My name will at least fly to Mars, if not me!

Miles to go...

Been away from the blogosphere for some time now and I decided to give it a shot today.


The reason was a dream I had in the afternoon today. I saw that I had walked to the cremation grounds and intended to speak to the officials for my own cremation. There was no one with me. It was just that I was to die in a few minutes and I was negotiating with the officials so that they can arrange volunteers to carry out the ritual. There were a heap of bodies lying nearby with family members of the deceased wailing relentlessly. At a distance, few people were singing hymns in praise of the all powerful.

A pungent smell was emanating out of the nearby electric burners where two dead bodies had been cast into. Was the smell of burnt flesh and skin in the red hot burners.

In any case, I was waiting for my time and suddenly I experienced death approach me and I was terrified. Felt a strange kind of suffocation and that is when I woke up.

I believe it was a one-off dream and probably a left over of a recent cremation I attended. I do not intend to read much into it.

I still have "miles to go before I sleep..."

A wish

I give you a wish tonight
Close your eyes
Immerse yourself in peace
And make a wish
Think whatever you wish will come true
No matter how many obstacles come in the way
No matter how much pain
It will come true...
And then take a deep breath
Think of all the good things that you have ever done
Forgive those who were not good to you
Forgive yourself for those who were dealt with severely
Shed a drop of tear or two for the ones whom who lost
Make a prayer to have them live happily ever after
Now open you eyes
See the world
Feel how beautiful it is
Every creature on this earth...
What did you do today to put a smile on a stranger's face?
...to make him happy?
Its not yet late
Stand up oh lazy bloke.
Get out of the blocks and stretch yourself
Do what you have never done before..
Surprise yourself by how much you can achieve..
Be positive
Think positive
Life is short..
So make the most while it lasts..
Amen..



Image source: http://media.photobucket.com

Untouchables

Drops of dew on the leaves

Blue bubbles in the air

Do not touch either

As that would end their existence

Let them be as they are

Let them float unabashed

Unscathed

Unobstructed

Let the dews sparkle beautifully on the sunny mornings

Let the bubbles render an aura of bliss to the air

Look at them from a distance

Do not touch either

See that child playfully prick a bubble

Or touch a dew

And there it vanishes

There it drops off

The child looks on... sad...

It was there... but now it's no more...

And oh, look there's another one...

Wonderful, thinks the kid!

Goes after yet again

And history repeats itself

And one day, the child realises....

"Drops of dew on the leaves

Blue bubbles in the air

Do not touch either

As that would end their existence

Let them be as they are

Let them float unabashed

Unscathed

Unobstructed

Let the dews sparkle beautifully on the sunny mornings

Let the bubbles render an aura of bliss to the air

Look at them from a distance

Do not touch either"

Back to the drawing boards

jeevan ke din chhote sahi
hum bhi bade dilwale
kal ki humein fursat kahaan
soche jo hum matwale

Remember this famous song of kishore da? If you do not, well, here it is on youtube!



The last few days were disappointing for me. Expectations! Hopes! Dreams! Aspirations! and then, folly! Disgust! Disappointment!

No, am not down and out, no way! It's just a temporary setback, to which I do not want to give a permanent status!


I was listening to a wonderful song this evening on 104 Fever FM, courtesy RJ Arvind! Superb lyrics... another classic from Kishore da... Check this:


aaye tum yaad mujhe gaane lagi dhadkan
khushbu layi pawan, mehka chandan
jis pal naino mein sapna tera aaye
us pal mausam par mehendi rach jaaye
aur tu ban jaaye jaise dulhan
aaye tum yaad mujhe gaane lagi har dhadkan
jab main raaton mein taare ginta hun
aur tere kadmon ki aahat sunta hun
lage mujhe har tara tera darpan
aaye tum yaad mujhe
gaane lagi har dhadkan
har pal man mera, mujhse kehta hai
jiski dhun mein tu khoyaa rehta hai
bhar de fulon se uska daman
aaye tum yaad mujhe
gaane lagi har dhadkan
khushbu laayi pawan
mehka chandan
aaye tum yaad mujhe
gaane lagi har dhadkan


I became nostalgic again, thinking of the ever fresh morning dews on the leaves, the mist on the winter mornings, the flowing ganges.............. and so many other memories....


However, life happens just like that!


My take away:
Life gives you setbacks, disappointments! But have a 'never say die' attitude. Failures are the pillars to success.


ps. This post was a whole mumbo jumbo for many, but that's exactly how my thought processes are working at the moment! I would be back in my normal self.. yes.. pretty soon!

Rejoicing our freedom...

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom - said Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru (1947)

A billion population

A billion ideas

A thousand languages

A hundred religions

A hundred rivers

ONE NATION

ONE DREAM

INDIA !!!

kar chalein hum fida jan o tan saathiyon

ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon

- sang the soldier in his death bed...

His wish translated in english -"We leave this land forever after giving our everything, now this motherland is yours" (...respect her the way you respect your mother!)

True - there are differences, there are conflicts, there are challenges, there are diversities, but the reason we stand together to this day is our unity in integrity.

Friends - Let us not compromise the dignity of our motherland on any pretext. You cannot see you mom bleed. Can you? So, we should not let anyone hurt our motherland!

Indians should strive to respect every guest in this country on the lines of "atithi devo bhava..."(Guests are as good as God). But given a challenge, where our unity, integrity, sovereignty and freedom is threatened, we should be powerful enough to retaliate strongly!
Terrorism in all forms, in all names, in all pretexts should never be let to grow. We are a free nation and we have every right to lead our lives in our own ways.

No nation is perfect. India is also not. But, we have the onus on us to make it perfect. We fail to understand the meaning of freedom simply because we were fortunate enough not to experience what slavery meant.

India is a land of great men and women!

Stop! Think! Ask yourself - are you carrying the legacy forward? Are we upholding our values and principles?

All is well! Partying, catching movies, playing pranks, working like work horses - all come and go! At the end of the day, what is it that we are giving back to our motherland?

I loved Gandhiji's talisman.

It reads - “I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny ? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (i.e. self-rule) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions ?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.”

Please try to follow this, so wonderful that this can be applicable for everyone, irrespective of nationality!

Finally, today is 15th August! Happy Independence Day, India! May the flag keep fluttering for thousands and thousands of years! Amen!

Image source: Google image search

What is Friendship?

Back from an intermittent exile, here I am. First of all, let me wish all you readers out there a very happy friendship day. No matter which part of the world you belong to, today is the day to glorify friendship! If everyone could have regarded everyone as friends, the world would have been a different place to live in - no quarrels, no fights, no wars, no bloodshed... think about it!
That has been my dream for so long now, and yet to be realized and I am not sure, if ever that will be realized. *sigh*

Never mind , I thought what constitutes friendship. Is it about mutual trust and respect? Is it about alliance? partnership? In a recent study on friends and best friends, this is what Professor Kuezban had to say with respect to the newly coined Alliance Hypothesis for Human Friendship

"Friendships are about alliances. We live in a world where conflict can arise and allies must be in position beforehand. This new hypothesis takes into account how we value those alliances. In a way, one of the main predictors of friendship is the value of the alliance. The value of an ally, or friend, drops with every additional alliance they must make, so the best alliance is one in which your ally ranks you above everyone else as well."

The study also revealed that our mind subconsciously reads what our prospective partner (read friend) thinks about us. So, if we consider someone as our best friend, inherently we want to know if it is the other way round. So, a sort of mutual alliance is set up.

As per wikipedia, there are so many dimensions of friendships today, some of which are:

• Soulmate - This is the ultimate form. Soulmates, sort of, die for each other. The ideal friendship - rarely found these days. Tell me people, do you have a friend who could die for you (I am not talking about love), or you could die for him(or her).
• Penpal - You write to me, I shall write to you. We will exchange ideas and thus, we will know each other better and gather knowledge. Remember the days of postcards and inland letters? ...and of newspaper advertisements asking for penfriends (or penpals) [in the pre-internet boom era]? Why- even the day before, I came across a newspaper advertisement looking for penfriends, so it is very much there today.
• Internet friendship - This is very much in place today. With hundreds of social networking sites, keeping in touch is really easy notwithstanding which part of the earth you belong to - only condition is you should have access to the internet. Some of the most popular networking sites today are Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Zorpia, Fropper, Ning and Linkedin.
• Comrade - This is a term very much use by the leftists in West Bengal when they refer to fellow political party workers. Mainly used to denote an ally, someone with a similar objective. Also used in military to denote team spirit and high esteem.
• Casual relationship - This is considered to be a fling in the US. No expectations from either party - just for the sake of having a 'good time', whatever that means!
• Boston marriage - Same as the legalization of Indian Penal Code 377। Do I need to say more?
• Blood brother - Denotes blood relationships, , 'खून का रिश्ता' (in Hindi)
• Open relationship - A relationship where the partners are free to choose others for fulfilment of physical desires. When this happens in marriage, it is called "Open marriage".
• Roommate - The person who has lived with you at one point in time, generally in a hostel or a PG accommodation and do not share a family or romantic relationship.
• Imaginary friend - General imagery created by a child when he or she considers someone as a friend - could be a living (example: a butterfly) or a non-living object (example: a doll).
• Spiritual friendship - This refers to the kind of friendship with a higher purpose, as in Buddhist ideology. One of the friends can have more knowledge than the other and the relationship sweetens when the flow of knowledge enlightens both.
• Inter species friendship - This is so common. Millions of us have pets in their households - be it cats, dogs, cows, goats, sheeps or something as weird as a venomous snakes! But when the creatures stay with us for a long time, a kind of friendship develops. Personally I had a cat who lived for 5 years and I loved it. We would play in the evenings and I used to be thrilled with all its antics. I am sure, many of you must have had similar experiences.

So, the word FRIENDSHIP is vast and used in a very wide range of scenarios. There are also theories that suggest factors which have an effect on friendship, some of which are:

• Similarity - We instantaneously like people who are similar to us.
• Proximity - "Out of sight, out of mind" is much more than a mere phrase. So, seeing each other often counts in a BIG way!
• Reciprocity - This was discussed at the start. We tend to like people who like us and dislike those who dislike us.
• Beauty - Looks kill. So, if you are beautiful, if you are good looking, if you are handsome, you definitely have an edge in making friends. People would fall flat to your charisma without you trying too much.
• Competence - Last, but not the least: Nobody wants to make friends with idiots and duffers. So, if you have the skills, the competence, if you are sharp, demonstrate knowledge and intellect, there are hundreds who would be turned on!

Think about the people who are your friends (or whom you regard your friends). I am sure one or more of the above factors would be at play.

As the saying goes, "Great minds think alike", similarly, friendship develops among like minded individuals. You can probably empathize or sympathize with all. But while making friends, there would be more factors to count on. It's more than just a click on the button "Accept as a friend" on a social networking site!

Image source: http://www.quotesarcade.com/graphics/friendship

Bouts of...

...depression!
This is NOT because of 'anyone', BUT because I lose composure and peace of mind on a rarely basis.
NOT that my life can be controlled by others. I am the sole person who is in control of it!
BUT there are momentary lapses, when I just feel.... "mar jawan..."

Enjoy the video!




-

Dreaming of you

I dream of you, oh sweetheart!
Every night you come to my dreams,
Weave an aura of mist around my very eyes
Help me go to sleep
Help me relax and silently weep
It seems as if you were with me all throughout
As a friend, as a companion, as a sweetheart
I feel a soft touch on my forehead
A touch that I had craved for so long
A touch of care, of love...
I forget that I have not seen you for so many years
You have hidden beyond the curtains
You have moved into oblivion
But now that you are with me
I won't let you go
Stay with me forever and ever and ever...
But as time flies
As I open my eyes
I realize...
You are nowhere
I search for you frantically
But you are gone, gone forever
I remember, you had said, "Its all over...."
Yeah its all over...
But in dreams? Why are you still in there?

Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V

Hi friends,

Hope all of you are at the pink of your health (not payslips!). Given the situation we are all in, it's not really a joke!
Nevertheless, let me not go into the detailed analysis of what is going right or wrong at the moment, not to say that I am not the right person for that. Hopefully, the situation would change.
Forget it! Last night I had a dream and I could not resist the urge of sharing with all of you out there. You know about copy and paste, right? They are arguably the most popular key combinations in use for Windows machines. I would like to refer to them as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.
Now the dream:
I had a vision that all of us human beings are copy pasting food items. As a result of which, if I have one burgar ready, in seconds I have 25 more, at zero cost and effort. Trust me, for the duration, I was in a trance, I enjoyed every bit of it. Imagine, there would be no problems, had such a technology arrived. No dearth of food, no poverty, no anger, no resentment, no need for employment, no fighting and ..... the list goes on. It could be a viscious circle though as people are never satisfied with whatever they have got. They want more and more and more... which probably would give rise to problems. But a Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in the hands of the right people would have solved so many problems!

Dreams

Hi friends

Its early morning here in Kolkata, the time being 3:55 AM, Saturday, November 1st' 2008, kinda foolish, you know, jotting down the date and time, even though it would be visible in the post. However, it doesn't matter. For the last half an hour or so, I thought about various topics - Which one to take up for this post...hmm..yeah, ultimately decided to take up "dreams". We all dream, right. Why few days back only I dreamt about being in the thick of an exam in school and striving hard to finish the paper on time, only to find out that there were 5 questions left at the end and the teacher was almost on the verge of snatching my answer sheet. The classroom was filled with people who constituted my school friends, my college mates as well as my colleagues from my current organization. The teacher collecting the papers was none other than my Team Lead! Well.. well... There have been others, where I have dreamt about my superficial girlfriends (some of whom I don't have contact with any more, some of whom are married, some of whom are engaged and others are all not available). But the point is: What are dreams? For generations, there have been various explanations on them. Let us take a look at some of the most-widely prophessed theories on dreams:

1. Dreams are the remnants of whatever we think about, day in and day out. They constitute our sub-conscious thoughts, our inner fears, or inner experiences, desires and blah blah blah.

2. However, dreams often come true as well and can be pretty accurate as well! Our grandfathers have taught us that depending upon the 'paksh' (15days interval before and after Full Moon, if you understand what I mean), whether it is the Suklapaksh or Krishnapaksh, dreams have greater or lesser probability of being true. Often meanings have been attributed on the kind of likely outcomes for specific kinds of dreams.

But whatever might be the truth, it remains that we are still in the dark on why we dream.

Let me quote Wikipedia on this:

Dreams are sequence images, sounds and feelings experienced while sleeping, particularly strongly associated with rapid eye movement sleep. The
contents and biological purposes of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is known as oneirology.

Let me not go into details of the wikipedia, you can always follow the link and know more. A lot of research has been going on this. However, I would like to concentrate on only one aspect: Why do dreams come true? Can the subconscious infer events which the conscious cannot? Is it something related to para-psychology? Are there any psychic abilities involved? These are the questions which plague me, but since, these are not familiar waters for me, I prefer not to venture at this point. Friends, if you know something, do let me know.

References:
en.wikipedia.org
www.auroville.org