OnlY oNce iN yOuR LiFe, yOu FiNd soMEone Who cAn comPLeTely TuRn Your woRLd around oR iN My Case uPsiDe DoWn. To one such BEAutiful Ray oF SunSHine in my LiFe.

I can share things that I've never shared with another living soul and also things that have no significance and are so irrelevant that I don't even remember them an hour later but she listens to everything and actually wants to hear more. I share hopes for our future, dreams that will never come true,  goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at me in the past. I think of her on every occasion and in everything I do. When something great happens, I can’t wait to tell her about it, knowing she will share in my excitement and be more excited than I am. When I do something stupid, she is the first to say - "its okkkkkk". She is not embarrassed to cry with me when I am hurt or laugh with me when I make a fool of myself. Never does she hurt my feelings or make me feel like I am not good enough or that she is embarrassed by me, but rather she builds me up and shows me the things about me that make me special. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness and a sense of completeness that envelops me when she is around.  I can be myself and not worry about what she will think of me because she loves me for who I am. She cares and scolds like I am baby, she holds on to me as if I am her anchor and listens to me as if I am wiser.  The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, a song, a movie, a flower or a walk becomes invaluable treasures kept safe in my heart and wallet to cherish forever. Laughter seems part of daily life. A phone or message during the day helps to get me through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to my face. A coffee or meal with her is the best thing to happen in an otherwise morose office. A whispered "love you" from her in my ear is all the motivation I need to go through the day with a smile on my face. In her presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation and even the silence is beautiful. Things that bored me to sleep before became fascinating because I know they are important to her. Simple things bring her thoughts racing to my mind like a glass of tea, combing my hair or even waking up in the morning. I opened my heart to her knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening it, I now experience a love and happiness that I never dreamed possible. I find that being loved by her is so true that it scares me. I find strength in knowing I have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the very end. No matter who I am with and no matter what I am doing, it feels a little empty wihtout her. I know it sounds cheesy but I miss her more than words can say when she is not around. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. My only hope and security is in knowing that she is not just a part of my life but a part of me and shall be always.

mY FaVoURiTe QuOTeS: ParT 2 !!!!

Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

You get what you get and it has got nothing to do with what you deserve.

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every three Indians are suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your two best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.

If there is one thing worse than being an ugly duckling in a house of swans, it's having the swans pretend there's no difference.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

This 3-year-old kid is home alone, and a salesman comes to the door. The kid answers, and he’s got a porno in one hand, a cigar in one hand and a bottle of J.D. The salesman goes, “Hi, little boy, are your parents home?” The kid goes, “What the f**k do you think?”

Memories

"Memories are powerful. They can give you comapny when alone and leave you alone even in a crowd."

Seems just like a quote straight out of a greeting card. But then its true. Having experienced both of these, I am pretty certain that its true. If you don't beleive me then check out Harry Potter use them in fighting the Dementors. Jokes apart, why are memories more powerful, especially the ones that are bad. For example, if you are chased by a dog once, then you can be rest assured that you would remember it for a long long time to come. On the other hand good memories are also kind of lingering in their own way. But in honest truth, I believe that memories tend to linger longer that one realises and many actions/reactions and feelings are governed by our memories of any previous encounter with any object/situation. Hence the adage, one bitten twice shy.

But what to do about people who are like hopeless. who are like irreparably damaged and for whom memories form the last thread of hope left and to which they cling as close and hard as they would to their own life. Then the memories both good and bad are a prison from which there is no escape. After all where does one escape from themselves? At these times it would be nice to have selective amnesia. :-p

I really dont know what I am writing and in all honesty, I do not care.

Dreams / Nightmares

Everybody dreams and so do I. Everybody doesn't remember their dreams but I do. Just the way 'the end justifies the means', the way the dreams ends says it all. oneirologists or dream doctors argue that dreams could be related to what you are, what you think and what you feel. Then again what do doctors know, its all hit and trial for them. Anyways this isn't about them. It is about me and my dreams. I dream not of stars or princesses or fame or money. What I dream about are people who I know, love and also those I lost. Strangely I also see people whom I have never met or seen (atleast my conscious mind tells me that I have not). So i like to believe that I see the past and the future. The past in a way that show me parallels of what happened and hence show me what could have happened if I had done things differently. But what eludes me is the future, is it going to be what I see. Most of my dreams end with me waking up with a frown on my face and sweat on my forehead. But they are not nightmares, they are just dreams with sad/bad endings. And I look forward to the people that I am going to meet in the future, the people who would change my life, though I also think that the people of my past have had a huge impact on me. There are no good dreams or nightmares. They are just dreams.

Waking up.

I was never good at waking up. I was never the rise and shine kind of guy. It was always an ardous task to wake up. But it's been a while since waking up seems to hurt. It physically hurts to get up to the cold realisation of something missing. As i have already mentioned, it just doesn't seem to get any better with time either. I mean there must be a way to wake up with a smile, to wake up looking forward to the day and to wake up with no pain.

माँ का दिल !

एक गाँव में एक बूढी औरत और उसका बेटा रहते थे | एक दिन उस लड़के को एक लड़की से प्यार हो गया | उसने उस लड़की से शादी कर ली और अपनी माँ को छोड़ कर उसकी लड़की के साथ रहने लगा | माँ को दुःख तो हुआ पर बेटे की ख़ुशी के लिए उसने खुशी खुशी उसे जाने दिया | एक दिन उसकी पत्नी बहुत बीमार पड गई | एक तांत्रिक ने बताया कि अगर उसे लड़के की माँ का दिल मिल जाए तो वो उस लड़की का इलाज़ कर सकता है | प्यार में पागल लड़का अपनी माँ के पास गया और उसने माँ से उसका दिल मांग लिया | उसकी माँ ने खुशी खुशी हाँ कर दी | लड़का जब अपनी माँ का दिल लेकर लौट रहा था तो फिसल कर गिर गया और उसके हाथ से माँ का दिल भी गिर गया | गिरते ही दिल से आवाज़ आई, "बेटा कहीं चोट तो नहीं लगी ना?"

I LoVe RaiNs !!!!!!!!

I love rains.......

I dont love the croak of the frogs, the smell of earth, the smell of ginger tea, the smell of fresh onion pakodas....

I love the deafening thunder, the brilliant lightning that lights up even the darkest of skies, the loud sound of heavy rains lashing at the window that subdue all the noise around....

But most of all I like getting wet in the rains, when the tears mix with rains and no one can see tears in the eyes and all believe in the smile on the lips...

Rain rain come again.......

FeELs LiKe a FaCHCHa AgAin. . . .

Shit happens… I keep coming back to this particular statement. Looks as if this statement is destined to stick around with me for as long as I am alive. Then again, I guess it happens to everybody and most of them don’t care enough to notice or react.

PDPs (aka Personality Development Programme) have been the legacy of IIFT for as long as people have known but the batch of 09-11 gave another meaning to it. Ragging ! I mean, come on guys give me a break. Asking students to dance, shout, act and learn the names of seniors and batch mates cannot be termed as ragging in any sane part of the world but at IIFT, it is a grave and punishable offence to the extent that the entire senior batch (barring a few case studies :-p and in my friend Hari Singh’s words, people with needs to indulge) was stripped of any and every little iota of self respect. (then again these are my opinions and my opinions only). What followed was not the silence after a storm, rather it was the sudden tsunami of feelings, violent, destructive and angry from the entire senior batch, but didn’t last long enough to even cause an impact among the seniors.

Few things are pretty clear, the juniors would have the best time of their life. No PDPs, full on fun and lots of benefitting interactions from the seniors. The junior girls would not have any problems getting things don’t with so many testosterone rich seniors (already exemplified). Then again, it is just six or seven asses who give the entire junior batch a bad name. But is there a way out?

Either punish the people who were involved, which the authorities would not agree or just forgive and forget. The second option seems more feasible upon deep thinking because the boycott is not possible for an entire batch especially with so many traitors around.

I told Manish, that we all are nice people deep down in our heart, at least most of us are (again exceptions already mentioned) and we would not be able to stay angry with the juniors for a very long time. Only the 4 affected and a few of them like me who can’t forget the humiliation and the arrogance. I for one can’t forget the ones in the juniors who did it and the seniors who were still kissing their asses the very next day. Period.

GoD iS uNFaiR !!!

It is a hidden fact and the unfairness is all around.....Those who dont want to accept it, hide it behind the various things like Murphy's law, Law of averages etc etc, while other hide behind things like karma, destiny etc etc or cliched sayings like, whatever happens happens for a reason and for the good.....I can go on and on but the essense remains the same.....

Think about it....Hasn't it happened to you that you worked your ass off but didn't get the expected returns?? (Must have happened the other way round too, but that would be so conveniently called luck or the benevolence of the Almighty.....)

Whatever way u put it, it is still God's unfairness.....(though the very existence of God itself is a debatable topic, let's just give the victims of the world's most successful mass delusion some leeway...)

There is another thing that is used to cover this up, its religion, which is a weapon of mass delusion....the fear of hell, the greed of heaven....They say moksh is like attaining true spirituality and a level of contentment, but the greed of moksh is still greed...right???...Then why is this greed right....People aspire and desire moksha but that is fine since it is....

But no, that is not branded as greed but if i say that all i want in life are the 3M's (Money, Mansion and Mercedes) then I am labeled as greedy and materialistic....Just because these things can be bought by money...But isn't moksha gotten by flattery of the Gods....

ReMiNisCEnCinG tHe GeMs Of My LiFe Written By ThE SaANp

To The Gems Of My Life: Vishal, Nitin. Arun, Jyoti, Anuja, Ruchi, Neha, Sneha and Pawan (don’t need to write his name here because he has been there for as long as my poor memory takes me): the only good things that came out of my otherwise forget-worthy stay at SSGMCE.

I do not know why I write this because I do not want to believe that I am missing the one place that I had thought I would not ever miss. It is more than that I guess. It’s more about what that place gave me that I want to mention today. Apart from the gems (only the above mentioned people can understand this part), I think what that college gave me was the education of my life. People called SSGMCE a college but I had always preferred to call it “PLANET SHEGAON”. It was a living organism, with a host of beings. Now I know I am a mean mean person but I cannot make myself to call them humans, at least not educated and thinking ones. They were more like animals (now that would make Maneka Gandhi flip in her sleep and all animals take an offense) so let us just call them beings for now.

They taught me what the caste divide was (at least they tried, but the fact that I could not learn was my doing and my doing only). They taught me that one could not trust everyone and also that there was no test of trust other than the test of time itself. They taught me that people used other people till and when they needed and that friendship for some (unlike me and what I had seen) was just a zero sum game. They taught me that the best defence was silence and that silence was the hardest argument to refute.

Enough about those beings. This aint bout them but this is about the people I love and the people that I got during my stay at that college. Somehow the memories that I mentioned above are all hazy. All I remember are the late night snacks at the canteen, the mango shake, lassi and aam panha, the poha and the tea with parle G, the bakar before the exams, the trying to cheat at the exams and failing at it, the studying at the library(which meant everything but studying.), the movies at Akola, the rallying around akola on the bike, the masti at Krishna, the masti at Rasika, the masti at the temple while waiting for darshan, the studying and teaching sessions before the exam, the panic attack before results. the masti afterwards at pune, the coffee at Durga, the paratha at Chaitanya, the late night walks and coffee again, the fashion street shopping………

Typical masti of colleges and I had my share too but it would not have been possible without the awesome friends that I have. I was the saanp (read snake: for some screwed up reason) but still I am glad I was lucky enough for them to make me their friend.

This is for you guys: Vishal, Nitin. Arun, Jyoti, Anuja, Ruchi and Pawan : who are still there with me, and for Neha and Sneha who chose to move on but nonetheless would always be dear to me and very near to my heart. Love you all always and miss you forever…….

Have you ever been in love ??

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable, so weak. It opens up your heart and so that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defences, you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life and nothing is the same again...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They become a part of you. They didn’t want to be. They do something dumb one day, like hold your hand or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.