Monday, August 20, 2007

rooms

There was a time when I spend a lot of time on yahoo chat.The rooms were like brothels. People come, do what they want & leave. And anyone who took them seriously left with lil scars.
But inspite of all the nonsense, it was a study in human behaviour. Down right silly but amusing. There was a subculture that evolved in rooms.

Virtual rooms where a pansy took on opponents he thought who were tougher than him;and filled the screen with his 32 point crimson font war cries;

The 60 something lover called herself "pink lady" and talked dirty to 14 something teens;

The 14 something called himself "death-wish", finished his biology homework and talked about 12 ways of killing nymphets; while munching a kit-kat;

The cyber cafe guy who kept wondering aloud why flights are always so late these days & secretly worried whether all this stuff his friend wrote for him was grammatically correct;

The timid 40 something husband became "d-rebel-kid", walked tall in his own world and lived out his dreams;

All of them went in there, trusted no one including themselves, left feeling good, bad, disappointed, spent...what ever

The rooms were like toilet walls and everyone had a marker

Rooms were we all wore masks, smile was an emoticon and cussin was cool

Rooms were hugs never intruded personal space

Rooms were friends were just nicks

Friends that never were

Thursday, August 9, 2007

30 plus

There are surveys held on such ridiculous things and they get printed before they are even spell checked!

"The average life span of an Indian male is 60 years"

This time, a multitude of thoughts crossed my average Indian male mind.

-I am over thirty and that means Iam half way through..
-Average Indian male doesnt do much anyways, so what the heck! Sooner the better..
-Shit, I still have a lot of stuff pending; I gotta go..
-All averages are wrong, so screw the survey..
-I may beat the average and become an exception..
-How good are exceptions when u are only good at warming chairs..!
I pulled the reins on my thought process and realised that I was actually getting older, on a daily basis. So is every one else.

15 years back, days were longer; Iam certain. The perception of time is so different when you have seen lesser winters; measure less around your waist or when you still haven't earned your first salary.

Life is playing itself out at a furious space; and at times it seems overwhelming, so unlike the days of childhood, and to a similar degree to those of my 20s. Those days lasted forever.

But now I'm starting to understand.

At 30 plus, my body no longer wishes to sleep until the early afternoon -- it wants up at 5 am. Even more startling, I actually enjoy the mornings. This is the one time in the day when I have all my energy, I feel mentally alert, and the world outside is calm. Come to think of it, I actually made a lot of good decisions looking out through the window, with a cup of coffee in my hand while the a lazy sun was still some where behind the horizon!

What is growing old then? I randomly listed out a few dry facts...

When you are getting older..

You have more time to worry or when you have more time, you start sit and think/worry/ponder; with or with out your coffee.
You KNOW it when you are appealing to some one from the fairer sex and hence you dont try too hard with a few.
You KNOW you should not do it, but you do it because tomorrow could be worse.
You prefer the company of younger guys but once you are with them, you KNOW that you are in the wrong league.
You won't dance but you are a good critic of the art.
You have a pretty good opinion about everything but no one asks you for yours, bcos u are still not old enough(!!)

Hmm, you are getting old and thus you cant even write this stuff in a slightly more organised fashion....

This isnt doing me any good! I am sure there are better ways to look at the situation..What is the word Iam searcing for?

Yes...thats it. "Aging gracefully" Thats what is happening to my knees these days. But what a shame, the doctor wouldnt agree..

no common man

In common man there is this burning desire for simple, stimulating, comforting faith. How ever dogmatic are the religious practices, they loosen up in the comfort of their faith. It must be a good feeling. A feeling that I could never indulge in...

My emotion over ruled religious exaltations. Rationale overpowered faith. Stories were dissected. Examples were analyzed.Doubts prevailed.questions arose...

The essence of an earthly existence is fascinating. The differnce is that I was always trying to see it from the-wide-eyed-science-fiction-reading-kid's view point. The night sky never made me think of the power that held it all together. I was wondering who else was lying beyond that, on a bed and thinking the same thoughts.

"A special form of communion with God is prayer". At prayers, how hard I tried I felt guilty; guilty because of doing something that I could never believe in, something that was supposed to comfort me, but never did anyways.

Two months back I joined my friend in prayer in his church. Christian Science teaches that prayer is a spiritualization of thought or an understanding of God and of the nature of the underlying spiritual creation. One believes that this can result in healing, by bringing spiritual reality (the "Kingdom of Heaven" in Biblical terms) into clearer focus in the human scene. The world as it appears to the senses is regarded as a distorted version of the world of spiritual ideas: the latter is the only true reality. Prayer can heal the distortion.

The prayer lasted for more than 2 hours. My knees ached. May be I am no common man; the healing of my aching knees took 2 days. I know, I can never directly petition to God. My wavering mind seeks to run away from prayers.

I meditated hoping to learn the art of concentration. I ended up listening to the sound of a film song played from a far away house.

I am a doubting believer. Is there such a phrase? I just cant seem to find a better way to describe it.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Excuse me!

"Iam sorry sir; I swallowed my pen & I couldnt complete that write up u asked me to do"

I would love to write a book on excuses; and then I would name it "1001 excuses". May be I will come up with different versions intended for different market segments. for eg: "The ultimate excuse collection for the employee" or "Excuses for dummies"

I am dreaming of making a lot of money, yes Iam! What do u think? A book like that should be a hot pick!

Iam actually counting on my experience as a student and later as a teacher to provide me with content for this book. These 2 roles gave me the right perspective to approach excuses. Right,left,wrong...Iam not sure. But it was interesting. The following is a sneak peak into this literary marvel in the making..

Excuses are life-savers. U just have to ake sure that they are made available all the time; just like all life-savers. The most common types u may need are the following:

No time: If you dread saying "Oh I dont think I have the time for that", you could use a stylish alternative like: "It is amazing how you managed to do that within your tight schedule. Could I borrow your watch?"

Dont know: If you do not like to say "I do not know", rephrase it. How about, "I used to do it before. But as I learned more important skills, I can't remember much of these things these days. But I know that u are different, so......" (let it hang in there..!)

No money: This one is easy. "Oops, has anyone seen my wallet? cos i haven't!"

Disclaimer: Most of the excuses never really worked for me. But that shouldn't stop u from trying out a few or from, yeah!, buying my book! After all life is about trying out different things! Some of them will work for sure. Keep faith..

The Great Plan

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