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Of moments and waves

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Dreams, Fiction, Life, Love

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It was an unusual monsoon evening in the city of dreams. Not for today, the evening’s moisture-laden winds or the unruly chaos of people crowding the shore. Instead, what blew across the sands was a slightly dry, yet cool and strong breeze. The sea of humanity had somehow taken a backseat to the “real” sea. The only thing that remained unchanged was the molten orange of the setting sun, melancholic yet fulfilled, inching towards its home somewhere on the horizon. “This does not feel like the seashore I know. This seems…different.”, he spoke to himself as he let the waves brush against his trousers. It was some time before he realised that he had forgotten to take off his shoes and had effectively, messed them up. “Let it be, I needed a new pair anyway, good riddance!” was how he consoled himself.

After he had made a couple of rounds from one end of the beach to another, the shoes started growing heavier in his hands. Putting them on was out of the question as it would mean feet polished to a sore red by the sand. Reminding himself to wear floaters the next time, he decided to make a final detour to his favourite end of the beach. It was the end where the sun used to shine the brightest in the day, and the mellowest in the evening. The longer stay of the sunshine did mean extra crowds, but today that was not the case, and he felt happy about it. On a day where he needed some “me time”, this was a more than welcome occurrence.

As he slowed down for the final lap, some distance away from him, he noticed her sitting alone on the sands. She sat a bit away from the waves, far enough to keep her dry, yet close enough to feel their splash. He would have dismissed her as yet another sea-lover or lost soul if something had not caught his attention. Her eyes had something bewitchingly different about them. In his lifetime, he had seen (and gazed into) a fair share of eyes – some of them deep and inviting, some others cunning and shifty, and yet others lively and innocent. Hers were something else altogether, though he could not really tell what it was about them that had him hooked. To get a closer look, he sat a few feet away and gazed at her, pretending all the while to look around the beach. Her eyes not only reflected the liquid brightness of the setting sun, but also seemed to shine with an intensity usually found in someone who had their entire life planned and were raring to go get it. At the same time, they had a certain far away, lost quality which mellowed the intensity and made her look more inviting than intimidating. “Awesome sunset today, no? I just love it.” – he spoke out loudly to no one in particular, hoping that she will hear it and respond. She noticed, but didn’t say anything, but simply smiled at him and nodded in approval.

“I have not seen you much around here. Do you come here regularly?” – he tried to keep the conversation going. “No, I do come here regularly. You have noticed me for the first time though, haven’t you?”, she said with a slight smile. “Umm…yes. I wonder how I missed out all this while?” was all he could muster.
“Oh, it happens. We do not notice something until the time is really right. Anyway, you enjoy the sunset, I have to go.” Saying so, she stood up and turned away.
“What if I don’t want you to go?” – he blurted out without knowing how or where those words came from. The moment he said that, he wished time had an Undo option. Unfortunately, it did not, and all he could do was look at her and see how she reacted.

“Do you really want me to stay?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Sure?”
“Yes”

It felt like a entire age had passed by while they looked at each other – he in anticipation, she in what seemed to be trepidation.

“Okay! Chalo…”, saying so, she stretched out her hand.

As they walked along the beach, hand in hand, the waves brushing his feet felt cooler, the orange along the horizon, warmer.

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Pearls of “Wisdom”

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Musings, Optimism

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Before reading further, please look at the title of this post again. The word “wisdom” is enclosed in quotes, which means that whatever follows may not be wisdom according to you. You may partially or totally disagree with it, which is perfectly fine. This is a list of things I have learnt from life (or in some cases, life has taught me). If reading and following even one of these help you get out of a mess (or to not get into it) then the purpose of writing this has been fulfilled. If not, I don’t mind being at the receiving end of brickbats. 🙂

  1. Do not discriminate. It really couldn’t be put more simply. Just because someone is different from you in some aspect, it does not mean that you get the right to look down at them, or even consider them an aberration. It is about time that we moved away from using parameters like birth, religion, economic status etc. to decide what we should think of someone. This will only lead us to judge them (unfairly so, in many cases) which brings me to the next point.
  2. Do not judge. I know how tempting it is to put labels on people and be done with it. After all, it saves us mental effort and time which is needed to really know them. But then, pause for a moment and consider this – we wouldn’t like anyone to form an opinion about us based on what they think and not what we actually are. So why the hell should we do the same to others? Agreed that we may not have the time and energy to know someone before forming an opinion about them, but I feel it is perfectly okay to NOT have an opinion about something than to hastily form an opinion and stick to it. Try it sometime, it will do more good than harm to you, as well as those around you.
  3. Love. Yes – just a single word, which should tell you that I mean to use it as a verb than as a noun. Fall in love, fall out of love if circumstances force you to, but never run away from love. The more you run away from it, the more you are denying yourself a chance to feel “alive”. And yes, this does not include only romantic love, but platonic love as well. And while we are at it, loving someone does not only mean the desire to be with them, it also means the readiness to do whatever it takes to be with them.
  4. Invest your emotions. Anyone can invest money and/or time into something, it takes courage to invest your emotions into something or someone. Because them, you are rendering yourself vulnerable. No matter what anyone tells you, vulnerability is the greatest indicator of strength, because to me it shows that you are not afraid of exposing your innermost core to the vagaries of the world.
  5. Disinvest your emotions. This is exactly contrary to what I said above, and equally important. Just like monetary investments, emotional investments can go kaput many a times. Know when to stop investing, cut your losses, and move away. People may choose to leave you despite whatever you do to hold them back. In such cases, don’t hold them back, hold the door for them to leave, and make sure you close it tight.
  6. Believe in second chances. At times, someone whom you have shut out of your life may come back, and you may be tempted to have them back. To be honest, there are no dos and don’ts here. It is okay to give them a second chance to put right what they wronged the first time round. Go with what your instincts tell you. However, if they screw you up yet again, there shouldn’t be a third chance.
  7. Cherish those who matter. Even if someone is not a part of your life in the way you want them to be (read: if you have been “friend-zoned” or if the love of your life is the better part of someone else’s life) they still are the same person whom you loved. That they couldn’t play your desired role in your life, doesn’t mean they have no role in your life at all. Loving them was a choice you made, and if it was based on the condition that they be with you, it wasn’t really love at all. Be there for them (if and) when they need you. Of course, make sure that you are at peace with the situation first, or else you will only end up making a mess of yourself.
  8. Listen to advice, consider it, and then, throw it away. Just because anyone (that includes me) gives you advice, doesn’t mean that you are obliged to follow it. Whatever I say comes from my own beliefs and experiences, and you do not have to take it verbatim. Understand what someone is trying to say when they tell you something. See if you agree with it and then act accordingly. No one walks your path, and you don’t have to follow their map.

I realised that some of these points could be posts in themselves, but for now, I will stop here. This is enough food for thought for now. Till next time, adios! 🙂

Don’t hunch

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Hope, Life, Musings, Optimism

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Spiderman happens to be one of my favourite movies. This is not a case of typical superhero worship, but because the ‘superhero” here is not really a “superhero”. He is more a product of the circumstances that surround him, albeit extraordinary ones. But before I digress, this blog is not about Spiderman per se, this is about a line from the movie that I like a lot.

Now there are many memorable lines in this movie. Who doesn’t remember “With great power comes great responsibility” or for that matter “the one thing they love more than a hero…is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying.”? But my personal favourite remains from a small scene where Mary Jane Watson is talking to Peter outside her house. She says “You are taller than you look.”. Peter replies “I hunch” and she simply says “Don’t”. This, to me, captures a very important life lesson – don’t hunch.

One of the most common mistakes that many of us do while going through life is to underestimate ourselves or to think that we don’t have it in us to overcome certain challenges/situations. I have been particularly guilty of this, especially in my younger days when I was more introverted than a hibernating frog. We always have something or the other which acts as a limiting factor for our aspirations. “I don’t know how I will manage to lose weight”, “I wish I had the confidence to ask that girl out”, “I wish I could stand up to that bully” are all situations many of us have gone through without bothering to stand up for ourselves. We don’t really push ourselves to take that step towards fulfilling our wishes or realizing certain dreams. We always console ourselves saying that these things are “easier said than done”. However, we forget that while these things are indeed “easier said than done”, they are also “worthier done than lost”. We get so trapped in the fear (or lethargy) of our (mostly) self-imagined limitations that we never really try and enjoy the sweet pain of breaking those chains. Yes, like any chains, the breaking of these need lots of effort, which can be (very) painful. Yet, I can safely say that none of us will really complain about the pain if we were to enjoy the fruits of freedom once we have broken them.

There can be many ways to break free of our self-imposed limitations. The level of effort required will vary from person to person, depending on their own unique qualities and their circumstances. One thing remains constant though – we cannot break free until we stop underestimating ourselves. It is so easy to tell ourselves that we cannot achieve what our heart wants, so much so that many prefer living with regret of not having tried than risking failure. When I was growing up, I never thought I had it in me to ask out a girl if I liked her. Today when I look back, I realise how silly I was to not take the chances that I had. Of course there was no guarantee that these would have blossomed into something more significant, but my not acting on them only ensured that they would never blossom further. The only reason this happened was because I believed deeply that I didn’t have what would make any girl like/love me. Hence I preferred to keep my mouth shut rather than open it and make a spectacle of myself. Today, I know I was quite wrong. The plain fact is that underestimating myself has cost me a lot in life in terms of missed opportunities and chances at glory. The day I realised this was the day I truly stopped saying “I cannot do this” to any situation/challenge. Till date, this remains the best decision I ever made.

There is no mathematical formula or even any well-tested procedure to stop underestimating yourself. However, I can say this from my own experience – the day you start saying “I deserve better” is the day you stop underestimating yourself. Of course, there still remains a lot be done to reach your goals, but you have already taken the biggest step of your journey. And trust me on this, no matter who you are or where life has placed you, you always deserve better if you are willing to work towards it.

There is a lot I can say about this, but I know I would sound like a broken record, so I will only say this (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) – don’t hunch. 🙂

I hate work, and so should you

31 Friday Jan 2014

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Now that I have got your attention, please don’t panic or be surprised. I know the title of this post is quite unlike me, considering that many (if not most) of those who know me think of me as a workaholic. So let me get straight to the point.

I do love my job, quite a lot. It is just the “work” part of it that I don’t have a taste for. now this does not mean that I like to just sit on my butt and get paid for it, however rosy it may sound. For me, “work” is any needless effort or resources that you spend towards achieving any goal. If you are not doing something in the most optimum way possible, you are “working” towards it, and all those efforts that you are putting into it, are nothing but a waste. Stop right there and see if you could do those in a better manner. No matter how experienced or skilled we are, we can always do something better than how we are doing it presently. Just give it a shot, and you will be amazed by the results.

What would perhaps be the foremost quality towards achieving a higher level of efficiency? If you ask me, the simple answer is “laziness”. Yes, contradictory as it sounds, you cannot be efficient if you are not lazy. Again, I have an offbeat definition of laziness. For me, laziness is the quality of refusing to put in more than the minimum amount of efforts required, and yet achieving the desired goal. I started off my IT career as a programmer, and I have always believed that the best of programmers are usually the lazy ones. By a lazy programmer, I mean someone who does not want to do the same job again and hence, puts in his best the first time itself that he does not have to really look back and wonder if he could have done it better. Secondly, if something can be automated, preferably to the extent of “Fill it, shut it, forget it”, a lazy programmer will always prefer to do it that way, thereby leaving himself free for higher pursuits.

What applies to programming, also applies to life. How many of us spend our lives doing things that could be done more efficiently, or even better done by someone else? Quite a lot, I can bet. What really prevents us from making this happen is a misplaced sense of identity. We identify ourselves with our work/job, whereas what we should be really focusing on its outcome, the difference that our being good at what we do makes to the world at large. Once we realise that, it also becomes apparent that if we get better at what we do, we are going to make a greater, better difference to the world. I would go a bit further and say that it is our duty to make sure that this happens. Simply put, the moment you start getting rid of what is unnecessarily taking up your time, you free yourself up for what you should be spending your time on. What this means in your job can vary wildly. For a programmer, this could mean writing error-free code (well, as error-free as possible) or automating routine tasks. For a writer, this could mean better organisation of his work routine, so that s/he can spend more time on creative pursuits and less on clerical stuff. The bottom line is really simple – more work DOES NOT mean more productivity. It simply means more wasted effort. I believe that what we achieve should last for a long time, but we should not spend a large amount of time doing it. We are not going to be around for ages, so why spend time doing something that won’t last beyond our lives?

This also gives rise to a thought – what is the higher purpose of life then? Well, that is a topic for another post. For now, I will only say this – HATE work, but love what you do. 🙂

This a point meant

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Life, Musings, Optimism

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This is how I used to pronounce “disappointment” in my head when I was in school. The reason I used to do this was because I had difficulty remembering how to pronounce (not spell though) long words. This technique proved quite successful for me. So, if you want to know who to blame for my usage of long words, you now know. Yes – that would still be me. 😀

Long words apart, little did I know that my fun game of using small words to remember long ones would reveal the real meaning of the longer word, especially in this case. Confused as to what am I trying to say? The dictionary defines disappointment as “sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations”. And that does seem pretty much to the point. After all, aren’t we all saddened (to differing extents) when things don’t go the way we want them to? No matter how detached we claim to be, it still pinches us when we want something and it is denied to us. But…but…there is a catch here. At least I have almost always found a catch. Yup, I’m a real-life Jonty Rhodes when it comes to finding catches. 😛

More often than not, I have found that disappointment is nothing but a challenge thrown at us. It says “Okay, so you wanted this? Anyone can get what they want and feel happy/proud. Let us see how you do when you don’t get what you want.” The challenge here is to realise that things won’t always go your way in the first go, and then either doggedly pursue your goal till you achieve it, or take a step back, smile to yourself and gracefully accept that things are not going to go your way. Perhaps better destinations await your journey, perhaps this is what you want but not need. Which path you finally walk down, will depend on you and your circumstances, but one thing remains common to both – disappointment is not always about life denying you what you deserve. Sometimes, it is simply making a point which you have missed in your hurry to end up where you want to be.

Now I agree that it is very easy to lecture someone about not getting affected by disappointment, and quite difficult to implement it yourself. Despite what I have wrote above, I do not always manage to handle disappointment well. It leaves me blue, even morose at times. The funny thing though (and I am fortunate for it to be like that) is that I’m simply unable to stay blue for long. Call it callousness or even simply not caring enough, it has worked well for me so far. What it has also thought me is this – disappointment is simply a stone thrown at you. Whether to bang your head against it, or to use it as a stepping stone to peace is totally in our hands. You can also use it to smash someone else’s head too, but in case you do that, I did not tell you to do so. 😀

How to overcome disappointment? Now that is something everyone needs to figure out for themselves. A combination of dogged optimism and positivity works well for me, but others might perceive it as unrealistic and impractical. What remains true through out though, is this – disappointment really does mean a point that life is trying to make. You would do well to pay attention to it.

The change I want to see

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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“Be the change you want to see in the world”, said the man born on this very day 144 years ago. And though his has been a quite controversial life, with an equal number of devotees and detractors, what he said really hits the nail on the head. If we want something to change around us, we have to go ahead and make it happen. Nobody is going to do that for us while we indulge ourselves with armchair activism. However, before changing anything (in the world or ourselves), we ought to know first what is it that we want to change. This is exactly what I seek to do here today. And though there are many things that I would want to see changed, I am going to focus on the top three that matter most to me. Obviously, everyone will have their own top 3, and that is very welcome.

At the top of the list comes what I call “discrimination”. Now the reason I put that word in quotes is this – the dictionary defines it as unjust treatment offered to people on the basis of race/age/gender. I look at it as unfairly treating someone based on anything that does not/should not matter in the given context. It could be any of the above factors or it could be something else like that person not belonging to the same social/economic class as yours. Hence, my view of it covers reverse discrimination as well. I am equally unhappy whether the man in the car shoves away the man on the street or whether the man on the street aims a stone at the car, both operating on the simple premise that anyone who is not “one of us” is meant to be hated. I see so much of it around that I can’t describe it and not feel sad about it. To take a very simple example, in our country itself, we have this whole “classification system” based on factors like religion, caste, (and finer sub-divisions). This system is pretty elaborate, and takes so many things into account, like where you were born and brought up, what flavour of religion adorns your birth certificate, and so on. If you notice, all these criteria have something in common – these are something over which a person has little or no control at all. And yet, not only we merrily continue judging people on this basis, many of us also leave no stone unturned in propagating this system to the future generations. This discrimination is what I want to see going away. I want to see a world where we (well, at least most of us) will be wise and willing enough to value people for what they are and not judge them on the basis of where they hail from.

Up next is respect. No, I don’t want to change its meaning, or ascribe any additional meaning to it. All I want happening is to see more of it. Respect for ourselves (instead of the pride that we more frequently carry), respect for others and their being, will definitely make this world a lot easier to live in. When someone is sitting in a vehicle and a kid taps on their window, begging for alms, all I want for that person is to politely decline instead of going ballistic on them or even shooing them away like they don’t even exist. No, I don’t want you offering cash or food (unless they look famished) to them (the reasons behind these will make for a separate post), I just want you to treat them with the respect that anyone (or anything) around you deserves. Just because you are privileged enough to have a safe roof on your heads and a vehicle under your bottom, it doesn’t give you the right to treat someone less privileged like dirt. The same principle applies when we deal with people around us. Many a times, we feel that we are the only ones facing (or overcoming) difficulties in life, and by that token, are entitled to a feeling of superiority. Well, let me break it to you – you are not. Every single person on the face of this earth was given a unique set of issues that they have to deal with, struggles that they have to undergo, and challenges that they have to overcome. To make that possible, they were also given their own unique set of abilities, strengths and circumstances. Just because their abilities and achievements are somehow “inferior” to yours by some yardstick, it doesn’t give you the right to look down at them. You don’t necessarily have to be kind, just be respectful.

Last, but not least, comes love. Certainly not of the “ishq waala love” kind that we have all but commercialized around us today. The love that I speak of, and seek, is love for the life that we have been blessed with. The love that helps us to see this world and the people in it in a kinder light, not constrained by what we have been conditioned to see. This is the love that makes the above-mentioned two changes possible, and without which we have no hope of carrying out those changes. This is something much more fundamental to our existence, and doesn’t need cards to express itself, or relationships to prosper. It is quite simple really –  we have had enough of hatred and prejudice, and it has not done us any good. Now is the time to give love a chance.

I just realised that I am sounding much like Mr. Gandhi here, and I hope you haven’t dropped off to sleep. If you are awake yet, perhaps the first thing that you are going to say is that all this sounds very good in theory, but is not so easy to practice. Well, from personal experience, I can say that I have been practising this for some years now. I haven’t been perfect, and have faltered at times, but I have kept myself on the path. That will call for another post though. For now, all I will say is – if you want something around you to change, don’t wait for someone else to do it. Just do it yourself.

P.S: The last sentence above was not sponsored by Nike. 🙂

Turning the pages

02 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in Dreams, Happiness, Life, Musings, Optimism

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This is the first time EVER that I am writing a post on a topic suggested by someone else. The simple reason being that I wanted to see how well I did when I water a seed that someone else planted in my mind. This idea is courtesy Meenu who asked me to write a post about the book that I have liked/loved most and I said…why not? Let us see what we can come up with. So, in a way, this post is dedicated to her.

So, which book am I going to talk about today? I will be honest – it wasn’t an easy choice at all. Though I have never claimed to be a “voracious reader” and I work in an industry where paper is treated as an untouchable commodity, I am responsible for a fair amount of trees being cut down. Out of all the books I have read so far, each one (with a few exceptions) has been an enjoyable journey. Intriguing at times, engrossing at others. So, picking out one was easier said than done. That being said, I decided to go by gut feel. I just laid back, closed my eyes, and the very first image that flashed in my mind was the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy in search of his dream.

As many of you might have guessed by now, I am talking about The Alchemist, one of Paulo Coelho’s all-time classics. I will not go into the details of the plot of the book. You can always refer to Wikipedia for that. Neither am I going to come up with a review of the book, as I believe that a book is something to be felt, to be experienced, and not to be evaluated or reviewed. I am simply going to tell you about the impression that this tale made on me, and how it has helped me in my life. Yes, you read that right. This is one book whose theme I have been able to apply practically in my day-to-day life. 🙂

Thanks to SRK and Om Shanti Om, almost everyone is aware of the key theme of the book. “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” is what the alchemist tells Santiago. To a large extent, this is something we all would like to believe in, and why not? Who wouldn’t want to desire something and have things fall in place auto-magically? Seems too good to be true, and it indeed is. This is something which I have found that many of us miss out on. In the ecstasy of imagining our dreams come true just like that, we forget about one more thing that Santiago was told. And I will admit – I didn’t catch it the first time either. It was only when I actually tried applying the principle in real life that I encountered it. Curious? Read on.

“Those who don’t understand their Personal Legends will fail to comprehend its teachings” is what the alchemist says to Santiago, adding that when we are young, we all know what our “Personal Legend” is. Admittedly, this sounds like high-brow management speak, until you realise it is nothing else but the basic purpose of your life – the role that you are supposed to play on this big stage. As I understand it, it is all about really focusing on what you want to achieve in life, what you want to be remembered as after you have made your exit, and then fearlessly working your way towards it. It is only after you have set foot on this journey that things start falling in place for you. If you expect to sit on your ass and expect things to fall on your lap, remember that even a beggar sitting outside the temple doesn’t enjoy that luxury. He has to reach out to people and tug at their heart strings to make them loosen their purse strings.

Coming back to myself, this book has always been a great source of inspiration to me. Whenever I feel down and out (yes people, I do feel like that at times) I simply pick it up, flip to a random page and start reading. Invariably, I find that calm is restored within some time. Two of the most important lessons that this book has taught me are – “follow your dreams” and “life listens to what you say/do and rewards you accordingly”. The first one is pretty obvious to understand and equally difficult to follow to the fullest. Fortunately, I have always been blessed with opportunities (and people) around me who have been supportive of my efforts to make my life the way I want it to be. Of course, there have been detractors too, a fair share of them. But for me, they have proved to be more of a motivator. If there is something I really love doing, it is having people tell me that I cannot do something and then proving them wrong. 😉

The second one is a bit tricky. At first, I had thought that it was all about life paying you back for your good/bad deeds, or what is popularly known as karma. Then, I realised that it was not just karma, it was also about how we accept what life bestows on us. Whatever life puts in our hands, we have to accept it with equanimity. If it gives you something which makes you happy, smile, be grateful to it and thank it. If it gives you something that makes you sad, smile, say “no worries, I hope I get a better deal next time round” and move ahead towards your dream. Trust me, life WILL pay you back what it owes you. 🙂 In my experience so far, I have found it to be the most balanced credit-debit sheet EVER. One thing that I have learnt (sometimes the hard way) is not to deny anything that life offers to you. If it offers you something that you feel you are not worthy of, you are WRONG. Life knows better. If you are getting something, it is because you deserve it, as simple as that. Don’t deny yourself the pleasure, cherish it. 🙂

This has been a long post so far, but a very satisfying one to write. Thanks Meenu, get your brain cells buzzing – if these are the kind of ideas you are going to come up with, I need more of them. 🙂

Same thing, same time…

14 Sunday Jul 2013

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“Hey, I was JUST about to say that”
“Same thing at the same time…great minds think alike, at the same time, too…” 😀
“Yaar, mere munh ki baat chheen li tumne…”

If any of these sound familiar to you, you already know what I am going to talk about today. Yes, its about what is generally known as telepathy, or that awesome (or weird if you claim to possess that intangible quality called sanity) phenomenon where your mental frequency (wavelength if you choose so) matches with someone so well, that completing each others’ sentences, reading their mind, and yes, saying the same thing at the same time (even if it is not directly related to what you are discussing at that point of time) becomes an everyday affair. It happens many a times with me, not with many people though. And like most of my other posts, this too is about my own experiences, and definitely NOT about whether telepathy exists or not. If I experience it with you, it very much exists. If I don’t, it doesn’t. As simple as that. 🙂

I have always believed that if you have people in your life with whom you can speak less and say more, and be assured that they will get you right, you are a very fortunate person. This person need not always be your lover/spouse or even your soulmate. Yes, one’s lover/spouse may NOT be one’s soulmate, but I digress. It can be a friend, or even someone whom you have known for a short while. What really matters is that with these people, communication is nothing short of near-magic, where you don’t speak much not because you don’t have much to speak about, but because you don’t need to. And when you speak, the understanding is so good, it almost seems too good to be true. Now, this does not mean that you agree on anything and everything, it simply means that even if you don’t agree on something, you don’t have to do much to make the other person understand it.

After reading the above paragraph, you might think that I have digressed from where I started. What does understanding each other well have to do with telepathy? Right? Well, let me ask you this – where does the damn telepathy come from? Unless you understand each other well, it is well-nigh impossible to be so much in sync that your thoughts (and words) complement each other even when they run in opposite directions. You might be a butter chicken fanatic and they may run away even at the mere glimpse of an egg, but if the very mention of “food” gets both of you saying “Chal yaar…kuch khaate hai…bhookh lagi hai”, THAT, my dear friends, is telepathy. And before you think that all I can think of is food (someone definitely considers me a “foodie”), let me tell you that I took food as an example because its the easiest to understand. 😀 I could have equally well taken up a topic like emotions or love, but then knowing me, that would have been so predictable. 😉

Now where does this “telepathy” really stem from? I believe that we all have our own unique blend of craziness (this theory does explain my round-the-clock ability to yap quite well) and when we come across someone with a similar blend, the resulting magic is inevitable. There is really no scientific explanation for this, and I am not even seeking any. I am just happy that such a thing exists, and there are people in my life (however few) with whom I can experience it. 🙂 In fact, when I come across a new person in any sphere of my life, one of the first things I look out for is the ease with which we can communicate. And if I happen to strike gold, the happiness is second to none.

Having said all that, I must say that this is not something I have experienced it with too many people in my life. In fact, I can count such people on the fingers of one hand (and I am not even Hrithik Roshan to have an extra finger). So, if I have told you that I have experienced this with you, you belong to a very select club. Thanks for matching my blend of craziness…you are awesome! 🙂

Never say never again…

16 Tuesday Mar 2010

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If you are expecting something related to a Bond movie after having a look at the title, let me tell you that you are in for some disappointment. Though the author of this post is just as deadly with his PJs as Bond is with his guns,  there is going to be no 007 here. Instead, this is going to be about how one should never use the word “never” (Ignore the irony that just occurred).

On a serious note, isn’t it amazing to observe how many of us are so good at putting ourselves into single-lane tracks like those blindfolded horses in a race? Blinding ourselves to the world outside what our limited thoughts can see comes ever so easily to us. Picture this –  you have your heart set on something very desirable, a gadget maybe, or a particular job offer or even a person whom you want to end up sharing sunsets with (Talking of sharing sunsets, something on that is coming soon, but I digress). Along comes something thats not quite what you had in mind, but which could be an interesting possibility. And whats our typical reaction? We are so fixated with what we have set our eyes on, that we don’t even pause to consider anything else. This is not to say that one should not be single-minded in pursuit of our goals, but at the same time, we should not miss the woods for the trees.

As you must have realised by now, what I am trying to say here is that one should be open to possibilities. As the Bible puts it so succinctly, only when a grain of wheat falls to the ground, will a harvest beckon. We, though, so tightly hold on to our grains that we deny ourselves the harvest that could have been. And more often that not, what stays with us is a “if-only” regret, which serves no purpose but to frustrate us further. One point that I must make here is that there is no difference between being open to possibilities and being steadfast about your goals. Though they seem to be contradictory, they are not. Being focussed on something does not mean that you cannot entertain other possibilities, it only means that you give them their due consideration, and reject them only after you have satisfied yourself that they are not worth it. It should not mean blind rejection of anything that does not seem to fit into your current perspective.

So how do you know whether you are doing it right? Like almost all things in life, the best judge is you. You are the only one who decides whats right for you – because its you who is going to reap the fruits (sweet or otherwise) of that decision in the end. All that I am saying here is – give every dog its fair share of the bone. Who knows – changing tracks might lead you on to the best journey you ever took.

On that note, I will sign off before I metamorphose into a white-robed priest delivering a Sunday sermon..hehe. 😀

Till next time, keep reading!!