The story begins : Part1

Disclaimer :This is a work of fiction and the feelings echoed by the protagonists belong to them alone and should not be attributed to the author :D Any similarity to any person living or virtual is merely coincidental.The author does not take any responsibility or liability if anything that is stated within turns out to be true It is essentially as it came from the keyboard: spontaneous, unproofed, unrevised, and corrected afterward only when necessary to address mistakes that grossly effect the intent. All copyrights held by the author i.e me i.e Neha)

Chapter 1 - Memories , a heavy baggage


She ,( girl A) had a long shower. It was a lazy Sunday after all. Coming out of the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the huge, full length mirror on the dressing table door. She had always liked that mirror, suddenly she realized it told her more than she needed to know.She realised how much she has changed from the time she literally used to be observant about minutest of details and taking a note of them, no matter how trivial or miniscule to a more obtuse headed and myopic. Yes she reckoned that the priorities of life has changed and now she has to face a more real world which isn't that rosy as it appears. As for now, when she gave a thought combing down her dripping wet hair she saw herself more closely ...a picture which is a bit more detailed or world which is a bit more shrunk. She started delving deeper .
Spewing out words, with no target
chewing her thoughts, having no regret
Wondering whether she had earlier lived
or she and her life, they just met?
The work has increased so much that she no longer even attempt to recollect what all she was supposed to have completed. Long time that she read a book either. Long time she did anything useful either came back to her thoughts and she was just left staring ....


He (guy X) on the other side could hear the wind howling, though it was just a breeze. He feared that his key strokes were making such a racuous noise that they would wake up his room-mate. He was engrossed in an online chat. When he was alone, he craved for company. When he was among people, he desired to be left alone. Change was what he always seemed to need, yet he dreaded it. So, maybe the best recourse for him would be to talk with people yet not be with them. Switch on and off capriciously. The way of the online chat. That was precisely what he was doing now. He had felt that there was no sense in booting the computer at this time ,sunday morning, but he found around 3 of his closests friends online! He hadnt talked with two among them for quite some time. There was a 4th too with whom he was chatting, but that was only customary. He was lonely yet amidst conversations. He felt glad and content.Chatting made him realized how disconcerting silence could be and he was again lost with the morning breeze...

Lost in the thoughts began the retrospection and thus we discover the beginning .


To be contd .....

O re manva tu toh bavra hai !

Watched wake up Sid .... an unconventional hindi movie after long .The story is basically a single liner but then the direction by Ayan Mukherji gives it totally a captivating effect and its each frame keeps you going with the movie and you really enjoy every bit of it .I bet its one of those bollywood movies that’ll make u feel like paying for the ticket was worth it .
What makes “Wake Up Sid” different is the simplicity it carries and subtle demeanor of all the characters with no overdo or understatement of drama and over emotional dose. It has a constant flow throughout with casual conversations .There's a little bit of you and me and everyone we know in Ranbir the spoilt rich-kid protagonist , the lil fun loving kid unaware of all the tiffs and trudges or on the other side we have earnest, ambitious, confident Konkana with a hint of undeniable innocence full of dreams to fly high , pursue a successful career and lead an independent life just the way you would like it and with every move that she makes I was flowing through coz of the spree of the events taking place in my life and the way of dealing with them all making choices every moment ...
The selection of the cast makes the movie all the more refreshing , Ranbir Kapoor spell binding you with his eyes, his voice, his oddly-pitched laugh and the tiniest of tics to make a flesh-and-blood character out of Sid, complemented to a large extent by Konkona Sen Sharma the beautiful sensuous girl investing sincerity to the character Aisha . Supriya Pathak brings depth to the part of Sid' lovin ma, and even Kashmira Shah is appropriately contained in a bit-part as Aisha's hot neighbor :P.

The journey of transformation of Sid from the careless immature teenager to mature responsible individual is all waking up is all about with Aisha giving new definition to his life , aiding him with the transformation and predictavely kicking off his journey towards the self discovery .The two different personalities becoming friends ,not realizing the strangeness of their unlikely platonic relationship ,ultimately no prize for guessing the eventual realization of falling in love and ending of the sequence with a heart warming scene ...sigh :P The best about the movie is that derz no overnight transition and in the end Sid can fry eggs , do dishes , lands up with a job but yeah there was no catharsis or did i miss it
While the film actually becomes really engrossing in the second half, the first half facilitates an adequate groundwork for the story to progress. There are bitter sweet moments in the first half as well but one still wishes for that extra something which comes with the second part .
All in all ,infusing a shopworn premise with honesty, and peppering the film with tender moments, director Ayan Mukherji creates an engaging enough drama that you're happy to emotionally invest in.....few bful scenes going i remember ....almost immediately after he snaps at his mother for trying to tidy up his room, Sid apologizes and offers her a T-shirt to fold .....on learning that it's Aisha's birthday, he prepares an impromptu cake of bread slices and jam ... Aisha getting all jealous and irritated trying to figure out all possible reasons to go mad on dumb Sid :P

The perfect choice of songs with no dancing numbers come as a much welcome change Songs are blended beautifully with the movie and the song iktara jus stands out , love it man !!!! ... jo barse boond boond nainon ko moond moond

In the end i would just say .... a realistic take on urban youth with course a few hiccups :)

and We're back !!

It totally does feel like a million years since I have written here .So here I am back again , especially to all those who have written and not complained, per se, but asked me to write again.
I hopped out of bed.
So full of energy.
Everything was great.
There were so many possibilities.
I love days like those.

The next day is different.
I hesitate and wonder.
Not trusting my feelings from the day before.
I have to shake my head
I have to think
I really wonder if it happened
Or is it just a bad dream
It's a new day, things are just beginning
Why this ending?
As I write, I pause and think
This couldn't have happened
Did it really?
It did and my life has changed

One of those evening.... Letting my mind wander and imagining if time moved in different loop. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What if they move in different order or overlap. What is the sound of tomorrow without wishing the yesterday go away or letting go the present.....

I just have to get up and move away from my computer but I am determined to get one post out atleast....

Hi

There's no dearth of mails/ims that one gets with the subject "hi". It gets even more painful when that's all the content that there is. And I'm left at my wits' ends trying to figure out how to respond to such mails. Though I'm kinda social, I respond so that I don't sound rude. But the point is what?

My interpretation of "hi.. wassup?" is: "I don't know what to write. But still I want to write. So, here's my mark". Now, I don't know how I could respond to such a mail/im. Some options I ponder over are:

1. "Listen dude/dudette, I understand that you have had nothing to do and want to see some movement on your gtalk window. But I'm not nearly the correct person. Try someone else and you might actually strike a conversation out of thin air."

2. Coming to orkut ."Do you know that you can self-scrap on orkut? (Yes, really, I've tried it.) Why don't you self-scrap?"

3. "See, I hardly even remember who you are. Accepted that we might have spent a wonderful evening one day but come'on."

4. Respond back with a "hi" or "hello" or a similar monotonic salutation (essentially throwing the ball back into his/her court)

5. Give a pointer to my blog

6. The hiiii's from the old good friends .....

7. The unexpected Hi's ending up in the wittiest and the most sarcastic coversations .

Acts 1, 2 and 3 are overly rude. Act 4 doesn't have a purpose, other than symbiotically incrementing the mail count. Act 5 requires that I update my blog regularly, a condition almost never met.Act 6,7 oh yeah they too happen often :)!

For a while ....

Hmm seems like a long since i last posted, but then it doesn't matter, does it?

Many a ideas came by and then went away before i could catch hold of them.
I seem to be at a loss for words. Abstraction doesn't seem to be effortless anymore. perhaps it is because of all the 'precise' writing the code and more importantly the comment requires.

so what should i talk about? the few movies that i managed to watch or the many many more that i ought to have watched but haven't?

the book that i brought 2 months ago but whose first page is still waiting to be discovered? or the other books that I have borrowed and have been patiently waiting for their turn, in a line on the only filled shelf in my room?

or the busy days that seem to pass by in a hurry, but each day lingering long enough to proclaim that nothing much was achieved in it?

the excitement intermingled with the doldrums? the anticipations coupled with the ennui?

and on a unrelated note (not that most of the statements above have any clear relations within them), i realize i haven't been blogging much about my work,fun or my life here ....

why? perhaps because it is all good with nothing much to crib about, yet not extraordinary enough to entitle a discourse?

i guess this will do for now and for a while?

Crazy bug :D

Disclaimer: Maddening bugs in your application can give rise to certain levels of insanity. So who said 'Friends' doesn't have something to do with our daily lives? I mean, could it be more obvious?


2 Bugs singing - hum donon jaisa hai kaun yahaan , red red kiya hai hum hi ne ye screen
Ho ho ho o hooooooooooooo
Now one of them has to go just like every indian bollywood film triangle ....
So now derz jus one one bug left singin alone "dost dost na raha error error na raha :P"
Finally the bug's singing session is over and its my turn to take over and keep our singing session on giving a break to the debugging session :P So here we go .....

crazy kiya re ....

Crazy bug! Cra-a-zy bug!
Whaaat are they feeding you?
Crazy bug! Crazy bug!
When did they discover you?

They wont even take you to the vet...
You're obviously not their favorite pet!
Look at the way your code's been set...
No wonder I haven't solved you yet!

Crazy bug! Crazy bug!
Eeets not your fa-a-ault!!

Tang, tang tang!! TI-NING!!!
Hehehehe :P :D ;)

Dedicated to all the debuggers and ya to the bugs !!
Cheers :P

Winds chasing ....

Fluttering curtain, an open window
a cold glimpse of the morning sky
breeze, valiant against the bricks
leaves, clinging on to the twigs
winds chasing the cottony clouds
early light, dispelling the night.

sleepy eyes, a restless mind
a look at the dry itinerary ahead
work, jostling amongst the waits and meetings
pleasure, finding not its bearings
long day, life rushing on its way


Eh ! a morning verse written in the midnight .Btw weather has really beautiful in Bangalore , you can really feel the breeze in ur hair and dance with the wind ...courtesy clouds.Just like the clouds roll by so does life ,some clouds sans silver lining cause storms that we want to pass whilst some clouds produce a much needed refreshing rain ...

Oh on readers strong recommendation the post comes to an end here :P

PS : this was a cryptic entry written for a set of people ;)

Is it or Is it not ??

"So do you want a love marriage or an arranged marriage?" the eager voice gushes in my ear... hmm well for me love in this case is kinda decision , is it or isn't it ?
Umm yup Love, to me, is a decision. One has a (sub)conscious checklist of what one seeks in a partner (of any sex). It is unlikely that a woman who has "a decent man" on her list would fall in love with a foul mouthing, belching brute (unless if she had not put in enough thought into the need for that want). Would a man be attracted towards a confident and perhaps domineering woman if he would like a nice obedient young girl for his mate?

For centuries,we Indians have been married off in the "arranged" marriage and have "loved" their spouse till one of them died (post-death, love seems irrelevant). It was purely a decision to "love" their spouse upon realising that they were getting married. Life in India has thrived and well for long to warrant a "correctness" of lifestyle or at least several facets of the same. I wonder how else can the correctness of a lifestyle be ascertained. A destructive or decaying lifestyle would eventually lead to the annihilation of the lifestyle and/or of the adopters. So given that such a lifestyle has worked and kept the Asian community thriving and well, love seems to have nearly always been a decision, whether post-marriage or whether as a checklist.
Love, in most cases, has succeeded a phase of being attracted to the other person. The reasons for being attracted are peculiar and quite characteristic of the individual mind. There are physical reasons, psychological reasons, financial reasons and others which influence a person's "falling in love" act. Though people hate going into it, every person I have met (and tormented) have eventually been able to go down to the nuts and bolts of why they fell in love with a person. One friend of mine said that she would definitely not love a womanizer (which was one of her no-no's) but if the the guy she fell in love with turned out to be a womanizer, she would accept it!! Isn't all accepting a decision too? QED :P

Now there is that love which people say happens at first sight. That usually tends to be physical. Let us assume that it is not so. What attracted you to this person? Brains? But it is first sight! Depth? First sight?? ok well,define first sight. The first 10 hours of time spent with a person? First 10 minutes? Think about it. It might sound silly to waste time being so pedantic, but I believe it is vital to understand the working of our mind and whatever we wish to call our heart. Isn't it always something tangible? If it is not so, and this love is spiritual or "just there" then I would wonder about why that love, soon transforms into the typical 2nd stage of this "Love" rigmarole?

2nd Stage of Love:
So you decide (oh! come on! humour me!) to love someone. Good for you. Congrats! Mazel Tov!
So you decide to stay in love too. Congrats !! Voila
Every day you encounter... wait, I am speaking about the days after the initial euphoria... so, every day you encounter this person acting like, well, any other human being. This person has his own idiosyncrasies, littleness, humour, pain, whims, lows, anger and allergies. If you never tolerated hypocrisy, you wouldn't take it from him either. But you decide to stay in love. This person forgets your birthday and you are cross. He thinks you are making too big an issue of it, and you, in all your ladyness are quick to remind him that he wasn't like this when he was courting you (when will people learn!). He is quicker in enlisting all the reasons for the natural decay of memory (your nagging appears to be there as every odd numbered point and the end of his list has 5 "nags" in succession!). You want him to buy you jewellery and take you out to movies mostly because you think that is what lovers do for the other (I tend to think that ladies get to benefit more, materially).Things slowly transform into a "supposed to do" pattern and a lot of life is spent in the fear of being caught being not-lover-enough.
So every day you revisit this state of affairs and wonder why you believe that you are in love. Even if the problems don't surface (highly unlikely, because you are living in this world and reality requires facing problems and tackling them), you slowly notice that the excitement is waning. The level of cheer is cheerlessly familiar and more a habit now. Things have become more about two people running a life together and doing the necessary chores. No, I am not being cynical. It seems to be the most popular story on the road and exceptions don't maketh a story.
Then there are people who try to get the zing back into the relationship (which only re-enforces the point about love being a decision). I think that is a wise thing to do, given that you have already decided to love and then live that love. They try new things - define new phrases (quality time! awwww!), get memberships in new clubs, go out more often, learn new languages together ("Oh! What is Japenese for "I love you"? and Catalan?". Personally, I think they should ban that phrase and demand of couples to invent new ways of communicating it!), do shopping, may be cook meals, go out on picnics etc. etc. etc.
I think man inherently is not comfortable being alone. Someone said that a person will go to any extent to keep himself from having to live in loneliness. I tend to agree with him (her). People enjoy a good life and would like to bring that in with the least overhead (not all of us can be sheiks with a harem!). What is a good life is a personal measure and hence, one's love also tends to be a subjective choice, and a choice it is; hence a decision.
Rarely does a "spiritual" or "just there" love escape the rigours of the 2nd stage. Its origin might have been mystical but its life on earth is surely made of houses, bank balances and food on the table. People still want exclusivity (god save me from that one) and complete allegiance whether right or wrong. Life becomes a dichotomy of "our love" and "the world". Life really isn't that. It functions as a mix of everything but I shall withold my opinion of the same.
So, whatever the start, love does roll into the mundane after a point (the toppling point remember we read about it in physics n oh ya me not a great physics lover but still this is the word which clicked). So love seems to be this lure into a stabilizing monotony of living and managing life in its secure state (I have known people breaking up because the guy decided to go join a startup and brought in enormous amounts of instability or the woman taking on a high pressure job which paid but rarely left any time for the emotional security of the family. Replace man for woman and I think you might still have such problems).

So love is not something that is eternal - not the commonly found strains of this microbe! Hence, I am not interested in something that is ephemeral and quite a pain to manage.

Falling out of love:
And then people tire and break-up. Not all, but there seems to be a steady rise in the per capita breakup rate. People are either treating love casually or are more narrowly focused on a single entity (self, money, career, etc.). Either way, one can only break out of love with a decision, if they got into it as a decision. If you are going to give me an analogy of a disease occuring on its own but being eliminated by the decision of taking medicines, then I would ask you to choose between considering love a disease or a decision. People talk so much about unconditional love, but it seems to be a conditioned decision to be unconditional in love. It really seems to be some rose-tinged dream cloud when people talk about unconditional love while have ziltch clue about the conditioning they have gone through. People who unconditionally love cannot choose and cannot surely fall out of it. If you choose to unconditionally love one person, there is a set of reasons why you chose this person (and not another) and they are perhaps a superset of what this person satisified as your desirable conditions to be met. So where is the unconditionality!? And why is it that you want unconditional love? Because you are ready to give it? Firstly, I don't believe that is as simple as you think it is and secondly, why hold that as a condition for giving your unconditional love?

So what's the big deal?

If we are comfortable accepting love as a decision, we will be less in pain when wondering over any or all of the following questions:
Why did I fall in love?
How did I fall in love?
Why am I in this relationship?
Why am I not happy in here?
Why does my state of being depend so much on this one person?
Would I behave the same way if it were someone else doing what this person just did to me?
Why do I want to run away?
etc etc.


If you believe that your "love" is not a decision then what do you think it is? Why don't you love your colleague too? If this person you love, was a pauper on the streets who looked like Shrek, would you still love him? But would you have spoken to him in the first place? Is love for you being compassionate towards someone? Feeling sorry for them? Every man, whether he has ever been in love or not, has an opinion about love. That is the major difference between love and differential calculus. Given this profound catchment of opinions, it is but natural to demand to know what is it that I think is love. I might (and that might never happen) write a post about what I think of love....

Then comes the major confusion between love and what to do with it. The most common strategy is to get married. What if the person cannot marry you? What if the person doesn't believe in marriage? What if the person doesn't want to marry you? Does your love fade? Does your love lose meaning? Is it still not a decision?

Think about it.

Or else, just enjoy the so called sate of being in love !

What if .....

I know its been loooong since I blogged ,reasons being varied ones but yesterday came a statement and here comes the entry :D
"Hey my nanny says I look like Aishwarya Rai 'Bacchhan ' ....this is the best comment i have ever recieved "and loads more you keep hearing when you are out window-shopping (i think now i can put any compulsive shopaholoic to shame , hail ORACLE !!! )....Damn !!! WHAT IF u r no Angelina Jolie .....I believe the normal-girl-next-door is better than Angelina Jolie, Lindsay Lohan or the size zero Kareena Kapoor or whoever you think is breathtakingly beautiful or attractive.
I don’t know why women seek breast augmentation, liposuction, tummy tucks and other surgeries in their eternal quest for perfection. Okay, I confess, I would love to get my hair straightening (hair-rebonding) done once they grow long... but I would never go under the knife to transform the way I look. I don’t ever starve myself or deprive myself whenever I get those timely chocolate or ice-cream pangs/hunger pangs.
The narcissistic good looks fixation, the fair skin fixation ......this reminds me of “Use a bar of soap to wash away the dark skin that's keeping men from flocking.”- A fair friend’s advice to her dusky friend.
“Look beautiful. Here’s how you can lighten your skin tone,"- screams a silly Television commercial.
‘Fair & Lovely’ vows to transform an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan! – WTF!!!Remember that disgusting ad where a dark-complexioned girl dreams to be an airhostess? She is cursed by her parents for being a girl; a dark girl at that! Mademoiselle uses a fairness cream, and, lo and behold! There she is, a girl transformed with fair complexion, a smartly dressed airhostess who takes her parents to a swanky hotel for a grand dinner.... f*** Why are we Indians obsessed with fair skin? I am yet to read a matrimonial ad that says: “Dusky and Lovely”, “Dusky and Beautiful”, “Wanted a dusky, good looking bride.”Most people everywhere place a high premium on good looks; and good looks = fair, or so it seems. I don’t understand why sundar (beautiful) is synonymous with gori-chitti(fair).This mindset is apalling.

Then comes the size zero obsession, the cosmetic surgery makeover culture, shapely derrieres and heaving bosoms, the anorexic syndrome, "the quest for perfection…"
I want to know the importance of good looks! Does it guarantee professional success? Does it guarantee matrimonial bliss? A tall-dark-handsome husband? A hot date? Is physical perfection equal to happiness/confidence?Do good looking women have it easier than their not-so-great-looking female counterparts at work? Do women feel inadequate because they are not attractive? Who decides what’s ‘beautiful’ and what’s ‘ugly’?.I personally believe that a person's beauty is not just the external one its how one feels /herself ,its about one's persona ,the mental and spiritual beauty adding to the confidence ,its about feeling beautiful which is important and i really quantify confident people as one of the most beautiful but people think differently and the number of plastic surgeries being performed has sky-rocketed in recent years. A wide cross-section of celebrities have confessed to altering some aspect of their appearance through cosmetic surgery.
Do men like girly women ?
Do men like dumb women?
Do men prefer plain Jane ove glamorous bombshell ?
Do men like Ugly Betty ?
Do men like hot women ?
Do men like a homely women who would do their laundry and othe household chores ?
Do men really care what's on the outside ?
Do men prefer intelligence over inches ?
Umm ....What do men really want?
(I guess the male brigade like their women to be curvy and wholesome.)
So are you doomed if you’re not Angelina Jolie? Are you doomed if you’re not voluptuous? How can you boost your career with cosmetic surgery? FYI, even good looking celebrities have delivered Box Office debacles!
I believe women should refrain from -discussing their weight,complaining/ nagging,self-pity,loud make-up and jealousy of course! As one of my friends status read sometime ago girls should be classy not crazy :P
But I know for a fact that most men are suckers for beautiful women who can take their breath away ....recently my friend confessed that he was on airport and he couldn't help himself from taking his eyes off a female...lost he almost forgot that he was to fly (I always doubted him ,jeez ...hez straight :P)
Beautiful women always steal the thunder from intelligent women, okay, at least initially! They grab more eyeballs. They become the cynosure of all eyes when they saunter into a party.
Is this TRUE?
The less you care about how physically attractive you are to a man, the more a man will want you in his life.

Roads untaken ...

Recently wrote a poetry to bid a warm welcome.. which came just spontaneously .
No, not another abstract poem?
./restart :P


This ground is grey, with streaks of black
Running and criss-crossing, yet each remaining intact,
These roads that travellers use, will never ever change,
For the only way to change this life is but to stay the same.
Some have travelled these roads before, many a time I would say,
Others are still new to these roads, slowly but surely finding their way,
Others still go quickly by, trying very hard to forget,
The fact, the truth, and the denial that:- on this road there is no turning back.


It's not running away neither mean feat ,to many which it may seem ,
It's trying to keep youself away, not for you but to let not wither away someone else's realm.
Pretending to act like stone ,letting go things unheard ain't no fun ,but what if this is the only new road you find,
For some you should walk the same old crooked roads but its only you who know that now those are the roads left far behind.
Why deny I must ask, this simple truth that you already know?
Why hurt trying to deceive someone's eyes, when the complicated heart is in control?
Don’t try to run or hide, for it’ll come back to haunt you.
Neither do you try to forget, for the only person you cannot deceive – is you!

Pain, anger and guilt you will feel, for emotions are but part of life,
Because what is life without emotions, and what is happiness if you know not strife,
For your mind and heart are one – an entity single and divine,
Thus fault is your own blame alone, without any chance of rescind.
You might have done something wrong, but everyone deserves a second try,
It's one's duty to right the wrong that happened before, to stop someone living this damned lie,
To break free these bonds, that shackle us to the earth,
For only then can you fly, for the first time since your birth.

But if you fear what lies ahead, then you should stop wasting your time,
For the sands of life trickling away, will soon leave your ashes scattered behind,
Forgotten and forlorn without care, your memory will whither away and die,
Leaving you with nothing at all – because you chose to live a damned lie.
This is the way of the road, these grey stones which mark the way,
And though we all travel these roads, not all of us will eventually fly away,
Thus lead your life as you should – be brave and above all never forget:
Connected is one’s past to one’s present, and the future is in our hands .

./end