Eye of the tiger

Risin' up, back on the street

Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

To crib or not to crib...

Hail thee…I’d been exhausted by the office schedule these days, always wanted this time to blog, an empty room, silence to facilitate introspection and pen down what I feel.
Blogging is such a relaxation, especially to an oxymoronic species like me.
It’s been close to nine months now, working in the IT industry, coming in formals on weekdays and in collared T-shirts on Fridays (I hate spending money on collared T-shirts!!),trying to gel up with team members whom I dislike, being friendly and cool with people around, Genuine-ness has a place as well. Work is taken up with utmost sincerity. That is where the shoe pinches. I miss being an irresponsible guy, someone whom I’ve always been, far away from sincerity and worldly tantrums, I need some breathing space. Guess I’m getting transformed into a boring adult. Working 10 hours a day, going to bed thinking about one of the college crushes and damning the present life only to realize the past would never come, the past which is always so sweet, which I miss so much, my mistakes, my pain, my sufferings, my achievements, the people who were a part of it, friends, foes and people whom I’ve never talked to. I miss them all. I like cribbing, like any other human being. Is it bad to complain? Is it bad to seek for sympathy? Why is it, that we need to be strong (ya ohkay….to live in this bad bad world..I know that…but let me crib…atleast in my blog)
God is such a hypocrite entity. Why couldn’t we have a utopian heaven for every one.
All would have been happy. I see people around. They are so afraid to trust. The feeling of distrust is mutual. Hence every one acts in a so called “professional way”….i’ll do this you do that….give and take…….good and bad…give me a break…...ahhhhhhhhhhh It’s so relaxing cribbing here…..I feel better now….It’s 5:00 am in the morning and there is no one on the floor. Out office has adopted the go green policy so we have sensors installed through out the floors. Light is available at only those places where there is some movement. Needless to say my cubicle is the only place with lights on. I raise my head to see darkness that spreads across the floor devoid of people at this hour. It’s good, I like it this ways. This is my kingdom, solitude or loneliness whatever u may call it …here I am spending time with myself….something which I always wanted to do in recent days.

Fatalism

People say “our choices determine are future”…I seriously doubt this saying….being a fatalist……now wikipedia defines “fatalism” as subjugation of all events to pre-determinism such that free will does not exist. The definition seems to be partially correct, when it talks about subjugation to pre-determinism but incorrect when it says the absence of free will.
We will try to explore this. To begin with, Do we choose our parents? Do we choose the place we are going to take birth? The answer to these fundamental questions is “No”.
As we grow into adults we develop an ego (With respect to the feeling of ‘I’) which rules over our senses and makes us believe that we are in control. We live in our own small world where things are as simple as 1+1=2. But welcome to the real world, Things go out of control when we start daring…..trying to solve complex equations........Humans beings have always endeavored to explore their limits. Daring is the ship which needs to be boarded to do the same. People dare….those who fail, reconcile to destiny and some who succeed say nothing is impossible. But we’ll talk here about the third lot. This lot who has made it really big and knows that there is a silver lining of luck/destiny between success and failure. These are people who have realized that they were destined or chosen to act in such a way or to succeed in such a way in order to change lives around them. Hence they do not get themselves burdened with the feeling of “I’ve done it”. They are as humble as a tree bearing a lot of fruits bending down to the earth by the weight of it’s qualities.
Albert Einstine,Warren Buffet are people belonging to this league.
Returning back to choices. Life is all about making choices. We need to seek for inspiration before we make a choice internal or external. This is where the concept of god comes in. God which to me symbolizes the epitome of free-will. If we act through our free will (which might be inspired from the environment around) we act through the will of God because our free will is a part of the same. Therefore making an effort is important, because it is only action or karma that counts and contributes to any changes around, which might be good or bad.Either ways we will be acting by the will of god and inturn by our own free will. Human beings have always allowed their ego to blind them of this basic fundmental, that is why I reckon Wikipedia defines fatalism as non-existence of free will J

Love makes the world go round....

Another tiring day in the office and I was returning to home in the bus………a wave of thoughts stormed my mind…..about life, love and existence……I felt lonely and lost wondering where my life is leading me……… far away from home….in busy Bangalore……I missed my family and friends…..my b’day was around but I didn’t feel excited about it at all….had I grown up?….but why was I so dull??......it was the first time in many months I had started to feel lonely….which of course was very painful as “man is a social animal”……….I looked around in the bus…I saw people with dull faces… as lost as myself….searching for happiness…which seemed to be a myth….”joy”…had always made more sense to me…..it is some thing we can achieve…something that is visible…....but “joy” again is a temporary state….and what humans seek for is happiness which goes hand in hand with satisfaction……anything which makes u satisfied is bound to make u happy…….I wondered what could make me happy…..I wondered what I wanted out of life…??......The doors of the Volvo opened up on a stop and a “Bengali couple” stepped in………they seemed mid-aged…but were very much in love….I saw there eyes…..they were glowing with happiness….it was as easy as spotting life in a desert…….the man insisted the lady to sit on the only available seat….the lady didn’t feel like sitting alone….they seemed to be enjoying this........their faces spoke more of what they felt……..I offered my seat to the guy so that they can sit together and felt blessed to have found the answers to my questions…..

The Butcher Shop

The hens lay resting in the rooster coupe…..stuffed ,one on top of ,and against each other…packed like a living bunch of meat…..eyed upon by the street dogs….waiting near the roadside….licking the feathers that lie under the cage of a hen previously executed ….which had been among one of them….which like these had watched others crying and croaking in pain when the butcher’s iron knife went pass their throat……cutting it through with insensitive strokes……till finally the cries are no more heard the butcher shop returns to the mundane silence of the daily life……people pass by the butcher shop………..hearing the hue and cries….some ignorant…..some…sensitive enough to feel sorry…..but forget as soon as they reach the next turn…….

Kindness

(by Naomi Shihab Nye)

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ridethinking the bus will never stop,the passengers eating maize and chickenwill stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrowsand you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,only kindness that ties your shoesand sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,only kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayit is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you every wherelike a shadow or a friend.

Banglore Times....

So I got my second salary yesterday…………I’d decided to be happy about it but the fucking office routine had brooded over all my plans by the time I received the SMS for salary credit in my bank account……2 months in banaglore….things have been different than what I’d imagined……in either ways(good and bad)…………oh yes I bought an iPOD (shuffle 1GB silver color) much out of necessity than anything else. Life is lot more pleasant now as survival is easier……….Music is indeed an essential virtue in my life…………..after the rough office schedule I retire off to the PG terrace with my water bottle….a biscuit packet….put my phone on silence mode(after talking at home)……and switch on my iPOD……it is sooooo relaxing ……A.R.Rehman is such a genius….there is so much of reason involved in the slightest of the beads he includes in his composition…the meaning of which is derived by some later note in such a magical way……by the end of the song I find my self gasping (after a heavy air guitaring and head banging session)……..during the course of all these things I could see one next door guy sitting on the ladder of his terrace talking over the phone…..a bunch of people playing badminton on the road till as late as 11 in the night .........the music trance is often broken by the howling and barking of the street doggies which move around in gangs. Now I noticed a very special thing about the dogs of my area……these guys are very smart…..and survive by staying in groups…or gangs(to be more precise)…..they have well defined areas which they mark by pissing and covering there pee with the dust (I saw it in discovery channel…was good to see it in real life)….I often see these doggies pissing in front of our PG gate….no points for guessing that it is the LOC. Occasionally we witness gang wars between these guys……some of the reasons might be trespassing, food and the most obvious member of one community trying to hit on the chicks of the other……maaaan I tell u these doggies are so possessive about their girl friends…..I once accidently happened to be looking at one of the dogs……before I could realize that the dog was a “she dog” I could hear a grrrrrrrr……. Sound with her boy friends preparing for battle……thankfully they soon realized that I was just a mortal s/w engineer who’d been tired by the hectic office schedule and wud’ve probably be lost in some erroneous code…………and decided to spare me as I quietly did the patli gali se nikalne wala stunt…..

To be continued……………

"Sorry Blame it on me"-Akon

These lines are very close to my heart......one point or the other...everyone is bound to feel like this....

"Sorry, Blame It On Me"

As life goes on I’m starting to learn more and more about responsibilityI realize everything I do is affecting the people around meSo I want to take this time out to apologize for things I have doneAnd things that have not occurred yetAnd the things they don’t want to take responsibility forI’m sorry for the times I left you homeI was on the road and you were aloneI’m sorry for the times that I had to goI’m sorry for the fact that I did not knowThat you were sitting home just wishing weCould go back to when it was just you and meI’m sorry for the times I would neglectI’m sorry for the times I disrespectI’m sorry for the wrong things that I’ve doneI’m sorry I’m not always there for my sonI’m sorry for the fact that I'm not awareThat you can’t sleep at night when I am not thereBecause I am in the streets like everydaySorry for the things that I did not sayLike how you are the best thing in my worldAnd how I'm so proud to call you my girl[Bridge]I understand that there are some problemsAnd I am not too blind to knowAll the pain you kept inside youEven though you might not showIf I can apologize for being wrongThen it’s just a shame on meI’ll be the reason for your pain and you can put the blame on me[Chorus]You can put the blame on me [4x]Said you can put the blame on me [3x]You can put the blame on me

A Tribute to Sourav Ganguly

In the blue jersey he came out to bat against the sri lankans with India chasing in one of the one day series matches….the year 1996-97…he had a lot of brilliance in his batting and on his face…walked with his head held high….broad shoulders…and a sparkling gold chain hanging down his throat…..India lost the match though but Sourav had made a fighting 31 not out….and shown some resistance and grit much to my expectations.

I’d been following the then new sensation of Indian Cricket Sourav Ganguly…(Rahul Dravid was the other)…..I was excited about the player…..had read about his dream test debut at lords…..the manner in which he was described as the would be legend by the cricket pundits made me even more eager to watch him play…..that was the first time I saw dada play…I was so happy I had found my hero…..everyone needs a role model in life…someone one could relate to…and learn from……everyone needs an example to follow….I found my inspiration in dada….though I didn’t know much about him then….but his majestic appearance and glory tales couldn’t help me be his fan.

           The years passed by…every inning every match …I was cheering for India and dada….deriving inspiration in one form or the other…..his story is nothing less than a fairy tale….both in personal and professional spheres…Marrying your childhood love against the will of your parents…..getting caught up in an extra marital affair….facing allegations that his selection in the team was more of favor than talent and proving everyone wrong…..dada had faced it early in his life….but little did he know that this was the beginning.

            So dada succeeded Azhar as captain…the Indian team got reformed under his captaincy….record books were filled with historical wins….like the natwest series win and India’s dream run of world cup 2003…success was at dada’s feet but something had changed in dada…..the grace of the Bengal tiger had changed into arrogance…as a fan I could smell it….and it was something that disappointed me…..sourav was loosing form….although the team was performing well…..there was a point when sourav was in the team only because he was the captain….but his attitude on and off the field was something I was not too happy about as a fan…sourav had changed….he didn’t earn much of my respect…..and even I wanted him out of the team…..ultimately because of his poor performance dada was out…..personally I felt bad and disappointed as a fan….or rather an ex-fan………Sourav had shown signs that he still wanted to play and claimed that he had a lot of cricket left in him…….as for me since he had failed my trust…I had no respect left for him…and I personally felt that it would be impossible for him to make his way back into the MSD team…but destiny had different plans….here we see how a person grows when everything seems to be going against him. Sourav Ganguly-the name was being mocked upon by everyone in the cricketing world….he seemed to be making a fool of himself by talking about a comeback….his fans had lost trust in his abilities…Sourav didn’t loose faith in himself…..even when the world was against him…this is something  sourav taught all his fans…

 

“Tough times never last….but tough people do”

-Robert Schuller

There are tough times in everyone’s life…..times we feel like letting go….times we feel helpless…..times we loose a bit of our brittle and precious self esteem….times we are on are knees and the world is trying to keep us permanently there….times we need to take a decision and show the courage to stick to it…..denying the opinion even our loved and trusted ones have about ourselves…….that is what being oneself is all about…..it sounds easy though….”Be Yourself”…..but the word my friends has a lot of meaning and not many have the guts to aim and claim the glory……Dada most certainly has this. He showed us the way……the way to act with courage when you need to act with it…….the way to be yourself when fear and doubt surrounds you and you get brooded all over with despair…..the way to:

 

“When you reach the end of the rope.......Tie a knot and hang on”

-Thomas Jefferson

 

Today I’m a proud dada fan….he has one my respect like anythingand shown me the way. Dada is again the old dada……proud but a lot more humble and mature something I’d craved to see in him……I salute you Sourav…we all will miss you.