A girl named Ujjwala

I may not be a great writer, great marketer or anything related to great, but what i am writing below is worth mentioning and worth knowing.

Most of us are the kind of people who believe in goodness, righteousness and virtuous deeds, but one thing which all of us are fond of is cribbing. We actually crib about everything in life, whether it be more work less work, good food bad food, nice weather bad weather, have a girlriend don't have a girlfriend, practically any damn possible thing. We are just not happy about anything which we have or we don't have. As if we get a sense of happiness in feeling ourselves the most unfortunate and miserable person in the whole universe. I wonder sometimes "HOW EASY IT IS TO BE UNHAPPY"!

But this story is not about our usual never ending unhappiness, but about this girl named Ujjwala. She is not more than 22 years of age, good looking, soft spoken, lively, kiddish and happy go lucky kind of girl. Though she is not lucky by even the worst standards of luckiness. She works for her meagre living and i wondered why is she not like most of the 22 year old women in India, who think that they should work only if they feel like doing it but not out of need, and by any chance if they have to then they are again the most unfortunate ones. (I am not generalising, but you know thats true). But this girl was working and was more than happy about it. She used to come work and go and sometimes used to accompany her child, 3-4 years old. The great country ours is where Yes we still have child marraiges. Still she was happy and loved her child. One day out of courtesy i asked her to get her phone recharged and i will pay if required. She laughingly said its battery is damaged. With same smiling face she continued that her little child is not getting admission in school, beacuse of some mistake in form filling and thats why she is tensed. Also the authority person is asking donation (read bribe) of Rs.15000 to get her child admitted. I thought for a minute and asked what does your husband do. She poker faced no expression, he is "off". I asked "off"? She lifted her hand in air, and i guessed "expired"? and she said "haan". All this while she seemed fine, no emotional overreaction, no feeling of pity on herself, no nothing. And then again lost in the thought, how to get her little son admitted in school.

This is not something which i heard, or read but i faced it. I was numb. I was numb at how brave this single poor girl is, who is mother of a child, who wants that her son should study, who is being bribed by our self-righteous society (people who later shouts jai mata di at temple), who doesn't have any shoulder to cry upon, and who is fighting everybattle of her life alone and is not cursing her destiny or God for all that happened. I was numb at how even the smallest of shortcomings in life makes me feel like what kind of life is this. I was numb at how the worst social evils like child marraige are still thriving in society. I was numb at how someone can ask bribe from a girl who have to work twice a day at i dont know how many houses just so that she and her son can have their food. I dont know what will happen to her after 20 years. May be she will survive for the sake of her son, who will grow up as one able person. May be she will succumb and something awful will happen. I shudder to imagine how i would have survived if i was there in place of her. But i am sure of one thing. At this moment of time she is more happy, more able, more deserving and more brave than me. I know people would say that its the circumstances which make you what you are, but i'll choose to differ and still believe that she is better human being than lot of us. Everything around her is trying to make her feel miserable, but whenever i will think about her i will just wonder " HOW EASY IT IS TO BE HAPPY"!

Once upon a time..... (Part I)

Once upon a time in mumbai, there was this guy called Abhay. He was 25-26 yers of age, living alone in the city. He never wanted to be a part of this city but then as they say what happens in life is what you least expect out of it. So he was working in this place and was least expected to go anywhere else out of the city. He, like every college passout, encountered the realms of life which is not exactly as poetic as one wonders in childhood days. Childhood taught him what the dreams are, teenage made him built dreamy glasshouses and now he was witnessing how they shatter. He still have some hopes for him, he still want to do some stuff in life, he's still trying to keep those lamps of enthusiam enlightened, but then everyday somebody, whether his parents, his friends, his boss, his colleagues, makes him believe that what he believed in him, were just some random thoughts which his mind stewed up just to fill the vacant gaps of time. He's not going to become what he is not born as. Every person has some mean around which his life revolves and then some deviation which bound him by upper and lower limits, but then your mean is what you are born with. Abhay was born with an average mean. He was destined to live a life of that average mean, it doesnt matter if what he wanted was a life of extremes, good or bad, great or worst but not average. But then somethings are not meant to be governed by you, destiny my friend is one of them.

I dont know what will happen to him. If this 25 years old lad will lead a life that destiny has written for him, or may be what the future holds is a different destiny in itself. Abhay believes in destiny, but the thing about destiny is that it always get proved in retrospect. You can't trust destiny beacuse its always right. Abhay is a strong headed guy. He won't lose it that easily, but then for how long will he hold himself? There are questions, questions which only time can answer. So we will best leave them to time only. I will love to see what this world has in store for him, or what he has in store for this world. For now i am as ignorant as you are and Abhay is also as ignorant as we all are, but then ignorance is bliss, right! For time being let's believe in this saying, and sail through the sea of time on this leaf of ignorance. Lets see where it takes Abhay, we are following him anyways!!!

A Journey To Remember........

It started with a bang its ending with a blast. Today at the last day of NITIE when its all over, the masti , the parties, the bakar, the night outs, the booze, after effects of booze(trust me there can be a separate article for this), the sessions at pond, the lines at mess , the nescafe maggi at 3’O clock in night along with placements and so called studies (in the sequential order) , i was thinking how i have changed and grown in the last 2 years. Still remember the first day here, quite nervous, full of doubts, nobody to know, and the feeling of intense home sickness. It took time but the things turned out better from worse and eventually better to great. There was this whole new gamut of people with different thoughts and background. Things happened quickly and they were usually over before anybody of us was prepared or it. The first exams, the summer placement season, the next two module, and before any of us could realize an year was over. Another mind boggling experience was waiting at Coke. To be precise can be summed up in two lines. Lot of presentations and plenty of thums up and coke. The internship ended and we were back at college. This time the feeling was different. We were glad to be back at our second home. And then began the tours and trips from trekking to beaches to pubs to birthday parties leading to all possible kind of restaurants and all kind of drinks. The next two modules were like meant for doing whatever you haven’t done yet in your life. Days and days nothing to do, classes meant for bunking and exams for creative writing. Hundreds of proxies short attendances in almost every subject and the legendary locking of proff outside the door. And it all happened in my MBA. Those were good times infact great times but next was the time we all dreaded, the final placement season. Preparations started on the part of placement committee by pitching for companies and on the part of us by discussing all possible kind of philosophies of life and what is actually needed for being happy. And as the time approached the tension kept on building. But the fascinating fact about life is what you keep on thinking and building for years take minutes to be over. One day i wake up and find myself placed. It was over and it was hard to believe. I always knew i will get placed but with such smoothness was a surprise. In a matter of 3 days the whole batch was placed. Those sessions of philosophies were now looking like waste of time that could have been utilized for few more hang outs and parties. And now when that feeling of excitement has subsided, a new feeling has taken me over. The feeling of nostalgia for the end of this golden period of life. Its strange the place you never knew 2 years before is now the place you never want to leave but every good thing ends and so does NITIE. I will miss to be in the most beautiful campus of India (literally), the most beautiful people i met and the most beautiful life i have lived out here.
I still remember a line from one of my friend “There are institutes, there are good institutes, there are great institutes ....and then there is NITIE”

i LOVE you

I love the mysteries, the surprises, the nuisance, the spontaneity, the courage, the hopefulness. I love the way you make me win the biggest of victories when i have surrendered it all. I love the way you bring me back to earth when my feet are in seventh heaven. I love the way you make my eyes moist when i am having the heartiest of laughs. I love the way you make me laugh at the stupidity of mine. I love it when the music of the guitar rhymes with that in the air. I love it when the silence soothes me in despair. I love to talk to the people i don’t know at all. I love to sit quiet when others are opening their heart. I love to preach the knowledgeable of all. I love to learn from the one who has seen it all. I love to find the lessons in the silliest of things. I love to negate the very existence of things. I love to hate it when you make me win. I love to fight for the cause big or small. I love to decipher your meaning your thoughts. I love to find the meaning of yours. I love it when they call you the riddle. I love it when they try to solve the riddle. I love to watch when stars wink at me. I love to watch when chords sing with me. I love to know people fight for love. I love it when they don’t know what is right what is wrong. I love to think like the craziest man on earth. I love to feel like one. I love you for all your shortcomings. I love you for all your misgivings.
IN SHORT...............I LOVE YOU LIFE!

The loser

everytime i fail, i am bound to succeed,
this success i know is bound to retrieve.
my life has become a vicious circle
i neither cherish failure nor success....

They say accidents make opportunities, failures lead to success, darkness is followed by light, night by sun,in essence its the bad that leads to good and so make us believe that bad is not as bad as it seems to be.

Now sitting in this class for " seismic and wind analysis for column design" i was just analysing the analogous failures and the analogous forces that led to the failures in my life.Starting with the failures , there were many which i could think of in first thought. Be it in studies, relations, career,friends,sports etc. etc.... i have had plenty of them and the most recent , two consecutive ones in CAT.But as me being an ardent fan of Mr Devanand " mai zindigi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, har zakhm ko dhune mein udata chala gay.. jo mil gaya usi ko mukaddar samjh liye, jo naa mila use ,mai bhulata chala gaya". So following this philosophy,in retrospect all other failure have nullified, ofcourse except the last one.

Now coming to the analogous forces, as in colums there are always two types of loads acting on a person i.e static and dynamic.Now the static are the steady forces acting unidirectionally leading to bending of the person i.e a man loses his false sense of ego or atttiude and come to terms with life.But as all my engineer friends know, dynamic loads which are more dangerous acts in both direction and swings a person between the extremes of success and failures.That leads to the fatigue loading and an early finish.

So my life deals with the latter one, and hence everytime i come to terms with my life, some success small or big brings me back to my default state.Now some can understand why my successes which were always led by big failures are more dangerous as compared to the people who have been a bit less successful but even lesser a loser than me.The only problem with dynamic forces is that if it leads you to good time then it will definitely make you bounce back to the time you fear.

But then as i started" bad is not as bad as it seems to be" every bad will lead to some hope and the life continues.........

Being egoist

after a long break...comes the reason to write......reason to glorify, glorify something like selfishness.

As Ayn Rand puts it " man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress". Here ego stands for me, me and only me. Now the oxford defines egoist as "a person who thinks or talks too much about himself or herself".But thinking or talking can hardly play any role in justifying human progress.Actions can.So going by the Rand's statement its the actions that defines human ego or the vice versa?

Now my Ego pushes me to think does my actions define human progress or is it just another ego with small 'e'.Who is actually an Egoist?

Now if i dont care about whoever is reading it or for whose sake am i writing then i am an egoist, if opinions doesnt matter but reasons do then i am an egoist,if appreciation is as awful as criticism then i am an egoist,if failure doesnt exist and success doesnt effect then i am an egoist.

If i dont care about the human progress or human destruction, yes then i am an egoist.

A new born child, an uncut diamond, the drops of dew, the unrevealed island,the unscaled peaks all of these not distorted by anyone, untouched are the real Egoist.

Egoism doesnt implies progress, egoism doesnt implies selfishness, it even doesnt implies selflessness, egoism is purity, individualism with capital 'I'.

HAPPY FRIEN'HIP DAY

Yesterday was another D day gone with all its hullabaloo.Another market gimmick like the brother days viz. valentine's day, mother's day,father's day and add if you want to son's day, daughter's day, foe's day,eating day, drinking day, sleeping day.....................(don't worry you will get cards for all these occasions at the nearest archies gallery).

Now don't get me wrong, i am not the member of shiv sena or vishwa hindu parishad and definitely not a fanatic who finds it hard to swallow what brings joy to others.I too wish my friends "same to you" when somebody wishes HFD.I too don't get the point when few patriots try to prove all their patriotism and respect for their traditions by narrowing down to hooliganism, embarassing couples or vandalizing shops all in the name of preserving their culture from the invasion of western society.But neither do i understand when a 10 year boy says "mom can i buy a friendship band" and on being asked why he says "don't you know today is frien'ship day".

All you supporters of these festivals(as many of you find it better than Diwali or Holi) can anybody please tell who told this young chap that you need to exchange friendship bands on this auspicious day.And if this chap is too young to understand and may be is inspired by SRK's KKHA fling, what about all we mature, intelligent and responsible people who spend massive sums to buy roses and whatever on the valentine's or mother's day.Does it make sense to buy a rose for 100 bucks just because tommorow it wont be the same special day.Or for that matter is their anything like the love or repect for someone is at its peak for a particular day of year and after that it fades off.

I agree that you need to express your love to your mother, father, friends or beloved and these days gives an ample opportunity for the same,but you don't need to fix a date for the same. Do it whenever you feel like expressing or whenever your pocket is full, may be 1st of every month. In addition you wont have to worry about the Samaj Sewak's moral policing as they wont be aware of when is your valentine's day.

Now thats a good idea,isn't it..................anyway i got my first salary today so Happy friendship day!