13 black cats

I think a lot. Not necessarily the most intelligent, or creative...or mind blowing things. But never the less, I think a lot. As a result, I mostly look like this....

Maybe.....without the question mark.......

I look like this even when I am not thinking too much. Basically I have a habit of scratching my head. I suppose I got it from my father. So, during exams, to avoid losing too much time fiddling with my hair, I take them off. Ingenious, I know! Besides, I can wake up in the morning, skip the bath.... and run off!!

Yeah, fine! So I am this super genius who gets absolutely ammmmazing ideas to do stuff that ends up making me look and smell like an.....alien(I haven't smelt an alien though..). 

So WHATT? Isn't it?

Here's what. I went to my mess for an evening snack, after I had shaved my mane. One of the mess workers noticed my shining scalp and asked me why I had shaved. I told him that I do so when an exam is approaching. On this, he asked jokingly-"Do you believe that by shaving your head, you'll score better?". My ego was hurt man!! In my head, I am this man of logic, never following any blind bull-crap that many elders and peers warn us against doing. I have gone to the extent of crossing a black cat's path. The cat had a bad day....

Yeah, so I told this guy that I shaved because of my hair being a distraction, specially during times that demand 'extremely focused' attention, for instance, during examinations.

This incident with this guy stirred the contents of a topic that has been wandering in my head for a while. Blind faith... Specially after the recent murder of this activist, Narendra Dabholkar in Pune, on 20th August.

What did the guy do? He'd been this rational fellow(Rightly called a rationalist) who went about advising people against blind faith. He was working on this Anti-superstition bill. Some people were against him for his stance. So what did they do? They put a bullet into his head...and chest.

Very simple. The assassins are still roaming free with a reward of some 10 Lacs($ 16000) on their heads. 

Every 'odd' day, one hears of some very random thing about not doing some or the other thing on a particular day of the week That doesn't mean that 'even' days are spared. Don't give cash to anyone on, say Tuesday. Or "don't consume non-vegetarian food on, say Friday.". Some or the other reason seems to find a day in the week and sits on it. This is just the tip of the iceberg. My mom's been advised by doctors to include eggs regularly into her food. Each time I remind her of this, she says something like..."Today is Friday/Wednesday(Not sure which one) and I don't eat eggs on 'whatever day it is', son.". I quote this case as it's my mom here, so at least I don't offend some random bloke who might run behind me with a knife for getting offended by my statements about him. 

And yet, there is something that pulls people to inexplicable faiths and practices. If a girl has some 'stuff' wrong with her stars and constellations, she'll be married to a freaking tree!! Brilliant! So now the tree is going to take all the negatives of her 'stardom' wandering in thin space. It would be wrong to consider that extra alphabet in your name, or maybe the lack of it has no reason in your success!! Neither that fancy aqua blue ring, nor the alien green one, or the one with the pearl. They all cumulatively conspired to bring you all your riches, if at all they did bring you any riches.

I had to sit through this presentation that  a friend of mine gave on 'Placebos'. The presentation albeit, wasn't great, but the topic is definitely apt to describe all the cash and piece of mind that one might have spent in pursuit of a happy life, only to look more like Bappi Da(Bappi Lahiri...just in case..). Despite this, our faith rests more in those who give us nothing except a lighter wallet, fake consolation and a hippie make-over, than in simple, obvious and effective logic, that may only cost a few moments of activity from your grey cells.

But no! Simple things don't work!! There needs to be something ritualistic, complicated, that we cannot understand(I somehow don't ant to use the word 'apocryphal') that explains how everything fell into place. It looks more convincing, I suppose?

As Stevie Wonder sings in his song 'Superstition' 

"When you believe in things, you don't understand, then you suffer..." 

Superstition ain't the way!

The chicken stuck between the teeth.

The title may sound very pro-non-vegetarian, but it's just that 'The coriander stuck between the teeth' didn't sound all that appealing.

'Tooth-picking' is a very common phenomenon, specially resented at the dining table, for obviously very obvious reasons. Just to get things dramatic, "All the world is a stage....Tooth-picking on this stage, might cause a lot of rage!".

Any ways, when the chicken IS stuck between one's teeth, it is one of the few moments in life when you  acknowledge the fact that 'The tongue is the strongest muscle in the body'. Definitely so if you do manage to get the chicken out of your teeth after those toiling minutes of irritation and agony!

THE WORST PART!! Imagine a situation that you are sitting in a room full of people. There's this post-lunch presentation you are supposed to give right now. Annnd the chicken you had in your lunch is trapped in the crevices of your pearly-whites. Mind you, no place to hide! So if you have plans to take matters into your own 'hands', "EWW!!". Goodness gracious!! Now what??? Do you try and maintain composure(or do your best to look so?) or give in to the undying wish to get rid of the chicken and give your presentation in peace? The latter of course, inviting sneers from onlookers, sounds like a bad option. Isn't it?

So if doing something is good for a person, and 'others' feel otherwise, the person should stop doing what is good for himself/herself? Sadly, that's exactly the way, people around us have become, rather, have always been. The NORM is to CONFORM. Both capitalized words being excruciatingly painful combinations of alphabets to ever make sense. 

There's just another thing that comes to attention. COMPRESSED AIR.

Hopefully the words alone are suggestive. If not, here we go...FARTS!!!(and maybe burps too...)

Look at the beautiful word. Say it aloud in your head.. 

FARTS...FARTS...FARTS...FARTS...FARTS!!!

Let the word grow on you! Hear the sound. Let it echo in the space inside your skull! It actually the same sound as that of the air that comes tearing through one's backside under all that pressure. By the way, if there's no sound, BEWARE!! It's a bomb!!(Ever heard of SILENT, but DEADLY FARTS??...SBDF for convenience..)

Burp's ain't that dramatic.. Since we chuck anything undramatic, out goes the BURP!

Yeah, there have been scores of joke books, stupid applications on probably every mobile and railway platform on farts. None of it is bad. Surely anything but bad! Who wouldn't enjoy a fit of laughter? Huh? But still, we don't have everyone FMAO(Farting My Arse Out...by the way) with the rest Laughing their Arse Out, now do we? Although doing so will put one person at ease for 'cutting cheese', it is kind of a rare practice. What we all do get though, is the bombs. The silent ones! The KILLERS! Ever been in a crowded  elevator at the wrong time? Shit!! Although it must be easy to spot the guilty one. He/she will be as silent as the fart! I haven't been in a crowded elevator, by the way... I use the stairs.
2 benefits...
1. I don't get killed by bombs
2. I can drop my own bombs without wiping out an entire population from asphyxiation, just in case I do feel like it.
Our existence , and everything that ever came to surround it, seems to point out that behavior of a crowd seeks motivation  from the ease of putting down something/someone that/who stands up us, instead of getting motivated by the thing/one that dares to stand. There are of course those, who stand tall regardless. They manage to keep our faith in the spirit of mankind intact.Maybe, that's what makes living life worth looking forward to.

You think?

Ahh!! Finally, after more than a week's worth of mindlessness, I finally have something to write(type...)!! Strangely, my motivations, usually, come from moments that make me feel like a complete bum! Okay, more on that....some other time later. Let's not dwell on it.

The human brain is pretty.. Not if you are holding one in your hand, of course, but it is a beautiful specimen of nature that highlights the triumph of evolution. 

A glance at anyone, just the sound of a syllable uttered by a person, the way someone walks, runs, eats or does anything is sufficient to distinguish an acquaintance from a stranger. Although, the profoundness of such abilities came to my notice very lately, it is surprising, to the point that I started looking at people's leg movement, more than their faces to recognize them. That...may have just taken the point too far.

That brings the concept of 'first impressions' into everyday life. Yeah...this thing actually does work.. A lot!! As a matter of fact, First Impressions are at work in the concrete jungles, and more so in the wilderness. The statement "It's a Wild Wild world out there" is quite technically valid! For centuries, mate-selection has been, is, and will be pretty much a game of first-impressions.(Uh-oh!). Yeah, rule of the Wild.. One glance at the opposite sex...annnnd you're done! A creature, any creature for that matter, happens to have been shaped to exhibit it's strengths and flaws at first glance. But let's not get into too much intricacies. The concept of First Impressions also brings along the concept of 'Wrong First Impressions'(WFI for sake of convenience). This one is the evil twin. Look at the symmetry in nature's creation! Wrong first choice!! Good news for you if you happened to be the second choice, if the Choosing Party realizes it's blunder before making it...but that is rare..Alas!

Speaking of blunders, there's this silly joke-sort of a thing in Hindi, literal translation of which goes something like this... 

From far away, I saw Madhuri combing her hair. When I went near, I saw a cow wagging it's tail...(Translation KILLS!!!)...

दूर से देखा, तोह माधुरी बाल बना रही थी.(Duur se dekha, toh, Madhuri baal bana rahi thhi. )

 पास जाके देखा, तोह गाय पूंछ हिल रही थी!Paas jaakey dekha, toh gaay puunch hila rahi thhi!)...........

Has it ever happened that you waved at someone, who you thought was someone, but turned out to be someone else? WFI and..wait for it......WTF!! 

It is probably THE most embarrassing thing that could happen to someone, specially, if you were the one who waved! The person on the receiving end is really trying hard to place your face.."Now, who the hell is this fellow?".

It's those classic situations where both the sides say the same thing(WTF) but, the meaning of the words in either case happens to be oceans apart.

There is an upside to this though. If timed right, it can be easy to know new people. Maybe, the next time you wave at the same person, you can laugh at your last time's fiasco!

Another situation , although not related to WFI, being that you wave at some acquaintance and he/she doesn't look at you.. Ugggghhhh!!!! That's even worse than the first situation with the stranger! Specially if the thought of someone seeing your friendly wave  getting tossed into thin air happens to haunt you for  a while..

Sad...

A tale

We had a fallout. Then we stopped talking. We would run into each other... rather, I'd time myself hoping to cross her path, succeeded a few times, failed more so often. When I succeeded, I was met with blank expressions. I'd like to quote a very close friend of mine. He said, "The opposite of love isn't hatred. It's indifference." I was momentarily taken aback by the correctness of his statement, although what my friend uttered, referred to a very different scenario.
Something very unnerving about psychology is the fact that you never....evvvver get to know what the person you think about, is thinking, specialllly if the person is a lady. Maybe that sentence needs to be read again. One exception in my case is this friend of mine, whom I just quoted. Our thoughts come out like photocopies!

So she and I don't talk, or...maybe she doesn't hear what I say. Although I say a lot of things in my head, only sometimes do these things come out in a form, that the human ear finds decipherable. Hmmm.... I kind of see the problem here.

I was at this place to run a few errands. Suddenly, she turns up, obviously with some things of her own to do. For the first moment, I didn't really understand what exactly was happening. There was this sudden jolt-ish feeling I got in my belly, then felt my ticker exploding every second, right through my chest, my ears felt hot... usual stuff that happens when you see 'YOUR ONE'. But somehow, a few moments pass and I kept to myself, continuing to do what I'd come for hopefully not betraying the things going on inside me out into the public.
Having noticed her fully after the initial hiccups, I tried to get her to acknowledge my presence. Not with some usual "Hi!" or something. Okay, I didn't do a lot except for stealing a few glances...okay, maybe not glances, but definitely not stares!! Something in the middle of the two. Whatever I did.....no acknowledgement, what so ever! Not that she owed me one, or something.
Anyways, I didn't take too long to finish off with my things. I left, trying my best not to look at her.
After I left the place, I walked on for a few paces.  What I did notice is that for some very deliberate reason, my steps were unusually slow, given that I walk pretty fast, at least in my own head. I knew what was troubling me. I just didn't want to think it aloud. The place where I was coming from, she was the only girl around. Besides, while I was getting my work done, I did not like the way one of the buggers in that place had looked at her the whole time. I actually thought it was rather stupid of her to come to this place all alone, definitely not doubting her ability to protect herself...maybe I was a bit doubtful. Also, maybe, I was feeling unnecessarily overprotective. Maybe, I was also feeling like a complete arsehole for leaving her behind alone. I just didn't want her to think that I was taking undue advantage of the situation to talk to her. So I walked back, ran back honestly, and waited near the building, just to ensure that she left the place fine. It was actually a few moments before I saw her walking out that I heaved a sigh of relief. But you know those moments of anxiety, and how long they seem. I was just happy to see her out of that place, despite not getting a chance to talk to her. I did not follow her after that though.
I definitely don't know if she saw me near the building. Most probably, I don't think she did. Well, if she did, I am afraid, she'd think that I was stalking her. What a predicament! Okay, no fancy words... What a Pain-in-the-arse!!!! I'm just happy, it isn't PILES!

How thoroughly I enjoy maintaining the anonymity of my lady!   Although, I'd rather hope for a happier ending to the post instead!!

Mildly remarkable

I realized very recently that I need something remarkable to happen,for me to get some inspiration to write. There are two ways to remarkable things.

1. You either wait for it, or

2. As cocky as it sounds, do something remarkable yourself.

आग जुबां पे रख दे ,(Aag zubaan pe rakh de)

फिर चोट के होंठ भिगाएङ्गे। (Phir chont ke hoonth bhi gaaenge)

घाव गुनगुनाएँगे, (Ghaav gungunaenge)

 तेरे दर्द गीत बन जाएङ्गे। (Tere dard geet ban jaaenge)

These are lyrics from a song that I have fallen in love with... 'Zinda', from 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag'. Here's, in my opinion, what the stanza means.

Let's set our mouths on fire. Then we'll quench the thirst of our wound's lips.

Lips of the wound will eventually start humming,

Then our pains will turn into songs.

Beyond anything, what is most striking is that, the literal translation of words, in a way , mitigates the meaning of the original lyrics. Anyways, I was onto something, which I felt, would be slightly challenging. I had done something very similar to what I was about to do today, something a bit milder, but that was a while ago.

By the time I had reached midway, I felt that I had just started. Things felt a lot easier. My breathing felt as though, I had been sitting for a while, My legs felt a lot easier to lift. I didn't have to control my foot while landing. They were on their own. And thankfully, the cloudy sky had shown me some mercy.

Today, for some reason, Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode, rather, the thought of getting to it, didn't sound as daunting as it sounds on an average day. Pun intended, by the way. If there's a rule where you are to title every day of your life, today would be 'To IIM-K, And beyond!!'.

 I had checked my route on Google Maps. It showed the distance between me and my destination as 9.5 kilometers. So I had planned on a slightly longer detour to round off the distance to 10 kilometers. The skies were cloudy, I had already procrastinated for an hour with my start and... yeah, that's about it. I'd put my wallet in my pocket. When I started off, it was about 6. Quite precisely, it was exactly 6 pm. So off I was. My first few steps were the usual kind. Each one, calculated, each one with the thought of lasting, as far as I possibly could, without feeling too slow about things that went past me. I had this song 'Zinda' ringing in my ears, in my head rather, as I wasn't carrying a music player. I have a feeling that I hadn't gotten into the flying start I was hoping for. But it felt better than the last time. A lot more effortless. I had surely started enjoying the dumbstruck expressions I saw on faces of pinion riders.!

The route I was on, was, although not perilous, filled with ups and downs. I attacked on the steep rises, didn't push myself to injury downhill. Okay, this is where it gets a bit philosophical. I realized this on this run of mine today. When times are hard, ATTACK!! Because when the road ahead is going downhill, everyone will speed up without putting much effort. A component of gravity called 'mgcosθ' will be on your side anyways all the way downhill. I am yet to figure out what to do on flat straights. Maybe intersperse your normal efforts with small spurts of speed....

I was in the last 3 kilometers of my journey when a sudden tempo kicked in. This boost I felt was where, last time around, I had felt like giving up, even though I didn't stop. Now 'Zinda' was playing loud and clear, muting any sound/sensation that could have reminded me of any possible pain. I just kept my eyes and ears out for any errant on the road. And yes, now, I was finally loose enough to move at a consistent pace over any gradient. Just then, I realized that I had gone 'beyond IIM-K'.

I have a feeling that I will be greeted with rotten tomatoes by anyone who reads this, if I have conveyed the meaning of my last sentence clearly enough.

It was the last mile that remained and ...... things were going uphill from here. I sped up. It felt comfortable. So I was at it. I could see the end about 300 meters away. I saw this word in my head...SPRINT!!

I had reached the end. My destination. Done for the day.

The bus stop was close by. Got there, caught a bus back to college. Something troubled me on my way back. I had finished what I set off to do. But it wasn't satisfying. It wasn't like this distance had finished me off. It was almost as if I could have gone on. I could have gone a lot further.

But for a change from last time, the bus ride back...felt a lot longer...

Here's a line that still rings inside somewhere.

हिचकियों में क्या है मरना , पूरा मर ले। (Hichkiyon mein kya hai marna, poora mar le)

Don't die in installments. Die just once!

The song stayed with me throughout.

Here's looking forward to feeling alive!

I guess, I should start quoting a few Malayalam songs too..

Worm in the ear

Eww!! Nasty things!!! Imagine!!! The remarks may sound a bit too exclamatory, but please bear for the moment. So yes, IMMMMAGINE! Worms going into your ears! How about all of this while you're sleeping? Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!
Remember how there's always this one song, which one may ABSOLUTELY HATE! Strangely enough, that song might be pretty popular, for or without reason. So here's the situation.
हम तेरे बिन अब रह नहीं सकते, तेरे बिना क्या वजूद  मेरा ..........(I cannot live without you, without you, my existence is meaningless.) Whatttt??? Seriously? I know, I am over-reacting, specially out of the fear that we humans have this 'thing' for sad, rather sadist songs.
So it goes on!! On!! annnnd ONNNN!!!!!! Everyone is singing it! No one must have sung the National anthem that many times I guess, in an entire lifetime! The ones who can sing, the ones who can't, the television, the radio, the mp3 player, it's like the whole universe is conspiring to turn the song into a Post-it note and stick it on your forehead!!!!
And then something happens. You start singing that ruddy song yourself. Then you curse yourself for being infected with this song, which ever it may be. So the world finally says to itself.. Mission accomplished!
Strange, isn't it? Quite technically, you have been made to do what everyone is doing, that too, without your consent.
There's another situation ,where the roles have been switched. You are the incessant singer, with no other song playing out of your mental playlist. Being on this side of the situation is slightly better, never the less, equally irritating, obviously because you at least get to do what YOU want to. So it is pretty much the same situation as the first case. The mind has become an Audio-tape player stuck on a piece of the tape over, over and over again.
So what's so mindblogling about it? In plain view, nothing. Even otherwise, nothing. That is unless a term called 'Stickiness-factor' is unfamiliar to you. This term, in whatever I call my little bundle of knowledge, pretty recently entered our daily-jargon, specially popularized and blown out by many ad gurus, a lot many writers and media/advertisement people. As the very self explanatory words suggest, it's just about how long something stays within your span of attention.
So?
So.... it basically shows how, our minds respond to things we encounter. 3 things change a lot of equations in the stickiness, I guess.
a) Remarkableness  of what's being brought forward
b)How much you 'SO-BADLY-HATE-IT'...You see, the more you hate it, the more you realize it's presence around you, the more you are prone to the REPETITION factor.
3)Most importantly....the number of times you have an encounter with it.... Repetition, the mother of LEARNING, no way Understanding, although, in our immediate surroundings, the two words may have been interchangeably used.
What was gained/lost with the effort of writing this post? I gained the realization that I am terribly sleepy! Besides, having the contents of your mind, subject to criticism leaves you with a strange kind of inexplicable excitement.
Despite typing all of it, analyzing all the possibilities of what is hapening inside my head, the song is still not leaving me. My brain is infested with this song!!!! Help me quarantine it!!!
चैन भी, मेरा दर्द भी, मेरी  आशिकी अब तुम ही हो।  Crap! See?? I am not even in a bloody romantic mood that I should sing this song!!
Hell!!!

After college??

Goodness! This is like the most ubiquitous question I have come across in recent times. But I have to thank the question, for it has given me something to write about at a time when I was scraping the tank bottoms of my head for a topic.

I was talking to a very close friend of mine when the question popped up...literally from thin air. Why is there ever such a situation where what you look forward to, is probably having coffee ,maybe sometime later....and suddenly, you get interrogated about your future plans? Not my friend's fault for sure. Frankly speaking, the question scares a lot of things out of me, apart from the obvious. NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE, mind you!

I get crazy ideas about my future. At least a few. Actually a few too many.

Okay, suppose there is some XYZ that I intend to have as my job description, this is usually the response I get from the people whom I tell what I want to do.

People in general: "So what do you plan to do after college?"

Me: "I want to do XYZ."

People in general: "Oh! Yeah, XYZ sounds good. But what are you going to do earn a living??"

If you have seen this movie called 'Good Luck Chuck' (What the .... AHEM!!), there is this scene where Jessica Alba (Oh!! So now you're going to  watch the movie..huh??) says to the hero when he asks what her job is.. that she is supposed to be a Penguin Caretaker. The guy goes like "Okay, Seriously, what do you do for a living?"

Hmm... There is another classic question. This one is although for the 'corporate interviewers', it's a pretty nasty question.

"Where do you see yourself in a matter of 5 years?"

If I evvver get called for an interview....iffff.....evvvver.... now you see the probability.... So if I do get this mystical call, my response would look something like this....

"सर जी! Answer तोह मुझे पता है, पर मैं  नहीं बताऊंगा!"(Hey dude, I know the answer, but I won't tell you!)

Now you know why I won't get called in the first place. You see, these companies can see 4 years into the future. They want someone who can show them the future beyond the future they can see. Why not recruit fortune tellers? So they definitely saw me typing this(whoever 'they' are) and that small chance I had of getting called went out of the window about 4 minutes ago. Great!

Besides, the idea of getting 'selected' for something lost it's charm in my head. Yeah, it sounds like the 'grapes-too-high,must-be-sour' theory, but it might be that kick in the backside that might just send you sky-rocketing your way into finding/doing what you love doing the most.

See? A frustrating question actually made me write this much. I'm almost looking forward to the right kick. Not the 'Between-the-legs' kind... Definitely not..

No! No! Noooooooooo!!! AAAWW!! Mummaaaayyyyyy!!!

****

**** is a 4 letter word.(Duh!)

**** is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.

Having **** is obviously not a pleasant experience.

**** doesn't happen often in my case, but whenever it does, it's makes me feel pathetic throughout.

When you have ****, it's all you can think about. You can't really do much.

**** makes you feel weak.

The more you give it, the more **** spreads.

Almost all poets have had ****. It must have troubled them a lot during their work.

Even great warrior have grown weak due to ****.

You can never really rest when/if you have ****.

Why is **** so painful?

**** is everywhere, usually hidden in plain sight.

If you are not careful, EVEN YOU could catch ****!!

See?? It's that easy to get ****.

I genuinely hope that no one suffers ****.

This is the season of ****.

Don't celebrate it!! Take precautions. Use protection.........like handkerchiefs. Don't go around sneezing. Cover your mouth and nose while sneezing if it's that urgent. Wash your hands regularly! Don't eat outside. Protect your dear ones... By the way, if you still haven't figured out that **** = Cold, let me tell you this....

**** = Cold!!!

Airplanes

All of us know what Orville and Wilbur did. They leaped into the air. And it has been ...err...what? About 110 years since they left behind a legacy that enabled humanity to take flight into our skies and beyond.

I see the kid in dad every time an aircraft passes overhead. For about 8 years, we stayed very close to the airport. But for some reason, he never gets bored of a take-off, or a landing. He never misses it. Dadaji(Dad's Dad) was in the Air-force. Probably that's why.

The first thing my Dad taught me was to draw a car.  I have a feeling that he taught me to draw cars before addition. Hence my obsession for heaven on 4 wheels. But I want to tell you about something else. My first...and probably my only venture into the world of origami. Dad could make paper fly. He taught me to do the same. Just a few folds here and there...and we had, what was called a paper plane. Fancy! At least to a 3 year old. Maybe even to a 21 year old...

Yeah, making paper planes in the 3rd year of your Undergraduate program. Sounds silly. Is silly!  But each time your piece of folded paper lingers in flight, gliding it's way through air, every second my heart feels like a 3 year old. This is obviously apart from the fact that I feel, think and probably behave(not sure about this one) like a 3 year old.

Specially when a friend and you,both have made a plane each, and your's last longer/goes farther in flight, WOW!!! YESSS!!!!!! I might actually start jumping around!! Okay...maybe I won't jump around....

I even have a theory about the whole process of making a paper plane. It might sound a bit too obvious... but maintain symmetry. And how, after giving the world that piece of advice, I feel like an equivalent of the Wright brothers in every 'wright'. Yeah, just then, this dude knocks the door of my head. He's come to deliver a message, he says. When I ask him what's the message, He tells me, "Shut up!" Huh?? I ask him, why he's mad at me.  He says...."Err... Sir, No, I'm not mad at you..SHUT UP...That's your message."

I was like "Oh!..."

By the way, I forgot to mention how miserable I feel when my fierce competitor, who so ever it may be, has his plane going farther than mine. 

I can hear the knock on my door again. 

"I'm not opening this time!!!! Sucker!!!!"

Yeah!!! How we make fancy folds on the plane's wings, trying to make it more 'AERODYNAMIC', and how....somehow, the air takes the wind out of our theories of aerodynamics! You're laughing?(Hope so...) Okay, then you don't have a wind-tunnel at home....which is usually a good thing. At least, in that case, you wouldn't make fun of people making paper planes.

Right now, there's this song 'Airplanes', bu Hayley Williams. Brilliant song by the way! The lyrics go like..

If we could pretend that 

Airplanes in the night skies're like shooting stars,

I could use a wish right now....

I am not wishing for anything in particular, except for the usual things...I even got bored of wishing for them now, but who wouldn't care for a few granted wishes? From where I'm writing this, even if there's a shooting star falling, I wouldn't see any.... Clouds, I tell you. Hey wait! I could wish these clouds away... Maybe my paper planes come in handy!

Dealing in the dark

I was wandering into the dark night for my usual stroll. A few stray lamp posts passed me by occasionally. No humans. The trees spread their canopy on either side to make the road look like a tunnel of sorts. A man walked onto the road. He entered the road from an intersection in front of me. The moment he felt my presence, his steps quickened. He kept glancing sideways, to get the best view of my position. I did not bother hiding myself. Although I had matched the sound of my steps to his. Not my speed, just the sound. So all he heard was his own steps. There was a left turn right ahead. He took the turn, and I don't know why, he started running. Strange. I felt this tickling sensation.It almost made me laugh, sensing his anxiety.....His fear. 

I kept walking ahead. I know not why,but except for the omnipresent sound of the night, I didn't hear, nor feel any presence of anything. 

I came to this point... I was looking for it, without knowing that I was looking for it. It might sound fancy, but I had just reached a crossroad. I looked around. It struck me that every way I looked, felt the same, somehow suggesting that it did not matter which road I chose. 

I stood in the middle of the road. I was waiting. Waiting to make a deal.

The night, in spite of all it's darkness for some reason, felt peaceful. The fear I felt as a child, while walking out at night, the need to hold onto Dad's hand was.......... gone. Dark windows looked nothing more than empty spaces. The shadows kept to themselves. My riddance of my fears had led me to my ascension. Now I felt it.  Now,things were the other way round.

I waited at the crossroad, waiting for them to come. They never did. I felt my forehead, just to reinforce my convictions. The two were in place. I checked my hands. They were mine. The same mat-blood-red ones. 

I am no evil, as I have been accused of being in scriptures. As they say, people fear of what they don't understand.... 

As for tonight, they must have known. A deal was going to be expensive.

Re-viewing

It is the age of convenience. The human mind is almost incapable of dealing with the kind of onslaught that it is being subjected to. Too much noise, too much information to sort through, 10 lists of 'To-do's ',another 23 lists of 'What-not-to-do's ', maybe more. More time is likely to go in deciding and choosing between doings than actually doing anything. So what do we DO ??

Filter clutter.. Check how 'others' go about doing their thing....

Just for instance, everyone has this algorithm saved permanently- 

-Open the browser

-Type the movie's name(Probably the first two links are the Wikipedia page, then the IMDB rating link, then Rotten Tomatoes, in that order, )

-If--Rating on IMDB >7.5, Watch/download the movie

-Else,......Chuck it(Maybe doesn't even take that long to decide)

How easy. How straight forward! 

Now the underlying premise behind the whole thing is 'What is said by many, must be right.'

Normally, things go as per the premise. But there is an inherent flaw with the whole set-up.

a) Where does your judgement take you?

b)What if your way of thinking is extremely different from those, whose opinion may make you/keep you from watching/choosing something? here's something.... It is something that we have looked at, studied, rather, taken for granted. It is one of the most deceptive shapes in existence.

The bell curve. 

Too many trends, irrespective of their field of concern have been depicted by the above figure. There isn't a thing wrong with symmetry. As a matter of fact, things all around us are intrinsically symmetric. Probability and Statistics chapters extensively use this curve. But to quite examples straight out of mathematics doesn't sound too interesting now, does it?

Let's start with something we actually relate to. Brains. Look at human intelligence curve.

There's a more Literary example I'd like to quite a line from the movie Batman Begins...

"Every time  a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we(The League of Shadows) return to restore the balance."-Ra's Al Gul 

Yes, it is a fancy set of words put together in a single line, specially for the sake of 'theatricality'. But in this case, the graph of Decadence Of a Civilization v/s Time would probably look a lot like a recursive function printing the Bell curve. Phew! So much to keep the computer nerds happy!

Without digressing any further, the point intended to be conveyed probably drove itself home safely. In any trend, there will be two extremes/ fringes in case of the bell curve, and a central  peak-ish part. Now here's the deal. Things that we see, what we wear, what we do, almost every aspect of our life happens under this vague assumption of somehow fitting into that central space. There isn't anything wrong with it. But this part of the graph has been given unnecessary attention. Something like an over-hyped movie, or...maybe the iPhone.

Tried-and-tested prevail over the things that are actually new. Example again anyone? Mainstream and parallel cinema. We know what lies in the fringes. But how many step out of the 'mainstream'? When was the last time someone went to watch a movie when he/she felt like, without checking it's review in the papers or IMDB? Yes, there is the money factor. What if the movie turned out bull? 

Somehow, we rarely consider the "what if the movie turns out good?" part. In either case, one will have a story to tell. Once you check the reviews, where's your story? Rather, how is your own authentic view, without any prior bias, any different to the review? Besides, just in case it turns out good, how can you experience the elation of taking a risk and succeeding? Even in your own head, your voice will be part of the crowd. And in a crowd, you're not going to be heard. 

  

RISING

I'd been hanging on this rod. That's how I woke up. Hanging. I do not remember, for how long it was, that I had been that way. It was in the middle of nowhere.
The rod extended onto either side infinitely, or that's what I could make out of what I saw. And that's all I could see. My arms overhead, my hands gripping over the rod. How I ended up like that, ask me not, as I don't know either. I tried holding on as hard as I could. I had started to feel my arms losing grip.  I tried to pull myself up. Somehow, my arms were tired. Tired enough to be incapable of pulling me up. I guess, I had been hanging on for longer than I had estimated before.Meanwhile, the fingers kept peeling off the rod. I knew that my grip could give away any time now. So I tried pulling and tugging at the rod, as hard as I could with whatever strength I had remaining. No use. I was hanging by my fingers....now the tips of my fingers... Now I wasn't hanging anymore.

My heart skipped a beat. Then, it skipped a few more of them. I couldn't breathe for a moment or two. I think, that's how one feels during a fall. No control. No idea of what and where, up, down or anything was. A few seconds, a song popped into my head.  It goes like this..

Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
I don't know why this song, Gravity, by John Mayer, of all the songs I know, was playing in my head. It's blues! And I was falling. Yet it felt peaceful. Calm. Not a speck of violence inside. It was probably because I was already tired.
Suddenly, I hit water. HARD. Such a hit would have destroyed every cell inside me. Strangely enough, I held myself together miraculously. I saw how hard I had hit the water. It took the water a second to engulf me after I hit it. That HARD! While I was decelerating my way into the water, I looked up, or rather, the force of the water moving relative to me pushed my neck up. I got a glimpse of what had happened. The water that had splashed upwards form my impact, was yet to fall down. It was like a tunnel of air in the middle of water.

I kept going down. unlike the usual times, when your body stops somewhere and you begin to rise. The movement was slow, but it never stopped. I realized that I wasn't breathing. But even after realization struck me, I felt no desperation to suck in air. Holding my breath didn't seem difficult...
I closed my eyes.I felt the water all around me. It felt cool. But comforting.....like how it feels when you're in your mother's womb. Safe.Reviving.
My feet felt the touch of the ocean floor. It felt like soft sand on the beach. Just that it didn't have that sticky feeling. I felt the ground. Firm. The next thing I felt is something I  hadn't felt before. In words, I felt an energy that wanted to tear through me more forcefully than anything I can imagine.  It was something, I realized, that I had the ability,more so, a desperation to channel this feeling. So I gathered every ounce of whatever this was, and pushed down on the ground, as hard as I could.

The ground that had been solid, started to yield and crack beneath me. But by the time I realized this, my push had propelled me to the surface of the ocean. And my motion felt as if I had broken the surface with a sonic boom. I started feeling the wind hard on my face. But my speed kept on increasing. I wanted it to increase. Then, I felt the sun's heat. With every passing moment,everything looked brighter. It all turned white. Pure. Serine.
I broke free.

Ask. Shamelessly!

It is one of the things one feels reluctant to do. It is far too different a concept from begging. ASKING

Okay, to my lopsided brain, the word looks like a portmanteau of 'ass' and 'kissing'. Mayyybe not. No! No! No!.....Fine NO!

Yeah, back to asking. One asks by right. One begs out of helplessness. Sadly, the two concepts are being used interchangeably. Ask for a discount, you might just get one. It's not like you have to pay more for asking.. But somehow, we don't. Another example.. If there's someone you like, why not ask out? What happens? At max? You end up paying for one coffee instead of two! I know that kind of sucks, but not like you were drinking coffee for free before asking. Yes, although, the process of asking, this time, might give you a wet patch near your underarms on your shirt, if you are a guy, until of course, you have inherited that 'suave-demeanor' gene. All these sound like run-of-the-mill examples.

There are worst conditions. This one contends for unintended public service. One does something for a bunch of fellows in an emergency situation, obviously hoping that the fellows will have the decency to return your favor ASAP. But then when they don't,  the favor-doing party feels a kind of apprehension for asking back the favor. Live examples are all around,specially if you live in a hostel. Lend something, and the thing you rightfully called yours, remains yours no more.

Money! There's another problem. You spend 20 bucks on something to be distributed among 20 people. Someone implanted the stupid idea to take 20 from your own pocket for the purchase, and later, collect a buck each, from the crowd of 20. But the idea of collecting a buck from each one individually sounds cheap. So you don't ask. And no one gives the one buck they owe you. Woalah! You just lost 19 bucks, assuming you are one in the 20. 

Another one. Promise, last one!

Classic situation.A kid's sitting in class. (See? That classy)Very usual scene. All of a sudden, some words of the teacher bounce over the kid's head.. When the teacher asks,"Understood, everyone?" The kid...........nods his head. The idea of standing up and admitting his lack of understanding, due to the fear of being ridiculed, doesn't sound too appealing. 

These examples needn't be stated, for we know them a bit too well.

But then what do we call all this? STUPIDITY!!!! Whatever the amount, whatever be the commodity, whatever be the question, it's always worth a lot more to ask, I guess. Nothing to lose, at least that's for sure. If one's called shameless, after asking for what he/she wants, and gets what he/she wants, who gives a THING about shamelessness??