The unmistakable scent of finality hung heavy in the air, and the sterile demaneour of the room did nothing to alleviate that depressing feeling which simply grabbed you by the collar.A look around the room served to remind you of the ultimate reality of life, anything – except her.
Lying on the bed near the window, she looked positively angelic, her half-smile belying the superhuman effort needed to overcome the pain that took her closer to the edge every passing moment.As he reached her side, taking care not to disturb her stupor, he had half a mind to reach out to her and kiss her lightly.It was with some effort that he managed to restrain himself.He had given her the pill about 4 hours back, so he expected her to stir to wakefulness anytime, which was why he had got her favourite chocolate cookies for her.Today, he was not going to deny her anything regardless of what the doctors had advised him.He put the bag near the bed and decided to wait for her to wake up.
As the clock ticked away, his mind started to walk down memory lane. It was nearly a decade now that they had been together, though to him, it always felt like yesterday when he had happened to first see a petite, beauteous girl walking her dog in the park. Though he prided himself on his cold rationality, this was one moment which simply had him overwhelmed. He was totally smitten, and once he was sure of that,he wasted little time in taking things where he wanted them to go. Meticulous planning was another thing he prided himself on.
Life, though, had its own plans laid out for him. It all started about 6 years back when she had to be taken to the doctor following a seemingly unexplained bleeding while brushing her teeth. One thing lead to another and before they could comprehend what was happening, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Since this was discovered too late, all they had in hand now was to watch her wither away silently as the disease slowly and surely took her away onto the final destination. What made matters worse was the fact that no one could tell how long she would have to undergo the ordeal – it broke his heart into a million pieces as she made every possible effort to keep the smile on her face going, just so that she could see one on his.
His chain of thoughts was broken by the slight sound she made as she shuffled to wakefulness. As he reached out to her and placed his lips on hers, she tried to put her arms around him but was restricted by the IV needles on her wrist. She was visibly irritated, but managed to conceal her frustration. As he took out the cookies from the bag, her eyes displayed a curious mixture of simultaneous joy and surprise. “Don’t worry – let the docs go to hell for this one day…”, he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. It was hardly a matter of minutes before the cookies were exhausted – she ate them as if her life depended on it. Satiated, she gave him a look which could only have meant gratitude.
“Time to go to sleep, sweetheart!!!” – he said, as he rose to adjust the IV injection flow. She seemed reluctant to have the sedative enter her system but he managed to convince her. He put the pouch on the stand, adjusted the IV and sat there, holding her hands in his. In a short while, as her hands grew colder and her breathing slower and slower, he got up, kissed her, and walked out of the room, not wanting to look back. In the column of light flowing in from the window, the ampoule of Veronal in the dust-bin reflected a sinister glint.

It’s been a really long time since I visited Soul Country. There has been a lot that has been weighing me down in recent times and it has been one hell of a comeback from the anguishing depths of despair to the detached highs of serenity. Today’s post is a mere token of my gratitude towards the people who helped me turn around, either directly or indirectly, from those close by to those hundreds and thousands of miles away – my “friends”. Why the quotes – you may ask. It’s just my way of indicating that I intend to use that word in its truest sense, not in the casual or flippant manner it has come to be used these days. For me, it holds great meaning and as you read on, you will see why.
Years back, I had read this quote somewhere:

Back then, I had found it to be a bit too mushy, a touch too idealistic. Of course, having friends is great, but isn’t calling them angels taking things a bit too far – was what I reasoned to myself. I was convinced that while having friends was good, their importance was being overstated and one could, with some effort, manage without them. But then, as I walked down the years, underwent trials and tribulations, tasted bitter failures and sweet successes, I realised the importance of having the right people by your side to share it all with. Having the right set of people around you can make all the difference between an unhappy, incomplete life and a contented one, is what I strongly believe today.
It’s very rightly observed that we can’t choose our relatives, but we can definitely choose our friends. I believe this is so for a reason – unlike in relations, where you are “supposed” to fulfill certain social obligations and conditions, in friendship, the connect is entirely mutual and voluntary. And because forging a friendship with someone is a conscious decision, we tend to invest more of ourselves into it, making it a much more fulfilling and enriching experience. This might not be necessarily so with our relatives, where it’s more about blood than soul.
In my opinion, what makes a true friend (I am NOT considering acquaintances or here) such a wonderful thing to have by your side is how they always seem to be right around the corner when you truly need them, regardless of the physical distances separating you. It’s all about how their arms always manage to wrap around your drooping shoulders when the burdens of a complicated life threaten to bog you down. It might not be often that you need that kind of support, but it’s in times like these that you truly appreciate their importance.
I started off this post saying that it was a tribute to my friends but so far there are so names mentioned. This is so because there is simply no need for that. Those who belong to that select bunch, know, and those who don’t, need not know – as simple as that. This is not all that I had intended to put forth and I will definitely return to complete this. For now, it has to be Sayonara…

Who said angels have wings? No, they don’t… 🙂

And yet again, I return to what I perhaps like doing the most. Make a correction – something that I just love doing – pouring out my soul on paper, a screen in this case.
As I said earlier, I will be dwelling on the theme of “Breaking Free…” from the previous post. Of course, most of what you see here esentially springs from personal experience, so you might not identify or agree with it to the fullest extent, and that’s perfectly fine with me. 🙂
In the last post, I mentioned about the mental flab that prevents us from taking on the challenges of life head-on. In addition to that, I feel there’s one more factor that comes into play – self-doubt. This again is a very tricky thing to handle, just because many a times, it does not manifest itself as what it really is. Let me explain – more often than not, when we think ourselves incapable of doing something, we don’t really stop at that. What we actually end up doing is that we find a rationale, suitably interpreting the situation to fit into our “understanding” about why we are better off not taking a particular risk because it’s too dangerous/unjustified to do so and not because it’s our own reluctance or insecurity that’s the culprit. Trust me, it takes a herculean effort to just accept this fact, leave alone actually doing something about it. That’s because we don’t like to have a mirror held up to us – it can be a very painful experience to come face to face with one’s deepest fears. It’s almost like being made to stand trial by your own self. So, we tend to take the easy way out. The best way to solve a problem is to deny it’s existence. So, why bother ourselves with all the effort? Why not just let things be as they are, afterall who’s gonna question us? No one, except our own conscience, which we have anyways given a royal cold shoulder.
In this way, we end up taking the easier way out, not realising that by doing so, all we have managed to do is to weaken our willpower. When faced with the long & hard route to success, we have chopped off our feet in order to convince ourselves that the journey is not worth it and beyond us. Fortunately, the will is an animal with tremendous powers of regeneration. All it needs to get back in action is what I call as the “moment of truth” – that one moment when reality hits you so hard in the face that you can no longer run and hide behind the facile excuses that you have been putting forth till now. I faced my moment of truth a long time back and it has changed me so much – it was almost like being born again – and equally traumatic, complete with the tears and suffering. But in the end, it was worth it, and considering how well it has paid off, it’s something which I would want everybody to go through atleast once in their lives.
I know I have gone on a tangent here. I started off talking about breaking free and wandered into the kingdom of the mind…By the way, that gives me a pointer as to what I am going to write about next. This theme of “Breaking Free…” takes a breather here, unless I come up with something really noteworthy.
Hopefully, Soul Country should see me back in action very soon… 🙂

So, what brings me back to the keyboard for purposes other than typing out lines and lines of code? Honestly speaking, I don’t know. It just seems that I have sort of rediscovered the joy of writing, the bliss of creation, the satisfaction of an urge well-fulfilled. The uneasiness of germinating ideas bristling in the mindspace was always there to savour, but nowadays I am enjoying the process even more than before. Hope it continues to be like that always…
Having said that, let me come to what I had intended to put forth. Today’s post takes off from the conversation I had with Mizfit yesterday wherein we talked about breaking free from our self-imposed barriers and purposefully striving to bring about a change for the better in our lives. She was telling me about her plans for the future where she wanted to bring out some major changes in her life. To be honest, hearing this gladdened me no end. Having gone through the process of making potentially life-altering (and hence, “risky”) decisions and putting them into action, I can say I have a fair idea of how one’s mind works and what one goes through in such circumstances – which is why I am happy that she’s finally decided to take the plunge (No, she is not getting married ;))
Typically, when one thinks about making major changes to one’s life, either personal or professional, the biggest hurdle we face is our own reluctance to change of any sort. I feel that when we start our lives as kids, we are almost untouched by fear and are willing to try out anything and everything. Over the years, we tend to put on mental flab in the form of fears, complexes and opinions (either experienced by self or perceived). Just like physical flab makes us lethargic and unfit, this mental flab slowly but surely kills the “can-do-will-do” verve that we possess in so much abundance as kids. In such a situation, when we get the opportunity to shape our life the way we want it to be we tend to look at this opportunity as a moment of crisis and make all possible efforts to avoid it. We can (and do) find 1001 reasons not to take that one step which will make the entire difference between a winner and an also-ran. What’s needed in times like this is asking just one simple question – What’s the worst that can happen? – and honestly answering it. Then suddenly, more often than not, we will find that things are not as bad as we are making them out to be. After this, all that’s needed is that little extra to make the ordinary life into an extraordinary one. And then, we can finally break free from our own shackles and truly walk free.

P.S: This subject is really close to my heart and I will surely return soon to dwell on it in further detail.
@ Mizfit~ Thanks for igniting the spark 🙂

After a pretty cheery (not to mention, heart-gladdening) post about friendship, yours truly now returns to the labyrinths of the soul. This post is a result of all the churning amd upheaval that has been occuring within me for the last 2 days. What all this soul-searching has achieved, I don’t know, but it sure made me take a fresh look at the way I deal (and should be dealing) with those I come across in the course of this walk through life.
So, what’s this all about? It’s about how I do something for the people I consider as my “friends” in their hour of need and when they are suitably high and dry, end up getting a royal cold shoulder. Now I don’t claim to be a messiah or a godsend who dramatically alters or improves the lives of people around me but the fact remains that when somebody whom I know needs help, my first instinct is to try and see if I can help in any way. I don’t really expect them to reciprocate in kind (that’s the situation nowadays, previously I did use to harbour such expectations, to be honest). But an absolute disregard for what they have got is certainly not what I would expect to happen. Put plainly, it’s simply not done. Inspite of many such incidences, my faith in the correctness of what I am doing remains unshaken. But one recent incident, in particular, has forced me to take a fresh look at this policy of mine. I won’t mention it over here, because mud-slinging, either direct or indirect, is not something I would indulge in, but it did set the wheels of thought in motion.
When faced with the question as to why somebody would be so “ungrateful” (It’s a harsh word – I know, but I mean it), my first instinct was to think that perhaps I made mistakes in choosing the right set of people. But then, some introspection told me that if I would not have done something for them, someone else would have helped them out anyway. Hence, I definitely did not do the wrong thing. Now the question was – if I am doing the right thing, why I am getting this in return? I concluded that since I have done what I could have done, and since I anyways did it with little expectations of getting anything back, I had the satisfaction of having done something positive with me. This satisfaction, I felt was its own reward, and that I need not feel so gloomy about why the other person responded in the manner they did. If they fail to recognise or acknowledge the good that was done to them, they are the losers, not me. Then I was talking to my friend Reuben who put it in as many words. “I would say you did the right thing. Don’t worry dude. LIFE will pay the debt. It will come back in some other way, when you least expect it.” was what he said, I totally agree.
This sentence of his set me thinking further. On deeper thought, I realised that what he had said was indeed true. If life has handed me such idiots, it has also blessed me with a precious set of friends who have enriched my life in such a way that it can’t be really put in words. As he said, it’s about fulfilling your part of the bargain and moving on. So, that’s just what I have decided to do – do your part and move on. Life will give you what you deserve, and in many ways, too.
So, here’s looking forward to a new life, with a new vision.
Cheers!!!

If about a year ago, somebody would have told me that I would form a deep friendship with someone with whom my only connection was a stream of electrons flowing back and forth, and that too, with a member of the fairer gender, I would have taken him along to the nearest psychiatrist. But today, I stand proven wrong, and very happily so.
Before going ahead, let me make a few things clear. Firstly, this is going to be a mushy sort of post. Secondly, for those who are not used to me dealing in superlatives, be prepared to be shocked…. 😉
So, who is the one that has made the normally conservative (read: boring) me go ga ga? I won’t reveal her true identity over here.Instead, I will be referring to her by her blogger avataar – Lil Mizfit. The next question naturally follows – Sameer devoting a post to a single person is something that’s happening for the first time. What has this girl (I will refer to her as a girl only… 🙂 ) done to deserve this? Simple answer – she has been a great friend and a pillar of support to me.
Having said that, let me get down to business. As I said before, this post is intended solely as an ode to the beautiful bond of friendship that exists between us. But how did this bond form in the first place? The credit for this solely goes to Orkut and my gut instinct. One fine day, I was profile hopping through Orkut when I came across this profile, the owner of which claimed to be a dark angel. Instinctively I scrapped her and after that, destiny took over. In only a matter of weeks, we went from being mere acquaintances to being chat buddies to being really good friends (and I use that word very sparingly, let me tell you). It’s just about 8 months since we first met, but it seems we have known each other for an eternity now.So, now the question arises as to what exactly made us “click” (pun intended….)
To be honest, I am stumped for an answer, but I guess it’s because we “know” each other so well. In fact, if I were to get paid a rupee for every time we said the same thing at the same time, I would be a millionaire by now. There are only a handful of persons with whom I can let my guard down and be myself and she belongs to that rare category. This girl has an amazingly cooky (and spooky) sense of humour, which so delighthfully finds resonance with my inner abandon which I very sparingly explore. The credit for helping me discover (and be proud of) my less strait-laced and darker side should go solely to her.
All this is very fine, but true friendships are more about soul and substance rather than fun and frolic – you might say. Again in this respect, she scores high. She is one of the 2-3 people with whom I can speak not more than a few sentences and yet convey volumes. Typically, when two individuals move from merely knowing each other to being “friends”, they start off with sharing trivia and move on to sharing souls. We have gone the other way round and nowadays we zigzag between the two.So, Mizfit, I guess that answers your doubt about me calling you up and listening to your “nonsense” 🙂 Also, she has been there, lending a patient ear and offering some very valuable advice when I recently made some tough decisions and also when, sometime back in the past, I went through hell. Most importantly, this bond has been forged despite of the thousands of miles seperating us, what with I living in the financial capital of India and she in the political one, which again goes to prove that true friendship is not a function of distance. She is more than a friend to me, she’s the twin I always wanted but never had. There is an unspoken promise of friendship between us and I hope we keep this promise forever. Looks like I will have to stop here… I am getting choked by emotion 🙂
Mizfit, you rock!!!
🙂

I was tagged by mizfit on her blog, presumably because she had nothing better to do, which is the case most of the time 😉 (Disclaimer: Just kidding…don’t want to incur her wrath 😀 )
So, here it goes…

1.Are you happy/satisfied with your blog with it’s content and look? Does your family know about your blog?
I am happy with my blog, but I would certainly not call myself satisified. As far as satisfaction goes, I feel I should be more consistent when it comes to posting.
No, my family does not know about my blog. They won’t as long as they don’t need to.

2.Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing?
Only a select few of my friends know about my blog. I make sure only people who would appreciate it would know about it. However once I have put something on my blog, I don’t mind anybody and his dog reading & commenting.

3.Did blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts?
Not exactly…
Basically my blogs are my mind’s windows to the world. So, it’s a case of thoughts getting poured from the mind onto the blog rather than the other way round.
But whenever I get appreciation for my posts, it does tend to make me feel glad. 🙂

4.Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself?
It depends on the amount of time I have at my disposal. I first visit a set of blogs that I regularly read and then if I am free, I link-hop from one blog to another.

5.What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog?
Absolutely nothing. I dont believe in finding solace in the number of visitors visiting my blog. Hence, my blog does not carry a visitor counter, though I had one for a few days long time back.

6.Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?
No. This is so because whatever blogs I read, I either know them personally or have seen their pics.So, no imagination business over here.

7.Admit. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging?
I blog because I feel the urge to express myself. If you go for money-making exercises like AdSense, you might make a few bucks, but I prefer not to. Have said that, I do believe that blogging is a very useful tool of expression and I have found myself getting more expressive and outgoing after I have started blogging.

8.Do you think that bloggers society is isolated from real world or interacts with events?
It basically varies from individual to individual, depending on the reason you blog and what you blog about. There are a few guys I read who write some excellent stuff about current issues and there are people who dwell totally in the realm of fiction. So, a blanket statement cannot be made.

9.Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing?
Criticism, either constructive or destructive, is always welcome. It is a sign that you are making a difference. Criticism is what keeps you on your toes and often reveals new perspectives you might have otherwise missed.

10.Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?
I am not too much into reading political blogs, though I occasionally visit a few of them.

11.Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?
Not exactly. I understand that things don’t always work they should in this country, but I was really irritated by the blog ban, which, in my opinion, was absolutely nonsensical.

12.Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die?
Well, I would want to have it compiled into a collection and put into a time capsule, so that the world knows what a visionary walked Planet Earth once.. 😉 Just kidding. I would rather that it was to be put together and passed to the next generation, so that the death of my body does not mean the death of my mind.

13.What do you like to hear? What’s the song you might like to put a link to in your blog?
My musical tastes range from Hindi classics to Western Classical to instrumentals like piano/saxophone – almost anything except remixes, rap & Himesh Reshamiya.
If I had to put a link to songs (it cannot be just one song…) on my blog, they would be – Everything I Do (Bryan Adams), Words (Boyzone), The Moment (Kenny G) and Ha Khel Saawlyaancha (It’s a Marathi song – amazing lyrics…)

RDB goes to Oscars!!!
I happened to read this headline somewhere some days back. It instantly reminded me of the time when I had first watched the film. While I was really impressed by the film’s intentions and for the major part, the execution of those intentions, I really did not seem to agree with it’s basic premise. What the film suggested was,as most Hindi films tend to, a glorious quickfix to the problems faced by us – a revolution, in blood if needed. I had put down my thoughts about the issue in a mail to a friend and I feel that now is an apt time to re-open the debate.So, here goes….
I believe more in evolution rather than revolution – because I believe that evolution is the most feasible,if time-consuming, way of achieving lasting change.No doubt, revolution has its rightful place in the scheme of things but then the necessity for a revolution has to be seen in the existing context rather than simply proposing a drastic upheaval as the sole means to the end.As has been depicted rightly in RDB, there are a lot of things that have gone wrong and are going wrong with this country that is no doubt so dear to us; but a revolution seems to be a very simplistic solution to the problem,which I feel, demands much more pragmatism and a deliberate approach than a revolt of sorts.The entire idea of a revolution sounds very attractive and inspiring to an idealilst mind, but I am sure that the problems that we are facing are much more deep-rooted.
The earlier revolution for fredom succeeded because it was an entirely different era back then.The people had a very strong motivation and desire to revolt in the manner they did.After all, the desire to be free can be a very powerful force.Once you pine for freedom , it’s really difficult for anybody to put you down.You will try all means possible to achieve what you feel is justified and rightfully yours.To add to it, the British government we were ruled by really added fuel to fire by committing all sorts of atrocities which I feel, need no repitition.
But today, the entire context has undergone a sea-change.While the earlier generation had tasted the bitterness of slavery,the hopeful uncertainty of the freedom struggle and endured the subsequent horrors of the partition, the youth today have not experienced any of these.Consequently, that fire in the belly to hit out at injustice has mellowed a bit.I have used the words “a bit” because I still believe that today’s youth has that ability to change the world around them rather than just sit on their bottom and crib about how the world has failed them.But what has happened is that the motivation to fight for a cause has taken the backseat in comparision to the aspirations of a successful career, material comforts and of course, the all-pervading factor – money.
Another important factor, which I feel matters, is the changed social and political scenario today.While our grandfather’s generation was ruled by a foreign power and our father’s generation was an integral part of a newborn nation and thus inhabited a very different mileu , we are part of a nation that has attained a degree of maturity and hence, has a different set of problems to tackle.The problems that we face today ie: corrupt system,unemployment,falling moral standards etc. are ones for which there is no quick-fix.These are systemic problems, which by definition, are deep-rooted enough not to be solved by a revolution or two.What is needed instead is a more planned approach.I feel that to solve the problems with the system, you have to be a part of the system and not try to overthrow it and replace it with an entirely new one.I have enough faith in the existing system to say that it can definitely serve us well, provided the right people are in charge of it.While a revolution might serve to kickstart the entire process like a sparkplug in a car,it’s not the means that will take us to the desired end.Our problems,I repeat, are not at all solvable by resorting to violence in the manner suggested in RDB.
As with any issue, there can be many opinions about this one,too. I look forward to having a constructive discussion with anyone who cares enough to contribute. You might want to take this up on your blog or at the very least, leave a comment. Please feel free to do so.