At Crossroads

I hate being at cross-roads, for not only it challenges your today, but also questions your tomorrow. Suddenly life has put me again there in my personal, official, social, moral …et al …. lives. Not an envious situation, definitely.

What to follow?

A big question ……

Answer: Follow your heart :)

Be healthy and forgetting, Be blissful

A few days back, one of my friends posted this on his Facebook status,” For a successful life, one only needs a good health and the power to forget.” The more I think of it, the more it hits the truth. The catch-phrase ‘successful life’ is so discussed, yet so arcane, and individualistic, that any claimed erudition on its essentiality is at best a falsified belief. Undeniably though, this whole ethos starts from the self, and the self finds manifestation in good health. And this good health is both physical and mental, which allows an individual to work and enjoy life as it comes. This great state can only be achieved if the person has the ability to forget and forgive the past, however cruel or enticing it might have been. The philosophical import of ‘Living the moment’ can indeed be realized then. All simple …. life deciphered …. Right?

Time to Settle

When you are flushing in teenage, life is an unhindered ride of thoughts and actions. The first thing that occasions itself is the affinity towards opposite sex. An 18-year old boy can’t help falling in love with a pretty damsel of his class, and the rosy world dreams follow. You also get surrounded by closer-than-life friends with whom you share your inner self. Then college happens and again a round of infatuations starts. You get firm in belief that life is all about a throwaway attitude. Ride and swim in the bewitching world– what and where are the checkpoints. Even the best of times has to come to a stop nevertheless. You pass out from College, and Work accosts you in all its fancy and glory. Realities start hitting, with their own sets of complexities and compulsions. Life is not anymore a child’s play; it is bloody taxing and engaging. You start seeing things which you never bothered to earlier. In the process, educational and professional dreams are aroused again. Studies, career, money, excellence, settled life – all become part of necessities now – a set of no-no things during earlier times. Your private space too grows. The change is mind-boggling …. all in a space of 10 years.

Then the inevitable happens. Marriage knocks on your door. The first realization that dawns on you is it is not anymore a fairytale ‘boy meets girls’ story. You cognize that it is actually meant for the rest of your life. You start thinking in terms of its suitability. You realize a pretty wife may not be the best wife. You long for someone who understands and supports you. There is no space for the frills and thrills of yesteryears. The sexual charms, however enticing, aren’t the first checkbox either. You instead wonder whether her presence will alienate your private space which never got away from you. You reason whether you will have to abandon yourself and adopt someone else post-marriage. Nevertheless you crave for that someone. ‘Plucking the stars theme for love’ still blooms, but those stars are bred on earth now. You theoretically believe in ‘all-for-you’ marriage, but also wonder whether she will the life-blood of you, as you want to be hers. Your wish list is radically changed. You again Ride and Swim, this time though in the unknown world.

What a departure from the times of yore!!!

Office Life is Intoxicating

Very seldom will one say this. But having missed corporate life for close to one year, I felt some kind of desperation to join the software company back. It took some patient wait by me, but finally I was back in my earlier company, this time in Gurgaon. And to tell you frankly, no sooner than 2 or 3 days later, I was assimilated. The same old work, the same/similar faces and voices of colleagues, juniors, managers, the same project and the same kinda sick office feeling too. But intermittent between these was also a rejuvenated sense of starting it again, this time differently and intently. Not that earlier I was working shoddily, but now there is a sense of purpose and desire too to excel my work. It has been contributed no less by my last year’s work and experience when I was finally doing something from my heart and hum.

So, the normal routine has ensued now. It also has given a glimpse into the temporality of time. It already seems last year is last decade. So are the memories, both good and bad, of it. As someone said, we only value the time when it is gone, and no time is worth not valuing. In simple terms, enjoy the present. In those terms, my life sets out again with new goals in sight and with new means of work. Happy sailing!!!

If Ever I could Say, Sleepless in Delhi

Indeed I am, Sleepless in Delhi. Not for any lost miss, but because of the ****ing cold. I haven’t been able to sleep properly for the last 3 nights, as the frigid cold keeps on penetrating the scores of clothings, which I keep adding on and around myself, somehow. In the day, the bed is a virtual ice-layer, so no chance of respite even then. I had thought only Delhi heat could be an irritant, but I must say, the last few days cold, has even beaten that.

Delhi has become even colder than Paris and Madrid, despite it being lying in the Tropical Zone. It must be because of the global-warming industries which have effected such a catastrophic change in the climate worldwide. Such avaricious fellows. Or is it because of the pollution around Delhi which augments both heat and cold? Stupid Delhites.

Meteorologists say it is going to be like this for another week. Phew! I can only say, this time around, Delhi has shown to me the extremes of both summer and winter, and I dare say, in fact repeat, that I hadn’t experienced any of it before in my life. Bravo!

Re-entry

Back with a bang! My blog, I missed you so much.

What a ride it was all these last few months. A taxing one, but definitely exhilarating and enriching. It has been only since the last month that I have got a chance to do the long-listed things during that period. Movies and novels are back, and so are the merry visits to the friends and family.

More fulfilling has been the various small travels that I have undertaken recently. While visit to Varanasi and Sarnath was religiously suffusing, the travel to rural areas was an eye-opener and soother both. What joy, car meandering through the desolate but well-laid roads, flanked by the swaying paddy crops, presenting the full stretch of greenery beyond it in an attempt to kiss the horizons. No literary hyberbole can express the ecstasy showered upon me then, who had long been lost from such bucolic charms. A day or two of rural India can really enliven you, if you just stick to the untarnished environment. But the reality of its misery dawns upon you as soon as you start observing the neglect perpetrated on its even very rudimentary aspects. I won’t dwell on the education, health, infrastructure etc problems, as they are, however rude and indifferent it may sound, considered genetic. But what was eye-sore was the sheer apathy that had been tendered towards the Rural Development Schemes that had been started, and are supposedly run by the Government. I should supplant ‘corruption’ with ‘apathy’ here, as the decrepit buildings of the ‘Block Resource Centers’, ‘Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya’, ‘Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan-Medium and High Schools’ etc won’t present a different story. It is better not to think more, as the national level scandals- Aadarsh, Commonwealth, 2G, Housing Loans etc’ are even more sickening. Ah! Sorry blog, for polluting the moment with these souring tales.

Anyway, back in Delhi now and back to some sort of pre-routine. But as expected, this is again going to be really wonderful. I am game for it, more than ever.

A sabbatical of sorts

There could be nothing more frustrating or annoying than giving up on your one-of-the-most likened things. For the last 5-6 months, my blogging had to endure a test of wait amidst all the frentic and sapping schedule of my life. Even after putting a resolve every now and then to get back to it, I was unable to devote much or rather any time to it. And sorrily, I won’t be able to give any time in future too, for at least 4-5 months.

It is all for a greater cause only; but I hope, I will come back more learned, energized and focused then.

So, it is an official sabbatical till then. Hope life continues to cherish all of us!