Thursday, October 25, 2007

a bowlers game...

"i'm going."


and that was about it. there really wasn't much to explain considering that during holidays the parents were more than content to let the boy off on his own, running around the town and being up to no real good...it was better than having the boy stay at home and crib and complain all day and put up with his whining. too bad that the boy couldn't stay put in one place. he had his books that he devoured at an astonishing speed and then once he was done reading he had nothing...that's when the whining started. and that's when the boy decided to get going.

the boy loved his cycle. it was a shade of purple with a dash of red thrown in. to the boy there was no better color. the sleek racing bike was his ride and he adored it and he pampered it. it was his first love, and for him, at that time there was none better. the boy's destination hardly took him 10 minutes at max to reach on his cycle on a route that he could ride with his eyes shut. and yet in those 10 minutes he managed to find something new everyday. the dust and the grey factory building remained the only constant landmarks. the potholes were the variable in the equation; always there, and then there were more the next day. the people also seemed to increase by the day. the city in which he lived was a growing entity that was ever hungry and that seemed to swallow whole the areas that once were the outskirts. there was no stopping this beast. it simply grew on. the dull grey of the factory building was in itself impressive. the massive letters that spelled out the name were something that the boy always thought could have been better done some other way. still it was there as he rode past it.

the heat and the dust was no deterrent to the boy and his friend. there is something about being boys, maybe its the age, that makes most things in the natural order bearable. the mid day sun was a scorcher that sent everyone scurrying for cover. the asphalt on the roads would turn greasy as the tar melted under the hot gaze of the fireball while the dust danced about in small wind funnels sucking up the plastic bags and other garbage in the same manner that a house is uprooted by a hurricane/twister. and yet despite all this the boys carried on in gay abandon their game of cricket. one bowling and the other batting.

the boy enjoyed cricket, and especially bowling more than anything when it came to the matter of any physical activity. for him all that mattered was the fact that he had the cricket ball in his hands that he could throw at his opponent who was batting, make him dance around as he toyed with him and finally castle him and shatter his stumps. and every time he did so, he sported a wide victory grin. but most often it was the other way around, the boy's friend being a better batsman, managed to pick out the boy's intention and thwart him in achieving his goal. the ball would promptly be dispatched to the other end of the ground and the boy would scurry after, bearing in mind only one thing.
"it mattered not how many times he got hit for a boundary. what mattered was that every now and then he would manage to produce that perfect delivery that would leave the batsman gaping and standing rooted to his spot like a fool on a podium."
and that was reason enough to retrieve the ball and get back to the marked run-up and continue bowling. he had his heroes in the pacers of the international game who did the same at a much tougher level and he had to live up to their expectations and never give up if he was indeed a 'real bowler'.
the human thought is a funny thing. it has a systematic eccentricity about it that makes it so. the conscious memory of a person is something that we build up in the process of building ourselves. we learn to remember certain things in a certain manner that helps up mold into the sort of person that we are. the other aspects of our lives that get classified as the daily and mundane are locked away in some discreet corner of our brain, condemned to be forgotten over time. but that really never happens. our thought capitulates our past into the necessary and the unnecessary and adapts it to the present while at the same time brooding over the yet to pass future. but then there are always triggers that release the locked away memories. sight, smell, sound, touch and the other present senses stimulate the past and force it to surge forward like a wave crashing on to the coast. it engulfs you and grasps you in its folds and drags you along with it back to the past. and all one can do is surrender to it and feel the wild emotions flow through one's body and enjoy it.
...revelers, that's what we must be. today i reveled in the memory of my boyhood and my friends and the games that i played as i grew up. today was my first day of the so-called-holidays. a nice and sunny day outside with a clear blue sky.

:)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

holiday plans...

and so considering the fact that the holidays are knocking at my doorstep, i really am a pathetic planner not to have charted out a sort of plan for the month long "arse chilling" time that i am to be bestowed with. ah well, i guess that i am just going to stay at home here in Baroda and do nothing!!

life is good when doing nothing. no traveling, no working. no socializing, no everything that is in the order of my daily life (which my roommate would vouch actually consists of nothing)...

hurrah to doing nothing! NOTHING ROCKS!!

ps: have been splurging on books and intend to do more of such.


Sunday, October 07, 2007

life as contemplated over breakfast on a sunny day...

sometimes it makes much more sense to simply let things work themselves out for us. sometimes pushing and prodding stuff to make it happen does not lead to solutions...
the veritable sage once said, "Problems are either unsolvable or they have a solution. if they have a solution then there is no need to worry about them, and if they don't have a solution then there is no sense in worrying about them."
...life will deal with things in its own Karmic mannerisms. so be good and hope that life returns the favors with a bit of interest.

am in Bombay today. wasn't planning to, but then here i am. all it took was a call from mom asking me to accompany her and a six hour train ride (mostly spent sleeping) and here i am. traveling seems to have taken up a significant majority of my time of late. ever since i decided last summer that i needed to get out of Baroda and the horrendous brain-rot that i had gotten myself into, and decided that the best way to do so was to travel and keep my mind occupied, i haven't looked back. hidden amongst the immense landscape of India, the cities of Kolkata, Cuttack, Bhubaneshwar, Warangal, Bombay, Surat, et all have seen me stop by in my endless pursuit over the months. i have managed to regain some of my rationality and have also been able to give my creative side a greater leash to explode into my writings and workings...
but now it seems as if i just can't stop. i have always had a life that has taken me places. wonderful experiences all of them. but then, somewhere along the path it seems that i have managed to entwine myself so tightly in my traveling-seat that now even if i want to hop off and stay put, i cannot. i can only take things one day at a time, not knowing where i shall be tomorrow. i have a firm picture of what i want to be and where i am going in life in general. just that i seem to have lost myself in a strictly geographical context. yesterday i was in Baroda, today i am in Bombay, tomorrow i shall be in (?).

...people ask me where i am from? "from here and there" is what i reply... आजकों हम यंहा है, कल का कीसे है पता ...life is fun when its uncertain. but only in the short run! in the long run stability is what counts...that's the lesson of the day in Basic Economics for you students. now run along. class dismissed!

ps: currently reading 'By the River Peidra i sat down and wept' ~ Paulo Coelho।

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

relativity can be fatal. it just depends on how you see it...

something that everyone prefers to do on a holiday is to catch up on sleep. the sweet comfort of knowing that you are not required to drag your arse out of the bed and face the nuances of a daily life is a feeling that is not reciprocated in the breaks that holidays beget in my daily life...
somehow i have managed to negotiate my terms with life in a manner that allows me to snooze on unabashedly on a daily basis. losing out on my sleep is something that i am not willing to compromise on.
...call me lazy! but that's the way things are with me. still, today i decided to go all out and try and force my laziness/ability to sleep to the limits. and i failed! ah well, i have learned to accept failure in my stride. life teaches one such things.

in other things, the one place where i am fighting a constant battle is with my so called smoking habit. seems as if the entire world (i.e. dearest Ani, Bela ma'am, Summi, Chicka and my mom) have come to believe that a cigarette and I are synonymous. *puff puff* ...ah well, i wage on my war for my friends (and partly for my own "super-large-cannot-fit-in to-a-tinned can-EGO" that refuses to accept defeat to any substance that strives to subjugate me with it's addictive habits). my cigarette is like my paramour whom i visit every now and then. i spend some time with her and then move on...i go back to life as it is supposed to be...and then i come back to her again. and she always welcomes me with open arms and slaps me with her nicotine kick and then embraces me in a smoky haze.
smoking can kill! DO NOT SMOKE!

i am looking for a job. it just seems that i have plenty of time that i am not utilizing in the optimum manner. working and having a job would sort that out. but its kind of hard to just take up any task that comes up to you. first there is my father to contend with, who has a very strong belief that i am not supposed to waste my time doing odd silly things for a job. my sole purpose is to study and nothing else. for that he is willing to provide my with all the necessities (and to an extent quite a bit of luxuries as well) in life. all i have to do is study. that is the deal. on the other hand i have my own sense of elitist requisites that prevent me from taking up a task that i feel is below my qualifications and abilities (there is no way in Hell that i am going to sit and receive calls from all over the world inquiring as to why their PCs don't work, only to remind them that they need to plug it in first. Outsourcing and working in a Call center/BPO/KPO is just not for me. i am not a receptionist who is going to say, "hello how may i help you sir?" in an Indian accent). and because of that i have suffered so far. but finally things are looking up and there might be something that i can substantiate as a "decent job" to my father and "a challenging experience" to myself. but for now i am keeping my fingers crossed.

oh by the way, today is the birth anniversary of a certain Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. dude first got us our independence and then a public holiday on his birthday. hurrah to Gandhi! Happy Birthday man and thanks a million for everything...

thought for the day: success is not something that can be accounted for by immediate gains.
~quotes on the AMTS bus.


;)