Life's little mysteries

Every time things seem under control, the master player god amazes me with a new arrow from his quiver. I must say that even after being part of this super-game called LIFE for more than twenty years now, its mysterious ways of delivering melancholy and euphoria simultaneously continues to fascinate me and I am left to wonder, what’s next??

A couple of days back I lost a good friend (at least I considered him/her to be so) to the realms of oblivion, and I am quite sure that he/she doesn’t even have the slightest hint of this, for like a gentleman I had made a quiet exit. Such is the state of oblivion where the presence or absence of certain unimportant things are hardly noticeable until someone shouts in your ear” hey! This thing ain’t there anymore”. We had worked together for than 2 years but the outcome was inevitable, for the little things that gave strength to the tender thread of friendship had vanished into thin air. Coming back to life’s mystic ways, the introspection that followed helped me rediscover myself. I had stopped treading on the tortuous path of this friendship. Fresh & rejuvenated, I could clearly see my target and the path that lead to it. I precisely knew who was a true friend and who wasn’t. This great discovery in itself was a cause for great euphoria after the forlorn start to the day.

For the not so subtle minded people, to whom this farce of self-discovery seems trivial, let me give another example. I soak in pride and joy when people around me laud my brother’s commendable achievement of securing an AIR of 1&7 in cbse-pmt and AIIMS entrance respectively and keep pestering me for treats. I happily oblige them to celebrate the success, but behind all these rosy things life’s obnoxious face pops up shamelessly. My invincible little brother is suffering from some social phobia & certain other obsessive and compulsive disorders, psychological disorders that he has been fighting since class X, being alone for the first time things are going out of control and most part of his 1^st month post success, has been spent in a psychological clinic or home instead of AIIMS. Life can’t be more ironical than this. Every time I am back from one of such treats I am calling him, telling him to fight against the evils that cripple him, trying to make him understand that no one expects him to top every list, to drop his plan of quitting AIIMS. Asking him to simply continue studying, to do it for the sake of his own dreams, for us and if not for anything else just do it for the sake of doing it.

Amidst all this mayhem, the helplessness seems to grow, so much so that one day my most beloved possession, my own brother calls me up and says,” Dada, for the sake of your own life and career, forget me, my mind is highly unstable and will continue troubling all of us. I have tried hard but can’t come out of this fear.” I only wish he could fathom the depth of this love, one which leaves us restless on seeing the slightest sign of despair on the other’s face to talk of something like this.

Life’s dualities puzzle me, baffle me and sometimes pain me but then I am not a pessimist. I come out stronger and more determined each time. I love these additional hurdles that life places in my path for it helps me to be more adept at handling tough things in life. Infact this has fostered and nurtured my best virtues, the never say die attitude, the determination to conquer it all and the energy to buzz around and stay focused even in the most despairing moment. I know that like Maupassant’s short stories, life’s little stories have a twist in the tale but they all have a happy ending.

The dreamer still believes that hope and dreams are the two best gifts of God. His advice : Never let your dreams to be tied down by the clauses of practicability and plausibility and never let your hopes to be weighed down by hopelessness.

Ponderous cogitations...

Some people come into our life, stroking it ever so gently with their soothing touch that it leaves behind a mark etched so deep in our memories that it becomes absolutely chimerical on our part to wipe it off. Call it magic, the time spent with them howsoever routine and monotonous seems to be the best time of our lives.
The tender touches, that little pulling of each other's leg, those small moments of joy so beautifully interwoven that life seems so complete and gorgeous. We walk in the park holding hands, script wild fantasies together, talk about all the weird things in this world that our otherwise so very rational mind would bar us from gibbering. We get so used to spending time together that we don't wanna think about the possibility of not being able to do so.
This is when the omnipresent shows his might and forces us to part, but then in this Tech savvy world distance never appears like bringing about a hiatus in our relationship. we depart, making all sorts of promises to stay in touch. This is when i usually say to myself that hope is the most beautiful thing in this world.
Flight boarded, destination reached, picked up the phone.."hey!!!"(the hey from the other side seems so warm and full of excitement), the excitement is palpable in the initial few days but the story takes a turn now. The "we" changes to a "I" henceforth.
Its been 10 days since i last saw her but i talk to her almost everyday though the density has been decreasing exponentially. I ponder about giving her a surprise special call, think about some amazing things to dole out over the phone. Number dialed...tring,tring,tring...she's so late in picking up the phone that I am about to put down the receiver.."Temme".."oh! hii!!,just thought would talk to you generally"(the cold temme has already turned me off, i have forgotten all the amazing stuff i was supposed to blabber) " oh!!..but..err..".."Hey!! i hope its ok if i talk to you now".."well!!!err.. not actually i am supposed to be talking to my friend now..(who am i??)she's home".." oh!! cya then, bye"..cut
A sane human being would expect her to call back, sms back or atleast mail back.."duh!"..The waits going to be endless. My ego tells me "forget her.period", I delete her from my gtalk,delete her messages and phone no.(well do u really need to store it, u know it by heart anyways ) ,thinking if I don't see the name it'll be easy to delete her from my memory too but the so very sweet and nice human being that i am..one li'l buzz one day and i forget it all but then the proximity has decreased. I am just another guy in her gtalk list and vice-versa. Its been 6 months since i last chatted with her. In some cases she might appear to be offline from my id all the time.
i had been told by many of my close buddies to stay away from such dangerous short term(long distance) associations and they had foretold me about this end but i never paid any heed to their incessant blabber on this issue and i am happy that i didn't...
Knock knock..a sudden twist in the tail...this one's having a happy ending..they kept on talking and their friendship wasn't an ephemeral one. Their practical outlook towards life stopped them from doing anything outrageously special but then they continued being in the comfort zone, loved sharing little things about their lives. I still say to myself hope is the most beautiful thing in this world.
But finally a word to those who actually bring about a premature termination to this budding friendship. It is a very arduous task to find people who would love you and care for you truly and selflessly all their life so if you have found one, kindly continue sparing some of your precious time and energy to let this association blossom. The absence of this someone won't make your life incomplete or abominable but then the presence would surely make it more complete and beautiful.

I wish..

Preface: The current story is completely non-fictitious and any resemblance to characters living(only, none of them are dead) is fully intentional. This blog is not supporting or opposing the dowry culture but is a humorous take on the issue. The author of the blog though, vehemently opposes this tradition and has made some futile attempts (so far) to change the thinking of a few of the characters of this conversation.

On a sultry Sunday afternoon 3 of us were returning after a tortuous tête-à-tête with our first mock cat paper. The mess hadn’t started providing us with our daily dose of grub so we decided to go to the nearby restaurant wherein we were joined by 4 other wing mates. What followed was some imbecile yet jocular discussion on an equally interesting topic Dowry in the enchanting state of Bihar. I’ll try to provide you all with a grim picture of that conversation.

It all started off when one of us, let us call him Mr. A(I have been strictly threatened against mentioning their real names..), told that after returning from his intern in US, he got a proposal for marriage. Well what’s the big deal in it,huh, but then that wasn’t all, he had been offered a meager sum of 35 lakhs INR as dowry. Holy Shit!!!!

35 lakhs!!!! And guess what??? his family had calmly turned down the offer stating the girl was too old..As Mr. A put it, “IITian’s of my caste are in great demand and we will keep getting such offers”.. Before this could go down my throat, Mr. B proudly remarked 35 lakhs that too after your third year, haha, grow up…

They pleaded me with a proposal of 50 lakhs at the end of my second year only and I didn’t have to go to US and all, such is my esteem & demand. As this was going on, It suddenly dawned on me that only of 3 of us(me a bong, Mr. C a oriya and Mr. D a gult) had our eyes wide open, the other 2 non participants(they too belonged to the same state) till then were calmly munching their Tandooris. This is when one of them quipped “Dude, you are perhaps absolutely unaware of this tradition, none of us (the 4 of them ) would get anything less than 25lakhs!!!”

As all this was slowly getting registered in my old P1 processor, Mr. B suddenly said, “Dude as far as I remember your birthplace is sarwan (a small town in Bihar) and you are a Bengali too. You too can get the same amount, Bengalis with some soft corner for bihar are in demand too”

“What”, I said.

“Ya, u too can easily get a good amount”, said Mr. B confidently.

and here I was foolishly putting fight for girls, spending my dad’s hard earned money and my so very precious time. I wish I knew this before. I could have saved on so much of money, time and dignity(you keep losing some every time you put fight for someone). At this juncture i am reminded of a very close friend of mine (another iitian from a different institute though and my intern mate) who after failing in many such girl wooing attempts had commented “Arranged marriage is the best thing in this world” How right & foresighted he was.

By now my creative juices had also started flowing. I said, "hey guys I have a plan."

“See, we all expect to get placed in the first round of placements, i.e. by mid December and then we all planned to go to goa and all, spending our own money. What we can do now is, after getting placed we will all go out on a Bihar bhraman (journey, call it discovery of Bihar) and we will knock on all the doors and call on all the fathers whose daughters are eligible to marry. This way, hopefully we will manage to get atleast 10 lakhs INR as dowry. So what do we now? Spending some of that money we can go on a world tour guys. This way the problem of getting a sushil kanya to marry would also be solved and we will also get the much needed cash to enjoy the last semester of our college life!..Ain’t it simply brilliant??”

At this, we all broke into a big round of laughter…hehe..The gloominess after the pathetic mock cat had completely disappeared now and I felt fresh and happy. I too am in demand.

P.s. I am in an awfully bad writing form so couldn’t present the stuff as humorously as my skills at satire can produce but the topic was so facetious that I couldn’t stop myself from blogging. :)

The Pari

I generally have a dream, one that gives me immense joy even in the most depressing of moods, wonderfully crafted and designed but still incomplete. Then one night it so happened that as I closed my eyes, I had the same dream, same surroundings, same everything but then as the dream unfolded further it had someone new, someone whom I thought I knew but then it was still hazy. Surprised and curious about this new arrival, I tried to follow this new character but then as is the case with happiness, this figure continued to elude me . But then I also wasn't gonna give up, I got so lost in this elusive pursuit that I almost forgot about the rest, then at one corner all of a sudden this character stopped and turned around, stunned for a moment as I could not believe what my eyes had seen I fumbled for words but found none..

Her divine beauty and her cherubic smile took me to a different world, for a moment I was numb. Then from somewhere a very sweet voice said," hello, would you like to be my friend." I looked up to see that little angel smiling, gracefully I put my hand forward to show my willingness to be her friend. I was so lost that I had completely forgotten where I was, I just wanted to be with her forever and go wherever she took me. As I was going through this transcendental phase, she said," Come, I will take you to a place where there shall be no sorrow and you shall be happy forever." My lips as if in a trance moved to smile without me telling them to do so.

We were now moving towards a quieter location, far away from the commotion of life. As we moved forward, I dared to ask her who she was, to which she replied," Think of me as the angel of your life, you can call me pari", although not fully satisfied with this but then by that time I was too happy to let the joy of the moment slip away. As we walked along we reached a small hut, she asked me to come in, to which I readily agreed. The hut was a very simple one from inside, it had a cot, a place to cook, some utensils and few other trivial articles. She asked me to sit and herself sat beside me, her face still glowing with the same radiance and then we talked. We talked about everything and we laughed, I could not recall being so happy ever before, hours passed by and then she said," I am feeling hungry, aren't you." By now I was completely in her spell. We then cooked some rice and dal, she then asked me to sit and served food for us, though the food was very simple, I enjoyed it thoroughly. After this we went out, she showed me around, the chirping birds and the green trees, we chatted as we moved. The things that we did that day were very routine but then the joy that I found in them that day was incomparable, perhaps her presence had made all the difference. The moment seemed to be too good to be true, but then a flicker of a thought made me feel really uneasy, I was now terribly afraid of something, what if the pari again vanishes into thin air as she appeared. The thought was too deadly, unable to suppress my anxiety and fear, I asked her, "pari, you will stay with me forever naa." The pari smiled again and said," Everyone has a pari in his life, someone with whom he wants to be all the time, all that matters is to search this elusive pari and once you find her, never let her go and you shall be happy forever."

My eyes were now wide open, the dream was over and as I pondered over the happenings and especially what the pari had said in the end, i was left wondering what if i am never able to find this pari of my life but this thought process was cut short by the rapid knocking on my door by my neighbour.