Triggering memories, blasts and more

08:00 hours

Tuesday morning was as calm as ever. Nothing out of the ordinary. After a hasty breakfast and a ten minute car ride, we found ourselves at a workplace that was slowly shaking off the Monday blues. People were still stirring themselves out of a lazy late summer morning. The routine was setting in.

09:00 hours

Full office. Not that it mattered, we were only about twenty. Work in full flow. There was some restlessness in the cubicle next to mine. I peered in and Sheriff was digging his nose deeper into CNN.com. A blast in New york? Confirmed reports? "No, not a blast, its an airline crash right in the middle of the city." If that didn't shake up the rest of us, the next piece of news did. "It is a suspected terrorist attack on the WTC..." What unfolded in the next few minutes will remain in memory for ever, although right from that minute till now, I have a strange feeling of detachment towards the whole thing. Two crashes and there was no TV to follow the news. We piled into a car and drove off to my friend's place. And most of the time, no one spoke. The newsman's voice resounded in the apartment.

10:00 hours

We drove home, me and my roomie. Mom was home alone. Ofcourse, she was blissful in her own world, having heard or seen nothing about the incidents on TV. We broke the news, called home to assure all is well. Enquired about friends and made sure they were not in the vicinity. There was confusion all around and we decided not to venture out in any case.

The rest of the day, and the next couple of days, were spent in relative silence. Still recovering from the news. A strange eerie silence loomed at the workplace. No one payed Foosball. No lunch room discussions. Then things slowly got back to normal.

15:00 hours, 7 years later.
Last year, I was in Hyderabad. Blasts ripped through a crowded chaat place and a park. Terrorism was showing its global presence. Yet again, what followed was very similar to what happened on 11th September 2001.

And today nothing was different. Bangalore was rocked by serial blasts. First reports came over phone. Then the Internet. Two blasts. No it was three according to someone else. The count slowly went up to seven. Blasts in the heart of the city. In areas where I was roaming around a day or two ago. One right next to where I was put up temporarily. People caught in two minds. "Should I go home?" many were still asking as I wrote this. Whats a safe route? Which way to go? Where were the blasts? Are friends alright? Moms calling their children, however grown up they were. Friends checking on friends. Disturbed minds were loitering around the corridors not knowing what to do next. Will there be more? Hope not! Then as the minutes ticked, people slipped out of office. The same eerie silence descended once again.

15:30 hours
The sun is already going down. There is a cloud cover, not just over the city, but in the hearts of its dwellers as well... what next?

Why is it?

Why is it that I cherish every moment?
Why is it that I yearn for more and more?
Why is it that I lost out on all that today?
Why is it that I wish today didnt happen?
Why is it that I fail to understand?
Why is it that I am never understood?
Why is it that I despair at this hour?
Why is it that I dont like this very minute?
Why is it that I dont want time to run?
Why is it that I also want time to gallop?
Why is it that I suffer in silence?
Why is it that I want to let it out?
Why is it that I am at work at this hour?
Why is it that I dont want to go home?
Why is it that I fear tommorow?
Why is it that I wish tommorow comes today?
Why is it that I bring my walls up?
Why is it that I dont want to let the walls down?
Why is it that I want to be stubborn this time?
Why is it that I also want to flex limits?
Why is it that I wait for the weekend?
Why is it that I wish I didnt have to wait for the weekend?
Why is it that I think today could have been better?
Why is it that I am glad it wasnt worse?
Why is it that I know exactly what I want?
Why is it that I have no clue what I really want?
Why is it? just why is it?

waqt...

Bolte hai ki baat jab muhse nikalti hai, woh kamaan se nikle hue teer ke samaan hothi hai.
Teer ke ghaav aur baton se hue ghaav ko bhara ja saktha hai...
Lekin aaj jo waqt ghava diya, use kaun louta saktha hai?! Can you?

Here I come!

"I know I have turned a corner in my life. My life will never be the same again."

Different readers can derive different meanings from that sentence. Some might think I am referring to a new job I landed some weeks ago. Some might think I am talking about my move to a city which I always thought was my place to be for at least the next few years. For some, it would mean this past birthday, where the number that represents my age was somewhat significant, at least in their eyes. For some, it would mean my new bike, which I am sure will soon be nothing short of an extension of my actual self. And yet for some others, it would mean something else. For me though, it means everything anyone can ever imagine and a bit more.

And to think that its all just a week away does make it an exhilarating time. And to think that the days spent in anticipation are growing shorter than longer is good news. And to think the week will actually be shorter than a week (wink wink!), means the moment has finally arrived...

Life! Here I come!

Ode to spring...

The first born from nature's womb, beauty personifies thine name;
The epitome of love and sweet fragrant youth, thou, for ever, shall rule my heart.

Born with thou are thy colours, once forgotten, lost in the white;
That new born green ever so shy, thy only envy? That blushing red on my lady's cheek;

Those sounds of silence seem so distant, mirthy chirps fill the scapes;
Unheard melodies I do hear, strung from thy harp signaling thine arrival.

The smell of grass, that crispy air, the touch of rain, all sublime;
How I wait to take a dip, in that stream, that potion of love;

The world is lost in thy grandeur, cast in a spell, knowing no time;
So much so that the sun stays longer, to gaze away, to smile away, to bless away.

Born with thou are our lives, with new fortunes, with new promise,
Oh the first born from nature's womb, may you live for years to come...

Socrates series part 4 - The zillion piece jigsaw puzzle

Think about it... A zillion pieces in a jigsaw puzzle! You wanna say "wow!"?? - Go on... yeah really... go on and say it aloud, a zillion times!

How much time do you think an average human will take to assemble a 1000 piece jigsaw? Maybe a week? Give or take one or two days? So in a year, an average of 50 such puzzles? And in a lifetime of 80 years, we say 4000 puzzles? Which then means 4 million pieces put together? Hmmm... so how will one ever find the time to put together a puzzle that has a zillion pieces?

Lets up the ante a little bit over here. How about putting something together while you have no idea, whatsoever, as to how it looks? You have no picture to refer to, no clues, no hints and no 'how-to's. All you have is some vague piece of historical data, part of which is what you yourself build over time. Oh talking about time, yeah, you do have a time limit, its a race against time. And to make it worse, you don't even know how many pieces exist in the puzzle or what portion of the puzzle is yet to be pieced together. And finally, you wont even know when you get it right. But you will certainly know when you get it wrong!

The puzzle I am talking about is what others call “Life”. You have no idea whats in store, whats to come or what it should/would look like from a distance. You wont know how big it is or how small it is, you wont know whether you succeeded or failed in the big picture of things or you wont even know if you would even put it all together when the time expires.

Its that puzzle where the little pieces that you need to stitch together could be the people you come across, the relationships you build., your like/dislikes, your emotions, your dreams, your failures, your success, you habits, your vices, your love, your hatred, the places you visit, the little pieces of wisdom you pick up, your spiritual side or the realization you get when you indulge in introspection. Ans that is only the tip of the iceberg.

When things are smooth and you make progress fitting it all in, you would think life is all good. You think that it all makes sense. Sometimes you don't even have the time to realize that things are good, you fail to notice it. And when the going gets tough, when some pieces of the puzzle look similar and you have no idea which one to pick or you find that a piece goes missing, all hell breaks loose. Things go astray and you want to redo it all! Yeah thats what I am talking about.

The biggest part which people fail to notice is that their puzzles are all actually interlinked. Yours is in someway linked to mine which is in someway is linked to my friends' or sometimes that guy on the street. This is an upside people don't see and often feel beaten when they set out to solve the puzzle on their own. They forget about working together. Yes, they do know this part that their lives are intertwined, but then they fail to look beyond and realize that they cant find a meaning to their life on their own and it has to be a joint effort.

This is profound especially when the piece of the puzzle under discussion, or in simpler terms, the person under discussion happens to be the special someone. That piece then becomes the equivalent of a keystone and the entirety or completeness of the puzzle wholly depends on this one piece and how it relates to all the other zillion pieces. When the two people involved set out to solve the puzzle together, step alongside step, all of a sudden it isn't so mystifying. The same can be said about the pieces that represent the near and dear ones or even the common dreams that people share, however with a slightly lesser intensity.

But at the end of the day, when you do realize that its a puzzle and when you realize its only a matter of time before things fall in place and if you work towards it in the right company, albeit in a trial and error fashion, more often than not, you will succeed.

Socrates series part 3 - So why worry?

Ever wondered how we sometimes expect certain situations to unfold out of the blue? With very little warning, to catch us unaware? We then sweat it, work ourselves up and prepare to face it. We think of possible ways to thwart it or possible ways to work around it. We get ready and as we wait for it with bated breath, time suddenly decides to slow its pace and we continue to wait. Ironically, we thought the situation would catch us unprepared, and now here we are waiting to 'take care' of the unknown. We sit tight, like local militia waiting to ambush a passing enemy convoy, which, in the first place was supposed to be launching a surprise attack!

As the wait grows longer, we grow weary. We let our guards down. Things seem to be fizzling down. We tell ourselves “hey, it will never happen and even if it were to, arent we prepared?”. And most often, we drop back into our routine and nothing ever really happens. But then....

There are times when things take a turn. The situation presents itself without a warning, sometimes waiting for you at the gate peering into you with curios eyes. It accosts you, greets you and takes you by complete surprise. And our reaction is almost involuntary. We 'react' as against the 'actions' we decided to engage upon if that situation was to occur. We do something at the spur of the moment and get away with it. Hardly do we get into situations that warrants a wrinkled forehead some days or weeks ahead and even if we do get into those situations, hardly do the preparations come into play. So why worry?

Song of the hour

"Oh butterfly...butterfly...
yEn viriththaai siragai..va va (Oh butterfly)
arugil nee varuvaayO
unakkaaga thirandhEn manadhin kadhavai..."

A song I have been 'humming' lately... wonder why ;)

"If I were to search" a.k.a "Little did I know"

If I were to search for an adjective:

"Beatific, beatified, blissful, connubial, delightful, ecstatic, Edenic, elysian, enchanted, felicific, felicitous, halcyon, paradisiacal, rapturous, transported"

If I were to search for a noun:

"Beatitude, contentment, delight, ecstasy, eden, elysium, euphoria, felicity, gladden, gladness, glory, happiness, heaven, joy, joyfulness, jubilation, nirvana, paradise, pleasure, rapture, transport, utopia, blessedness, cheer, cheerfulness, festivity, frivolity, gaiety, glee, jollity, joyousness, levity, merriment"

Conclusion: There is no end.
Courtesy: Dictionary.com.