome. It included leaving home and joining University. Leaving the cozy corner of my room to the shared hostel room. The protected safety zone of parents’ opened door to the fun territory of roommates and times of self decision.

Here comes the time I gradually learned to love. These are the days I looked forward to. And with every additional candle on my birthday cake, I identified the person I am. I identified what I wanted from myself and from my surroundings. I tripped, I fell but I made an effort to get up and keep going. I fell in love with my life and I fell out of love a number of times. I changed my pace wherever required, Matured as a person both personally and professionally. As I walked the path towards my late 20’s, Life became worth living. I gradually became proactive to manage my mind. How about not thinking too much of what later in time will fetch me, is what I thought. What if I live for today and live my best? Day by day…time on time, I have stepped to my 30’s and I am typically in love with all that I have with me now.

Love: That one thing we do not know, kills us forever !!

An Illustration from MIB:
In life,......there are seldom clear cut beginnings.Looking back at those moments when we can say that everything had truely started. Yet, there are moments when fate intersects with our daily lives,setting in motion a sequence of events whose outcome we could never have foreseen.

There are times when two complete strangers are destined to meet, destined to become the missing piece in the other person's soul.

They crash into each other as if they have found their strength. From the start they struggle to survive,.....together.

They grow closer, see things that they thought weren't even humanly possible, they go through the hardest trials and tribulations,searching for support in one another; they face the unspeakable,.....together.

Their story is never an easy one. Time and time again, chances separate them.
But we know that in the end,.....nothing in the world will keep them apart !!

Figments of Life....!!

I stand facing the blank nothingness, searching for a non existing feeling of life. Life, for me, has no definition other than the fact that I do not belong to it. Life, for me, has no path to follow, not road to lead and no destination to reach. When I looked ahead for directions from life, I had none. Now that I have managed to find my roads and thrive for my needs to go without the signboards, I get too many directions and signals. I feel lost, confused,devastated and controlled. My instinct at that moment shrinks with the fright of going wrong and going hay-way. Without the glow signs and the rule book,my senses guides me in glory. What rule does life has…I do not know. All I know and believe is that Life is someone I have not met and have not seen and the unseen cannot guide me.
I have never met life to shake hands and come in terms with it. It has always been someone out there who has confused me, misguided me and questioned my capability and challenged me. It terrified me like a tornado…destroying everything I built now and then. I had to stand there telling myself to be strong, making myself to fight it and believing in being un-tamable. When I got something precious, life conditioned me to settle for and give it away. When I threw away an unwanted, I was made to pick it up and save it for all I have. I own nothing today; nothing is there to be called as mine, to be possessed, to fear or to loose. Nothing waits for my smile or tears. I just keep walking…fighting the battle and moving on, picking up the harmless silver stones that I find while I walk.

Friend for Life Vs. Sign a Bond !!

Nothing Keeps a household at bay and the dwellers on their toe more than petty lively houseful debates.A perfect household is the one where the two people agree to absolutely nothing.
Polar disagreement on everything, not trying to adjust anywhere beyond and again not adjusting so much to pull the string to an extent when it finally breaks...In this household, one sets expectations and the other knows where the line is to be drawn drawn.
More so, the best ones are the combination like a hard working dedicated, looking forward to do better and best person with a violent restless psychopath.
Spice it up more...they be from 2 different region, different history, society and cultural outfit...the entire relationship quotient is grounded in grammatical and semantic disputes.

Both believe that The key to a successful relationship is communication...while one talks it out to the other, the other one only talk in the mind.There are certain verbal shortcuts to a lot of arguments. Sure, it could be eased into things, build up momentum slowly, but that's so wasteful.Hence they say zero-to-arguments during those times.

Finally they warm up, get back to each other and declare that they are everlasting friends.Being "Single-enough" is awesome, more good is to have a friend to cushion in.These friends are set in their ways by time, and mostly they just don't want to step up to that level of responsibility and emotional entanglements that go along and there is not much impetus for these people to change.It is so much easier to go on with a fairly comfortable situation than to suffer the pangs that go along with emotional entanglement and continuous change in life.

So being friends and being together are the best things that a man and his best woman can do.They are already committed to all that they have to commit and doesn't want to change the status quo.They have practically burnt the bridge and crossed it too.They be in peace and they be happy in contrary to the so called full of Opportunity and self-respect oriented "Sign a Bond" relationship where the household runs by "shoot the other person and mount his head in the living-room" theory.

Broken Morning: OPEN LETTER TO A DELHI BOY: one of my best blogs So far !!

Broken Morning: OPEN LETTER TO A DELHI BOY: Dear Delhi boy, Namaskaram from the South of India, or as you may like to believe, the countries south of the Vindhyas. I came to your city...

Doing My Part......Fighting Hunger !!

While we are safe at home having the delicious meals served and re-served....there are children out there, hunger stricken...waiting to get a few grains.
They are special and they need our support !!
I am doing my Part, please help me...and reach out.

Identify...The Me !!!

A clenching identity question keeps coming back now and then. Am I who I am?

When I watch the activity of the ones I truly adore and idealize, do I still not want to be another person?

I do…..I do….I do!!

This is the perfect way that I want to take a vow.

I do want to be what I want to do the best. I do want to be what makes me feel the Bliss of what I can be. I do want to spread my being across the horizon.

I want to make minor alterations in places which could have led me to where I want to be. I want to go ahead and take the risk of outshining in the skin of the rebellious me.

This is not dis-satisfaction….this is the urge to be able to make a difference. To outline myself with my doings and my look-outs to what I want myself to be seen as.

Life is not meant to be a bed of rose and for the ones like me…I do not want life to bed of rose. I do not look forward to a regular routine day, where I exactly when to do what and how to do it. It’s the unknown that attracts me. The romancing of the destroyed beauty and love that calls me to hold hand. Breaking the rules beckon me. I do not want to be bound and delegated my chores, I would react as I absorb from my surrounding what it wants to quench its thirst from me.

Memories from March !!

March came with vacation plans in hand.....to offer us a lot of joy and hope.

It was the perfect time of the year to let our heart float among the beauty of nature away from the maddening crowd. With you having to walk past me or walk with me…our heart did but catch glances of each other.

Those handfuls of beautiful days when we fell in love with our life all over again, we never wanted to let the time go.

Like every beautiful moment, the vacations came to an end and we went back to the days of balancing act. While you still tried to see the vacation person in me, I struggled to balance my steps. While I pondered on my balancing rope, I looked up to you to see if you were doing good on the balancing rope.

The balancing rope often got disgusting with time. It pulled us apart and made us realize the distance we still had to cover to reach either ends.

Finally, a time came when I said to myself, Vacation is over. You stood far away and to wave your hands and say that you want to let it pass since there are other loves in this world to keep you busy without mine. I remembered the famous saying, “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Sensible Thing'.

I let you go my vacation love for that’s how I would keep you close to my heart, away from the mad rush of life. You are the beautiful Boreal Songbird who comes back home to find my love. The sweet nothings, the difficult cold and the love hate – sweet complexities are here to be while I learn to follow your wings to the neverland.

Splashes of a Colorful Me !!

A day that does not start and lead with To Do lists, calendars and time tables…….a day that does not tell me what to wear to work and how to take care of things……..a day that does not tell me how to manage my time and get exhausted by the end of the day.

During these days when it does, I live with an unknown person in me who constantly is trying her best to be what she is not. The ‘me’ who is trying desperately to be the one who people wants to see in the midst of the excel sheet, ppt, meetings and headphones.

And finally …when the time comes for the paycheck…I am contented but not happy. Contented because this will take care of all my basic needs and commitments…..Happiness is not my basic need. A paycheck cannot take care of it.

Life looks like “In perfect shape” to others. Professional stability is the easiest way to link with financial stability and draw a measurement. What we miss is the most important look out…a breath of fresh air, an emotional strength to be with and peace. Professional stability and finance outlines the shape of our destiny. However, they don’t fill the color to ones life.

Unplanned splashes of color always looks beautiful compared to the straight lines and defined boxes with defined colors. Why should Nutmeg, the bird, be brown? Again the canyon, the bird, is brown in color as well? Why should all of them have to have only 1 color- brown? I know that there are 48 shades of brown.

Life should come to us in shades of colors, with splashes of moments. No definite shape.

Explore it, understand the need of the moment and do what makes us happy. It should not make us think too much over the past or worry too much about the future.

We barely try to plan about being sad in life…..then why do we even need to plan about being happy in life?????

Pieces of your smile ~ that never leaves my heart !!

Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free till they find someone just as wild to run with them.

When we are young, our whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, we grow up and learn to be cautious. Sometimes we break a bone and most of the times we break our heart. We look before we leap and sometimes we don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch us……Sometimes we do not want to leap at all because we had fallen the last time we did. The one we thought was there for us…just stood there to see us break in pieces and take the pain.

Life is a series of chances. It’s for us to realize that there is no serendipity. We have to go on, fight it, avail, adopt and look ahead.

Read the signs, don’t miss them.The chances we keep looking for, are hidden there. Grabbing the smallest hint and working on them is best we can do. Rather than waiting and hoping on the next coming opportunity to be happy…should we not make amendments and changes to the one we have with us and make the best out of it? If moments of being together can be so beautiful, why not cherish it? Why should we say, “We will see how it works out!”?? Why wouldn’t we say “This is the best for us and we will make it work”??

One should never let our today slide away. Tomorrow will not replenish the best things in store for today. Take the chance and grab it today!! Who knows…. Tomorrow might have another surprise to cheer up and celebrate with.

Finally, there is one thing we should always know, in life, there's no safety net…….So the question is ……. when did it stop being fun and start being so scary??????

A day Off !!

A day off….is all that I am looking forward to…with literally nothing to do.

I would have nothing to look forward to….for the day. Where there would be no reason to wake up or no rules to follow even if awake. The phone would stop beeping and the words spoken would only be silence. The doorbell would not be anxious to ring and the

Living room would not wait to be warmed up and lighted.

A canvas board, some linseed oil and the pungent smell of paint would make friend with the freshness of the novel I am reading. The sticky paint on my finger would wish to stay and while I look at it ….you will dwell in my thoughts. Give me a day off!!

Confetti of Your Glimpses !!

It is strange that we do not communicate anymore. Its one of those days I hate to be a part of. Once when I looked forward to our small talks and innocent laughter,I begged time for more of you and today when I think of those days, I beg time not to fade away.

After all......This is all I have that belongs to us !!

2 stones and the moon remains the witness of your broken promises. They do not even know just like all the others what had struck and what passed by. They still believe that we would stand by our promises unlike those who had broken theirs and made them happy.

The glimpses of you that never leave my eyes without a droplet of tear are the ones when you waited for me before we started our journey, your eyes wishing I come to you fast and the ones where I stood there to see you off and bid you good bye and my heart said Don’t leave…Please don’t leave !!

Till this day, I wish to go back to those days of your warmth, where you would make up for your promise to me again. i always wish that you would make me stay and we would be.

Public Transport...Oh Bangalore !!

Here is a situation for the public transport using section of the people living in Bangalore. Just the way we take pride to be a part of this city, the vigil public assistance system like the police take great pride in causing harassment to the dwellers.

Last night we were waiting at the Brigade Road to see off a friend post dinner, where we eventually ran into bargaining with the auto drivers as a part of the regular chores.

For a distance of 5kms, they demanded nothing less than a Rs.250/- and the reasons were as good as not getting passenger to return to the same place.He was ready to buy the justification and pay up to double the price in spite of all the lame laws in this city that says one and a half meter only after 10pm.The distance he wanted to ply in the auto was about 5-6 kms and double the amount of the meter would have come to no more than Rs.80/-. However, the Nawaabs of midnight Bangalore were not ready for anything less than Rs.200/-.Their hunger for money grows wild with the non Local language speaking crowd, hence this did not surprise us.

Now the best Part-Then comes the Police patrol,the brightest face of the city. His eyes only hungry for the small changes from the tea stall and the mid night snacks sellers. The Brigade Road Patrol is the most non-cooperative police patrol service in this city.The Bald police man talks nothing other than the local language and flaunts his ability to harass people which finally almost ends in an ill communication.

When asked to assist with hiring an auto, he was upfront enough to tell us that we should even pay Rs.500/- if asked for and go where we have to as soon as possible. His behavior extremely rude and his motives all set to get the slightest clue to create uncanny situation.
Is this the Protection and the assistance that the people living in this city acquire from the police? is this the face of the highest tax collecting state in this country? Is this a part of the decorum they are supposed to follow?

We have created communities in Facebook,we have celebrated the hype of not using the public transport through social networking sites, we have circulated phone numbers and created grievance Cells to fight this ultimate and one of the major issues in this city.
All have failed drastically....and the city remains as back boneless as ever. The Meter-Jam Initiative was a flop.The one day facebook attempt to acquire publicity does not help.

@ipaidabribe.com.....!!

The website that reads I paid A Bribe looks authentic.
To eradicate the bribe paying system...the entire country is trying to pen down issues and upload writeups. We get to anonymously report a bribe, we get to view a bribe report and we have tips and turns to prevent paying bribe.

Then what....??
What happens next??
Who can be reported....and who cannot be?
Can we report the people who interact us in our day to day life? I want to start from my surrounding. Everyday...on a regular basis we try to please people in our surrounding to get rid of a small chunk of uneasiness from our daily life.We do that extra mile at work to outshine or escape a small axing from there...Can I take the privilege of calling that a bribe?
We keep numb to issues, though rarely, to keep the peace going and to avoid unconventional conversation.Do I call that a bribe??? We hold on to our patience, push us to an extent till the time our nerves burst out screaming for some peace...is that a Bribe???

Why do we do it? Is it some kind of treaty that we have signed anonymously to be in the receiving end ???
Finally who all do we pay bribe to? Can we report them all?? And will the system of reporting them.....change the face of the society??
Or should the change come from within??
Rather, should we not change ourselves....!! If it is a "No" let it be a Clean No. If what we are doing is what we want to do, let it be it and let it be because we can face it.
Let us not try and make the person in concern feel comfortable at the cost of our uncomfortable encounters !! Let us stop this system of bribe from our living rooms !!

My Book Reading !!

Reading habits from the very childhood builds the person a child grows up to be.
Having been a restless child, I have become friend of books very late. Having an additional impatient sibling could have been another reason that book and me did not have a good timing to build relationship.
I remember our Living room to a typical modern Bengali household decorated for exhibition with series of Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. The exhibit also consisted of Dostoevsky, Wordsworth, Chekhov and so many others whom I never related to. I loved the smell of the new books when they came to be a part of our household, I flipped through the pages hunting for some pictures and I nicely put them back according to the number in the series. The only book that attracted my attention was a Sukumar Roy's literary nonsense called HaJaBaRaLa. The hilarious poems and the striking pictorials kept me hooked to the book. Then came Alice in Wonderland as a gift from Dad and Mom. A transition of linguistic literary nonsense masterpieces by Lewis Carroll.
I always had a lot of people surrounding me, never was shy as a child and as I grew up, my knowledge and literature took a turn through elocution and debates. Again the ardent need to
participate and talk and exhibit my view point in a topic never imbibed the necessity of sitting down and reading books never found any growing hunger towards reading.
It was only during the days when I started traveling alone for my higher studies and Grad School that I became more confined to myself. traveling 16 hours during the weekends to and fro college to home left me with no other company than the Wheeler's Paperbacks in the railways stations.
I started reading.....first one at a time during traveling and then between studies during weekdays. My fleeing home during weekends on a regular basis cut me off from the hostel conversations and canny discussions of the girls, hence more books.
Book reading became my favorite pastime and I started reading Paperbacks, novels and then started pulling books that I had grown up with from the living room exhibits. My college days got over and I never felt sad to leave my room mates or my college mates,I became a professional and still broke the ice with lonely as I had my books with me. I broke handsome conversations
and won debates and cracked communication barrier with the help of the acquired knowledge from the books.
I have literally never been alone, never been lonely, never been hurt because my closest companion never left me. I too have learned one thing from this....You'll Never Have to Look for friends as quoted by Jhumpa Lahiri in REFLECTIONS, Notes from an apprenticeship, The New Yorker's !!

Bizzare true facts from Digital fortress:Dan Brown !

In large cities, Americans are photographed on the average of 20 times a day.

Everything you charge is in a database that police, among others, can look at.

Supermarkets track what you purchase and sell the information to direct-mail marketing firms.

Your employer is allowed to read your E-Mail, and if you use your company's health insurance to purchase drugs, your employer has access to that information.

Government computers scan your E-Mail for subversive language.

Your cell phone calls can be intercepted, and your access numbers can be cribbed by eavesdroppers with police scanners.

You register your whereabouts every time you use an ATM, credit card, or use EZ PASS at a toll booth.

You are often being watched when you visit web sites. Servers know what you're looking at, what you download, and how long you stay on a page.

A political candidate found his career destroyed by a newspaper that published a list of all the videos he had ever rented.

Most "baby monitors" can be intercepted 100 feet outside the home.

Intelligence agencies now have "micro-bots" -- tiny, remote control, electronic "bugs" that literally can fly into your home and look around without your noticing.

Anyone with $100 can tap your phone.
a new technology called TEMPEST can intercept what you are typing on your keypad (from 100 feet away through a cement wall.)

the National Security Agency has a submarine that can intercept and decipher digital communications from the RF emissions of underwater phone cables.

The Teacher

It had been a very tiring episode for my mind to run back and visit the last 6 years of my short and vivid life.I met almost everyone there,missing out a few less impacted people whom I tend not to remember.At every turn I took,I failed to see myself today where I stand when viewed from then.What a dilemma I was in during those deciding years of my career and self?I laughed at myself........kiddish as I was!!!One thing surprised me a lot.All the people who seemed to be a significant someone for me does not exist today...in fact they don't even make a difference to me today.So I decided to come back to where I am.I thought for a long time!!!

Today I have a new set of acquaintance who promises to be with me for the rest of my breath.However,after visiting the last 6 years I do not believe them either.At these deciding edges,I had come across people counted in fingers who had been a pillar to my thoughts.......

There was one instance where a man, a substitute teacher, inspired me. It was in an English class and we were all snickering at the fact that this man was a assigned educator for us.I still remember the day when he 1st entered the classroom.He cleared his voice and began to talk to us. Never before had I seen a whole class stopping and listening to a teacher, regular or substitute. He told us of life,..... philosophy. His voice was so quiet and smooth that not a single student made the slightest move for the whole half hour he talked to us. He just said these things off the top of his head about writing what you care about. He was truly the most inspiring man I have ever known.Throughout the duration of my seemingly short life i have searched for the person who would open my eyes to the world. Someone who would challenge me, helping me to discover who i truly was. He told us the reason why he liked being a substitute was that he liked being able to throw away the plan for the day and inspire. Amazing!!! At the end of the class, he gave another eloquent speech about how he enjoyed teaching us. "Maybe we will get to see each other again. All we have to do is hope," he sang. He made me aspire to do something different and to follow my heart no matter what it says. Thinking that I might never get a chance to meet him again makes me sad. At the end of the class, we cheered. In my heart, I believe at least I had a hope that we shall meet again.

The most obvious position in which someone can be in to have an effect on other people is a teacher. And yet my calculus teacher is undoubtedly one of the the most surprisingly and profoundly influential person I've ever met in my entire life. Not knowing an answer is not an excuse for not getting it right. Never in my life would I have imagined I was capable of the things I have undertaken in her class. For the first time I understand the plausibility of "you can do anything you put your mind to". My whole view on life has changed dramatically, and I now look forward to the challenges and successes I know my life will bring. I wake up every morning knowing nothing is impossible and I can be free to dream whatever I wish because it could very well become reality. Evoking inspiration is the true aspiration of passion-is truely what I believe today.

Was God Discovered or invented:Paulo Coelho Way !!

Was God Discovered or invented:

I found in Keithpp’s Blog this very interesting entry:

A non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school.Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?”
The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father.
He chose emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer).
For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” (Archbishop Rowan )– and this was the response:



Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised.

They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from.

They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible.

From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me.

Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world

and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

The Maelstrom...!!

The Strangest thing about me is my life itself!!!

When I had wanted the world, it lead me to the acrimonious dead-end and when I desperately look for an end of the thought trails, the road just keeps taking turns around the mountain road overlooking the rainbows, greenery and misty clouds.

I have been living in a Whirlpool, rather being one.
Like a whirlpool, my center of leverage is fixed while the surfacial edge roams freely, causing all the actions to take place in the physical/metaphysical objects in the vicinity. This has helped me to grow like the whirl grows in size,in prospects but then, being stuck to one spot on the ground due to the affinity I share,........I just fail to move !!

Hoping for the day I would high fly....breaking away from my fixed center of leverage!!!

Just for You....!!

The world of trust was so limited until that evening....and I wondered what took me so long to know this.
I was countering myself over and over again before I could face the truth. I played and re played the episode in my mind a thousand times and it ended in the same way... I had come to know that I had very little control over the consequences!!

I had bailed myself out of terrible experiences in life called relationships ,time and on and imbibed a trust in myself that I had a complete control of my life and I was the only one who would successfully manage me.I trusted my instinct and beleived that relationships do not have the potential to sustain.I did not want any emotional jazz to linger and am not ready to carry any emotional baggage.

My outlook mysteriously disappeared.The tenderness that time has offered has left a little scope of realizing how strategic things have been. While restoring my faith and trust in a complete different perspective. I have learnt to be more discerning in looking forward to life.

There could be more to it but at this point of time, I emerged a winner with that little wisdom I gathered !!

Back.....to myself !!

I am back to be myself....Back on this page after a very long time.
It has taken almost a year now to accumulate the accolades by justifying my contribution to acquire them.
It has taken a while to experiment my days in compromising and coming in term with life,killing me every minute.I have realized during this period that i am precious to everyone, but not more than what I am to myself.
It has taken a long time to prepare myself to accept silence.I would not go on forever giving myself to your needs in silence with disapproval. I have chosen to silently take my life where I completely enjoy this peaceful silence.
I have matured with time......I have lost a lot with time. I have also lost the me I had known all life. I have gained more than what I lost.
I have me all by myself.... !!