Tuesday, December 05, 2006

yunhi

aaj jab hum yunhi ghar ki
chaukhat par baithe so rahe thhey
daftar najaakar dhoop mein sustane
ke sapno mein kho rahe thhey

achanak dimmag par chhaya
waqt ka kaala saaya,
ehsaas hua ki adhaa ghanta
ho gaya intezaar karte
ab tak hamari
gaadi waala kyun nahi aaya

hadbada kar apne sehkarmi
ko hamne kiya phone
toh pata chala ki
hum toh sapne hi dekhte reh gaye,
aur hamara wahan-chalak
kal hi gaya tha chhutti ka bol

khayal aaya ki hum bhi
mauke ka fayda uttha lein
sahab ko phone kar
bimari ka bahan bana dein

par yeh kambakht tankhwa
jo ab tak nahi aayi
loan ki kisht ke haathon mazboor,
rickshey ko awaaz lagayi,
"10 rupaiye mein chalte ho kya bhai"!

ab dafter mein baithe
kismat ko rote hain
humse bhale toh kam
padhe likhe driver babu
kam-s-kam ghar pe araam se chadar
taan ke sote hain

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

life

life is weird. We keep living it with certain beliefs , notions and ideas about ourselves, our society , and the people in it. Whether its are our friends, family or the rest of the world ranging from the US president to our local fruit vendor, we have atleast a basic understanding of each. And hence of their actions.Atleast that's what we think.

What we dont know baffles us and with certain exceptions (such as maths in my case), we keep trying to figure it out. If we know atleast the people around us and understand their thoughts and actions, it gives us a sense of deep rooted security. It is this which makes moving to a new home or a job so difficult. You dont know anyone or anything there. You feel unrooted, insecured and alone. But what do you do when without as much as throwing a pebble in the calm waters of a peaceful and harmonious life, things suddenly turn upside down, well metaphorically. I am not talking about sudden deaths or natural calamities that do indeed turn your life upside down, I am talking of things that are more intangible and though I could not possibly undermine the impact of the tangible disastors, these are intangible only by nature, for their impact can be as devastating, or atleast confusing.

As children, our parents are our first ideals, we want to be just like them when we grow up. I remember, well actually my mother does not let me forget, though she remembers it fondly and embarrassingly in front of all our relatives, how I used to put on her makeup and take her bag and pretend that I was going to office , when I was 5, just like her.

And as we grow, we idealize more and more elders around us, our teachers, elder siblings, some relatives. And but for the exception of the teens, when movie, rock, and sports stars dont really leave space for anyone else to be idealized, there are always people around us we admire for some reason or the other. And it is this knowledge which makes us feel that we know the people around us.

But what do you do when you realise the one quality you admired somebody for, was just a facade put up for a great show. What do you do when you realise a person you admired for his unaffectedness, dropped it like a hot brick at the first instant of possible benefit to be attained from shrewdness. Or someone you thought believed in honesty was lying all along. Or someone who loathed quite unequivocally, crafty maneuvers, turn out to be quite adept at using them for short term benefits?

What do you do, when right after you think you have got somebody all figured out, you realise things were wrong from day one? What do you do when life spins completely out of control at the very moment when you thought the sailing was smooth?

You feel lost. and doubtful. of yourself. your judgement. and your own ideas and beliefs. Everything is shaken. But most of all, you doubt if the principles you have set for your own self are correct or not. Perhaps what somebody has done is not wrong, and you are being too impractical and unrealistic.Perhaps what somebody is the right way to do things and it should be, for they are happy aren't they??

You ponder over it for days , weeks, at times even months at end, till it slowly recedes into the background of your mind. Sometimes it changes the way you think, and you adapt in order to survive more successfully, but mostly it vanishes as yet another rock that slowly sank in and the surface became calm again. And though it does at times cause permanent damage to your opinion and perhaps relationship with that person, and make the water bed rockier, you just learn to recuperate from the storm and keep sailing forth. Trying to figure life out, you start all over again. And though you cant predict nor avoid the next storm , whether it should leave you wiser or embittered, is entirely up to you and that is what makes that elusive thing, called happiness , attainable. So happy journey!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

zindagi hai ke jiye jaatey hain
gum ke ghoont piye jaatey hain
zakhm hi miley is dil ko
ishq ka karam
maut ka intezaar kiya jaatey hain
zindagi hai ke jiye jaatey hain....


I, hereby, take this oppurtunity to thank my friend who introduced me to the original piece and take full and sole responsibility for this mortifying, ruined version, of a great piece I can
neither remember nor find. My sincerest apologies to the creator(may he continue to sleep in his grave/bed peacefully)...and I promise to be more regular in continuing the tradition of this blog till date of trying my hands at different writing styles, languages and subjects and producing similar blasphemies and idiosyncracies ... each aiming at a higher impact .... ;)

Thursday, October 05, 2006

"...Do you ever get tired of being who you are?I mean seriously, do you ever wonder what would it be like to be someone different...no i dont mean a celebrity, or a personal ideal or the one you are jealous of (oh yes you do!! you want to be just like someone you are jealous of!you wish all the time!!)....although all of these would also qualify for this context, i dont mean some other person at all....not like someone else, just different from who you are...and just to make things a tad more complicated, im not talking of self improvements, interospection and all that psychological jargon either, coz what is normal and acceptable is also relative to our sorroundings, to others arround us...

So here's what we have so far, you can't be your favorite celebrity, your ideal, your envy not even your better self, just different!! Do you ever want to be something different, as you??"

"God Shipra!!! you're crazy!! please stop driving me nuts!!"

and hence my friend brushed me off...I guess more than being irritated, she took the question as a personal offence. For at that time she was deeply engrossed discussing people with other people, yes yes, gossiping, something she knows I detest greatly,

but then may be a personal offence is how anyone will take it, may be thats how I would take it if I was at the receiving end. Is it because we are so conceited or that we atleast like to put up the facade of conceit....for we know what we lack, but we dont want others to find out.Having others know our weaknesses make us feel vulnerable in front of them and hence scared of being taken for a ride. But then, this fear is not entirely unfounded, people use other people, that why they call it a "jungle" right!! "the survival of the fittest!!" ??? or is it the survival of the one who puts up the best facade, has the maximum layers hiding his weaknesses, can fool the maximum number of people?? why are we then taught things like "good wins over evil"...and "honestly is the best policy" when you actually should excel in getting things done, your way!

But I digress, and greatly so. This article is not meant to be a rhetoric on the world today, I just wish to find out answers to a simple question....do we ever realise if what we think are our weaknesses, are actually our weaknesses or are they hidden strenghts which we keep trying to eliminate by wanting to be someone minus those weaknesses, while our actual weaknesses remain beyond the horizons of acceptance of them, lost forever into the realms of denial.

I have seen people, yes I have this obessessive compulsion disorder of silently observing people, at times with an amused smile, asking awkward questions which almost always offend them and then writing about them!!! but I have seen people making the same mistake repeatedly througout their lives, and cribbing over it, blaming God, destiny, people, the world, even abstract theories, all this just to escape a true introspection, I mean a true one, not where you already know,or think that you know, what went wrong and all your introspection is actually an effort to reinforce a justification of self-exoneration. They never actually find out what went wrong, though I dont know if they do during the last moment of being alive, I hope they don't, or else we would all die with a realisation that came in too late to improve and yet too soon to not leave a regret


But then Who gets to decide what is a weakness anyway....what do you call a weakness, as another crazy...err I mean philosophical friend put it once ..."you have just qualities, it is the context which makes them strengths or weaknesses"...if that is what is it, then what do you call being self aware?? I guess its just about figuring out all your qualities and learning to pick which one, where, how, and how much!!!


but all this is useless, because ultimately aren't we all searching for happiness, and honestly, no!!! honestly!! aren't we the happiest when we are proven right, to ourselves and to others, or perhaps when we can make people admit that they were wrong. isnt there a masochistic pleasure we get is whining because that gives us sympathy and attention?? No no no, the
strong and silent types, so to speak, get even more attention and sympathy by visibly hiding their pain!!! So perhaps what we actually run after is general acknowledgement and admiration of the society, may be because that is our sole parameter of happiness. Validation by others who sorround us, whether it comes as sympathy or admiration or even envy for that matter, (for you envy some one only when you want to be like them and know that you cant be), but a validation nonetheless

So if the self exonerating introspection works everytime in gaining us some more attention, sympathy and acceptance then why even bother for anything else?? why do we need to term anything as weakness or a strength, we just need to figure out all our qualities and learn to pick which one, where, how, and how much will be the most effective in gaining us the attention, sympathy or admiration!!!

any takers???

Saturday, September 02, 2006

its weird...how you want something all your life, you crave for it day and night, and have been,for as long as you remember, and when you get it....no its not that it doesn't matter anymore, its just that you realise its somehow not right for you....it doesn't fit, so you leave it, and then to make matters worse you see someone else with that perfect fit....

i went shopping a few days back, and found these perfect pearl earrings i'd been fantacising about ever since i was a little girl, and had seen movie stars wearing them, and when i tried them on..... all excited, ready to pay anything to get them....they looked horrible,ok ok i looked horrible in them....i was so disgusted, i didnt buy them ofcourse, but i was disgusted at the irony of life....as if to intesify the irony, the next day i saw a colleague wearing them, and ooooohhhhhhh they looked so pretty on her....maybe i should've bought them anyways...it was a childhood dream afterall, or rather, it still is.... :((

Friday, September 01, 2006

Thursday, August 24, 2006

India Shining?

"Come, join us",called out a rather fat aunt of mine,"dancing in the baraat is for good luck, achcha shagun hota hai", she was inviting me to join her and my other aunts,uncles and cousins, and an entire plethora of people,many of whom I had met for the first time, a few hours earlier, as they danced in the baraat of another cousin.
I declined politely. I am not an iconoclast,nor am I completely unaffected by the "achcha shagun" phrase, but somethings just fail to make sense and therefore, impact.Like dancing in front of mare will ensure a happy married life...umm I thought that happened through mutual understanding and...but well what do I know, I am not married yet. Maybe I'll hire a mare and dance in front of her every time I want to get my husband to do something for me, thus ensuring my happiness in the married life...

Besides, after having spent nearly 3 hours stuck in traffic, trying to get to the wedding hall, the idea of "dancing" to some archaic, incomprehensible tunes of the dhol with women laden with jewelery,makeup and stilettos they could barely stand straight in,was hardly appealing.

So I just decided to remain a mute audience, and dream happily of the inviting comforts of my bedroom and bedside novels and sleep....but walking is not a very comfortable way of dreaming,especially if you are not a somnoambulist, which much to my disappointment, I realized, I was not.

So I just started doing the next lazy thing, looking around at the people, and it was then that something caught my attention. As a keener look revealed, it was a boy of around 12, completely famished and starved. He was with the band, as one of the lantern holders, he could not have weighed more than 25Kgs, I am no doctor or nutritionist, but I guess he should have been at least 38Kg at the age of 12, while the lantern he was carrying on his head was at least 10Kg. His legs trembled under the weight he was carrying and he was almost in tears. Perhaps he had not had a single meal since the morning, or terrifying as the thought is, for days.....

I simply could not take my gaze away from his face, young, innocent, sunken with hunger,broken by poverty. All the other members of the band were much older, young to middle aged men, all 25 or above, but it seemed that being the youngest and the only child amongst them had not given this boy any advantage, he had not been given any lighter equipment to carry and was in all probability getting the minimum wages, besides a one-time meal perhaps, if at all.

I could not help but think of the lives we've had,me and the people around me, my friends and cousins, and the lives we hope to give to our children. We've always had plenty of comforts, if not luxuries, we never had to worry about where to sleep if it was pouring. We hated school and homework, and to us the biggest problem in the world used to be getting mom n dad to buy us something new, a new dress,a new toy...we never thought how it gets paid for. And today when I know, I hope to give the same to my children, the ignorant, innocent life that I was blessed with and if possible more....

I could not stop these thoughts rushing through my mind, as I looked at the stark contrast of the happy, well-fed,healthy & rich faces of my relatives, dancing away for the good luck and destiny of my cousin,and this boy whose only fault was perhaps that he had been born poor and for which perhaps he would pay all his life. The “economic-divide” had never looked so real,

I remembered, as a child, how proudly I used to declare to everyone that I'll be a pilot or a scientist when I grew up,whenever asked, and I realized how futile this question was for this child, and is for the millions of children of this country who are not as lucky as you and I are.

For them, the only question that exists, the one that never leaves their eyes, their faces, is where the next meal will come from,education,a bed,a toy,are things they can only even dream of, and any other question leaves their eyes completely blank, they don't understand what you mean. And its when you see that look, is when you realize that you've asked the wrong question...

This incident was years ago, but the boy's memory has never left me, and every time I read or hear or talk of India becoming a superpower, I almost instantly find myself staring back into his eyes.

Hungry. Pleading. Vacant.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

headache

I have a splitting headache, and I've had it for over 24 hours now.
When a headache lasts that long...it can't be just the after effects of a meeting. Or Gas for that matter ,
It can be both though.
Nevertheless, a mammoth of a headache like this once needs a tribute of sorts,
deserves to be etched in the memory lane...
It started during one Requirements Analysis meeting yesterday afternoon, in which I was explaining to the client, her requirements, helping her realise what did she want from the application she was asking for, wondering if I would've made a better shrink, than a software professional.

Having done that with reasonable success, since I did not have this head ache then, I waited patiently for
the cab that was supposed to pick me up from my client's office and bring me home, ahem my own office,
(that's what a 9-9 schedule does to you). that additional 30 mintues of waiting made me realise, how
having-no-other-option can manifold your patience levels.

Reaching my office I realised all my patience has pretty much snapped, and I went home, where I slept like a log for over 4 hours. My roommate finally had to roll me off the bed, well nearly, to wake me up.
I woke up to a throbbing head, apparently the "nap" had done more harm than good, as I had very conveniently forgotten to take a pill before crashing. Not that I had any patience to look for one anyway.

Thanks to my roommate, who coaxed, nagged, did everything it took to force something down my throat hoping food would help. IT didn't though, nor did the massage she gave me lasting over an hour, I must've done some great deed to get that...anyways, I fell asleep at 3:00 in the morning,when fatigue finally took over. I got up at 10:00 this morning, my office begins at 9:30, I was better, if only slightly.
My companion seemed to have settled itself quite nicely in the only head that I have, with no immediate vacating plans. I dragged myself to work,you can't take a sick leave everytime you have a headache, well I can't, and collapsed, literally, on my seat with the firm decision of not getting up till it was time to go home, not even for lunch. I didn't trust myself to see straight and was kind'a worried people would ask questions. Or talk. To me.

Around half an hour later, I got up for breakfast, hunger can be a pretty ruthless master.
After another hour or so, my friends, dragged me to lunch, "skipping meals is not going to make you
feel any better", I wasn't hungry but then, they weren't listening. On my way back at around 2:00, I got a call, I had another meeting at 3:00, at the client's office. I had forgotten, this was weekly meeting.
I couldn't miss it. Why would I even want to, my manager wondered aloud, specially since she couldn't make it.
Well why would I....

So there I was, back to my client's office, a different office and a different set of clients this time,
and my dear old companion, no I don't mean my colleagues, exactly 24 hours old,happy and thriving,waiting for me to give in and pass out. And there I was, explaining to the clients, their requirements, helping them realise what they wanted from the application they were asking for, wondering if I would've made a better shrink, than a software professional....

The BRS would come in by tomorrow, but I'm sure I still did a pretty decent job, this time with my headache

I'm back, at my seat, waiting for this article to finish itself,hoping my dear companion would tire itself out
and leave me in solace...
I have to go for a movie ,you can't spoil everyone's plans everytime you have a headache, well I can't.
I am hoping though, that all three of us would have fun, me, my roommate and the HeadAche....

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

A visit to a tea-factory

Yes, it does remind me of school time essays too, and that is exactly how I felt on visiting this factory,
a school girl marvelling at the animals "behind the bars",;P... only now the school girl was inside a
near-sterilized(we had to take off our shoes, wash ourselves before entering :P) environment, concentrating hard on the highly technical words our barely educated escort was using to describe the tea-manufacturing process.

Frankly, it was quite a blow to my post graduate, glib s/w professional ego, when I could not even recognize, let alone understand, half the words he used, :P and no he was pronouncing and using them correctly, as I later confirmed from the tea estate manager (I wasn't going to give up that easily ;) ) ....

Back to my field trip, we were first shown the tea garden itself, where people were collecting tea leaves,
with the "movie style" baskets hanging over their heads. Deftly sorting out only the healthy, fully grown
leaves and dropping them in the baskets, these workers collect as much as 2000 Kg of tea per season (2-3 months) from a single garden. Ofcourse, the weight would depend on the number of workers and the size of the garden,but we would leave so many dynamic variables for my article on theory-of-relativity...I will write it someday :P




The gardens were not guarded by people, but highly trained dogs, who were so good at their job, that sitting atleast 20 feet away, he started growling the moment we bent down on the plant( picking leaves, quite obvioudly,was not allowed), and sat back the moment we stood up...






These leaves are then taken to the factory, and so were we, where they go through the process of becoming what we drink...

The moment we entered the factory premises, a very distinct smell engulfed us, of fresh tea leaves, mixed with wet soil...sort of the leaves had been spread out on open sheets to dry up, shaded very carefully to avoid direct heat from the sun.
This is called weathering.

They're then spread out on a big roller belt sort of a machine which performs a sort of seiving of the leaves from accidental twigs etc.

They're then segregated into various varieties depending on the size, color of the leave, since these
two are the most important indicators of the ripeness & taste of the would-be-tea. this step is called
grading and is done majorly manually with very little help from machines. And yes this is done in a restricted area,a truly sterilized environment, where we could only peek into through the glass erected specially for such tours as ours, I presume.



Beyond the above three steps, having long been stripped of my camera and cellphone, and not provided with a notebook & a pen in return, my memory refused to remember anymore of the complicated machinery, names and mechanisms. :P

After the grading part, all machines only grew in size, and each turned the fresh, damp, green leaves to a smaller, drier, powdered form, and it became more recognisable and less beautiful...

In the end, the escort showed us various varieties, ranging from Rs.250/Kg to Rs.2550/Kg ...!!!

Frankly I never knew making tea was so technical, and drinking it could be so expensive....

But then, I also never knew, that my word power was so restricted to s/w ...:P

All in all, it was fun....just like schooltime, and I am hoping I can do this again some time soon,

my next target,ummmm...I dont know, may be paper-manufacturing ... ;)

Saturday, May 06, 2006

haath chhutey bhi toh rishte nahi chhoota karte

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

imagination exists only within the bounds of exaggeration/alteration of reality....that which you have not seen...its variants you cannot imagine....

else why would all aliens have eyes and hands and feet, whatever may the numbers be.....

Monday, March 27, 2006

Men....

Its official, I don't understand them. After spending a lifetime in friend circles with male:female ratio of not less than 4:2, this realization is as baffling to me as it is to my male friends, who are quite displeased at having suddenly become the victims of my torrential outbursts. Its not that I have suddenly fallen victim to the "You Male Chauvinist Pig" feminism, I still really care about and enjoy hanging out with my friends, just that having grown up together with quite a few of them they are becoming quite incomprehensible to me with age.

These "What has gotten into you!!!" looks that I get as responses to my nor-subtle-neither-polite clarifications about their conduct, are rather ironical, for I ask only why they are the way they are....

I mean what is it with men and muscle anyways? Invariably, if you ask a man to be strong, you will find him going through the catalogues of various gym facilities in the area and discussing what weights to pump with his other male friends!!!????

Being a fitness freak myself, I don't undermine the importance of the right kind of work-out, and well, being a girl I am pretty habitual of the "calorie-inch" arithmetic as well, but it does stop somewhere....and much before you can pump 50Kgs 50 times twice a day!! Strength is so much more a quality of mind than body....If you are a man with a strong character, beliefs and principles, you are strong enough....


And then there are fathers...all the men that I have observed or known till date fall in 2, yes ONLY 2 categories..."I hate my father and I am NEVER going to be anything like him" or "I just wanna be like DAD"... how many girls have you met till date who say they hate their mothers or that they want to be just like her??I have met none. Its not that girls don't idealize their parents, I love my mother deeply and I think she's one helluva lady and yet I don't want to be like her.I just want to be me.

And this becomes so ironical when these men have kids of their own, because they are always trying to create either the exact replica or the exact opposite of the relationships they had with their fathers...they end up worrying more about their fathers and them, than them and their kids...I once went out with a friend who was quite upset...he had quarreled with his father the previous night because his father had given a big tip in a restaurant despite the service tax.While we were leaving, I couldn't help but notice the "Keep the Change" nod he gave to the waiter...and then there's another whose father gave him a looooooooooong lecture (3 hrs to be precise) on "You should be more open & communicative with me when I am so frank with you, my father didn't know how to talk,he only lectured...."

Will these men be any different with their kids 10 years from now? Will they ever understand that girls prefer men who have strength of mind and character...even a mad bull is physically strong!!??!! Would they ever know that...oh well the list goes on

I guess I'll just have to wait and watch.....Till then may be I should just content myself with "Men will be men"!

You know this much circulated joke about a guy having 3 options to marry, a pretty girl, a considerate girl and a pragmatic girl and how the guy picks the pretty one.......I just tried it on a friend who I think is one the most sensible guys I have met till date, and pat came the reply "...the pretty one ofcourse..." , he was just being honest ofcourse.....

Saturday, March 11, 2006

The sands of time are slipping away...
....I hadn't finished my castle yet....