Broken, battered, totally shattered

Wrote this sumtym back when i needed inspiration and posting it today because I am now engulfed with frustration.


A fallen warrior never cares
At him a distant hope stares
He takes few steps and stumbles again
But he has to get up, He cannot refrain

Almighty be thanked, A hero has risen
With spells of strength but not without a reason
Victory be celebrated, A spirit remains
A soul given a reason does not go in vain

The path was tiring but the effort was valiant
The victory he knew was to be meant
Slashing his sword through the darkness
He guided his destiny with a mere harness

He was the man, he was the warrior
Singling his prey like a harrier
The more was the pain, the better he got
An eye never blinked the victory was always sought

He forgot the misery, he survived humiliation
For he knew there will be ample time for jubilation

Walking an extra mile

2 Aug 2008
12:30 PM

I am en route to SN with the sun sneaking in through the window of a not so well maintained DTC bus. The shirt I was wearing was also not helping me in my resistance against the extreme hot and humid conditions characteristic of an extended Delhi summer. I have recently decided to barter any tee I have with a formal shirt though now I have become a bit skeptical about this decision. At the same time I was also regretting the decision to occupy the first available vacant seat next to the window while boarding the bus but it was my decision and therefore I had to honor it even if it meant I was losing out on an opportunity to sit next to a girl who was herself seated next to a window.

P1- A male in his early twenties, seated next to me and at a safe distance from the sun inviting window, lucky for that but not so lucky otherwise; which you will soon find out. I hope he is in fact lucky for the rest of the day too.

P1: bhaiyaa..
Me: haan bhaiyaa…
P1: Mujhe Ashoka hotel jaana tha..
Me: haan toh jaaiyee… problem kya hai…
P1: Mujhe raasta nahi pata.. kaunsi bus jaayegi?
Me: yeh waali toh nahi jayegi 100 percent…
P1: haan conductor ne kaha tha ki Moti bagh utar jaana wahan se mil jayegi bus.
Me: toh utar jaana Moti bagh.. wahan se mil jayegi..

Now I know I could have been more helpful but I was so irritable then because of the glaring sun that all I wanted was that I reach my destination as soon as possible. This made me feel guilty.

After 2 long minutes…

Me: Bhaiyaa wahan se mujhe bus ka idea toh nahi hai par raasta pata hai.. walking distance par hai..
P1: Actually mera interview tha aur iss area mein kabhi aaya nahi hoon.

Well usually I am a very cold hearted person. You cannot even try and break open my heart with a chisel if you are a stranger but then this person made me think of my campus interviews and the job dilemma that frightens any Indian. Thank god TCS found in me glimpses of an efficient future employee.

Me: aap mere saath utar jaana main raasta bata dunga.

He is delighted; the conductor stands a reason to be delighted because now I will be vacating my seat 3 full stands before my destination from this overcrowded bus. That accounts for 30 percent of my bus fare.

Moti bagh: Start of my career as Raju guide.

Me: Interview kis cheez ka hai? Hotel management ki hai kya?
P1: nahi draftsman hoon..
Me: acha.. kya time hai interview ka.. aadha ghanta lag jaayega yahan se…
P1: do baje tak pahunchna hai… koi bus nahi milegi?

Now I have always walked to Ashoka hotel as it is at a walking distance from my place, Around 3.5 kms so never read any bus number on this route. I have had free lunch and dinner there many times courtesy of a few close connections but mostly at the back office area; breakfast was never possible for I have mostly skipped it for the best part of my life, forget about walking 3+ kms for a breakfast that too early in the morning. I make up for it by having lunch twice.

Meanwhile he wanted to know how far the hotel was, I had dare not give him the exact statistics for a ‘walking distance’ for me may not coincide with another person’s walking distance. After walking for five minutes I realized that the already little salts in me were draining out through the little pores of my skin in volumes greater than the water waves which had hit the Orissa coast during the great Tsunami of 200x. Thank god my companion was healthier than me.

P1: aap kahan rehte ho?
Me: bas ye paas mein hi.. <<>>
P1: main lakshmi nagar se aa rha hoon.
Me: Fir toh aapko doosri bus leni chahiye thi.
P1: haan.. wahan se nayi dilli station jana chhaiye tha wahan se 604 mil jaati..

A minute after that a 604 zooms past us.

Me: who 604 hai?
P1: haan…
Me: toh roki kyun nahi?
P1: haan rokni chahiye..

A loud whistle follows and he is scampering towards the bus. Whistling is a talent and P1 was very good at it, I must say. I have also been trying to learn how to whistle for the last two months with not much success. I do however manage an occasional shrill noise but I need to perfect it so that I am able to disturb the peace of the surrounding nine times out of ten with surety. He boarded the bus and smiled at me. That must have been his way of thanking people. A Pepsi would also not have been a bad option either.

So that was my short lived career as a guide leaving me with 3 more kms to walk. I decided to have a cola of my liking and replenish the salts lost in the above process. I hope P1 reaches on time. It is strange that I didn’t ask for his name neither did he. Ours is a country where bhaiyaa is a universal name applicable to any person, if his gender permits so. Ours is also a country where unemployment haunts many. P1 may not get employed today but at least now he stands a chance if he reaches in time for the interview. All I could have done today was to walk with him for a kilometer. There are thousands other who stand unemployed with no one to walk besides them. It is hence the responsibility of the privileged lot to help them in whatever capacity they can. The term ‘Bhaiyaa’ may have been used with no real feelings but there were still sentiments attached to it which neither did he fully understand nor did I. This is the thread that binds the people of my country together. So as the afternoon sun lights up the surroundings around me I don’t feel its heat but I feel the shade of helping someone calming me down, though I must say that the shade was strengthened by 300 ml of chilled cola too. It is my helplessness that all that I can do today is walk a kilometer for someone else’s sake but I do hope that a day will come when many others will be ready too walk besides me to help people. I very clearly stated that people walk beside me not run behind me. I know sometimes if you run behind me with arms in your possession you can help a far greater number of souls who stand at the receiving end of my acts of stupidity but that is not what I would like to encourage.

So before I started again towards my destination I had learnt two important lessons.
1. You should know how to whistle.
2. Chilled cola is as good as elixir of life at times.

Guide to a Women's heart

Surgeons can always explain to you the exact procedure but I would advice you not to follow their example. It is risky and a visit to in-laws is complimentary. There is no point in wearing a white dress with black stripes for the best part of your life when all you wished to do was to get into a women’s heart. There are other ways to do so which even I don’t completely understand but at least I know they exist.

So much has been written about all this that my attempt will be vanquished by even the weakest advice by an otherwise total idiot who has been reading the already available e-books etc etc and hence I’ll write honestly what I have inferred till date from my experiences and also those of my friends and even those of my competitors and the ‘bestest’ foes so that some of you might contemplate awarding me a PhD or a similar title while others swear at me.

So it goes like this, We never realize that the answer is always around us while we are busy looking for it everywhere, looking where?, is what I don’t wish to answer because we men have the uncanny habit of being interested in things which attract strong words of criticism from the womenfolk. Let me first explain to you a notion, ‘A Man’s man’. A Man’s man is a person with qualities that are acceptable to his male friends with all admiration and respect. He is cool, handsome, pleasant etc etc at least to his male companions. Sadly he may or may not be acceptable to the ladies, who are the topic of our discourse in this post. His image can range from being a chauvinistic pig to an absolutely desirable man. So how is all this related to the issue of the present hour? Well the answer is that we all must first become A man’s man at least then we stand a chance of being in the domain where we are eligible for a place in the range we just discussed above. Be A Man’s man first because a person who can’t bond well with his own community cannot command respect of the opposite sex. So now I have in front of me just two communities Men and Women and may be by now some of the readers must have surrendered their interest to read the rest of the post. Please accept my sincere apologies.

Now let us further divide the women community into known and unknown. I know Katrina Kaif but that doesn’t mean that she comes in the known category for me you know what I meant when I said known women, sorry but this is the way we should proceed in our quest. So by now the pie charts of most of the readers must be such that they are in a position to assign a majority or minority status to each of the categories. People who have assigned ‘Clear majority’ to the known category need not read this post because you all should have a different action plan as you already are in someone’s heart and just need to look for her, I’ll suggest a football game (when I said men look at all the wrong places I was very serious). Now for the rest of us, who are already in process of redrawing the pie chart, please stop. The situation will not improve by your artistic magnifications on a piece of paper.

The first rule is that you always need to increase your chances and that is possible only if you make friends with as many women as possible. When I said friends it meant genuine friends not just for the sake of improving your chances but because the day when your quest may end abruptly because you are too tired or too old or retire to heaven to try your luck with angels, you’ll always have people who will be there to make you a legend and probably place few flowers at your grave.

Rule 2 is concerned with identifying what kind of heart you desire. Ideally it should be big enough to accommodate you along with all your acts of imbecility but then the demand varies from person to person and I would not discourage you from demanding too much because ours is a free country but please also keep in mind that the factory where women are manufactured isn’t very sophisticated to handle steep demands.

Rule 3 says that you can never predict what exactly will impress a women and what will ruin your chances. A friend of mine recently told me that the list varies according to the kind of gal but it is usually very easy to comprehend, so you see it is nothing like the constitution of India. She says that acceptable looks, being a good conversationalist and chivalry will generally floor any women. ‘So you see it is not all that complicated’. Please forgive me for saying that because I know it may seem to be easy but it is not. So be confident when you talk to a gal because even if she is not impressed, you will still most probably die married. Strange, isn’t it? Marriage and death can be spoken of in the same breath.

Rule 4 and the most important of them all; you should know when you have to quit and the good thing is that I realize that I need to take a break at this point and continue some other time because this rule is not just applicable to the topic of our discussion but also to life in general. So your host now promises to be back after a short break during which I interview some more girls so that I can build on my knowledge and then try to help my non existent reader base .

Beauty and an Idiot

Sajde Mein Yuhin Jhukta Hoon Tum Pe Hi Aake Rukta Hoon
Kya Yeh Sabko Hota Hai, Humko Kya Lena Hai Sab Se
Tum Se Hi Sab Baathe Ab Se Ban Gaye Ho Tum Meri Dua
Khuda Jaane Ke.. Main Fidaa Hoon
Khuda Jaane Ke.. Main Mit Gaya..
Khuda Jaane Yeh Kyun Hua Hai Ke Ban Gaye Ho Tum Mere Khuda..

I am no Ranbir Kapoor and I am also not lucky enough to have Deepika in my arms, although I must admit that she is a little tall for my liking. The point that I would like to make is that all this does not stop me from humming these lyrics. After an intense period of analysis of the situation I find that I am being floored not by Miss Padukone but by the lyrics for a change.

Suddenly I realize that this feeling, the lyrics are implying, is so universal and yet the least understood concept of all times. I also have no intention of boring anyone with my take on it but it puts me in a flashback mode, flashback of those sweet times and of memories which remain even though the best part has faded.

I realize that those are memories which at their blossom days could have easily been a potential cause for a cardiac arrest. There are times when certain things become so exciting that a slight stir in them brings forth great levels of anxiety in a positive sense. There were days when your vibrating mobile told you that you had better find a secluded place or risk being moved to a rented apartment.

But I had rather not talk about each and every memory of mine because then my keyboard might give in to the torture meted on to it. I have so much to write which neither my fingers will permit nor will my non anonymous blog. I had rather talk about a girl who lives couple of blocks away from my place and doesn’t know me or maybe she knows me but doesn’t know where I live or she had known me but doesn’t remember or maybe she still remembers me, the point is that the only thing I can say with conviction is that she is beautiful.

I don’t know the meaning of her name but whatever it is I would like to hear it from her so I have till date restrained from subjecting her and her name to Google analysis. I remember the first time I saw her and so do my friends and they remember her with the same interest as mine, whoever said that friends were there to help you must have been lying. She is no Draupadi and I am no Arjun and whatever happened in Mahabharata comes with a statutory warning of please don’t try this at home. I was in ninth standard then and already deviating from my ‘karma’ to study as the reason to play cricket was a better one. We used to play in the park in front of her house and while I was trying to impress her with my cover drives she was busy watching friends who were diving and by the time I switched to diving her interest in cricket had dried. So what was so special about the diving friends? Later I came to know that diving coupled with taking tuition classes together is potentially a killer combo. So I thought of convincing my parents that I need to have an edge in my education graph and what better solution than tuition classes. It wasn’t about the education graph though; It was about the non existent love graph and for the moment she was the only girl that existed on our planet. I joined no classes because of pure lack of genuine information locked in the minds of my friends and i was too shy to accept in front of them that I was falling for her so the information remained locked and that was the end of the graph on which i had drawn the hyperbola of my interest in her with the two separate parts never meeting.

Here my flashback skips through a static because I don’t remember what happened after that and I am fast forwarded to eleventh standard. I remember only one day and that was holi. With faces hard to be recognized we hunted for smaller victims and ran when we were the smaller victims. Soon we retired to the roof tops to test our marksmanship with water balloons. And I saw her from a distance all colored yet ever so enchanting, as if I had seen for the first time in my life a rainbow so close to ground. If I had a robe I would have jumped from the roof as superman does in his movies but I had none and there was also no first aid in sight. With a balloon in my hand I saw p1, p2, p3, p4 etc etc playing holi with her; I swear to god I am no less than Arjun when it comes to taking aims but we had run out of balloons and the only one I held in my hand had already been dedicated to someone who was tops in my hit list. I was disappointed and so were my friends. Good for them.

I here hit another static and remember the last few months of the present year. Saw her after a long time, she still is good looking but has gained some weight while I have been losing plenty. Friends have now become more helpful because either they have shifted or owe their allegiance to some other lady. So what comes between us now? Well this time around I have grown more intelligent so collected all the available information first. It is like I can now write her autobiography. The problem is that she is now committed. So my friends the moral of the story is ‘catch them young’ and if you can’t then don’t be disappointed because you have my company. I still would prefer to look into her eyes someday and tell her how beautiful she is with whatever implications it may have but I would delay it till I am too old to walk properly without assistance, that way I can always terrorize her with my cane if she doesn’t reciprocate. They say Old is Gold and I am sure she’ll be a gem even then.

Power of One

Change is always refreshing. How many times have you thought on similar lines?? I have this habit of changing every 5 seconds and every time I realize that what I was five seconds earlier deserved some introspection. A constant process of revaluation of oneself sometimes can be very frustrating while at times it can be very rewarding. The process of change is a primary characteristic of the phenomenon of adaptation. Today we live in a world that constantly presents different scripts on which we have to scribble with the pen of adaptation, our course of action.

Our actions become the yardstick for acceptance by the society in which we live. We always have a set of people who may or may not have a genuine concern for us but nonetheless deem it to be their right to measure our actions on a secret moral scale that they possess. We have to bear the constant gaze of curious eyes. We have to bear with people as they are a part of the society we live in. And how much adaptation and sacrifice is necessary to be an acceptable part of a society which exists only in the realms of belief? If you are to believe that no society exists you would be happier than what you are at present. Globalizing economies, formation of communities and fraternities have saw to it that the expression of being an individual par excellence has become redundant in reality only to find refuge with ‘want’ in texts.

We don’t command today the strength to survive alone as our ancestors had. We have been so weakened by our dependence on one another that today we can’t muster enough courage to see the world with a different perspective and more importantly alone. We all like the idea of standing up to our beliefs but how many of us have the courage to do so? The sole purpose of creation of communities and societies was to create a fear in us that it is only united that we stand. I am however also not advocating that we should stand divided but what I wish to urge you all to do is to stand alone once and hence see, with no blindfold, what the world has to offer to you and what you have to offer to it. We must stand alone unbiased to see how people stand in front of you naked and see their bare fangs and at the same time also see their qualities and virtues. As being part of a society blinds us to the evils within our friends and virtues in others there is an immediate need to stand alone someday for our sake as well as other’s. And we shall all see that day sooner or later so it would be better to voluntarily choose that day as soon as possible.

It would be mockery of self esteem to constantly adapt. If I am being offered a world that does not seek me the way I am, I had rather not be a part of that world. Whether people accept you or not, it is your prerogative to judge yourself not theirs. Their acceptance will not be a testimonial of your quality nor will their disapproval be a stigma to your name. It is your right to choose the path which will lead to your objective, be it alone. If you make friends on your way trust them with your life but if you make enemies along your path it doesn’t mean the path was wrong. Have respect even if you can’t show it for there is no man in this world who is worthy of only contempt. The path you take should be well reasoned because once we have our beliefs in order we always possess the inner strength to work towards their ends. So choose with caution and discretion your ideals and beliefs as it is not entirely impossible that a slight mistake can ruin an otherwise wonderful soul.

Stand up and see for yourself the world. If you show others exemplary strength of character in times of hardship while standing alone against all odds, they will seek a similar path, A path of enlightenment , and hence you would have then proved that there exists individualism in its purest form as an answer to the ‘blindfold’ in front of us. This way you can not only cleanse your soul and find wisdom but also be the savior of thousands of other helpless people, drifting aimlessly.

So don’t change to adapt but adapt to change the world around you.

If you wish to be the first person to see the dawn then don’t sit back and wait for the night to be over, pick up your belongings and head east.

Moral Fibre

I once believed that there exists at least one unique solution to each and every problem, It might be obscure but I truly believed that it existed nonetheless, however what I didn’t know then was that every solution brought with itself an equation of a simultaneous problem.

To talk about what I believed then and what I have learnt now might seem to be a general digression from an otherwise important issue but I must assure you that experience has no parallel and no matter what you have learnt, it comes to your aid more often than not.

So let us begin with the definition of the issue that I am supposed to exalt to a status that it becomes obvious that it truly deserves the much needed centre stage. It has always been an honor for me to speak as an Indian and to be recognized as one and till sanity forsakes me I will hold my head high with pride for I belong to a country which seeks nothing in return to the motherly affection with which it has sustained several generations of great and honorable men. Men who have had the courage to sacrifice right down to the last of their belongings for the sake of their motherland, the last few of their breaths were free from any debt and hence they attained a spiritual solace even when death caressed their senses. They were great not because they wrote for themselves a history deserving attention with all its glory and dignity but because they had a mind which reasoned with only one tautology, ‘Jai Hind’. In them lay the greatest of patriotism that any individual can imagine of and probably way beyond that too. They had only one vision for its motherland and it was a vision that justified with dignity their quest for its independence whether violent or non-violent. Sadly, that vision today stands shattered, overshadowing our glorious past is rampant corruption and the fall of men entrusted with the duty of aptly representing their fellow countrymen from the echelons of humility and honor into the hands of power hungry desire. Once a sacred instrument in our struggle for independence, Khaadi is no longer the holy fabric that can sanctify the treachery of the human nature. The fall from grace of the man in khaadi has dented an ever so perfect envisaged vision of great men who lead our struggle for independence and who look down from heaven to see the land of their dreams being driven by a handful of people, who are themselves puppets stirred to motion by the unwarranted desire for power.

I see my country today in hands of leaders incapable of sacrifice. It is in fact a grave mistake if they are to be called leaders for they command respect of none. I cannot today see in the common man the faith that has always fueled any nation’s ambitions. There is a genuine lack of interest in the equation of power as it has now become a synonymous for the word amoral. It would be another mistake on my part if I refer to amoral as just another word and not an evil which has found refuge in the actions of people who desire any political dream. To be a politician today is a stigma which can wash away the best of your good deeds. Politics has stooped to a level so low that no one dares to transcend beyond the present generation of leaders. It would be unfair though to call the entire system corrupt as there is room for hope even in the darkest of times, but actions of a majority bring disgrace even to the few good men left. There is still hope for I am a believer and so are my brothers, children of ‘Hind’. Faith brings forth the strength in us to endure the worst possible scenario and I request you all to have faith, there exists a solution.

The men of honor during their times also endured pain and suffering as we are today enduring and not just physical but they suffered an emotional anxiety every time a foreigner set his foot on our motherland with condemnable aspirations. They had their set of enemies and issues and we have our own distinct yet similar set. A foreigner for us today is someone who has been deserted by morality as soon as greed for power set in his heart yet he is no foreigner as in him exist some virtues, characteristic of children of this great motherland. So there is hope as the same blood with all its warmth circulates in our hearts too. The task may be ominous but as I said a solution exists. Our leaders of past saw that solution in independence and we too have to seek a similar solution. Independence from the evil that haunts the future of our motherland, Independence from the evil which troubles our conscience, Independence in its purest and the most definitive scope, with the help of a reasoning mind which adheres to the only ‘tautology’ of any patriotic Indian.

The unique solution of independence brought with itself a simultaneous problem which we face today and it came to forth not because the solution wasn’t rational but because with time the experience faded. Power eventually was transferred into hands that were too weak to defend themselves from the evils that power brought with itself. Their hearts pumped the same blood but it had no reminiscence of the suffering and sacrifice endured to bring about the transfer of power to shape the country into the one of its common man’s dreams.

The common man looks heavenwards not just to pray for himself but for his fraternity as well. It is only here that an individual is not just an individual but a person that accepts his social responsibilities with humility and all his discerning concern. Brotherhood has lived in my motherland through ages with faith and dignity. Here is a land where respect and morality have been the pillars of its society, here in front of me is a land which speaks with humility about its magnificent accomplishments and disguises them as its duties rather than achievements. Here I witness every good deed being acknowledged. It is here where a word need not be said and your brothers will understand the reason for your pain and sufferings and without another word they will come to your aid selflessly. It is only here that every act of honor doesn’t scream for recognition. There is silence yet there is a great thinking process underway to do whatever possible for the sake of fellow countrymen. Here I stand and here shall I fall with honor.

If you believe that the spirit of morality has deserted us, then think again for it still resides in our hearts only to perform its duties when called for. Our hearts may have been corrupted but there lay in it values and ideals that we would have cherished in better times. Time is only as good as you perceive it to be hence it is time to think again and live a better life for the sake of our motherland. These are days when most of us have bartered morality for mortality, where hypocrisy speaks a language I fear more than death.

Experience tells me that before dawn is the darkest hour of the night. It is that hour and it is also the hour where we fight. We fight for our motherland, for our brothers and for thyself. The darkest hour calls for the light in us to sustain and shine with all its glory to lead us towards a path that coincides with the path towards the realization of the vision of a better future for our motherland. I wish to be a part of a revolution and so should each one of you so that when we bid adieu to our motherland we stand free of its debt. We breath last of our breaths in the land of our dreams and wish that we get another life to sacrifice in its cause. If I am asked to believe that my dream will remain stranded in the mist of turbulence, I will beg to differ and no matter what happens the fire within me will be fueled to greater heights. That day when I see my dream fulfilled may never come during my lifetime but I shall see it from above nonetheless. That day will come and its my duty to work in congruence with the best of my capabilities and to realize it. And so should be yours. Break the shackles of slumber and trek the path to the ‘inevitable’. Have faith for the dream has enough good to hold on to it. I believe in the ‘tautology’ what remains to be seen is how far we all can take it. Break free of hypocrisy and let us build a common man’s dream with whatever we have. I dream of a day when we see the innocence of yesteryears being revived and the ‘vision’ fulfilled. I dream so that I can bring to life the residual morality in my heart. Dream my fellow countryman for this is the hour when our fight begins. Promise yourself this day onwards we reason with only one conviction, ‘Jai Hind’ and we shall see a future where we have substituted ‘Rajniti’ with ‘Rashtra hit niti’. Have faith for a solution exists which this time will settle all issues for now we have experience to guide us.