... see you on the other side

And thus I have run out of time :) Praying will not help anymore, unfortunately. Its not the first time, nor the first night before I left home. And yet it feels the same. A little blank, a little nauseous, a few fluttering butterflies and a little sad. But there's a difference this time. I chose this day. It wasn't decided for me by others or circumstances. It was a conscious, thought out decision. And yet it feels the same. Doesn't matter whether it was the kid in class 4 who didn't want to leave his parents but circumstances gave him no option, or the young man who was told that Reliance provided a better prospect for his career even if it meant that he had to move to Gujarat or the not-so-young man who wanted to prove that he could do what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do, just to prove himself.

Funny thing is, its not really that bad. Its not like I am moving far away to a place from where I could not come back home. For all I know, this could be exactly what I needed. The perfect balance of independence/responsibility and the comfort of home. In fact, a lot of you reading this might be far away from home (or the place that used to be home once). But then over time, you tend to get used to the new place and that becomes home. Change and movement is continuous and such is life.

I look forward to Pune, the new job, the new people. At the current juncture, this is exactly what I needed. Will it help me achieve what I wanted and what all this was about? To tell you the truth, I do not know. It doesn't seem to be. Maybe if I concentrate on the path rather than the destination, the journey would be a lot easier and interesting. Who knows maybe I'll get adventurous and find a better destination to travel too. :) That's the thing about it. The possibilities are endless.

So with the hope of a better and more interesting life, I put my current life on hold. I do not know when I'll get to write again, but I'll be back soon. Until then, goodbye and goodnight. I hope to be back asap. :)

Stuffed and Praying for Time

I think most of my past one month has gone in eating. Good food, good places and most of all good company. :) Well today was good too, I bow before the Bengali women for their awesome ability to cook good food! And heading my list of super cooks is my mom. I ought to tell her once in a while how good she cooks :)

Well I feel extremely slow and lethargic. Most of my blood is definitely concentrated in and around the stomach muscles trying to digest the food that I have stuffed in. Well as Po would say, "My Kung-Fu is not that good while I am digesting", I follow, "my writing may not be that good while i am digesting :P".

Here's a song for tonight... since I don't think I'll do justice writing anything. A song called "Praying for Time" by George Michael. A good song with good matter, says how things are. Me on the other hand am for praying for time too. A little different though.

These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we’ll take our chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all Gods children
Crept out the back door

And its hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much, much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say what’s mine is mine and not yours
I may have too much but I’ll take my chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can’t come back
Because he has no children to come back for

Its hard to love there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say its much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time

Toxic thoughts, truth torn, tattered

Have you ever wished you could read other's thoughts? Wouldn't that be similar to posessing the ultimate weapon? Or should I say that would be the greatest power one could own? You would always be able to act the right way (when I say right I mean the way that would let you achieve what you want), find out people's weaknesses, their secrets, their plan of action.

You would notice that every one of the possibilities above ultimately leads to the owner's benefit. Such is the way, the brain works. Think of how it would be beneficial to you and then the rest of the world. It would really make that person a very powerful and yet lonely person :) Thing is you really don't want to know what's going on in the other person's head. Nothing good ever comes of it. How do I claim to know this? I have obviously never had the power to do so. There have been situations where I have been able to predict what the person would do based on the fact that I knew these people very well. But then everyone can do that right? I came to the conclusion that its good to let thoughts be personal and no good would come if every this privacy is breached, by just studying my own thoughts.

The brain is a bad bad place. You can create and destroy lives, relationships, objects, careers, course of the future. Anything you want. I have looked in to my thoughts, some of them are good, some genuine, some nothing more than pretentious goodness, some ugly and some pure evil. Ever heard the term, "feeling naked"? Well thats how you would feel. If your thoughts were breached upon. I have actually loathed myself at some of my thoughts. Asked myself how I could think of such things. Didn't really have a very high opinion about myself during those moments of self analysis.

Now imagine how the people, about whom I have had these thoughts, would feel? The thoughts never meant anything, atleast most of them. They were just random, fleeting thoughts. But what were to happen if the person I was thinking about read my thoughts at that very instant? What would happen if the person was my loved one? Life would have been so much more complicated and pathetic for him. What if we reversed the roles. The person was my loved one and I read those awful thoughts about me. I would be devastated. Maybe I would end up doing something that would totally destroy the whole situation and the future involving the two of us. All because I happened to catch a random thought.

Not a pretty scene. Remember the dialogue from Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibilities. Its absolutely true. Unfortunately, great powers always come to those who deserves them the least. TAKE THEM AWAY!

Sherlock

I just love it when people take their jobs seriously and find innovative ideas to make it better :) You would wonder what made me say this but it just occurred to me after I finished watching the new series "SHERLOCK". Its a television series made for BBC (BBC really knows good entertainment :) ). They have totally revamped it and set it in the current settings of London.

All I can say is that its a brilliant adaptation, the stories are new with characters same as the original sherlock stories. And this Sherlock is modern and hip. He uses his mobile to look up information on the internet, take photos of crime scenes, keep in touch with Dr. Watson and the police. Dr. Watson on the other hand has just returned from Afghanistan and comes in contact with Sherlock because of an accomodation issue. He maintains his blog www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk where he discusses the cases (yes! no more journals :) blogging is the way to go). Sherlock on the other hand has also got his own website which he maintains www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk. Infact there are a few other characters as well who have their own blogs and their blogs actually builds the stories a bit :D. This is what I mean when I say taking the job seriously. The creators of this series have made these characters very real. The other series in which one of the characters maintains a blog is How-I-Met-Your-Mother's Barney Stinson. Will write about that another day.

They have currently come up with 3 episodes of 90 minutes each. I was extremely impressed with the pace of the stories, the way it was shot, the acting and the whole packaging. This is one series I will keep a look out for :) I am not sure many of you have seen it yet but if you can get the series, do it! Its easily available on the net. Suman owes a big "Thank You" for pointing me to interesting new stuff :)

As far as I am concerned, I vegetated all day long. Played more of Crysis, watched Sherlock and generally faffed around :P There were times in my life where there were shades of gray, most of it still is. But I think there is a part of it which I have in a strange sort of way directed into a world of 2 solid colours. No shades in it. I do not know how it happened. But it has finally come to the point where its either of the 2. No more confusion, no more shades. It was inevitable I guess, better now than 6 months down the line where things got more shitty. I try not to repeat the same mistake twice, I think I was about to. Corrective measures were required and that is what is in process. Corrective measures... Detoxification... or maybe just survival instincts.

Rakhi - Fortunately not Sawant :P

Another rakhi and my ophthalmologist friend/sister religiously tied rakhi like every year :) In my life, I have made sure that I made the least number of rakhi sisters possible. Why? Simply because I lack brotherly feelings. I do not understand it and now I have just stopped trying to figure it out. Rakhi was always a fun-filled day for me during school. That was the time when the girls used to torment the guys with rakhis. In Kalimpong, we didn't have this funda of girls tying rakhi to every guy in the class. I was pretty shocked to see it in Bombay.

The first year was shocking. On Rakhi every girl came armed with rakhis and some super cheap sweet. By the end of the day, both my hands used to be filled with itchy rakhis, decently large ones. Pathetic as it sounds, didn't give too much importance to it. Funnily enough as we moved on to higher standards (Standard 10), the number of rakhis dramatically decreased. Sanity dawned onto the girls and they realized that what they were doing was absolute A-grade tom-foolery. Though fear did creep into guys. For now, a rakhi meant, that the girl is off-limits!

It was a hilarious time during those days. A majority of guys spent their time hiding from girls they had a crush on, just to avoid the unfortunate incident of being caught by surprise and converted into a brother. The toilet used to be the most popular spot, with the number of guys in there reaching improbable numbers. A lot of guys usually "fell-sick" and didn't make it to school :P Me, on the other hand had a girl friend and was extremely happy and chilled. Girls knew that I was no more a threat to them, atleast those who considered me a threat, and I obviously didn't care who did and didn't tie rakhi. Though I had officially recognized three sisterly candidates. One was my ophthalmologist friend, two, my psycho friend (I don't recall if she actually tied me rakhi) and third, my phd friend. I became her official brother during her wedding in Jaipur. She needed a brother and I stepped up :)

Monali gave me a farewell dinner tonight. The restaurant we went to played a lot of saas-bahu serials followed by Aahat for entertainment :P She gave me The Messiah's Handbook, a very apt book at a very apt time :)

District 9

Watched a movie called "District 9". An interesting movie. Its about a group of aliens who have come and settled in South Africa in a camp which gets named as District 9. The movie has been shot in the form of a documentary. Interesting piece of work. The special effects have been done well, in the sense that the movie itself feels crude due to the documentary look but the aliens and weapons, etc have been matched to make pretty realistic. Damn ugly aliens though :(

Met up with Sameer and had a good time. Had 2 versions of KFC today. Kentucky Fried Chicken followed by Kalpana's Fatafati Chicken :D, ie, my mom's awesome home-made chicken. The KFC guys have got a new version of burger called KFC Smackers Snackers. They are smaller than the Zinger Burger but comes cheaper at 30 bucks plus taxes and tastes same as Zinger.

Was watching Batman Begins today and noted an interesting dialogue, it says, "And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you'd be spared your pain."

Crysis

Well yesterday and today have been weird days. My body and mind seem to be 2 separate things doing their own thing. While I am doing my regular activites pretty normally, the mind seems to be pre-occupied with a million things, while my body functions in a pre-programmed manner.

This is probably not the best time to be in such a state but then again who's to say what the best time to be in such a state is? Its ironical but in my time of crysis, it is CRYSIS that has come to my aid. I am talking about the game CRYSIS. I used to be an avid gamer. But its been quite sometime since I last played one. I recently got hold of CRYSIS and have been totally hooked on to it. Really helping me keep my mind off of things.

Its an interesting game, specially the interactivity with the environment and the AI. The physics is really advanced and I know that it was released quite sometime back and there are probably better game-engines by now but this is really good :). Atleast for me, cause I had stopped my gaming activities beyond its release and to me its just like a continuation to where I left things. Maybe I need to accelerate a bit and catch up to the current stuff. Maybe Pune is the solution to that, provided I get enough time to do so.

Anyways, having a blast playing it, I think I should get back to it and if anyone hasn't played it, I think its a shame. I say it now cause, I have now experienced it.