“Where’s our beer? The service here is crap” asked Nauman.
“Just like the bus service here. Man, would you believe that it took me 2 hours to cover the stretch of 8 kms. In my city, it would take me 20 mins and a cigarette break only”, chuckled Karan.
“You want to talk about traffic??? I was nearly fried, stuck between two BEST buses.” cried Atush.
“You could have used your AC” said Gaurav.
“Remember what we did last time we were drunk?” replied an angry Atush.
“Oh yeah, we left the car and AC running on the highway with windows open.” chuckled Gaurav and started laughing hysterically, but had to immediately stop as Atush started to pick up the fork in anger. “Nature’s call bro, can’t avoid!”
“The battery got so damaged that my father said if I use AC again, he will hack my account and will post a #supportJNU status to teach me a lesson.”
“Oooo that’s cruel.” everyone tried to suppress their laughter.
“Abe let’s change the topic. You won’t believe what happened at the station…” said Nauman.
“I thought, it will be more of a change.” interjected Karan.
“But this is interesting…”
“Yaar, its Mumbai, these things keep happening.”
Image Coutesy: Google Images
“Yeah, let’s leave up the redundant traffic talks and tell me with the show of hands, who is up for a game of Lasertag” said an enthused Atush raising his hand expecting a string of high fives from all parts of the table.
“Dude, no way I am going back in there”, said Gaurav explaining everyone’s dropped shoulders.
“Don’t you remember the carnage we conceded last time?” said Nauman
“Get over it man, we lost it big time. That girl single handedly beat our team” added Karan
“And that is why we should go and get our self-respect back.”
“Man, people find romances in weird places these days”, said Karan understanding the situation now.
“Ohh, our man has got a soft spot for the young lady” exclaimed Karan.
“Its not like that, I just love competition and yeah she is now one.”
“Then we have got to go and get our man his girl” everyone roared.
They had this new energy inside coming, injected by the things shown in the movies. When its time to impress a competition, everything falls into place and nothing can get you down. That was the scene when they entered the arena, ready to crush anyone fighting against them.
20 mins later(outside the lasertag arena)
Everyone returned with dropped shoulders, lowered to a new level.
“Well there is 200 bucks and a girl I would never see again” said Atush.
“Chill out man! You did come second. Thank God she was in my team.” said Karan.
“I think she was cheating” concluded Atush.
“Excuse me?”
They looked back with shocking eyes. It was the girl that had beat Atush and his team.
They still stared at her like the star troopers looked at a Jedi before getting cut in half.
“Did you really think you could win by making such a dumb strategy? Who leaves the base undefended?”
“I thought…. I would!” said Atush stuttering. Although scared, he was really impressed by the passion with which she was talking about the game. “Damn! You are so cool”, he imagined himself saying.
After completing the virtual nuptials, he finally muttered, “What are you doing outside your arena. Go depress some souls.”
This time she hesitated.
“Oh I came here to give these. These are congratulatory coupons given to the players who are just a little short of my high-score. It gives you some special privileges.” She said winking.
“I will beat your score someday. I will…”
“Huh! In hundred years!” she cut him off.
“The expression is ‘In a thousand years’!” corrected Atush.
“Well that explains why you being such a girl.”
She turned to leave and shouted in anger “There is a number mentioned in the back! Call it if you have any doubts.”
The three of them were in disarray, as they didn’t get what just happened here. They were astounded with the intensity that this girl shouted at Atush. They looked at a supposedly embarrassed Atush, but he looked serene and yet playful in his expression. He gave a wicked smile.
He came back to her, bruised and exhausted. She wondered this can’t be real…it wasn’t, but it felt so real.
He could see the pain and love in her eyes, but there was something missing beyond his comprehension. There were no tears. He asked “How have you been”. She hugged him, a hug firm but hesitating one, a tender one yet corruptible.
The distance between them had put them in a position where both were trying to understand each other, just looking at each other, words not required between them, they never were necessary. She thought could this be the reason for putting distance between them. Could something so beautiful once, be destroyed by a mere words; or the lack of it?
Suddenly the pain seemingly felt physical, she thought about the unspoken dreams that she had dared to imagine, the dream of a life adulterated by no one; the only life she could imagine since their meeting 3 years ago. Fighting the world seemed like a formality, when they joined forces.
Image Courtesy: Google Images
“Does it have to be so hard? Doesn’t this pain makes you realize that what we have is real and its a mistake to go apart?” he asked again.
“The pain not only makes it real, but reminds that it is not meant to be” she replied.
That hit him hard.
“Shouldn’t you be happy that what was not meant to be is not happening and you got rid of it.”
“I wish things were that simple.”
He went numb.
She spoke, “What we had was not love”
“We had love. But unfortunately love is not enough these days. Maturity is required as well.”
She chuckled “Maturity! Isn’t it an overtly used term these days. Blaming everything on it. When it comes to adventure and shenanigans, everyone seeks immaturity, but otherwise maturity is required. I am beginning to think that immaturity was what kept us together, in fact led us towards each other…”.
“What?” he cut her off.
“Yeah! How else would you explain us. We are so different from each other. Our interests don’t match. We are like two sides of coin, never destined to meet each other. On some level, we should have known that this day was bound to come.”
“Well, if you put it like that, it sure seems the explanation. But it seemed easy that time and looked like our difference somehow were connecting us.”
“Well, that was our infatuated mind taking over maturity.”
“I understand now” he sighed, dropping his shoulders. “But how are you okay going forward with this?”
“I think I am being mature now”, she smiled. He smiled back.
“But tell me this, how do I get closure?”
“Ha, never the one to shy away from the technical terms.”
“How else to prove I am different!”
“Closure is nothing but accepting that there is no ‘us’ anymore and being brave enough to imbibe that.”
“Like being happy for you and future?”
“No you fool, you don’t have to feel anything for me anymore…be as apathetic as you can. If you care, you are only hurting yourself.”
“It will be the toughest thing to do…”
“Me too”
“Who would have thought not caring would be this tough….”
“It is tough when you have promised ‘Thousand years’ to each other”, she tried to joke, but the gazing intensity of him melted anything that was calm inside her.
“Yeah, a thousand years” his words carried something venomous that even shook the nothingness in her.
Suddenly she felt lighter. The cloudy dust that had shrouded everything seemed to be clearing out and she could sense this from within. The heaviness that his remembrance brought was felt no more and she could un-shackle herself easily.
Atlast she woke up with a smile. After an array of dreamless nights, she leveraged the all important lesson that would catapult her towards an ordeal free world.
She can be herself again, completed after a long time.
This dream had done the job much better than her own consciousness could ever do.
“Thanks for ‘the thousand years’ and I am coming back”, she mumbled as she smiled her way back to sleep.
Its a friday evening. 4 friends(Atush, Gaurav, Nauman, Karan) were talking in their Andheri office about how they never went on a trip, where there would be only friends, booze and carelessness. One of them, say Gaurav gave the idea ‘Lets go for a trip tomorrow to Alibaug by ferry. Everyone seemed excited, everyone looked onboard until Atush explained the plan, ‘So, I have heard that one has to take ferry at Churchgate at 7.30 AM as its very busy there.
Atush started to calculate loudly, ‘7.30 means, we will have to reach the place by 6.30, which means I will have to start from 4.30 in the morning, for which I will have to wake up at 2.30 to prepare myself, for which I have to leave office by 12.30 today.
Then they all looked at the clock, it was 11.30.
‘If I start now, I will make it to the ferry at 6.30’, Atush said.
Everyone’s face saddened. ‘Dude, leave it please’ Gaurav said dropping his shoulders.
‘Lets plan for a Sports Bar then’, Nauman advised.
‘Yeah’ everyone cheered.
That was life in Mumbai, where the most plausible hangout place, ironically was the office itself. But these guys were going to learn it the hard way.
So the next morning, Atush started by his car very early, infact earlier than everybody as he wanted to surprise his friends that he is not a late comer everytime. Gaurav and Nauman lived in the same area, so they were coming together via the very famous and reliable local trains. Karan had to come by bus as he lived in central line and the destination was in western line, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to take local and change it again. Gaurav & Nauman reached local train station at dadar and the intricate and intertwined queue was nearly the length of train itself. Gaurav & Nauman went for different lines, for obvious reasons. After fighting off the counter-guy for ‘change’, Gaurav comes off victorious and now they move to the platforms.
Karan starts from his home to the nearest bus-stop. Just as he is about to reach the stop, he sees his bus leaving. Karan runs a little, but in vain. He comes back to the stop cursing his luck about the bus timings. He looks at his watch, there is still a lot of time. Little does he know that Mumbai traffic makes you pay for every missed bus.
Atush starts his engine along with the music playing. He still is superexcited about the virtual get-together of the 4 Mumbai friends.
Well that is Mumbai, where meeting of a complete group is so rare that once a group accomplishes a full-show, it is quickly dubbed as a reunion.
Atush still is smelling like his deo and revs up his engine to full speed from his home. His excitement takes a full U-turn as he joins the auto and car lines crawling up at 20 kmhr. His mind quickly goes into calculation of 20km at 20kmph mode.
Image Coutesy: Google Images
Gaurav & Nauman are very close by their station. The train nearly stops at their station and just when they are happily stepping down on the platform, they are greeted by a rush of Virar heading commute, which is nothing less than the Kumbh visitors, ready to kill just for the sake of touching their destination. Nauman somehow makes it to the platform feeling violated, when he realizes Gaurav hasn’t yet made it yet. He shouts for Gaurav, hearing his faint voice amongst the shouts of ‘Pude station! Malad(Please don’t forget to add the irritating tone as well)!’.He tries to make out what Gaurav is shouting, he hears ‘BC….. is that my station?’. He thinks hard but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to him, so he decides to wait at the station for Gaurav.
As he turns around disappointed and kicking dust, he sees a girl who is nervously eyeing him. He smiles as the train leaves the station. He had no intentions of reaching to the Sports Bar now.
Someone recently asked me this question and it got me in a tizzy. Isn’t life supposed to be easy? Why decide on life’s rhetoric questions?
But as it turns out, the world is not too kind to accept a person who doesn’t know where he will be after 5 years. The world seeks visionaries who can command and take us forward.
I believed I accepted this too. But after a lot of thinking, I now have a different take on this.
In my opinion, asking this question isn’t the way to go. Finding what you want for real, is not an obligation, rather it’s a baggage. I would rather concentrate on seeking what I like. There are hobbies and there is passion. The difference between them and the importance they hold should be known by all.
Ideally, the thing that you are most passionate about should be the way to go (and an answer to this question too). But life is more complicated than that. So, a major prerequisite is to decide priorities.
If your priority is money and fame in future, then you may need a plan to move ahead. Strategy would be required as it’s hard to satiate since there is no end to the accumulated wealth.
However, if one’s aim is happiness, then there is no need for all the hoopla. Just rely on your passion, it will get you home.
Difference between aim and hobby in this context is that aim is one or set of hobbies for which one is passionate upto that extent as Johny Bravo was passionate about his looks.
Aims in our life keep us focused sharply while our hobbies keep us stable. A synergy of both is a necessary prerequisite to a happy life. Well, not exactly life, but they keep us satisfied while still wanting for more in a sweet way.
Seek what you like rather than answering a much vaguer question, finding answer to which is typically hard to find even for the mature ones, let alone a confused teenager.
Life is really full of possibilities, if you have the strength to believe so.
We are social animals, we tend to form groups, everyone has a group of friends where he’s comfortable and can hurl as much abuses as he is capable of. Also, no matter how much creepy the teasing gets, one has to imbibe every bit of it. Groups can’t be completed without that person who gets teased the most, the guy with the best relationship advices (but oddly he’s still single), the guy who gets virtually-raped every year at holi…
The sort of person that I am going to talk about is the mix with shades of a sycophant and a person with a clean image. This person is not bad per se; has a decent level of self-respect, may connect with you with ease, and may be the most talented…..but one thing’s for sure; he’ll be sanguine and charming as hell in his conduct. I am sure you all have one or two acquaintances possessing these traits. As common as this trait is, as such, it is also not tough to demarcate such qualities in a person.
When given a task, this person takes on the responsibility with utmost sincerity even if the task is not his cup of tea. Saying ‘NO’ to something wouldn’t cost him anything, but for him, saying no is the only one thing he can’t do. He may fail the task, but renouncing the task is the last thing on his to-do list. I believe that quitting the task and honestly accepting the truth is much better than having to give explanation later. That’s why I look upon such persons with a little caution. There is no shame in relinquishing a little control.
Another scenario where presence of such individuals hurt most is when the person is at some higher position and one seeks help from him. Instead of just clearing his stand, he would give a false impression of trying to help; but instead, in reality, he’s just making you visit him over and over again. It seems as if their motto is “Promise today, equivocation tomorrow”. In India, the babus are infamously popular for such acts. Be it the kutcheris, banks or any ‘Sarkari Suvidha Kendra’, wherever you go, you are queued to be victimised. Indian governance system isn’t un-swayed by this.
Then there are individuals who can’t deny a favour to a friend on face but try to gain sympathy of randoms by talking behind his back. C’mon yaar, Be a MAN (or Be a wise woman), I strongly suggest you to talk about why you can’t grant him the favour, or why you can’t do his work,; may be he’s a better person than you and he might understand your situation. It’s better to be strong first and say no than having to make efforts to placate the lost friendship and be off the hook later.
I have seen some girls who don’t quite enjoy the company of certain individuals around her, but she can’t get rid of them, because she can’t have ‘the conversation’, or in simpler terms can’t say NO to them.
Thereby, I am running a collective request to such individuals to please understand what I am trying to say and think about how easier your life can be after you work on the advice.
Today I am going to talk about a disease I like to call preimage.
Making out a person just by his first impression is a habit nearly every person has…be it the person working in an MNC, be it the neighbour, be it the shy girl at school, the glass half full guy,
We all are the victims of this malpractice, and the evil users too…
The first impression of a person (especially a bad one) is stuck so strongly to our minds that even loads of positive work is not conducive of changing that clinging preimage. They don’t realize that humans learn from their mistakes and are worthy of a second chance.
Another common disorder that people have and that’s even gross is making a preimage on the basis of looks of a person.
When God, in his infinite wisdom created us, he wouldn’t have thought that the outer package that he is giving us, would heed so much of importance in the society…the better the outer package, the better the preimage.
A person who may have been your biggest foe may turn out to be gregarious at a later time of your life.
Your best friend is the one that you spent most of your time with and not the one that had the best outer package.
Considering and being aware of what all stupidity, humans are capable of; this one marks out as the most stupid and illogical.
Being on the receiving end sure sucks, and I can tell you by experience, that being on the other end (let’s call him Mr. X) doesn’t bring you any awesomeness either.
The biggest damage is done when you have a day-to-day interaction with the other person. Instead of keeping aside the feelings, X colludes his clandestine emotions with workplace ethics. The first impression image affects his judgement, polluting the thought process, and ultimately leading to inevitable fallout between the two, affecting both individuals. Why restrict this discussion to individuals? Infact forming preimage to a group, company, politicians etc, is a common practice that we all see around quite often. Although the image against present-day politicians is a vicarious feeling backed up by clichés, but it’s still similar to the point that I am focussing in one way or the other.
The solution…ha…well avoiding such an experiment and practising discretion is the first advice and secondly, remember the saying:
Recently read this news that Women and Child development ministry has come up with a proposal for making it compulsory for a husband to give half his share of income to his wife. This news brings a smile on your face, isn’t it? Now the women will have better freedom, free from hassles of husbands, maybe improved savings (eh?), no more dependencies on husbands for buying ‘your things’. Has the smile widened??? No!!! More kitty parties, incessant shopping sprees, more friends to join in the leisure-time activities, more to do in their occupied lifestyle etc. The smile must have reached at the max at both ends. If yes; then wait! Have you ever given a chance for this thought to reach your brain? Or you just crushed the part of the thought that was reaching for the brain under your larynx. Give it a little thought and you will realize that it’s a sort of reservation again, the same ominous thing that a simple, innocent and non-special general categorized Indian has always dreaded. The previous reservation scheme (General, OBC, SC and ST) still had some logic, but this proposal is like annexing our wallets for a reason that is beyond explanation. I am not saying this because I may be a future victim of this practice, but just because of a simple reason…… it’s ABSURD. Women Empowerment can’t be achieved at the cost of rendering men penniless. It doesn’t just feel right to be deprived of the hard-earned money on the 1stday of the month. If you do not understand my concern, just imagine yourself in the shoes of the man parting with his half share of income. Applying it to the families where the husband drinks or assaults her wife is 100% justified but thrusting it to every household is largely superfluous. Besides, there are other factors to look upon; what about the house-husbands? Do they get a share too? And what about the families that have both partners working; are they too in consideration?
I don’t understand what is actually happening under the banner of gender equality. I doesn’t feel right; I mean fighting for what is right is one thing but fighting for the right thing that compromises someone’s way of life is wrong and needs to be checked upon. The sweet days when men used to work and wives stayed at home and wait for their spouse to return home have already long gone. They started working, we backed them; they needed shares in property. we complied with them; but now this! I strongly disagree. This step is the result of limited point of views in the committee. The ministry needs to brainstorm about the pros and cons of this proposal before handing it out in public. This is a big proposal and may cause tension in otherwise stable Indian households and so demands a lot of discernment.
And I was forced to think of the prejudiced thought about thinking. It’s not a covert fact that thinking does takes out a lot of fun of any activity. Instead of thinking it over and over again, if one does give a try to the challenge, it not only shows the brave attitude but gives the person a lifelong experience even if he fails to accomplish the challenge. My philosophy says a challenging life is much better than a risk-free monotonous life. The precious learning that one gets after trying to go for it, instead of holding back the ground is worthless. I have got a perfect example to accentuate my point: There was a friend of mine who liked a girl from his school. He used to see her everyday, but couldn’t muster up enough courage to talk to her or ask her out. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t talk to girls, but his clock stopped working when the girl, say X, was around. Now, the school ended, but there he was, still unable to convey the emotions to her. He still regrets his indecisive state at that time. Had he told X about how he felt about her, what could be the gravest thing that could have happened? She would have said “no” citing some random reasons. But atleast he wouldn’t have the repentness of not knowing what she would have said.
Thinking is okay till one considers all of the possibilities and consequences of taking a step, but when it goes one-step ahead to a stage where procrastination peeks from behind the door, it’s time to follow the steps below. It’s not like I will tell you to make a pro and con list, but it sure looks like a textbook solution for most of the doubts, isn’t it? I am just kidding; here are some of the points to keep in mind when you are in such turmoil.
1. Just do it: The best way; forget about the consequences and just step out. Future prospects are the things that stop you from taking a decision, so take it out of the thinking equation.
2. Think the right way: Really think hard if you really want it and if it actually helps you in achieving your goals. If the answer is yes, then you know what you have to do.
3. Ask your intuition: These kinds of confusions are really solved by following one’s intuition. There is a saying ‘Follow your intuition and everything will fall into place’. This is as true as gravitation theory. If you are indecisive about something, trying out your intuition isn’t the worst of options.
4. Discuss with one: Taking advices is not really a thing that most experts would advice. But from my experience, there is a person in every one’s life with whom we feel comfortable such that sharing anything is as easy as slicing butter. Find that person that is most adept about the theme of your doubt and who is understands you enough to provide you with a better perspective. The person can be your lover, closest friend, college mate, hostel mate, parents, sibling or a school mate. And it’s better to take advice from a few individuals only.
