Variability

This is the exact sequence of events of an evening a few weeks back.

I was on board the college bus that plies to the city (of Hyderabad) every evening at around 5.00pm from my campus. I looked out of the window, it was getting dark and the wind was chilly. I tried to decipher the tiny print of the crossword puzzle that I was trying to solve only to realize I shouldn’t be straining my eyes any further. I folded the newspaper neatly and lied back for a much-deserved nap. I looked at my cell phone timer: it was 5.39pm.

I was fidgeting my cell phone when my eyes caught the time again. It was 6.39pm, exactly. I couldn’t believe the evening was turning into an almost disaster in just an hour’s time. By normal standards, I should have been in the city forty minutes back; but here I was, seated in my college bus stuck in a traffic jam in the least expected spot in the city. My mood was livid although I knew it was not helping the situation in any way. I tried to look around if I could find a way out of the traffic myself, by walking a few meters to-fro maybe. Feeling too restless and angry sitting there, I got down from the bus to fight the traffic on foot.

Something had happened to the auto-walas in the city that evening. I agree it was Bakrid and everyone was out celebrating in the hub of the city leaving Old City and the Charminar area quite deserted. But the auto-walas disagreeing to go towards Old City with the fear of returning empty sounded rather pretentious to me. I had finally managed to find an auto for half the distance and was now wading through the other half of the distance in another shared-auto. I was to meet some family friends in the city. With the anticipation that this ordeal would finally get over, I took out my cell phone and informed that I would be arriving shortly.

Time flies quickly right when you least expect it, worse when you don’t want it to. The time spent at our family friend’s was great. I got to see all the wedding-shopping (which I had hoped to be a part of when I started from my college) – gold jewelry, junk jewelry, and lot many beautiful sarees. I gorged on a few Besan ke Laddus as we chatted, and got a packet full of bakery biscuits for myself to carry back. And although, I couldn’t wait for dinner, I was feeling happy now. I had done what I had come to do. As I was hurrying up to leave, I checked on my cell phone again for the time. It was 8.39pm on the dot!

I reached Punjagutta after another auto-ordeal. There were about fifteen minutes for my college bus to leave for campus. I was feeling hungry now. Thinking of Plain Maggi at Bingers, I calmed my growling stomach. I bought a few magazines to empty my wallet of some heavy notes. Right outside the book store, I spotted Nishant near the crossing. Felt glad I had found some company for my journey back, I was already too weary of the traffic in the city. Upon listening to my entire tale of the evening, his only reaction was to move in quick steps towards a small fast-food joint and get me an egg-roll! It was 9.39pm, he claimed he had 6 whole leisure minutes to get the roll and get back. Quite pleasantly surprised and a bit worried for his hurriedness, I walked towards the area where our buses were lined up…

Human emotions make for an interesting observation. I recalled all my own emotions and varying moods at those hourly intervals late that night. They formed an entire spectrum. And I, was left smiling at the ceiling.

Hope

The leaf lay there
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of a window sill.


Parched,
It swallowed hard
The stillness;
Stillness of air
Of silence
Of motion
Of Life.

The leaf lay there
Crouched,
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of the window, now sealed.

The Debutantes

It was my first year of engineering at BITS. Shruti and I were sitting in my room reflecting and fiddling with a pen and paper. We had a few classes that we very conveniently gussed to enjoy the part-winter part-summer afternoon gorging on Lays potato chips and a few five-stars, chatting about how much our lives had changed since we stepped into this isolated yet truly magical town of Pilani.

The exciting topic of our discussion those days was this new Poetry Club that two of our friends were very keen on starting on campus - with the mission of - "bringing all poetry lovers under one roof"! Enthused that we definitely were every time we talked about it, that day, we both would clearly remember, also unleashed our innocent creativity out of us, as we laughed and penned together this 'cute' and absolutely close-to-heart poem. Dedicated to both of us, from the both of us.

Dated: Sometime in Feb, 2004.

The Sky and The Ocean

The sky and the ocean
Share much more than just friendly affection,
Each being other’s reflection
Complemented one another with utmost perfection.

At the horizon when they meet
Their beauty makes hearts skip a beat,
The ardent line of smile they spread around
Leaves everyone spellbound.

Every cloud in the sky
The ocean appraises,
Every wave in the ocean
The sky apprises.

What lies beneath the ocean and above the sky
Deep secrets they share and light moments that fly by,
What makes them laugh, what makes them cry
No one knows, though many try.

And they share a love so eternal
Which is beyond praises so lexical,
They fill everyone’s life with glee
Oh! yes dear, it’s you and me!

Well, what we did after writing this was even more childish! We cycled out of our hostel to show "our" poem to a poet-friend and garner his compliments. His smile said it all, and we beamed with joy! Later that evening we rushed to others too with the poem in our hands like kids running with their pastel-sketches or first paper-planes! Gosh, we really did that, didn't we!

It marked the beginning of something new - a new feeling, a new outlet to emotions, a new perspective, and a new perception of each other. It still brings back fond memories of our 'young' days when all that really mattered was to have extended lunch hours in the mess till the mess-bhaiyas asked us, politely enough, to leave; to cycle around the campus touching every single road; to control that irresistible-talking-phenomenon the night before a test; to sit under our tree till wee hours chatting; to misplacing cycles in Meera Bhawan for the greater good. And ahh, so many more! Kiddish that we really were back then, it nevertheless gave us the adrenaline to go crazy and keep that crazy side of ours alive even now!

Conversations

Some conversations leave you with thoughts haywire. It happens once in a while; perhaps when you least expect it and yet by the end of it, along with the feeling of being befuddled suddenly you also have a longing to get back and finish the unfinished business. Say what hadn’t been said. Listen to the missing parts. Understand what you couldn’t. And, come out of the conversation crystal clear.

These conversations blow the winds of change. These are also the conversations that as you try to reflect on, present to you some interesting insights into life around us. Listening to a conversation, I personally think, is one of the most enriching experiences one can have. Not just any conversation, but especially these conversations. I remember a dear friend of mine had written a blog post mentioning a ‘dangling conversation’ (famous song of SnG). And, dangling as these maybe, such conversations make sense only with a passage of time.

Three of us found ourselves entangled (fine! engaged… okay?) in the dangling conversations; perhaps trying to connect the dots by looking back. Some dots did join, some others couldn’t. It almost seemed impossible to get some dots onto the same plane – but then that’s Life. You hardly expect it to be the way it is now. I am not saying we remain unsatisfied always. But, there is always a greener picture in our minds, and we find ourselves blaming our limitations for it. I remember reading in a book, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.” So true!

As the night unfolded in front of the three of us, we became more aware of each other’s resistances, of each other’s helplessness towards reasons – the want of it, the absence of it and the want for the absence of it, of each other’s perceptions and perspectives. As the end neared, each one of us imagined the conversation beautiful, just and perfect; yet as we walked away from each other, the feeling that the conversation in itself was quite a bit better than what we made out of it lingered on.

The fact remains, though, that the conversation is etched in our memories, and nothing that we do affects the conversation – its emotion, its irregularities and its comprehension. One could raise a question on our ability to choose to change our minds and hence choose different futures (interpretations) from a different past (experiences), the grander idea here though is to drive home the point that each experience in itself is a creation of life in its fuller meaning, and not a mere discovery.

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The light beckoned her
It had always beckoned her


Today she walked into it
She walked a path laden with leaves
Dark black leaves,
And some broken twigs
Cold-withered or maybe just old
So they said, she thought


But she knew not what was thought
She knew not what was cold
She knew not what was old;
She simply walked
With her hands folded
And crossed around her


She walked towards the light
She walked with dusty feet
Crushing the leaves
Breaking he twigs
One by one
Or too many at once


She heard the voice again
The noise again
It was piercing into her mind
Like oars dipping deep into the waters
She ignored it wilfully, and walked on
On the path towards her light


And now, it was all around her
The light of darkness
The light of blackness
She swallowed it with grace
The light swallowed her
And left no trace

Where Her Heart Lies

‘A girl all of fifteen,
So genial and genteel…’ – was how someone described her once upon a time. 

Perhaps she was much younger than 15 then. Recently, I chanced upon her scribbles in my ol’ diary. There was a note attached to it; it said, ‘A Delightful Imagery from a Charming Mind!’

It took me down the memory lane; and with a smile I thought I would share it with my readers. 
From the memoirs of a bright young girl: 

“I feel like talking about my boathouse in the Kerala backwaters and... how I sit at the edge of the boathouse, and cause ripples in the water with my fingers. I see my reflection in it. And I smile. 

I watch the frogs jump in and out.
I hear them croak. And croak back at them.

I feel like talking of the mountain river… Or of the grasslands.

Or of that banyan tree where my swing takes me higher and higher... and when I get tired of swinging, I gobble down all the colourful toffees one by one sitting under the shade.

Or of lying flat on a small boat swaying slowly over the Hooghly and I look at the Howrah bridge shimmering as the first rays of the day fall over it...

Or of that beach where I hop from one spot to another, on warm sands, in cool waters...and I collect sea shells and put them in my kangaroo pocket...

Or of sitting among the cows with my grandfather in my village and milking the cows...smelling that raw milk...and gulping a cup when he is not watching!

Or of walking across the paddy fields barefoot and reaching over to that giant pump at the corner under the shade of that giant tree... peep into the well beside it...and throw pebbles into it one by one!

Or of that hand-pump at my grandma’s old house... which I try hard to pump... and chuckle away at myself for failing at it every time I try my hand at it

Or of top of that hill from where I could see only white all around... not a sound, and I sit facing the sun feeling its warmth seeping into me

Or of walking across that forest, picking up small wild flowers... those bunches of yellow and pink ones you know...

Or of simply leaning against that tall tree over there and play hide and seek with the sun...

Or of sitting under that big shady tree on that side, and watch the ants pass by slowly, carrying their food on their small backs…then, I poke them in their stomach...and giggle away as they lose their balance and stare back at me with their beady eyes

Or of sitting crouched on that bench in the park... with cool breeze blowing across... of how I blow away the soap bubbles, with some of them popping out right on my nose.
And then of walking along...and meeting this big elephant. Of how he takes me on a ride through the jungle. Of how I eat all his bananas away and giggle away.

Or of walking across that old street licking my ice-cream... and looking at the balloons flying up and up and up…

Or of running across the open grounds with my hands out stretched…till I am out of my breath and then when I am out of my breath... I lie down on the field...close my eyes and laugh.

Or of rolling over the soft green grass... the grass touching my nape, tickling me... and I smile looking at the clouds above...

I feel like talking of all that, of all my dreams… and much more.
With you.”

Life’s Little Rides

There comes a stage in everybody’s life when the going gets hmmm… well, let us analyze.

This is a stage that you begin with intense Expectations and high Hopes. This is a stage when you have already decided that you are going to put in great efforts to bring out best possible results. You think your life ahead depends on this phase; this can either make it or break it! You are full of enthusiasm and vigor to face obstacles, to overcome challenges. Optimism vibrates within.

And then, you enter.

You begin to settle down. Meanwhile, you also look around to find certain gray areas that you had not thought of in the colorful picture you had drawn with yourself in the centre of it all. You say to yourself, ‘…that is ok. I can manage. After all, I have come here only to learn…’. You beam at your confidence. You feel things are only going to get better from here on. And no matter what, you are never going to lose that positive vibration inside you.

Here, after this part, two things can happen.

First one. You fall into the trap. You become a Dog. You are made to run around the whole time that you almost find it impossible to take even a day’s break and wash your clothes. You hear yourself many-a-time tell your friends/family on phone, ‘Too much work… can’t make it. Sorry!’ You slowly begin to hate the place; hate your desk and hate the very idea of doing this for the meager amount that you get paid at the end of every month. You start realizing of how golden those days were when all that you had to do at night for a quick dinner was say, ‘Chal bey, C’not chaltey hain…’ or how much you miss Bingers’ coffees when your stomach growls at 2.30am!

Second one. You are completely ‘blown away’ by the sudden luxury of living Life King’s size. It is an All Play No Work period of your life. Nobody seems to give a care about who you are, what you are, where you come from, where you go and the types… Nobody wants to know anything about you. You are completely on your own. Your so-called colleagues at your workplace find you amusing. Your so-called Boss looks at you in a way you cannot decipher. You wonder, whether he/she thinks you are a kid and so know nothing and so he/she doesn’t bother much with you… or he/she thinks you are fit-for-nothing, only a liability and so he/she doesn’t bother much with you. Either case, the outcome is the same. So you stop wondering. You realize the power of your new-found freedom. You have all the time in the world – to explore, to travel, to have Fun (something you’ve always wanted to but postponed it to a later date!). You call up your friends often, but hear them say, ‘Too much work… not this weekend. Sorry!’ But that doesn’t stop you from enjoying the bliss of nothingness! Well, only momentarily. And then, you start to get bored. You hate the idleness. You often find yourself appreciating the arduous assignments and demanding deadlines you had back in those golden times. You felt important there, among your friends and professors. It was your world. You feel you truly belonged there.

And you know what this part is called? This part, a small but quite a significant part where all the above happens… this part of your life is called “Internship”.

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Beady eyes

Blink at those pink petals

Maybe looking for life

A thorny smile returns.

Yellow leaves, parched maybe

just like the eyes,

Turn away slowly.

Facing the sun

The eyes hold that one-sided conversation

In that sound of silence

Restless silence.

Sun drowned

Conversation broke

Words killed

Petals fell

Eyes closed

Silence remained

That restless silence

From Buzz to Ping

Call it a new trend or simply another outlet for emotions – one cannot ignore the Gtalk status messages these days! Every time I sign in, I cannot help noticing all the status messages put up there; almost glaring at me to place my cursor there and read it. Most of them help me understand the state of affairs at that end and almost convince me whether I want to initiate a chat! Some of them are funny to the point of arousing curiosity and so I end up ‘pinging’ to find out! I must admit though, that there are a couple of people on my list whose status messages I look forward to. Not only are they interesting, but also display something that’s new; latest; and probably helpful/useful.

I find the inbuilt status options in Gtalk confusing. Don’t you? A green button with “Available” should ideally tell you the person is free to chat now, but more often than not, people with green buttons are busier than most others on the list. And then, you have the red button with “Busy” as the message… and if you have noticed, these are the people who usually have all the time in the world to chat, voice chat, video chat and what not! Finally, comes the most confusing of them all. Orange button with “Idle”! People with this message hardly ever reply, and you thought they were sitting idle at the other end… What an irony! Only Google can throw such a googly and yet face no brickbats ;)
Oh and the recent one of them all… the Invisible with a grey offline-r button. I actually like this one, brings out the mischievous self you see. Well, it also reminds me of our old companion – the Yahoo messenger! Wonder how many use it now. I miss the numerous smileys and the Audibles of Yahoo. Gtalk, obviously, looks more polished that way and is good for using messengers in office premises – less noise and mischief I guess. I remember reading in a research article that the most important reason behind Yahoo messenger losing its popularity to Google talk was its colour/appearance. According to the findings, apparently, the colour blue is more soothing to the eyes of the user than the cream-ish yellow… and so, the bluish Gtalk (and Gmail) chat windows got in more hours of usage, better acceptability and thus more popularity!

Strangely, in our world Colours have always made a lot of difference everywhere… don’t you agree?

Tryst with Cops and our Night-Trek

It was 1:48am on Sunday morning. We had just reached the foothills of Skandhagiri. This was where the night trek was supposed to begin! We had a huge preparation behind this trek. From warm clothes, to trekking shoes, to water reserves, to food items to munch on, to cameras to carrying loads of energy and lots of enthusiasm to go up the hill on a clear Spring night. With cars zooming past us and the brightly lit Airport Road, the drive on our way to Skandhagiri on the B’lore-Hyderabad highway was no less exciting! Only that the excitement came to sudden halt when we reached the foothills.

There were several Policemen standing by the jeeps, carrying a stern look and that of suspicion on every vehicle that stopped by. They had some bikers stand in a line; had the pundit of the temple nearby with them too. They seemed to be threatening him and if put in softer words, rebuking him for some reason. As we stopped there, one of the Policemen approached us and peeped inside the vehicle. He looked rather cross with us from the very moment he set his eyes on us. Wonder why all Cops are Angry Men all the time!
Well, we slowly came out of our Qualis. And within moments, the two Cops came to our driver and started asking him to turn around the car and take us back! All this in Kannada, but you need no language to show or understand anger and rudeness… As they hit the roads with their “laathis”, we figured we were in no mood or foolishness to mess with the Cops there!

As we turned around Raghu immediately suggested we go up the Nandi Hills. Sounded like the perfect alternative to all of us. But the only problem was it was just too near and the main gates to go onto the top of the hill opened only at six!

Eight friends, sitting in a Qualis, some sleepy, some singing, have nearly four hours to spend in the darkness of nowhere…
Seemed just perfect!

To kill time, we stopped by at a kutti tea stall on the highway at around 2.30am. There were trucks surrounding us from almost all directions… our Driver was more interested in the tea than us, but slowly as the sleepy ones decided to get out of their slumbers we did get in a few cups as well. In all the strangeness, the only thing that interested Minakshi was the small TV screen strategically positioned in the tea stall playing apparently a Telugu movie – which she was rather excited to translate for us, only if she could lay her ears on it! Oh btw, I should tell you, she is one bong I know who can speak Telugu quite well.

After comfortably killing about half an hour there, just sipping over tea and trying to figure where the grapes were that KD brought with him; we headed for the Nandi Hills, at an unbelievably slow speed of about 25-30kmph covering a distance of just about 40kms! The only advantage of having driven so slow was the countless number of songs that were sung and played and enjoyed through the drive. One after the other, Raghu-the-DJ had to succumb to pressure of backseaters and give in to some of the most wonderful songs that Bollywood has produced in the recent times. We sang along and drove along our way!

Half way up the Hills, we halted to make some fire, enjoy some time star-gazing, playing catch-the-torch-light, listening to Amit sing some very profound songs… of course eating and clicking every now and then.
We talked about poetry, and philosophy – the understanding and not understanding of these two forms of writing, we talked about BITSian astronomy workshops, we relived the golden days of being seniors on campus and gained the age-old sadistic pleasure out of ragging the only junior among us – and she was a sport all through!

As the stars started to disappear, we took the final lap to the top, bought tickets and started the so-called night trek that we were supposed to have been doing only at 6am in the morning! And boy, was it not fun!
Of course it was. It was the company that mattered; and the versatility and randomness of our group made all the difference. Made the night more magical than we could have ever imagined!

Once at the top and a round of clicking was over, slowly for a while, all of us delved deeper into the silence that spelled around us. The vastness of nature, its beauty and its wonder – enveloped us with heavy winds blowing all over making us feel as if we could be flown away any moment. Into the open skies towards newer horizons.

The golden rays and cloudy streaks on a blue sky filled the heart with joy;
While the naughty monkeys ran all around quick and coy.

Something Apsara would surely agree with!

On our way down, we finally found the KD’s grapes and devoured on them. As we reached Blore, the frequent sudden breaks owing to city’s Sunday traffic woke me up to reality… and as the Qualis slowly started to get empty, our little adventure trip came to a close.

Oh btw, if you are wondering about the Cops and what happened with them… well, our small encounter ended right there. Thanks to Hindi movies! And we never found out what murder mystery they were after… I hope at least they did.  

the Minakshi's - in the making!

It was a sunny afternoon in B’lore; and we were going to Marathali in a noise-making auto with hot winds blowing all over our faces. Sonali and I had already got late for our luncheon invitation. At Minakshi’s place. Thanks to our “lachha” sessions running late into the night, we both were running late now! As per the plan, we had decided to help Minakshi (Minu as lovingly called by some of her friends) with the menu and then the cooking; but that wasn’t to be.

The menu was simple but if one considered the guests invited that day, the menu was nothing short that of a lavish lunch I say! It included: Matar Paneer, JackFruit Curry, Palak Dal, Rice, Pickle, and Curd.

For a 23year old, who has recently started to cook, this was no mean task! Cooking for 8 of us; most of them being in BITSian words “hoggers” – these are the types who don’t eat food; they hog!, Minakshi had indeed taken a tough challenge on herself on an otherwise cool and lazy Saturday afternoon.

And what a delight the lunch was. I have not enjoyed a better meal than that in a long time; It had the flavor of all worlds – be it Bengali, be it Continental, be it South Indian, Minu had done it all! Every dish tasted so perfect to its cuisine that we couldn’t have had a better Milan.

Kudos to you Minakshi! And btw, I see a bright future of a restaurant as a side-business for you; I’m sure you would know quite a number of MBA’s by then to help you open one… And am sure you would remember this post better too! ;) How about simply putting it as “The Minakshi’s”.

Tours

I dint know where this tour was heading when I started it and that was really exciting. 

Sitting in the train, reading a magazine called Jade which I have never read before, munching on Good Day biscuits and looking at the door of the AC II tier compartment every now and then to check who’s going to be occupying the berth next to me… well, the uncertainty of it all was indeed exciting! 

That to me is the greatest high when I start on something; that I don’t know whether it’s going to be good, or is it going to be bad. I know I will be sad if it isn’t good, and I will feel very happy if it is good.  Yet, it gives me a high. And the second thing you know when you start off anything is the knowledge that it’s going to end, either ways. Nothing in Life is permanent. Tours included. This is 100% a Lifetime on its own; it has a beginning and it has an end. And if it is good, strangely the ending will be sad. And that’s the strangeness of Life; of everything we do. We never want the party to end; well, it is lucky now that we have everything captured on cameras and videos in a certain way…

In that hustle-bustle, if somebody stops you for a moment, giving you an opportunity to capture that moment in itself; and asks you by poking you at your back, “How does it feel?” All that comes to your mind to say is, “Right now, very tired!”

It is like those days when you lose yourself entirely, impatiently, yet completely be with yourself patiently encompassing the moments as a whole within. 

I don’t know how to word it, but it’s a very strange experience. It is like… the continuous noise of “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” and then of nothingness “              `”; again, “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” and “             `”... then it dawns upon you that both of them are you. Even the “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa” is you, and the “            `” silence is you. With that I reflect upon this one week that went past as I toured the beautiful city of B’lore, and I realize so many things in my life are attached to that reflection of just this one week. I return from these tours knowing that there are a lot of people who love me; I come back from these tours knowing that I love a lot of people, and I shall always do so. But I also go and come back from these tours realizing that I do love me also. And, I get an opportunity to turn around, look at myself and say that to myself. Something that each one of us should be doing more often I say!

I mean both the Tours and the saying that to yourself part! :) 

Hmm...

Heart weaves the thoughts

Mind delves into the mysteries

Hands do the magic

Eyes play the game

Feet tread the path

Lips lament

...

Its the fingertips that really love!

Visits

Friends’ visits are always like a fresh breath of cool early-morning breeze. They arrive, with bags full of energy, enthusiasm, (and gifts if they remember to); life changes for those couple of days, it is loaded with all sorts of activities – sight-seeing, roaming on the streets aimlessly yet consumed in talking about ambitions and future, eating, laughing and most importantly, feeling happy!

Even God loves it when friends meet up. You want to know why? Well, Hyderabad weather hardly rocks, but last weekend, as one of my BITSian friends planned a sudden trip to the city, God made the blues of Hyderabad heat vanish altogether and we couldn’t have asked for more.

Two days and the Threesome. There was not a road left un-touched. From Old City to the modern one, the two city-dwellers among the three of us covered every nook-and-corner of the city so that this friend gets to feel the true air of Hyderabad!
Three spots we visited are worth a special mention here for three different reasons. One was Charminar, second was VengalaRao Park, and the third one was the Barista coffee shop.

Every tourist to Hyderabad has Charminar on top of the list of places-to-visit. It wasn’t so on my friend’s list (he had no list actually!) but once there standing in front of the monument, he couldn’t resist going up. Although the climb is not much of a delight, the circular steps of Charminar remind you of two things – one, the fact that you are entering ancient history; second, you think of how easy it was for Harry Potter to go up such a staircase when going to professor Dumbledore’s office, that you wish it magically started to rotate!
Once up on Charminar, you can get a microscopic view of how huge our population is. People sprawling all around the monument, it seems and feels as if the monument is adjusting itself between the swarm of people, somehow balancing itself amidst all chaos. And in that chaos, there are the lives of hundreds of people – some praying in the mosque on the left, some stopping by the small vendors to buy balloons bags or bangles, some auto-wallahs looking for a customer, some kids playing on the sides of the roads, some fruit vendors… And that is not chaos for them! That is Life, and everyone there, here, everywhere survives on a balancing act!

VengalaRao Park is a city park developed by the GHMC (in the Naidu times), that stands near the Nagarjuna Circle on the road towards City Centre Mall. It has an extremely beautiful and placid landscape, adding to the scenery is a small pond in the middle. The green lawns sprawl all around it, with many ‘comfy’ spots for couples on one side, and a playground full of swings and slides for children on the other! We reached this park late afternoon on Sunday after a tiring climb at the Golconda fort. And for the most part of the time that we spent there, we slept. There was so much beauty all around, yet all that we did was sleep. And, we couldn’t have enjoyed the place better. Facing the overcast sky, with dreams on eyelids and serene breeze blowing on the face – all that one can do is Sleep! So we did!

Barista was our stop in the evening. This was my first visit to Barista – THE coffee shop! My brother later congratulated me on achieving the feat; he is 16 and has been there more than he should. What I liked the most about this coffee shop was the game of Scrabble they provided to customers! It delighted me totally J Of course, I did enjoy the coffee, oops, Cappuccino as they say, Cookies dipped in Cream and Chocolate syrups and obviously the Conversations. The coffee shop does come across as a simple and Costly affair, but for those who love chocolates as much as I do, the Dark Temptation is a must-try, although the Strawberry Delight looked equally delicious for a summer-evening snack!
Apart from the eating, licking and drinking there, we realized how meticulous we were at filling up the Feedback forms, how strangely what seemed to be there was actually not there, how when it came to chocolates and syrups we lost all etiquette, how miserly we were at paying compliments, how girls attach more emotion to detail than boys ever imagine to, how distracting a cricket match can be, how interesting coincidences in life are… and much more. After all, life is all about realizations!

Two days, the Threesome and it was Terrific!

Visits are always too short than they seem to be. But, KD – thanks for making the weekend so full of fun and laughter! (And perhaps, gear up the longer weekend trip that’s coming ahead.) 

Jumble Word, Crossword and Much More

This is a long standing tradition at home, to start the day with a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, a mug of Bournvita and perhaps another mug of Complan, coupled with solving puzzles that spread across the everyday newspaper. You must be wondering why all the four together! Well, that’s in order of the beverages each one of us has in the morning as we say, ‘Suprabhatamu’ at home. Pa, Ma, Bro, and Me.

To describe it from the mind of a management student, here’s a brief:

Venue:- the Dining Table
Time:- around 7am. Of course, my timings are a bit more flexible.
Inventory:- Pens and pencils, Newspaper. Preferrably Telegraph.
Activity:- Solve Jumble Words, Crossword next; and not get up from the table till you think you have exhausted all the resources that you can lay your hands on to help you solve that entire crossword.
Resources include:- Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus, the Encyclopedia, Manorama. And of course, the four bright brains!

We are like four arrows pointing at the four different, mostly opposite directions, thereby having contradictory but mostly complementary viewpoints in Life. If one points due North, there will definitely be someone pointing due South. With the rest two of us, pointing at East and West – sometimes apprehensive of taking either of the two others, or sometimes because of plain boredom! So, we do not spare even the beverages.

But this is what adds spice to our lives. And no wonder, we have had such wonderful conversations on the dining table during our meals. Be it about Indian Politics, about Cars’ engines, about exams and entrances, about Philosophy or simply about the routines of the day. The discussions are innumerable; and inevitable! And yes, like all Roads lead to Rome; all Conversations finally lead to Cinema. That is a characteristic feature of our talks over the table.

But the morning-gathering is definitely a tad different. It begins and ends with a play of words, and only words! The Telegraph was our favorite for a really long time. As my father’s visits to the capital city increased, we began to have a new addition to our game of words. The Daily in Delhi called Mail Today carries a supplement, Coffee Break, which includes countless puzzles – Sudoku of varied types and difficulty levels, Kakuro, Codeword, Cryptic Crossword, Daily Jumble, Word Wheel, Navigati, Minute Maze – with Cryptic Crossword having picked up maximum popularity at our table. The time spent over this is a mixture of emotions – with Pa feeling proud at every word correctly solved by kids Bro and Me, or Pa trying to (still) woo Ma with his wits! In one word – it is an absolute delight. To watch, to solve, to share, and to learn! And am grateful to my Pa for stimulating our minds from such a young age to spend time over Page 8 than o’er Page 3!

 

P.S. Yes, I am still a Complan Girl! :) 

P.P.S Do get your online copy of Coffee Break if you are into Puzzles.

Nine's and Three's

Exams are always a help I say! These hours spent in the loneliness of an examination hall where one cannot talk to even the dearest of enemies and have to spend the entire stretch of unending tick-tock with painstaking concentration on wholly one’s self, can sometimes reveal the funniest of facts – of course, only to the self – and bang the head with the brightest of ideas too!

Well yes, exams are the place for absurdities too! You don’t know why something happens the way it does when in an examination hall. For example, how a bright 16year old sitting through the mathematics paper of the CBSE class 10 boards could not simplify ‘square root of nine’ as three; ahem, + or – 3 as always corrected by my father; is something even beyond his own comprehension. Thereby, he reduces the quadratic equation to a step from where it could have actually been reduced further – yet the 16year old feels completely at peace and perhaps proud too that he did it All alright!

It reminds me of the scene from Taare Zameen Par where the little Ishaan travels in his space craft to Join ‘planet’ 3 with ‘planet’ 9 as an answer to the problem of adding 3 to 9. This has been picked up straight from one of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, which were brought to my notice by a friend – who instead of generating Sales for his company in the crucial month of the last quarter, was actually busy laughing over Calvin and Hobbes sitting on the 19^th floor of his office building overlooking computer-wallpaperish scenery of the Pacific bay, sipping on coffee and munching on cookies! Well, he claims he passed one big exam of his life – the IIT JEE, and whatever has followed till date has been the fruit of passing that one exam.

Ahh… so like I said, exams do help! :)  

She

All on a summer’s day
She walked out
Into the sun;
Hat on her head
Sparkling shoes on a stroll;
She knew no walls
No tricks, no play
Out she was, on a 
Rhythm with a pretty gait.
Trees bent down and
Greeted her; she kissed
their leaves,
Hugged the cool breeze; and quietly
Blushed at her flowers.
Tip-a-Tap Tip-Tap
She hummed a tune
With her hands at a clap.
Sun shone at her bright
She walked on
Without a hesitation in sight
For she knew;
And smiled with glee,
Time had come for her to Be.

Bell

On the slab of the window 
She sat and watched the sun go
The sky changed colours
From blue to hues of pink and yellow

The wind touched her bright face;
Her only companion at the window
Moved gently,
And played music with grace

On the green grasses of Sky
They sat; watched the sun come by
It added new colours 
And took away the gray

The wind was with her today
And her old companion
Was moved over, gently
To the wind where his music lay

Of Mails, Kiddo and Blogs

Inspirations. We all have our Inspirations. I have a few of them in my life. People and Moments. They have helped me shape my life the way it is now, and I am grateful to them for it.

The one Inspiration that needs a mention here is a dear friend of mine; was a senior at engineering college and is popularly known as Banjo to most. For me, for a long time this person was the most delightful writer – writing what, was and still is a personal choice – in my life! Words that always stuck the right chord; Notes that tuned in the right music – and I knew the very first time he wrote to me that I had got myself a friend who wouldn’t stop throwing Gyaan at me.

Now, as I sit here in front of my laptop and begin to draft out the first post of my blog, I realize I cannot start blogging ‘officially’ unless I confirm my gratitude to this man who made me believe and made me feel that I belonged; and inspired me to make my own story. It is to him that I dedicate this post to, and earnestly thank him for stirring the emotion in me to paint this canvas with my dreams!

Here’s to you Madhurjya!

[ And, I am sorry about the plagiarism, but there was absolutely nothing better than this one! Also, maybe I have got too used to seeing blogs only this way ;) ]