Random text, gibberish and biased opinions. Trying to track culture, trends, internet, ideas and people. Trying to learn. Trying to evolve.
Aug 14: Of hits and misses
Of course I was busy but finding a mere twenty minutes wouldn't have been difficult. I actually asked a friend what she wanted me to write and she gave me a couple of ideas. I did start a few but I dint finish it.
Need to work equally hard for the remainder of the month to ensure that I do not miss anymore posts. A super hectic week is coming up, with travel to Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, some important decisions about life and career, lot of introspection and some reading to catchup to.
Aug 12: Any answers Mr. Garg?
With time, things got moving and I got busy with work. So much so that I hardly had time to sleep, leave alone reading or thinking. I forgot about it. It would pop-up once in a while on those off days when I would have time. Or at those odd times when I would think about career and future. And when I would compare myself with my classmates from MDI. The fact that they were making a bomb and I was still to reach peanuts.
Yesterday, I met this friend of mine and we got talking about life and other such things. And I realized that maybe I am not alone. There are more people, apart from I, who suffer from these things. And they lead perfectly happy lives. Came as a revelation to me! But then the most shocking bit happened. During the conversation, I somewhere said that I am almost 30. And then I realized, o crap! Am I not the age that is the precursor of the dreaded middle age, AND the precursor to, the Mid Life Crisis?
And this is when the world came down crashing at my feet. At heart, I am still a 12 year old, who loves to day dream and believes that world is a fair place. Ofcourse my mind tells me to get back to work and accept the fact that Ovarian Lottery is a reality and I am unfortunate to have lost out on it. And, the mind adds, that since I lost on the lottery, I would have to live with whatI have got and work harder to compete with the beneficiaries of the lottery (read rich heiresses, cricketers, film stars, singers, politicians etc).
Hang on for a minute. Did I just say work harder? w to the o to the r to the k? work? If I could work, I wouldn't be wasting my time writing something that has a combined readership of exactly 1, including me! I would rather be sitting in my office, thinking about the next presentation I am supposed to write for that very demanding client. Uh! I AM sitting in my office conference room, occupying the most important seat (the one facing the wall, in the corner), seeing my fingers fly on the keyboard, pretending to think on launch ideas of cars and writing this!
I need that kick on the backside that would get that 12 year old, trapped inside my 30 year old body, out of my system and let me face the world. The way a 30 year old is supposed to face it. Which to be honest I have no clue. And unlike when I was facing QLC, this time, when I am daunted by MLC, I shall seek help. From the sole reader of my blog. Any answers Mr. Garg?
This is day 12 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Aug 11: Apologies. To Myself.
I am all for breaking the monotony but I cant tolerate when someone breaks a promise. And this is such a simple thing! All I asked for was mere 500 words in an entire day. About 15 minutes of time (if not less). And that too a thing that is supposed to excite me!
They keep saying that showing up, is half the battle won, even though I may be churning out BS, I need to keep writing. I am chasing quantity, not quality. I am trying to program my mind that writing everyday is as natural a process as breathing is. My mind should understand that both, writing and breathing, have an important role in my life. I am incomplete without either. I reckon once I develop this habit, things would be much smoother (or may be slower, depending on how much creative juice, the juice Haruki Murakami, talks about in his book, you're left with). Anyways, coming to today's post, I am not doing a piece of fiction. I will try something totally random. I will list each color that I can remember today. Not the exact shade but lets see.
- White. Saw this guy in white starched dhoti and linen shirt. And a multicolored, jaipuria turban. I am sure the dude must be son of a bada aadmi and would have hazaar naukars scurrying about for even tiny errands. But then, the poor dude was standing in the security check line, like all commoners.
- Yellow. The dress of JetAirways hostesses. Some on them were stunning. The air-hostesses I mean. The color is brilliant and they should have better dress. Totally average. I wonder why dont these fashion designers pitch in?
- Gold. Saw these really funky gold on black teeshirts with whacky lines. But again too much for someone like me. May be some actors, cricketers want to try em. You wear em and the world would go blind! You would get all the attention that the world has to offer.
- White. From the window seat, looking down at clouds, they were that bright that eyes hurt to even look at them. I have not seen anything whiter. They were sheer brilliance. I dont think anything else can reproduce that color. If there is God, dude, hats off man!
- Gray. Once I landed in Delhi, it was raining. It was so beautiful. Everything had taken the shades of gray and was a pleasure to look at. I got soaked in the baarish after ages. I was traveling in a richskaw. I put my phone in my bag. Peered out of the rickshaw and let the rain hit my face. It was blissful!
- Red. The traffic signals all over Delhi. Like Mr. Murphy chasing me with his wretched law. Each time I reached a traffic signal, it would magically turn red and make me stop. I think today, en route to work, I shall count these!
- Some unknown color. The color of frustration. Over a lot of things. I could see it everytime I closed eyes but I cant pinpoint what color it was. Need to work more on this and find the color!
- Pink. The Strawberry iced tea that I had with a friend after I was done with work. I actually dont mind a life like that. You slog hard for a day. Then you meet some friends and just while away time over random conversations.
This is day 11 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
May not be 500 words, too low on energy to take a count but I did give in my best while writing this piece. Anyone likes this?
Aug 09: Untitled
chand ghadiyan yahi hai jo azad hain
inko kho kar meri jaaneja
umar bhar na tararte raho
This couplet, defines the way I want to live life. These are from the famous, aaj jaane ki zid na karo. I will not go into the history of the song but whoever wrote these lines, would have a been a mini-rockstar. Not mini, but poora rockstar. The lines are as deep as you need them to be able to touch your soul. The lines are as simple as you need them to be able to comprehend. The lines are, in short, brilliant. (I wish I had a larger vocabulary, I could have talked about the beauty of this song in more vivid details #wishfulthinking)
There are times I wonder what are all these poets made of. They must have been really sad when they wrote these things. Or may be really drunk. A normal guy, can never ever write such a beautiful song. I can actually feel the author crying and longing for love of his life. As if some part of him is being taken away by force and there is no way that bit of him is coming back. The wailing is magnificent and depressing.
Sigh!
Apart from this, today, since I am posting a regular blog post (instead of fiction, fact, non-fiction etc), I want to talk about this vid that rr sent me. Its called Move and is a part of the three part series made by a couple of guys. After I saw this video, I got really depressed. The simplicity of the idea and the brilliance of execution of this video sets this apart from all those hours of footage that is uploaded on youtube and vimeo and other websites every day. Please do watch this video.
MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
I really want to know how do people come up with so simple ideas that even a fifth grader can execute, and then pull them off to perfection, that would leave the most thorough professionals looking sideways.
And last but not the least, apologies to myself and the project that I am on, that I havent been able to do justice to todays post. It does not matter that I have to write a presentation and then catch a flight. What matters is that I made a promise to myself and I am breaking it. I know that its ok to take a day off once in a while but I am scared that this one off day might just become a regular habit and before I know, the project would be in tatters :(
Tomorrow, I am traveling the whole day a longish drive of about 300 KMs. I sincerely hope that I do post something interesting. I might have to use my phone to update the blog, but I shall, at any cost, do it!
Just wish me some luck.
This is day 09 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Today, for a change, I did not write a piece of fiction. Actually I did start one but never got around to finishing it. Maybe some other day. I know that todays update is not really an update and is a sham but its ok to have one off day. But then, the important thing to note is, that you have to show up! irrespective of how you end up doing, showing up is half the battle won!
Aug 08: Up In The Air
Am calling it, Up in the air.
From luxury of my seat, I can hear the chitchat of the air hostesses, the jokes they are sharing about which hostess is sleeping with which pilot and which passenger is a lech etc. Its been about 24 minutes since we took off, the in-flight food and beverage service about to be started. And since this is the holiday season, the flight is almost full. Thats 184 passengers on board.
As I child I have always wanted to fly. Have wings, take control of myself and see places that I have read about. I wanted to be free and wanted to do things my way. I saw flying as the ultimate freedom. What else can be better than spreading your arms and taking off, at your will? But then, this was a long time ago. Today, I dread every time I have to fly. And considering what I do for a living, I have to fly very very often. Call it the occupational hazard.
Come to think of it, flying is not that bad. Atleast the cruising bit. It gets scary during the take off, landing and turbulence. Let me talk about turbulence first. Everytime the plane hits the turbulent weather, it shakes as bad as my juicer does when I am making yogurt with diced fruits and curd. I actually, at times, when I am home, take my juicer out, throw in some diced fruits and switch the juicer on. And I can actually see myself in that juicer, the plane shaking like the juicer, and I being tossed around. Helps me calm down for some strange reason.
There are times when turbulence is that bad that air hostesses actually spill coffee, tea, water or whatever they are carrying. They spilled water on me once and for a nano second I thought I was drowning. Drowning up in the air. Now, it sounds funny but that time, it was potent enough to give me a heart attack. So when turbulence is really bad, they have to be sent back to their resting stations. And this is when the low gasps and scared moans start. And once someone screams, it becomes a roller coaster ride with everyone screaming and trying to outdo each other with their shrillness. It becomes really scary. Obviously, there are announcements that tell everyone, including myself, that its just turbulent weather and it will pass away soon. But do I really believe in these announcements? Do they really calm down people? They dont help me. I am not sure if they help passengers.
You know, funny bit is that, if I compare scales, an aircraft weathering turbulence is similar to a car going through a country road. The car jerks as much as the aircraft does. You are in the car, in your seat, with a safety belt, holding onto your seat. And, to make matters worse, statistically, air travel is the safest mode of travel. The probably of your aircarft crashing is about 10,832 times less than your car being hit by another. And yet, everytime we hit turbulence, my heart skips a beat. My palms get so wet that I cant even hold anything. And all this despite the fact that the air temperature inside the pressurized cabins is maintained at 24 degrees C for comfort of passengers.
There are times when I am flying into cloudy cities. Clouds are different monsters all together. Though I love rains. I love the sight of dark clouds filled with all the serum from God. The thought of a nice rain elevates my spirit to no end. But not when am flying. A plane passing through the clouds is no less than those torture machines that they used on informers and prostitutes in the medieval ages.
Since there are clouds outside, you cant see anything. All you see is the whiteness. Yes, the darkest of clouds, when you are up there, are white. I dont know why. I ought to know but I dont really care. Second, the blinkers on the wings and body of the aircraft, they illuminate the whole goddamn cloud and it feels like you are passing through white. The kind of white they typically talk about when they talk about a white passage that the dead must go through. Everytime I hit clouds, I pray to God for my life. Every single time.
Take off is ok. At least, you know that you are closer to ground. Though once you are in air, it doesnt really make a difference if you are close to ground or up at 33000 feet. If something wrong has to happen, it will happen and there is not an iota of thing that anyone, me, you, the ATC, the ground crew could do about it. Landing is a bigger challenge if you ask me. Since you are diving nose first, towards the ground, at about 500 kmph, at times, you wonder if you were to keep going, how big a crater would the impact make? As large as the craft? Or as small as the nose? Anyways, so this is the part of flying that I am at ease with. Anyways, I read somewhere that pilots are mandated to log 4 times more hours on landing practice compared to take off practice, on the simulators. And in fact, as I write this, I think, the time to put that practice into action has come. I am almost home and hopefully would put my feet on solid ground within another 13 minutes or so.
"Thank you for flying with us. Hope you had a wonderful flight ladies and gentlemen. Have a good day and a pleasant day". And with announcement, I replaced my headset and turned off the mic that I, and all other pilots use to address the cockpit, crew and passengers. I then wiped away all that sweat from my face, my neck and my bald head and fished for the logbook that we pilots have to fill in, after every successful flight.
This is day 08 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Aug 07: So Gaya Ye Jahan
Jack loved driving. And he loved nights. And the only thing he loved more than the two, was driving at nights. He had this theory. That while you are on the road, you not only burn rubber and add kilometers to the odometer, you travel within and you get closer to yourself. Ofcourse no one understood a thing back then.
Fast forward to today, while Jack is away, everyone misses him. They know somethings missing from their lives but they can't pin point what it is. May be that intensity, or that earnest expression, or that attitude that challenged all norms. Or may be it was his armchair philosophies and theories on everything under the sun! Most of these are unspoken but they do talk about his exploits on the race track.
Back then, it was really tough for a boy of his means to get active with underground racing. Wtf, even now, its tough for any boy/man with any sort of means to get an entry into motorsports and we are talking about a 15 year old rubbing shoulders with men twice his age and grinding them to dust.
Some attributed it to his luck. Some said it was his foolhardy attitude. Some even went to the extent of saying that since he was what he was, he had nothing to loose. And the glory, the aura, that came with the podium finishes released more testosterone than a boy his age could handle. And it showed. Though he kept to himself, he was very intense. Even at that tender age, most people found it hard to meet his gaze.
Life was all good before that fateful night. They were to collect toll road slips of all the 4 toll points around the city. They could choose to do them in any order, take any road, do watever. But they had to reach the starting point fastest. To make things exciting there were no finish lines and no audience. These guys were gonna be following the racers they could catch upto.
What happened that day, is the stuff legends are made of. And yet there has been some sort of silence reigning over the sequence of events that night. That night changed Jack. He was back to being a normal 15 year old and soon faded away into the oblivion. And one fine night, when people had grown indifferent to Jacks absence (or presence), he packed his bags and slipped out of the city.
I wish I could write about that night. The race. The victory. The defeat. The brightest flicker of a nebula, before Jack and his story turned into a blackhole!
This is day 07 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Phlogging!
But then, irrespective of things, something draws me towards this. May be I am trying to talk to someone. May be this blog gives me the feeling of authority. Maybe am trying to compensate for lack of action on FB and twitter. I don't know but I am hooked to blogging all over again.
Its like, am back in the 2004s again! Loving it!
Tags: #phlogging, #blogging, #mobile, #personal
Aug 07: Re-living Mr. India
Am at Goa right now, waiting for a meeting to happen. And while the client wakes up from her deep slumber, I am idling away my time at this amazing place.
Goa is a coastal state and is hence dotted with beautiful beaches. Here, beer is cheap, women come by scores, poisons easy to find and time, all the time to while away pursuing intellectual conversations and thoughful ramblings. Goa is a classic example of a place where time moves slow and things happen at a leisurely pace. You could choose to gape at the ocean, drowning in the sound of its music, wondering about that lone boat that you see docked in the horizon. Or you could choose the walk on the beach, feeling the sand, waves kissing your feet and whispering those unexplainable messages, as they come and crash against your feet. From your vantage point, you could also choose to let your gaze follow that beautiful lady in red, walking on the beach and paint a picture of her life in your head. Like this woman am looking at, she must be one of those MBA types, she's moving in a straight line, at the exact place where waves just end. Very calculated, precise, sure. She would be single. I don't see any signs of commitment. And at the pace she's walking, she is not in any sort of hurry to go anywhere. She is content by herself, the way she's hugging herself. Probably the serious kinds. I have been seeing her move around for a while and she is yet to kick some water or bend down to pick those shells. Obviously well to do, as evident from her taste, clothes I mean. Probably here to take refuge from corporate jungle that she lives in. Am wondering if I should go and try my hands at being the kamra salesman and see if I can make an offer she can't refuse. But then, the question remains, is she looking for a kamra, with all those benefits that we spoke of in the beginning?
And yep, in the movie, Mr. Kapoor, aka Mr. India, did manage to sell the room to our heroine, and eventually, lived happily ever after.
Tags: #movies, #anilKapoor, #goa, #travel, #peopleWatching
Aug 06: The Art of Dropping Subtle Hints in an Conversation
But like some things need to be kept sacrosanct, am trying to develop this habbit of penning something each day before I sleep. I have no clue if I would be able to do this in a long run, but I know that I can do it today and here is the post. Am calling it, the mobile revolution (note: changed the title once I started writing). Because, you guessed it, I am using a mobile phone to type this out. And I will write a piece of fiction. Am calling it, The Art of Dropping Subtle Hints in an Conversation.
A: Hi! Ssup? Too late to text? Is it?
B: Nah, not really. Was about to sleep. Have an early flight tomorrow. Wassup with you?
A: nothing much man. Just bored outta my wits.
A: wow! My boredom is infectious. Looks like you've slept. Anyways have a good flight. See you around
A: oh ya, get me some fenny while you are there. Heard its really potent.
B: Haha. I will try.
A: Ok. Lemme be blunt here. How does one make a conversation with you?
B: lol. I don't know. The way you're doing right now?
A: nopes. Its not helping. Ok, here's another Q. What's the weirdest question someone has ever asked you?
B: ummm, tough one.
B: I know. It was "How does one make a conversation with you?" :D
A: Hehe. Nobbad Ms. Smarty pants! And what's the weirdest answer you've ever given?
B: thank you thank you.
A: so?
B: oops. I don't remember sorry. But it was to the effect that, dude, get lost. I am younger than your grand daughter.
A: Aha. Some oldie pervert tried hittin on you? Is it?
B: ya. Sorta. Let's not go there. Anyways. I guess I should sleep. I don't want to miss that flight.
A: Okies. And where's your sense of adventure? Dint expect you to be this boring!
B: ya, Mr. Judge o personalities types.
A: How'd you guess? Its actually a specialty!
B: no kidding. Let's test it. Tell me what am I thinking?
A: Easy! You're thinking when would this guy come around and actually ask me out for dinner.
B: holy cow! So when?
A: There's no time than now!
B: :)
A: Is that a yes?
B: almost.
A: Define almost.
B: let's meet at the airport. Am sure they would have some seats left on that plane. Lemme finish the meeting in a couple of hours and then we will talk about dinners and questions and answers.
Oh yes. See you around. Tc
This is day 06 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Promise me, Son
that you would give your best shot. Each time.
that you will not leave a single stone unturned. In any quest you agree to undertake.
that you would be honest. To yourself.
Promise me.
Tags: #miniNonFiction, #motivation, #inspiration, #randomness, #whatever, #mansSearchForMeaning
The Nidhi Kapoor Story
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