the angel of my dreams

By Chandra03 Aug 09

Well, one more try at writing a poem. Let me know what you think of it. Guys, please don’t ask me whether I wrote it for a girl or what. I don’t want to tell lies :) Jokes apart, it’s partly a writing exercise and partly from experience and partly fiction :)

***

Before I saw you
my eyes never saw anything beautiful
After I saw you
my mind never stopped thinking of you
Where did you come from
the angel of my dreams

Why was I at loss of words
when I was with you
never asking even your name
while all my life, I was waiting for you

Never knowing who you are
how am I going to find you
if it wasn’t a dream

If it was a dream
why don’t you come again
the angel of my dreams.

***

I realized, writing poems is very difficult than writing composition in general. Poetry needs a good vocabulary and ability to express thoughts clearly in a poetic form.

You can read my first try at writing a poem here: To life with gratitude

Hope you liked it. Thank you for reading.

Posted in: Poetry | 1 Comment

of deadlines, commitments, and targets

By Chandra30 Jul 09

Why do we need targets? A loose metaphor would be to say that we need them for the same reasons ships needed lighthouses in older times. To reach the intended destination, avoid any disasters and so on.

So, why am I here writing about this self-help kind of stuff? Well, I am not really preaching anything here. Ten days back, I have decided to write an article a day here for ten continuous days. And I have met my target and here is the tenth article about my experience. Veteran bloggers can stop chuckling now. Is writing an article a day really that challenging? I think it is, for someone like me or for many who want to update their blogs regularly and don’t do that for various reasons.

I always felt I wasn’t writing here as frequently as I wish to. I decided to experiment with ten continuous articles and somehow I managed to write them, even though I wasn’t confident initially.

Targets keep us motivated. We feel guilty when we do not meet them and in fact no one wants to be guilty. That makes us work hard and meet the targets or in the least give them the best shot we can give. A deadline adds a little pressure to the target and that in turn helps us to be more committed.

Let us say, Someone wants to become a writer. That is his target and he is well aware of it. But, without a deadline attached, it is no more than a lazy daydream. Daydreams are good while they last.

Let us say, that Someone attaches a target to the dream and decides that he wants to start writing five hundred words a day. Now, there is a target and a deadline. All that Someone needs is a little commitment to achieve his target daily. After a few days he might set the target to thousand words per day.

Targets with a deadline attached and with the necessary commitment is a simple recipe for success.

Yes, I hear you saying: not always. There are times, no matter how committed we are, we cannot meet the targets that we set. Either we set exceptionally high targets or we simply failed for reasons whatever. Nothing is a failure for that matter. The fact that we tried shows we are successful at trying.

In the last nine articles, I hope I have written something that is worth reading. Anyhow, for me, the process of writing is more exciting than the final result. Edits, re-edits, loss of words, over doing few sentences, and finally that grammar stuff I always hate. I have something in mind but when I start typing the words, they turn out to be not exactly what I want to say. So I try to re-write and then re-write.

If you have a blog and feel that you are not updating it as frequently as you wish you should, keep a simple target like this. Write an article a day for ten days. The point is, writing the articles that are worth reading.

I hope to write more regularly here. Hmm… a daydream without a target! :)

Thank you for reading!

Posted in: Personal | 3 Comments

20 something and confused

By Chandra29 Jul 09

Ashok, is in his early twenties and works for an Indian software giant. He gets a good paycheck that he deserves for his thirty months work-exp. He left his first job and joined this new company a couple of months ago, with a reasonable hike in the salary. Life seems to be fine except in the moments of deep contemplation. He always tried to avoid those moments where he tried to understand or rather questioned the meaning of his life. Nevertheless the thoughts returned frequently.

He looks at his job and realizes what he is doing is not anywhere close to what he had thought when he was in the college studying Mechanical Engineering. But, the money in a software job lured him or rather lured his family. Thus, he joined the rat race which he started to hate now.

He started to realize that people are selfish. The friends he thought who are so close to him are actually not that close in reality and he started to miss his school days and college days. He could not understand why people at workplace are so selfish to win the rat race. He hates office politics.

Paradoxically, he feels secured and in-secured at the same time. The job seems to be secure, but now and then he thinks it is not that secure in reality. The global economic crisis added fuel to his thoughts.

He looks at other people who are doing better than him, mostly financially, and thinks why he is not doing well. He thinks it’s luck rather than his skills which matter. He never envies though.

When he was in college, life looked so beautiful with full of promises. But, like many others, he realizes that the reality is far away from the dream world.

Confusion prevails and clarity seems to elude. Is this what I want from my life? Going to a day job for the rest of my life. The same boring social interactions. Same everyday thoughts about financial security. Checking the share prices every morning. Maintaining the finances, loans, and EMIs. Occasional boozing on weekends at a teammate’s birthday party.

How to do something different from going to a day job? Should I think about getting an MBA from IIMs? Should I try some business ideas? Should I prepare for Civil Services Exams which I liked when I was in school? Should I shift my job into some other field than software? Should I marry now and get a taste of family-life? Whom should I marry? How to propose that girl? Should I pursue my hobby of playing guitar seriously? Should I run away and live a life that is completely new? What’s my identity?

What are my long term goals in life if there are any? Am I really bored and confused or is it a product of over-thinking? Why can’t I be like other people? Wait, are the other people thinking the same way as me?

I know I want to do something but how to find that something? Monday comes, weekend comes and one more Monday and one more weekend. Monotonous life. Let’s do something.

‘Enough’, he said to himself, and logged onto Gtalk to catch up with his friends.

‘Hey dude how are ya?’

‘I am fine, how ya, u coming for the party this weekend?’

‘Hmm.. yes.’

….

And life goes on as they say.

***

I am a 20something now and most of my friends are 20somethings. Though I have few good 40something friends.

Software engineer is only an example I have taken. No matter the job, this kind of confusion is common in young adults venturing into real world after college.

We (friends from my engineering college) meet once in a couple of months or so and have fun together. When we guys talk about life in general, the common thing we hear is:

life seems to be boring guys… I want to do something, you know man… something…

We discuss and debate the revolutionary ideas over a party on a weekend or over a phone call and leave those revolutions to their fate. And the next party and the next party. Few of my friends are happily married now and they have a new revolution to tackle at home :) (guys just kidding, don’t take it literally!)

I realized recently that there is a term to describe what the young adolescents go through when they enter the real world after graduation/college. It is called Quarter-life Crisis. You can visit the Wikipedia link to know more about it.

For me, the term ‘crisis‘ is a bit overwhelming and I guess a more suitable word would be ‘confusion‘ which has little negativity attached

Most of us seem to say ‘I am fine..’, but when you scratch the surface a little bit, the stories come out: you know I think…  you know I should do this or that… and so on…

May be, not all of us would agree, and many may dismiss this crisis/confusion as trite and a product of too much thinking and lacking a realistic view of the world. Nonetheless, the confusion exists. It is whether we acknowledge it or not is the question.

These kind of thoughts and emotions can come at any point in our life. But, the unique challenges that we face when we are 20somethings make the situation more complex to tackle. The decisions we make are incredibly important at this age and most of them are impossibly irreversible.

I am not trying to generalize here that every-20-something will go through this phase and experience these emotions. But majority of my friends at least have this confusion to some extent.

How to overcome the confusion is uniquely and highly personal. One may leave job and experiment with life, one may find time to pursue his hobbies, the other may accept the reality and try to find happiness in seemingly boring life and so on.

Anyways, life without challenges and confusions is obviously more boring than life with challenges and confusion. We make choices, we make mistakes, but we grow stronger with every challenge we face and every mistake we make.

I tried my best not to vent my feelings here. If you are a 20-something and relate to what I have written here, I would be happy to hear from you. Please use the comments section to share your thoughts.

20something

Confusion is better than illusion!

Posted in: Life | 18 Comments

The silent cry of buses

By Chandra28 Jul 09

Have you ever heard of the word “bandh“?  Bandh is originally a Hindi word meaning ‘closed’. In India, even school going first-standard kids know the word ‘bandh‘ and it is synonymous to a holiday for them. When people want to organize a public protest in India for any reason, we call it ‘bandh‘ and make sure all businesses, schools and other offices are closed on that day except hospitals. But when doctors go on strike, even hospitals also seem to be closed.

But wait, more often than not, these protests are not peaceful as they are supposed to be. It is not simply a matter of closing few buildings and making sure nothing of productive value happens on that day. Vandalizing public property is an almost unavoidable and unfortunate thing and we – common people – have almost come to a situation where it seems to be a normal act unless we ourselves are the victims of the attack.

Coming to the core of the topic, every time a group calls for a bandh, there is a common victim – the innocent bus which can neither speak nor escape when the driver is off the board.

So, in this oddly written article, I am doing the talking for a bus in an imaginary situation on a day when ‘bandh‘ is called by some imaginary group which I do not want to give a name. I hope it will be funny, serious, thought provoking, may be boring… oh… wait… you can just read on I guess…

***

“Driver,” the Bus shouted, “there seems to be a mob coming towards us with a handful of stones and other stuff, please save me. There seems to be a bandh today.”

The helpless driver yelled back at the bus in a voice that is gripped with nothing but fear, “come on… what loss can it cause you…  if your windows are broken, you will get them replaced with new windows at the expense of the government and you should be happy in that way. But in the process of saving you, if I am hurt, no one cares for me. You do not have a family like me who depend on me for a daily living. Let them beat you, anyway you don’t feel any pain. I am going to stop here and get down now. That is the only way to save me and the people inside you.”

Driver was the only hope for the Bus from escaping the thrashing that was soon going destroy or who knows may be burn the bus to ashes.

“Please take the turn here,” the Bus requested the driver in a hope to save itself if the driver takes the turn. But the people in the bus shouted that they will be going late if the driver takes that turn. For a moment, the bus forgot about the mob and laughed at the foolishness of the people it was carrying who were still thinking that the mob is not going to attack.

“Driver…” the bus said in pain and with a deep desire to explain its past attacks, “this is not the first time I am experiencing such a helpless situation. Last month, when the opposition party protested against the ruling party’s policies which are slowing down the growth of India, I was attacked. When I was very new and fresh out of the factory, only after a few days on the road, I was attacked by a mob who was protesting for some issue I could not understand. When the mob was about to set me on  fire, fortunately a police jeep came near by with its siren and the mob left me alone even though they had beaten me to death.”

“Bus…” the driver shouted in a hurried voice, ” neither am I interested in listening your past nor am I a fool to talk to you when they are all set to attack you and me if I stay in my seat. I am going to jump and runaway.”

Driver looked through the broken net of his seat’s backrest and found that all the passengers have already left including the conductor. He also jumped out of the driver’s window and moved few hundred meters away from the bus.

Driver had heard the stories of his fellow workers who were attacked by the mobs when those drivers protested not to cause any damage to the bus. So, he never wanted to risk his life and went to a safe place and watched the scene with fear and hope that they will not cause any damage to him. Of course, nothing was wrong from his side, he has a whole family which solely depends on him for survival. And he knew neither he had the power nor the strength to fight the mob.

The bus was alone after all passengers and driver left and wondered if only it can start itself and runaway. Bus thought that man is more afraid not to give too much power to the machines, not in the real world at least, but only in movies where machines are more capable than man. God knows how people went crazy about such movies.

By then, the bus realized that the  mob came so close and were about to hit the glass windows. Somehow, the windows are more vulnerable and people like to destroy them first. May be its the sound of crackling them that tempts the attacker or may  be they find it easy to break the glass than any other parts of the bus.

The bus wanted to get into a conversation with the mob and requested them to listen to what it has to say for few minutes. The leader of the mob, who looked to be in his mid thirties with a flag in his hand, agreed and asked all his followers not to cause any damage till he commands.

“Sir…” the bus said the leader in a hope to save itself,  “I do not know your name nor do I know to which political party you belong. I do not know what for you are protesting. All I want to ask is, in what way is destroying me going to help you achieve what you want to with this protest? It is my sincere question as I am not as intelligent as you human beings who created me in the first place.”

“Listen,” the leader said to the bus. “it’s been happening from the time the buses were made by us. What rights have you got to ask such a stupid question. Anyway as you have asked, let me give you my answer quickly as we do not have enough time to waste. We destroy you to show the power we possess and to let the people know we are united for our cause, come what may”.

“Leader,” the bus said in a voice that is sure going to irritate the mob, “if power is what you want to show, don’t you find any intelligent way other than destroying me? If you want to show how united you are for your cause, I am sure you human beings are clever enough to show the unity in many more meaningful ways than through this unthoughtful act which in no way helps anyone.”

“I am helpless Bus, I am helpless. I have been ordered to destroy at least a specific number of buses today. I cannot do anything but listen to my seniors who called for this bandh in the first place. I do not understand why you are so worried as we are not going to set you ablaze this time. That way you are lucky. We are just going to break your windows, head-lights and few other stuff which the government will replace in due time as the elections are near by. It’s good for you actually. The windows are looking old anyway. Don’t you think we are actually helping you? I really pity you.” The leader said as if he had some concern for the poor and inanimate bus which stood helplessly in front of the mob who were very impatient to wait anymore.

“I am not worried about myself. I am worried because you are wasting the public money which they have paid as tax to the government and actually buying tickets to travel. That is what I am worried about. What right have you to destroy the public property?”  Bus asked slowly assuming a dominating voice.

“I never knew buses know about tax and other stuff.” The leader said rather sarcastically. “From where did you learn all this stuff?”

“That is very simple, I know one thing you human beings find it so difficult. I know how to listen to others without talking much. Everyday, I learn a lot of stuff from the people who sit in my seats and talk about everything under the Sun. The new FM radio that is installed inside me is helping a lot. These days people seldom talk to each other in the bus as they are always busy on their mobile phones.”  Bus said in a voice that seems to dominate the leader. And regretted letting the mob know about the FM radio fearing they would destroy that too.

What the bus did not realize was, it is difficult to convince a group of fools with no brains.

By now, the leader got irritated to a point where he could not tolerate the dominance of the Bus and ordered the mob to thrash it. With in few seconds, there were sounds of crackling and smashing.

The bus silently witnessed itself being destroyed, so did the driver from a safer distance.

After the mob had left the place, the driver came near the bus.

“I am sorry. Next time… I am going to save you no matter what it takes,” the driver said apologetically and started the bus and left for the depot.

***

We have become so habituated to witnessing such scenes of violence on bandhs. Nobody ever questions, at least in public. The country which had fought silently for the freedom without much violence, now seems off the track. Public protests with violent actions have become anything but common.

But, there is hope, that people will realize someday and act more meaningfully.

I hope you liked the article. Would be happy if you share your thoughts using the comments section.

Posted in: India | 1 Comment

Enigmatic existence

By Chandra27 Jul 09

Often times I wonder: whether events in our life are random or there is something more meaningful in the seemingly meaninglessness of life’s events which appear to be totally random most of the times.

Leaving the spiritual and philosophical aspects of life to the big brains and enlightened beings, for mere mortals like me, life is a series of events, starting from birth to the last breath. Biggest of the events and the most random being our birth. For majority of the population, where we are born and to whom we are born, inevitably plays a major role in what we are at any given point of time. If we were born in a war torn country, our life would be totally different in many ways from if we were born in a developed country. Yes, there are exceptions to this exceptionally random event. People defied their social backgrounds and rose far above what people around them expected. The fact is, they are very few and all of them made history.

What is behind this seemingly random phenomenon, that we call as life, is the mystery that seekers from primordial times of human existence always tried to understand. They tried to call this phenomenon God, the creative force and with lot of other names. In my limited knowledge, I can fairly say or rather assume that, every religion in some way had tried to answer this question: is life a random series of events or there is some principle on which life works on this planet?

Leaving the mystical aspects of life for the time being, though creation seems to be random at times, when we give a little thought, it seems to be an intelligent work or may be the most intelligent of all. If only, earth was few millimeters near to the Sun than it is now, I wouldn’t be typing these words and you wouldn’t be reading this either. There was a lot of intelligence involved in creating life on this planet. Remove one aspect of the creation and there it ends or may be it would have never started. As simple as it can be: if there was no water, there wouldn’t be any life on this planet. Was water created to support life or life is there because water was there in the first place? It is like the classic hen and egg enigma. Let alone how water got created in the first place.

Even though, every religion has its own ways of explaining God or no God, there never seemed to be a universal agreement among the beliefs of all religions. The safest bottom ground we can chose is that ‘we exist and the creation exists’.

Agreeing on the basic fact that we exist and creation exists, then the question is: what governs life on this planet? Is it a random process? Or is there some hidden principle that takes care of the events that happen in life? Are we all lost in randomness and fooled by it?

No single answer or dogma can convince everyone of us. This being the basis for different belief systems, sects, cults, and religions. No matter who preaches us the enigmas of existence, we are skeptical not to believe all of the preachings.

If the life was never created and only inanimate creation existed, who would have thought why creation exists? Who would have experienced the beauties of creation? Creation without life is barren.

No matter how advanced we are scientifically, there are questions that science is unable to find any answers. There seems no way, as of now, to explain the enigmas of existence. All we have are theories without concrete proofs.

The funniest thing of all is, we create tiny little worlds of our own and become so entangled in our own creation.

Lets wait and see if science can ever find answers to why and how of creation. Enigmas of existence.

Have you ever tried to imagine what if nothing exists? Where the creation starts and where it ends? Let alone when and how it started. I am not insane about finding answers or any such stuff, however, now and then these questions come in flashes.

I am sure this post leaves with more questions than answers. I am no enlightened being to fathom the enigmatic existence. I tried to empty few thoughts from my mind and I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

Posted in: Musings | Leave a comment