Quarterly Report

So, first quarter of 2010 is already over. This goes back to my post "Again!!!". Just a quick check to see where do I stand on my thoughts for the rest of 2010.

- Still good on no processed foods and coffee cuts. Yoga and Cardio?? - what's that :|
- Home Design.. quiet proud of my room right now :). Have a look
- Obsession with red and green - My room is all red.. Gardening.. This is the first time I thought about it after I wrote it the last time.
- The books are going on my wish-list as the complete editions of Astrix and Tin-tin are just too much for my budget right now.. I do think about them everyday though. I couldn't hold myself back from buying Milan Kundera's "The Joke" and Charles Darwin's "Theory of Evolution", so that is two more books on the already huge pile I have - pending reading.

Randomness

I really don't know what to write. All I know is that I want to write. Everyday I think of jotting down something interesting about something I have been thinking about but I never actually get a chance to do so. As soon as the first sentence is typed the rest is lost in my imagination. The end result is always strikingly different from what I actually set out to write. So, this time I thought I will just keep typing whatever is going in my mind - "real time". Quiet interesting isn't it?? This reminds me of the book "Catcher in the Rye" or may be I think the title reads "Catcher of the Rye". Anyways the point is that the book is a classic example of free will writing. The book goes on about the random encounters of a teenage boy and his totally disconnected thoughts. I was overwhelmed by the narration of the young boys racing thoughts whose name I cannot recollect.

This brings me to ponder at the capabilities and incapabilities of a human mind. Left to imagination its one of the most beautiful things ever. So many thoughts running simultaneously in such a short span of time just amazes me. This is the very reason I enjoy my dreams. I love the dreamland - It is one thing on which I have the sole control on. Only I can define the stream but I have no control whatsoever on what direction the stream takes. I am amazed at the complexity of my dreams and the script is no less than the artistic skills of the writer of the movie "The imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". The movie is spell binding. For me it was as if I were sitiing and watching my own mind when it is left to itself. The only difference is that my dreams are often hazy, the movie on the other hand is crystal clear, thanks of course to the technologies I can't even name.

At some point, I was very concerned about my abilities to remember my dreams fresh as they had happened almost everyday. Its not very common as I found out (not from a concrete source but from the experiences of the few people around me). The matter of concern was not my dreaming but the fact that you are said to have incomplete and half sleep cycles which leaves you exhausted in the mornings. I don't know why I did not try to find any remediation for this problem. I stopped thinking too much about it. And what more, I like to have the pallet of colorful dramas in my head (may be not so colorful as all of them always seem to retain the same haziness as if watching through a glass full of water). I somehow believe that it makes me the person I am. It influences my thinking, creativity and my life.

As I said before, I had no idea what this blog was turning out to be. But I have a feeling that when I am done, I won't be disappointed. :)

Again!!

Calendar check.. It's a new year again. Stretching skin, blobbing body, dark circles, stability, responsibility, maturity, interest in things which once were seemingly uninteresting - all signs of the grand finale of a wonderful teenage. Yes, I will turn 24 this year. Year 2009 was a crucial year for me which I did not realize until it was finally close to an end. I have changed quiet a bit in terms of personality, speech, outlook and knowledge. I guess I can call the year a 'transformation terminal' which mostly turned out to be fairly well for me. The interesting part of all this was how I developed certain interests and hobbies.

I look at all the married woman and I swear to myself not to let myself appear that way almost every second of my day. This leads to my obsession with healthy food and exercise although I haven't started anything concrete yet because of my random schedule away from home in recent dates. I am trying to stay away from anything unnatural as much as possible. Breakfast bars, processed food, fast food etc. The good news is I don't have to force myself to do so, I just like living in an archaic way. I can still not keep myself away from chocolates and aloo fry. Yoga and cardio are top priority for the new year for me. I was able to reduce drinking to a great extent this year and I am learning to keep myself away from a cup of coffee I have everyday at work. This in a way has become a hobby - being healthy!

I have started developing a lot of interest in home design, so unlike the shopping malls where I find myself out of place, I can spend hours in Ikea or crate n barrel. It is kind of ironic as in this year I did not spend much time at my apartment. 70% of my time is either at work or travelling or at some plush hotel or at someone else's place. I believe its because of the yearning for coziness and 'feel home' feeling. Also, I can spend hours thinking of that perfect home that matches my grandparents house. That's worth another blog. Let's say that I like being in the older simpler times.

I have somehow acquired a great obsession with the colors green and red this year. Why red? I cannot think why. Fresh green takes me into a trance. When I was a kid my father always used to drag me out of the bed in the mornings and made me stare at the vegetation in our small kitchen garden. It did make me feel fresh, I still do. So, when my boss asked me what do I want to do once I retire, I impulsively said I want to farm. So I have decided that I will start with gardening and give it a shot in my 900sq ft apartment. Gardening it is!!

I feel at loss when people make conversations about their childhood readings and comics. I stuck with chacha choudary, tinkle, champak and readers digest as a child. I like stories and fiction and reading so it should't be hard for me to finish the classics. I am very much looking forward to it. My first adventure would be all the series of Asterix followed by Tin Tin. I am somehow not inclined to Nancy Drew (I did read a few when I was in college :P). Suggestions are hugely appreciated. Chip in!!. I am also gonna hold myself not to buy any books until I finish the books that I bought last year. Books Aye!

That pretty much sums up most of my targeted hobbies/interests/goals for this year.

Some good things about the year: I am finally getting used to living an independent single life. I can go to a restaurant alone and eat alone without feeling overtly conscious of the fact that I am the lone warrior holding the fort. Strengthened bonds with my family virtually, I feel much more closer to home than ever even though I am miles apart. I have developed a thought process mostly based on reasoning and aftereffects and it seems to be working great for me. I have strengthened my beliefs on the non-existence of the super power, fate, destiny and other such non quantifiable words in the dictionary. I seemed to be motivated by great people in the likes of Nandita Das, Barkha Dutt, Annie besant, Amartya Sen, Yonus Khan, Salman Rushdie and Darwin to name a few. Although I can still not generate/participate in discussions -intellectual readings, books on history and magical realism is something I have discovered as one of my interests this year.

I may have lost the most rosy things of teenage but on a brighter side I am a much more confident woman now. I strongly believe I will never be able to change the basic person I am although I might develop a new perspective every once in a while. I am inherently the same People! but officially deemed to be a woman - you can throw the girl term away :)

Free Fall

So, I am driving back home from work listening to the title song of 'kaminey'..the song goes on to tell about this man, everything and everyone around him including himself at some time is a kamina - worthless rascal..I couldn't agree more..I feel like that most of the times these lazy days and I like it in a way.. it makes me appreciate anything and everything in the world.. and if you are wondering would I ever write about nicer positive things, yes, I will talk about nicer things but just not yet..

So, yes, I am driving back home and I realise how much I love the solitary time to myself, confided in the small 4-door, continuously rattling 98 corolla as if shaking its body to the rythym old music system, noisy air condition and screeching breaks!.. I get a sense of lightness, of escape, of free will, as though I am falling, falling from the sky, the lightness of being nothing.

I am driving on a slope now. I keep falling on the steep slope inside the confinement, hurdling towards I don't care what, I am too happy to care.. OH! how I wish it wouldn't stop!! how I wish I just kept falling.. and then I see the solid wall of a red brick building apporaching and a pump my breaks, lawfully halt at the stop sign, wait for three seconds, look left and then right and make a turn and continue on the road home.

I stole my happy ending

Its been two years today. There has been tremendous amount of change inwards and outwards. Discontent, that remains the same. A chemical engineer with a masters in Engineering Management working in a construction management firm. My boss says "Your parents must be proud" - hell yeah. This is what runs in my mind - I am one of the millions who come to the US, earn in dollars, save have fun and live my life - my parents are still proud, they will always be. I am not.

I have two cups of coffee everyday. I fake my smile and accent to an average of 30 ppl/day, sleep about 8 hours, busy for about 5 work hours, enjoy my time in the office loo especially in the mornings (I get up early, just enough time to dress up) when no one else is sharing it with me, avoid on average 3 people/day, look at the mirror 15 times/day, day dream most of the time, curse my car, look at online catalogs for 2 work hours and stare at never ending excel sheets, files and maps the rest of the time. I watch TV soaps, think of exercise, watch a movie a day, flatten the sofa cushions, think about sex, worry about my body and looks, speak to people back home and fall asleep in a hope that it should be days before its 6:45 am (time when my alarm goes off). It kills me to know that these are all my days at least till I quit.

What do I see myself doing everyday? Wake up not having to worry about answering a bunch of people in those scary outfits as to why I overslept, stare at the green for a while like how I used to do in my childhood, have ample of time in the loo in the mornings, read a few pages, discuss everyday issues with people around me, not worry about how I look when I go to work in the mornings, walk to the small gates, give away the little wisdom at the school, not worry about checking my accounts, bills, millions of paperwork (the way I have to do it here), tune into some local channel on a TV and not on the computer, sit around with the old ladies and small kids in the house, play some pachisi, walk through the paddy fields, retire with a nice meal not worrying about how much I would put on. It would be ideal. Seems like that would keep my heart stable for a lifetime. Happy ending.

Words

Words always seem to fail me, or may be, I fail words. I always have a problem expressing my exact opinions, feelings, thoughts and other things I can’t find words for in words. Some people are jack of languages. I envy them. Authors, poets, lawyers and boasters fall in this category. They always seem to know what they want to talk or write. By the time I am done writing this little jig, I would have gone through this masterpiece a thousand times and yet it shall lie in anonymity. I wish I could go back and “proof talk” what I speak to avoid the awkwardly embarrassing pits I have fallen into.

Of course there are a zillion ways of expressing emotions. Words, works, wands and what not’s. The one which leaves a strong impression is the physical way of expression. What we write we remember better, what we physically feel we recall well. I always felt a touch of hand, a reassuring kiss, an open embrace and in most cases a stern stupefying stare, which is quiet a frequent phenomenon with me, work wonders than a string of broken words coming out in various intensities. I have had the best conversations in silence. I have had the worst altercations in speech. So alls fine as long as I am in the physical vicinity of people and if I keep shut which although is a burdening task, works well and then we all live happily ever after. Unfortunately that is never the case. What cripples me in this fast growing yet vastly shrinking world is the non verbal form of communication. Chat rooms and archived conversations – my recent nightmares. I can no longer differentiate between genuine and ingenuine thoughts. And well, look who is not left behind - awkward silences follow the trail here too. Meanwhile, browsing through the past histories, digging up issues has become an addiction in an attempt to prove few points.

I wish we could go back to the time when people cherished the few hand written words written once in a blue moon rather than fouling over accessible conversations. I wish we could go back to the time when languages were treated as a form of art, means of profound expressions. I wish we could go back when words flew like a river, fluent, vast in meaning, when people knew what they were talking and when people could understand each other without having to go through thousand conversations, when the narrations of true love and fierce wars left an impression in our minds. I wish I knew that one language perfectly so that you would understand what I am trying to say.

Flight of Icarus

Thoughts which I scribbled while waiting for the flight in Mumbai.. just found the paper so penning them down.

"Our present is a failure.. actions which are direct consequences of our never ending attempt to mend the past.. in a hope of a future which is right at the back of our minds every night.. perfect"

Past-Present-Future

The only three facets and the only time frames which a common man strangled in emotions can ever understand. The three constantly moving parts of the drama called life. Life goes on, so does the parts, in a vicious circle.. man plays it.

Sitting here at the airport, waiting for the flight of Icarus, the flight to my destination..
Varied images.. anxious, scared, longing, desperation, nostalgic, excited, fear, energetic, lazy, apologetic, glad, yearning, confused. Confused. Confused. a web of emotions vibrating cohesively out of the throbbing mystery box.. confused, my favorite word.

Interesting, yet disturbing. The emotions attached with each of these emotions makes me inexplicably familiar. Deja Vu. Familiarity with the forgone things in the past. Familiarity with the upcoming events of the future and the familiarity with the on going altercations of senses in my head.. presented by the present.

Your only chance. Live it up :)

Epiphany

It’s been a while since I have written anything at all. Not that I write on a regular basis and now hat I wish to, I want to start with what is truly running in my head at this very moment. Some mind doctors might want to term it 'free association writing'.

I am finally tired of hanging nowhere. Disgusted at being that point in the graph where there are always points above and below me, a lame mediocre. Every time I visualize this graph, I think of millions of confused souls like me symbolizing the middle finger people keep pointing at each other, between the lines!, between the points.

But now that the boredom and disgust is literally creeping my insides and reminding me of the entire fairy tales where the lazy bum in body and mind is punished at the end of the day, lessons learnt. I, today take an oath upon the things I love the most, sleep and food, that I would become a better person by introducing some sense in my everyday life. If I fail myself, naaah there is nothing much to lose, a little self respect may be, and then back to the graph hoping that everyone might average out at my coordinates some day. ;)

And while I am writing this, I think, does it matter? Does anyone give a shit if you moved ahead or back, up or down? If you are the mediocre, the middle finger, the hanging lose thread or the ridiculed lazy grasshopper? No, it does not. All that matters is in the answer to these questions - have you done justice to your co-ordinates and space without losing a face? Are you content with the little things in life, can you accept yourself as yourself?

So here it goes. My plan of action. Start believing that you are THE person everyone dreams to be, the surreal feeling which lurks in some dark evil corner of our mind. I am forced to steal Obama’s nation spinning Cliché line here, pardon me, but ‘I CAN’. I shall shamelessly accept the conceited person inside me. I love myself the way I am. If someone begs to differ, I shall politely say go fuck yourself. Does this work? Well the good part - at least someone takes pride in you ;) and the rest will fall into place.

Red Chillies

I walk in the crowded streets,
and yet, engulfed in solitude..
the air, profusely filling my lungs,
with every step, every breathe..

and there it was.. a sharp aroma..
a million emotions, a million feelings..
sweet, sour, strong, mild..
the smells of spices driving me wild..

I turn on an empty road,
and yet, magically accompanied.

Ever wondered what happens to those thousand anecdotes in our lives? There are a few events, that vibrate the otherwise highly stable everyday soul of ours. Well these "small tinge of spices..bring a second of feelings, a minute web of thoughts, an hour of conversation .. and then sadly are thrown into a lifetime of oblivion"...exactly like the spices.

In this blog, I attempt to record a few of those spell - 'soul' binding experiences drawn from everyday life, extracted from the movements that go around me, the horizon of which is limitless..

But why the weird metaphor of spices and anecdotes? Well, I think they are very similar in the sense that they bring almost the same kind of effects . Almost every human emotion is characterized by a spice..every soul has a spice of his own.. My favorites are the red chillies. The enchanting red.. which adorns the spicy Indian gourmet dishes. I use them everyday in my cooking.. and the aroma that infuses in my body when they are fried in the oil is just heavenly.

Next time when you are cooking, or just savoring a meal. take a moment to yourself and try to identify the aroma that effects you the most... its just amazing how your heart jumps up like a child, the next time you identify that particular spice in your next meal.. good luck ;)