End of days

Another year comes to an end. Definitely the most eventful one in life till date. Lots of people have come and gone, lots of places have been visited. I have travelled to almost all the corners of the country during the Internship and training periods. Bangalore, Vadodara, Mumbai, Agra, Delhi, Mathura and Pilani. That makes it a little of east, west, north and south of the country.

I have gone through periods of extreme loneliness and isolation, mental turmoil and I have moved from sharing one cubicle with three other people to having one of my own!

I have bought the three basic necessities of solitary living a camera, a laptop and a bike.

And I have successfully managed to push myself to the depths of self pity and come bouncing back to feeling good...

Everything put together its been a year worth remembering for all it had brought along and everything it took away.

Indulgence

Its been a really long time since I had indulged myself like this. One evening I decided to relive one of those innumerable college evenings we'd spent, watching one movie after another. This time however, I had to limit my indulgence to one movie, I chose Khosla ka Ghosla as I hadn't seen it till date and people who'd seen it had a nice thing or two, to say about it. Therefore I decided to rent out the CD, buy some Bhujia and a bar of chocolate ( the kid inside is still painfully alive :P)

I had an early dinner, just like the BITS days and then snuggled under my razai with the computer on my lap, the packets of bhujia on one side of my bed and the munching on the chocolate, I commanded my indulgent self, "Let the movie begin!"

What followed was a watered down version of Jeffrey Archer's Not a penny more, not a penny less, brilliantly Indianised. But now a days, you don't need to do much to Indianise anything, do you? Add a couple of cut shots of the busy and filthy streets, a plan view of a dilapidated Slum area, the typical Indian dream of going abroad, the dad opposed to the idea in principle, the tearful mother and the very familiar helpful neighbours. The formula just cannot backfire. In each of these six elements there's something that each Indian identifies with and therefore all the director has to do is to integrate these elements seamlessly into a story and voila! Even some of the European Classics can be used to portray the Indian Household!

But I shouldn't prevaricate, I would grade the movie at three and a half stars. The performances of Boman Irani and Anupam Kher are commendable, its always a joy to watch these people on the screen. Sometimes you have to accept that the best actors come straight from the theatre.

Ranvir Shorey was brilliant with his accent, not for a moment did it seem that the guy was acting. Everyone else was mediocre, in this regard, a special mention has to be made of Tara Sharma, someone needs to put a knob in her throat to regulate her volume with respect to the dialogue she's delivering.

However, by the time the movie got over, I was happy with the choice of movie. Light hearted comedy with a nice ending. The eprfect choice for stress free viewing.

To Chitra and Arun...

Sometime in March,2004: Two students were sitting in a public car parking outside the grand hyatt at the Bikaji Kama Place in South Delhi and proof reading a sheaf of pages which happened to be the first daft of Cactus Flower, 2004, official magazine of the students’ Union of BITS,Pilani. One of them turned out to be a budding playwright and the other ended up with an engineering job with one of the foremost public sector concerns of the Country.

December, 2006: Two men walked into the lobby of the posh head office of Engineers India Limited. They were on an official tour to EIL to gather some information required for some forthcoming project. Of the two men, one was a fresh graduate and new employee and the other, a veteran in engineering activities in Indian Oil Corporation.

The common string connecting these two isolated incidents is that same boy who happened to land himself an engineering job. Me.
The way life changes your outlook is really amazing. Imagine the same me sitting at a car parking today and reviewing my stress analysis files! I can’t. The place has remained the same. Just that Arun isn’t there with me sitting beside me and pointing out one error after another. People running to office, the early morning hawker selling his ware to whoever has enough time to lend him a ear. The palpable busyness of the area was almost haunting. Somehow I missed my companions of the past too much.
This one is for Chitra and Arun for having made my first Cactus Flower trip unforgettable. The memory remains.

I walk a lonely road...

I have a list of ‘nice blogs’ on the right hand side column of my weblog, there are certain characteristics about each one of these blogs that I love and I am sure I cannot achieve. the outspoken sarcasm and cynicism of Satya, Abilin’s philosophy, Kray’s free flowing amalgamation of myriad emotions and simple narrative, Sujan’s nonchalance about anything that comes his way.
They are all unique in the way they look at life and the way they assimilate each scenario they are put into. But somehow I find their reasons for maintaining a blog totally different from that of mine.
My sole purpose in having a blog was to be able to offload disturbing thoughts in an organized manner so that I can go back to them if ever the need to go back to some of them arises. I have never been a romantic of sorts, true I love certain hues of nature, like a sunset or a sunrise at a beach. I am cynical and I am emotional, but I can offload neither my cynicism nor my emotions confidently in my blog for the fear of being discovered and questioned. Of course, I have the right to remain silent ;) but somehow the idea of remaining silent was never appealing to me.

I was a friend’s place till pretty late last night. On the way back to my room, I could see the changes a job had brought about in me, previously, while in college, I hated returning to my room all alone, I enjoyed the company of people and I was disappointed if there was no one to accompany me back. Yesterday, while walking down the deserted township streets with only a few stray dogs here and there, I had almost accepted the loneliness. I didn’t feel the urge for company neither did I think it was weird to have to walk back all the way alone. Somehow, the idea of being alone has totally been accepted by the subconscious.
And therefore, I walk alone. But this time there’s no fear, for I have figured out my path. The loneliness has been countered; I have successfully devised a mechanism.
I am not afraid of being alone anymore. I have grown beyond the realm of love and hate. I have learnt better than craving for unwelcome companionship. I am ready to face the world all alone till its time. The worst that can happen is that the time might not arrive, or I might just burn out before that time arrives…
Either ways, I prefer being alone.