I still think about you

I may have forgotten the date when we first met,
I may have a tough time recalling the number of days I have been without you,
I may struggle to no end trying to count the number of months we were together,
I may not be able to recall the exact time when we parted but
I can still tell you with utmost precision how I felt when I saw you for the first time,
I can recollect with utmost clarity your expression when you patiently sat through my rendition of that old country song that I played in the neon light at my terrace,
I can tell you without fail the taste of pasta you made,
I can recollect with utmost vividity the evening we sat on that park bench,
I can still recall the way you look in candlelight,
I can still hear those unspoken words as we drove through the deserted roads, sitting silently with our thoughts waltzing to the sweet music and our bodies watching them through a distance, I can still recall the way you look when you try to read my mind,
I can still recall the way you look with your head covered with your beautiful dupatta and the way you think about God,
I can still remember the way you frowned whenever I asked you about going to a pub,
I can still remember the way you look when you are starving,
I can still see you smiling at me just like that,
I can still recollect the way you look with your tousled curls,
I can still feel that night we danced to silence under moonlight,
I can still recall the way you laugh when you high,
I can still recall the way you looked at me with those eyes after getting that cute haircut,
I still say your name in my head and I like the sound of your name,
I still talk to you and I still argue with you and I still go on my ramblings hoping you are listening,
I can still reminisce everything about you.
I can still remember everything about you.
Do you remember me too?

Ive been strumming

With every passing moment I am changing. Every second from the moment I was born I am changing. Neither have the changes of the past been planned and nor the changes of the future can be planned. Last evening I was thinking that why two people may have such varied opinions about the same thing. I think this can be attributed to the fact that what we think is the result of our opinion which in turn comes from perception which in turn comes from observation and the ability to analyze that observation thereby forming an opinion depends on the way our past experiences with life in general have evolved us to be. Just a passing thought.


By the way I just finished rehearsing the song “ I am mine” by Pearl Jam. The lyrics as usual have a deep meaning.

The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind
The North is to South what the clock is to time
There's east and there's west and there's everywhere life
I know I was born and I know that I'll die
The in between is mine I am mine

Pearl Jam is America’s favorite rock and roll band and was formed in the 90’s. Not many people know this that when the lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood died of heroine overdose in 1990, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament formed a new band. They brought Mike McCready on lead guitar and recorded a demo with Soundgarden's Matt Cameron on drums. The demo found its way to a 25-year-old San Diego surfer named Eddie Vedder, who overdubbed vocals and original lyrics and was subsequently invited to join the band (then christened Mookie Blaylock after the NBA player). This is how the lead vocalist Eddie Vedder and the others came together and set out to create history. God bless them. The song “I am mine” is one of my all time favs and I was procrastinating the whole thing for quite a while. Finally dusted off my Hobner which in turn has been gifted to me by the most beautiful girl in the world. The song came out really well and I played it like seven times and then just dozed off with my hobner by my side. Its strange but I like the smell of the finger tips after you have played for like an hour or so and you can actually smell the strings and their melody. Weird ain’t it. The nest song which is all ready with music sheets and all is “ I hope that I don’t fall in love with you” by Hootie and the Blowfish. Please listen to this song and feel it. The song was originally done by Tom Waits who was also the inspiration during the early days of Hootie and the Blowfish. Awesome song awesome lyrics.

Take care

Well I am sick....I have got a very very bad throat infection. Anyways I am gonna be ok. Last friday night as I was walking down home a strange incident happened. I had taken a longer route and this one in particular was not that lit up. As I approached a sharp bend in the road I saw someone sitting by a lamp post which was not working(thnx. Shiela Dixit). I wud have walked off but something occured to me. It was in the guys posture or something else. As i approached him, I saw a guy in his mid 40s squatting on the pavement with his face smeared in a thick stroke of RED. On close examination I found out that blood was oozing out of a deep cut located above his left eyebrow. I figured out that the guy must have been sitting like this for more than 15 minutes as his shirt which seemed to be white in color was fully covered in his own blood . Upon enquiring he explained that he was riding his bike at a high speed when a cyclist came from nowhere in front of him and he lost control. As I was calling up ambulance, he stopped me in the middle and said that he had already called up his brother. So all I could do was sit with him and comfort him. He was feeling dizzy and said his head was going in circles. It must have been due to the excessive bleeding. I shouted and sent two urchins to get some water. I squatted beside him and told him to lay his head in my lap. After protesting a little bit I forced him into doing so as otherwise he might have had fainted and crashed in the mud. I took out my handkerchief and pressed it against the cut. As he lay breathing heavily I smelled of alcohol. If only the guy would have been sober, If only he would have had worn a head cover this wouldn't have had happened. And to top it all during the 15 minutes that this guy sat on the pavement not even one pedestrian stopped by to help. GOD give us sanity. I beg of you. Now after around 10 minutes an indica stopped beside us and four guys stepped outside and the guy in my lap was pushed on the rear seat and he sprawled inside. The two guys from the car mounted on the bike and all of them sped off. No one asked me anything. Nor that it matters. It just occurred to me that they could have at least said something to me. As they sped off I saw something which totally fucked me in my head. The supposed to be saviors were all in the middle of a drinking binge and there were half filled glasses of alcohol lined on the console. May god help them all.

Hold my hand

He opened his eyes in a dazed stupor and gazed blankly at the white bed sheets, white wall paint, white curtains and the white paint on the edge of the bed. It was all blurring. His sight was merging the surroundings in a never ending maze of white. After being stuck in the whirlwind void of the moment he shivered and strained to turn his head towards the right and the milky white rays of the sun seemed to irritate him. His parched lips along with the dead white of the skin made him look like a gothic mummy with the skin still on. He again closed his eyes and tried to escape from it all. But where can a person go when his inside is as scary as his outside. Like a scared kid stuck in torrid rains on a dark lonely night in the woods. Now all this kid would want is the safe confines of a home. But when he comes across a silhouette of a lonely house in the woods, he don't want to go there. The thought of going inside that house with arms of fears stretching to take him in their cadaverous bosom is no better than the grotesque forest. He was feeling restless. He was feeling restless in his skin. And then someone came inside and he tried to recognize and suddenly everything came back. As smoothly as he had lost it with the same ease the memory came back. The guy standing was Mohan. Mohan had got him admitted to the Detox and had helped him through the troubled times. It had been just four days that he had known Mohan but it seemed as if he had known him for years. Mohan smiled the way he almost does. A very warm and affectionate smile that is so contagious that you have to be a stone or a rock not to smile back. But still all his smiles were so distinct and so assuring that they talk to you. This smile was telling him, hey you pulled it through, I told you so that its all gonna be ok. And this is all that he wanted to hear that it was all over. It all had started around four years back. He was a young engg. passout with high flying dreams. He was so charged up and holding so tight that he caved in. He started with the normal stuff and before he knew he had graduated to chemicals. He was sniffing, he was popping, he was chasing as if there was no tomorrow. For him there was no day and no night coz everything was just same. He had lost the sense of time. He would get up, powder his nose and drop off. It was all a never-ending cycle. He was weighing 85 pounds and was a walking nightmare. And then gradually the effects started showing. His body could take it no more. He had stopped getting the instant gratifying high which he used to get. He increased the intake but still the high evaded him. He had been living in psychedelic trance for the past four years and now he realized how far had he come. As they say that every addict needs to hit his rock bottom to surface back. And every one has his own rock bottom. He hit his rock bottom when he found himself crawled near a lamp post in an open market with agonizing pains sending ripples of a thousand knife stabs up his abdomen. He was shivering, shrieking, trembling, stammering, crying and PRAYING for it all to be over. Next day in the morning with trembling fingers he typed the golden words on his keyboard. "DRUGS+DETOX" and he was on the web page of an NGO who is majorly into helping addicts who have a will to go clean. There was this number flashing on the right hand side of the web page. He dialed the number and a warm voice greeted him from the other side. In a stammering stutter he said that he wanted to get some help. The voice on the other side did not interrupt him and listened very patiently and then sensing that he was through, the voice said for the first time, "It's all gonna be ok" These words had a hypnotizing effect on him. He could feel the words, he could touch the words, he could smell the words and he could understand the words. The guy on the other side requested him to come to their meeting in the evening. The meeting was at a secluded school. He reached there and with much effort finally entered the meeting. There he met Mohan and Mohan hugged him. It was the kind of hugs that only few can relate to. Mohan hugged him and it was a strong embrace, which lasted for 2-3 minutes, and after a couple of seconds of resisting to this strange tradition he finally gave in and was at ease. The hug was very reassuring. Instead of giving him feel good rhetoric, Mohan allowed the hug to do the talking. Mohan himself was an addict and now was clean for 6 years. He had just celebrated his sixth anniversary and was working with another NGO which was fighting for prisoners rights in AFRICA. After the meeting he and Mohan along with some other fellow " clean or reformed addicts" accompanied him and they checked in a nearby Detox center again run by a fellow member. It was all very reassuring. All fellow addicts who had all gone through the same pain and now were clean and used to meet on a daily basis to celebrate the essence of life surrounded him. The first step to being clean is to acknowledge the fact the one is actually an addict. It comes hard and not everyone can come to terms with this harsh naked truth, leave aside acknowledging it. That day at the pavement, made him acknowledge the fact that he in fact was an addict. The next step is to say to yourself that” I will be clean today. I will not do drugs today. You need to take a day at a time. All those who said I won’t ever do drug again have failed except a few. So you need to remain clean for a day and then day after and then day after. He now lives his life like a normal human being enjoying the beautiful kick from a simple cup of coffee! And life sure is beautiful when you don’t get up in the morning with the same headache and the same cramps. An addict has just three goals in his life, where to get the money to score, where to buy and where to use. An addict’s life revolves around these three major tasks and in the end an addict dies pursuing his tasks. There are only three ends to an addicts life: jail, mental asylum or DEATH. He chose none of them and went with LIFE instead. Doing drugs an addict screws himself in all circles of life.. Relationships, zilch. Money, zilch. Spirituality, zilch. Ambitions, zilch. He himself, zilch. Its good to be able to enjoy the rains in their pristine beauty, its great to feel the cold winters, relish the milky white sunlight, feel the emotions in their innocent form and it sure is good when someone can count on you. It’s indeed good to be clean. This post is for a friend who is going through tough times. Dude, you need to hang in there and its gonna be fine. Have faith in yourself. God bless.

What if?

"What if" is a nice sentence. Personally its one of my favs. So many times during so many situations we follow our sanity based on the knowledge and experience acquired over a period of years and we make judgments. Now the knowledge and experiences that we have accumulated have in turn been culled from a series of experiences and learning. There are very few people who suffer (read blessed) from "what if" syndrome. For e.g. when I am in a quandary I might take a set of actions and just get over with the itch. But what if I think to myself "what if". What if I did this or what if I visualized the situation from a different perspective? Believe you me you would be amazed at the results! Now due to paucity of time we might not be able to incorporate this line of reasoning but you would agree with me that even if we can't practice it per se, we can at least think about it and flex our gray muscles into analyzing the “what if’s”. A simple analogy comes to my mind: Imagine your mind as an old TV set where the edges of the picture are not visible because of the curvature. Now this "curvature" is not inherent but has been the result of years of "constrained" thinking. The greater is the amount of "constrained" thinking, greater is the curvature of your mind’s screen and lesser is the view you get. By applying the "what if" mantra we can make the screen of our mind, a splendid FLAT screen with unhindered view. Now God made us all with this flat screen, but years of sheer languid attitude and "what the heck" philosophy gave us the blinding curvature. During school days my Science teacher Ms. Ramamurthy, used to engage us in a strange game. We all were shown an old newspaper's cutting depicting a scene. It could be two persons passing by, scenes of pandemonium during a natural calamity etc. Now she always used to show us half the cutting and then asked us "what do you think is happening here?" We all would write whatever came to our mind and at the end of the session we had around 20-30 point of views. A picture of a man with contorted facial features would be construed by some as a guy in pain, a man being stabbed, a man making faces etc. Then she would unfold the paper and we all would see what it was all about. And then she would show us a man playing around with his kid. I really couldn't understand the rationale behind this whole exercise. I mean there was no right or wrong. She used to say "look there are so many ways in which you can see this”. Now I know how true all that was. She was making us see things not the way they are, but the way they could be. If only we can push ourselves into thinking "what if" we would be exploring a new world a new dimension hitherto unknown to us.

Mind your mind

What is it about the thought process? I mean we have the same mind in the same body, but still the way this small piece of genius works, baffles me to no extent! Small tiny miniscule events can trigger the sort of reactions and stimuli, which can radically alter one's life forever. Picture this: one fine day you are sitting idly and everything in life seems kinda ok. And then suddenly you see something which makes you sit back and think, which again jolts up your conscience and in turn you get restless and then suddenly your mind is filled up with a gargantuan number of thoughts and you start skimming through them. The most obvious ones are quickly registered and picked up for a more close examination and after examination you might wanna do something about it. Before you even acknowledge the thoughts your mind has already formulated an action plan for you to work upon. At this juncture comes the will, the Will, the WIll, the WILl, the WILL. Those of us with a strong will power jump into the "action mode" and try to incorporate the action plan and at the same time are constantly editing and streamlining the plan. Now this snapshot can be customized and viewed in different spotlights. It may be a transient activity or a life changing decision. It all boils down to a person’s will power and the sources from which he derives his inspiration. All mind does is analyze the scene around you and throw back the information which might interest you and its entirely upto you to fathom it and do something about it. I don't exactly know if it makes sense but it is true nonetheless!

To what extent would you go to fulfill your dreams

To what extent would you go to fulfill your dreams?
Do what you think; what you really are is actually what you really are?
Do you let failures decide your fate or do you show failures your middle finger?
Do you bow down in front of the expectations of your near and dear ones or do you single-mindedly follow your pursuit because YOU believe in it?
Do you sit down/slow down/give up because you think that probably you can’t finish?
Is “ nothing is impossible” actually true?
Do you believe in yourself in trying times?
Do you stop dreaming just because dreams don’t come true?
Do you stop smiling coz your dreams didn’t come true?
Do you giving in to FATE or whatever it is?
Does KARMA really affects you?
What is KARMA anyhow?
Even if you do your KARMA, what if your KARMA ain’t good enough?
Whom do you turn to when you are all tangled up in a haze of illusions?
How many times would you fall to get up again?
To what extent would you go to fulfill your dreams?



Jaded heart with a faded smile
Daggers in your heart
Bruised hope with a dying sigh
But your soul wont die
Disillusioned mind in a haze of haze
Thorns in your feet, oasis nowhere
Shout you can’t coz voice you have none
Run you can’t coz your feet so numb
But your soul wont die
Fear flirts with you and Death lures you
Only if you give up and die
You have fear as your fiancé and death as your wife
But your soul won’t die
Life you shall live Dreams shall you spun
Get up and fight
Coz your soul wont die!

Out of the bottle

Last evening I finally vowed to take a sabbatical from crazy mary for four months, that is 122 days. I figured out that I was again getting sucked into a whirlwind twister exactly like so many others in which I seem to have lived a major chunk of my life. Scratching my head to come up with a reason always ends up with me justifying the whole thing by some imbecile line of reasoning. Just after office I met up with my two buddies who have been there in my life since the past 10 years and have seen me changing. So when I toasted to my “abstinence” there were no “WOW” “That’s Great” but instead a look (or was it) that said “All Right”. Its good to be with people where you are not evaluated at every action you take. You can just be stupid you. Weather in Delhi is very humid now a days but the evenings tend be a lot more pleasant. The place where I live is around 3-4 kms from the metro station and I have started walking back home after office. It is one thing I really like. Its good to walk all alone in a careless stride, kicking idle pebbles on a lazy street. You see people who are taking a stroll after dinner, young couples, old retirees etcetera. The best part is the amalgamation of music. One moment you are exposed to the soulful RD Burman and then a risqué item song and then the south Indian music at the local street shop and then some boy band blaring inside a car and all of this within a couple of minutes. Talk about kaleidoscopic music on the diaspora of a secular state. Sometimes this is all you need to cleanse your mind from the daily dose of toxins that the corporate world pollutes you with.

I have been reading

Well I am back after a long hiatus. There is no specific reason that I can state, its just one of those phases wherein all you want is to "LET ME BE!!!!!” Well I did catch up on a little bit of reading. Here are my rusty views on these books: Finished reading An Equal Music-Vikram Seth. The plot is of the kinds wherein the author just picks up some sheets while he is sitting in a French Coffee House and just starts writing. The novel is a must read if you are into expressions. U have to give it to the guy, no one does it better in portraying mundane with such vivid animation as Vikram Seth. Blink-Malcomm Gladwell. Well this one starts off pretty good. The autor propounds on expostulating some groundbreaking, radical point of view and the readers starts to nod his head in appreciation as he turns the pages. Then he goes on to build up on his theory. Chapter upon chapter of preface building and then suddenly when you think that the author will add his two paise worth of genuine insight, the book ends. Such a sham. Freakonomics: Steven Levitt & Stephen Lubner Well this one is all about data collation/data interpretation/data extrapolation For e.g. what if I try to time myself for a whole month on my smoking habits, brands I smoke, no. of puffs I take, the angle of the projectile at which the butt flies off in the air before hitting the ground etcetera, and then I put that data across and I try to answer questions like “ My Behavioral patterns Vs. No. of cigarattes smoked.” And then come up with some crap which even if stated makes no difference in where the sun rises. Means this guy has inferred some really weird conjectures. A must read if you are too calm and would like to get pissed or agitated. Also read Five point someone-Chetan Bhagat. this is what a neurosurgeon can read while he is in the middle of a brain surgery. It is one book, which you can read with a straight face. But then the guy is not a writer per se. Well here I am scrapping off these books, which some people might consider otherwise. But then again this is my space and these are my views. So if you don't agree then I couldn't care less.