Category: Life Ordinary

  • The Journey of a Lifetime…so far

    This post has been brewing in my mind for some time now, except i wasnt sure how to go about it..rather, didnt have the right words.. but saw a movie last weekend which helped in channelising my thoughts… tamil movie by the name ‘autograph’, i guess i caught it late, but thats okay…
    wokay, the story goes this way- a guy is fairly successful in life, about to get married, and he makes a journey to meet all the people who have played a part in his life so far, chief being the women in his life, school and college crush to serious relationships.. well, i couldnt make it sound good, but the movie’s definitely worth a watch…
    but the insight it gave me is about dealing with the past…that i make mistakes, that i might realise it later, that i make choices which might have seemed right then and does not seem right in retrospect, that i might have had to give up things that i thought i could never give up….but in spite of all that, i have to come to terms with my past, i have to be sad because i cant undo/redo it and happy that i have the memories and i am travelling a decent path…..that it has made me what i am today, that hopefully, i am a better person now… that parts of life are happy, and parts are disappointing, but that they are only parts….that i cant express myself better, but i can hope that you can, maybe in some vague way, understand what i am trying to say…..and i can shrug and say, “thats the way it is”…
    i hope to make that journey too once, so i can make my peace with my past…..
    and in
    manuscrypts trivia
    facts of life:
    Regular naps prevent old age… especially if you take them while driving.
    I believe we should all pay our tax with a smile. I tried – but they wanted cash
    Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired

  • Whack – not white, not black and definitely not grey

    This post stems from a lot of questions that i find asking myself… these questions, among many other things have made me realise that right and wrong are most usually a matter of perspective….not just ours, but a whole lot of others’…and sometimes it just cant be as simple as me deciding whats right and whats wrong….about my decisions as well as others’… too often i catch myself getting judgemental… which , in retrospect, doesnt seem fair..this is perhaps a way of reminding myself… so, here are some whacks!!
    – the guy crossing the road in a hurry to get to office/home and the guy speeding down the road in a hurry to get to office/home (this is india, so zebra crossings..well, u decide)
    – the organisation cutting the internet to unclog bandwidth and the individual who checks his personal mail in office
    – the young parents who are conscious of their careers and the child who doesnt get enough attention because the parents focus on their careers
    – the bribes we pay so that our work gets done faster and the voices against corruption
    – the parents who want to have a say in who their child marries and the child who wants a say about his / her life
    – downloading music from ‘pirate’ sites and voices against music piracy
    – shouting at a waiter coz he spilt something on you and the waiter who’s only human and can make mistakes
    – children who cant make enough time for their parents and parents who crave attention from their kids in their last days
    – hanging the guy who rapes and kills women and the guy, who genuinely repents
    – you, who come here to read a good post, and me, who cant think of anything good to write…;)
    we all have our takes in all this, but are we right or are we wrong??
    meanwhile in
    manuscrypts trivia
    Seen during a conference: FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR
    Message on a leaflet: IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS
    aur ek rashtr bhasha main,
    Ek kavi shaadi ke baad biwi se bola: Aaj se tum hi meri kavita ho, prerna ho, bhawana ho, Kalpna ho!
    Patni: Mere liye bhi aaj se aap hi dinesh ho, rohit ho, rakesh ho!

  • Word’s Worth

    i will not be getting poetic….yes, thank god…:)…. this is more to do with a movie i saw last weekend.. “The word is Lakshya”, so is the movie… Farhan Akhtar, i think, is using emotions he felt during different phases of his life, in his movies, and that increases the ‘reality effect’… i am not good at reviews, so i’ll just say its definitely worth a watch…
    Hrihik Roshan’s internal conflicts made me think of the concept of an individual’s ‘lakshya’…. that which manifests  itself in different forms, from answers to uncles’/aunts’ questions of “what do you want to be when you grow up”, to the “career objective” in the resume…and that which propels us to do a whole lot of things , some for good/ some for worse?..and is it, finally, worth all that we do for it… so whats the word’s worth?
    the needs that mom and dad gave up so that the child got the best education, the agony of learning the multiplication tables, playing time spent in studying (or made to spend studying..hehe) to retain the first rank in class, the heartache when one realises that music/dumb charades/quizzing/scrabbles/monopoly/cricket are not viewed upon as conventional viable careers or rather , the heartache when one decides to be conventional, having to change ‘lakshya’ at some point of time, disappointing loved ones when one decides to do an unconventional thing for once, playing mindgames and having mindgames played on you in the corporate world, pressure tactics from above and to below so that dadlines are met, losing friends and family because of time constraints, losing friends and family and not being able to be there even to say goodbye…..
    and then, after all the gains and losses, judging yourself and wondering what is true joy- having a happy family, being able to see smiling people, sharing the smile with them, dying when their thoughts about you die; or appearing on the cover of “Time’, being the role model for millions, and perhaps a legend, and therefore almost immortal……or something in between, and whether an in-between state is possible … wondering whether you had it in you and you let it go…wondering whether you had a ‘lakshya’ or not, ever…..and wondering whether it mattered…ever..
    and thinking that floyd had rightly sung, albeit in a different context “And did you exchange , A walk on part in the war, For a lead role in a cage? “…also thinking that you thought the same kinda lines, but floyd is famous and you are not…hehe… and wondering how much the word is worth and how much is worth the word……..
    and wondering if this should do for

    manuscrypts trivia
    a quote
    “Galaxies…numerous, like the grains of sand on a seashore…yet our vanity reigns supreme ! ” ~ Unknown
    and seen
    In a Laundromat:AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT.
    Notice in a farmer’s field:THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

  • UnWind Biking

    Most of these posts are born when i am riding back home, its a good time to unwind… theres such a lot of ‘watchable’ things happening around – traffic snarls, people’s expressions, battles for the space ahead which finally become ego battles and possibly accidents, people trying to reach home as fast as they can..theres something about getting back home after work that makes the entire day worthwhile 🙂
    more often than not the ‘wind in the face’ feeling takes me back around a couple of years…. to Goa…. 2 years of business management and pleasure…hehe… we had a causeway near the insti (short for Goa Institute of Management 🙂 ), and almost every other day, we used to go for drives, to crib about classes and assignments and tests, to trade gossip, to check out the movies in Panjim, to visit Dona Paula, ‘the cross’ and ‘governor’s point’, to ogle the firangs, to plan weekend trips to colva, palolem, anjuna, calangute, baga, vagator (and the chapora fort, made famous in DCH?), arambol…to chaat near miramar, to chat about life after the insti and after Goa, but mostly to enjoy the ‘wind on the face ‘ feeling…
    but before the jpeg with the hunk on a chopper design bike, reality check says i fail on both counts..hehe, neither a hunk nor have a bike bike, its a kiney, which evaded police in goa for two years (i didnt have a license and it had a kerala registration, so the cops loved it..hehe)..oh no, the skeletons are tumbling out…so i’d better stop…but yeah, i have to write at least a couple of posts about those two years…there are tales and there are tales….for me, my life in goa is best captured by Floyd’s “high hopes”..
    unfortunately, have had to bunk all my alumni meets except one… something like lucky ali’s lyrics -“pehle fursat thi, ab hasrat hain samaakar, ek aisi uljhan hai meri……” 🙁
    meanwhile, these days, with the rains in bangalore, theres another kind of UnWind biking … if you have seen the bajaj ad – a fully dressed guy getting in the shower, getting out all wet, then riding on the bike, dripping all the while, and coz of the bike speed , the clothes are dry, except for the butt, coz its resting on the seat..they call it wind biking… now, because of the rains , while i ride back, all of me gets wet except for the butt, so i call it UnWind Biking !! …..
    and in
    manuscrypts trivia
    Just to prove that some things never work 100%.
    Go to language tools on google, type in “my mom is nice and cool.” and convert it from English to Spanish.
    Then copy & paste the answer into the translate box and convert from Spanish back to English.
    and seen outside a secondhand shop : WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

  • Blogalisation

    wonderful to see that a lot of my league members are getting hot and sizzled up – started with blues, then it was w-bug and now its simon..and ahem,(just for the old trumpet’s sake) readers please note that mera number aaaya tha, but no, i am not getting in to the ‘been there, done that’ spiel, my ego will not permit it…hehe
    but damn, am i a lucky charm or what!!…no i am not, :), coz they are extraordinary bloggers anyway and linked by a lot of others. which is why i believe that rediff’s modus operandi of classification, if they do follow any, is totally devoid of bias, and certainly not like what happens in ToI…hehe..plus, i can truly rely on it as a source for my league additions, more often than not…’hot and sizzling’..i like this kinda blogal warming…:)
    but (yeah, unfortunately, theres always a but), on a more general level, i do hope that the ‘blog’ kind of social interaction does not go the way that everything else seems to be going..getiing a price tag attached…. some time ago, i would have laughed if someone told me that i would be buying packaged drinking water, now i fully believe that oxygen and feelings that i consider beyond the range of money like love, hate and many others , will become fully commercialised by the time i see 2010….
    and therefore why should blogging be any different?.. it is only a matter of time before some ass clowns realise the commercial value of a weblog..and if we say that ultimately we can stop it because we are the users, i wouldnt agree coz the same holds true for water…
    but yes, we can try, and so guys, on june 9th, international bloggers day, let us try to keep the grass green, the sky blue and the air free in our virtual community, burn the commercialisation bridge when we come to it and preserve blogalisation in the free form it enjoys now….
    in manuscrypts trivia
    another good fwd,
    We all know those cute little computer symbols called “emoticons”,
    where:
    🙂 means a smile and
    🙁 is a frown.
    Sometimes these are represented by 🙂 and 🙁 respectively.
    Well, how about some “assicons”? Here goes:
    (_!_) a regular ass
    (__!__) a fat ass
    (!) a tight ass
    (_*_) a sore ass
    {_!_} a swishy ass
    (_o_) an ass that’s been around
    (_x_) kiss my ass
    (_X_) leave my ass alone
    (_zzz_) a tired ass
    (_E=mc2_) a smart ass
    (_$_) Money coming out of his ass
    (_?_) Dumb Ass

    till next time, keep the faith and the blogal harmony….
    P.S. hope archies doesnt release a card for international webloggers day!!
    and please use Post Scrypts and not the rediff comments box