Uff...the 21st century!!!

This is how our 'wacky' 21st century is:

Our communication - Wireless
Our dress - Topless
Our telephone - Cordless
Our cooking - Fireless
Our youth - Jobless
Our food - Fatless

Our labour - Effortless
Our conduct - Worthless
Our relation - Loveless
Our attitude - Careless
Our feelings - Heartless
Our politics - Shameless
Our education - Valueless
Our follies - Countless
Our Job - Thankless
Our Boss - Brainless
Our Salary - Very less

Think about it!!!

Counting my blessings

They say that when the going gets tough, one should always look at what one has rather than what one has lost. Well, I was sitting around feeling annoyed at a number of things that were entirely subjective - I thought some people had been silly, even though they had perfectly valid reasons for behaving the way in which they had. I was feeling a bit let down and frankly, irritated.

A prime time to count my blessings, I reckoned. So here's the list: (in no particular order, I hasten to stress)

• A loving mum who has seen me through thick and thin (and I am not referring to my weight problems).
• A trusting pair of friends who always seem to be around whenever I am in trouble for the last decade or so.
• Three wonderful people - one who always finds time for me and who I consider to be my closest friend, one who keeps my spirit going and always seems to see the good side of me and has been doing so for almost nine years now, and one who I have really met only once but who I already trust infinitely.
• Two lovely people who make me laugh no matter what happens - one with her utterly loony imagination, the other with his wit. Both trust me too - for whatever reason!
  
• Some people who think that what I write is worth paying for.
• A lot of people who actually (actually) read what I write.
• A cat who leaps down from the chair and rushes to greet me whenever I get home.(all right, she does that once in three days, but still....)
• A...

It works. I feel better already! Thank ye, all. Will work on completing the list the next time I feel down.

Feeling PROUD

It gives immense pleasure to see your best friend being appreciated by others. Isn't it? You feel elated and on top of the world. And today I am feeling the same. Nimish Dubey...my best friend, mentor and philosopher has been appreciated by The Hindu for his book 'Kesariya Bana' (see scanned copy below).

Thanks Nimish for making me feel that way and for making me extremely proud. Thanks again:)

Kesariya Bana- Appreciated by The Hindu

What I miss on Diwali

Most of my friends know that I am not too religious by nature. Yep, I do say my prayers every night and when in some stress, do tend to look upwards and mutter, “Keep an eye out for me, will you?” but apart from that, nah! I do believe that there may be an Almighty lurking around somewhere but frankly don’t think he or she (or it? Who knows?) needs major cuddling up from alleged devotees. I mean, heck, if you are the Almighty, you pretty much have it all, no? Why the blazes would you be concerned about someone praying to you – that too in a certain method or language - or not?

Anyway, I keep getting told by those who don’t know me too well about how much I miss out, especially on religious occasions, like Diwali. All I do is light some diyas with mum and then its back to my books (David Eddings’ Illenium, games (its Tomb Raider Legend right now) and music (Sting, currently).

Well, I decided to sit down this time and make a little list on what I was missing out on Diwali:

1.A larger electricity bill
2.Lots of smoke in the house
3.Lots of noise
4.Stacks of unhealthy food
5.Greetings from strangers
6.Greetings from people I wish I had not known
7.Gifts from people who expect something in return
8.Visits from relatives who otherwise forget my existence
9.Social occasions where everyone barely has time to talk to each other
10.A lighter wallet

Yep, there are going to be those who point out that I also miss a chance of meeting my friends and also on the sincere greetings that they might have given me. Know something? I don’t need a festival as an excuse to meet them. And as for the good wishes, they will give them to me anyway. Hey, they are my friends – they never wish me ill anyway. If they do, I will change their status!

So I am not sure I miss too much. Call me and anti-social atheist if you will, but hey, that’s me.

That said, happy Diwali, everyone. I might not celebrate it but sure appreciate your doing so.
Now, excuse me while I go back to Lara Croft!

Meeting someone familiar...for the first time!

Have you ever felt that you have known someone for months even though you have just met them? Well, I had that extremely strange feeling yesterday when I had a spot of coffee with a person I was meeting for the first time. Well, strictly speaking, I had met this person before – he or she had been part of a group I had interacted with last year. But we had never really spoken to each other.

Anyway, over the past few months, we had swapped a few lines of text back and forth on the Internet – via email and chat. And had spoken on the phone a staggering number of times – oh well, just once! Well, we decided to meet over a cup of coffee on Sunday.

Truth be told, I was a bit apprehensive. This was a person known to be extremely quiet and who often did not have too much to say. Now, add that to the fact that I myself am not a chatterbox myself and I was expecting something like half an hour of utter, and maybe awkward, quiet. You know, I was kind of sitting around wondering if I would have to sip coffee noisily to break the silence!

Was I wrong!

You see, I ended up yakking for the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS (bringing the person to within inches of death by boredom, I am sure). And it was spectacularly diverse conversation. Among the subjects covered were: Achilles' heel and how the blighter resembled someone from the Mahabharata; numbers and their implications on human destiny; the meanings of names, and yes, I am sure I talked about the idiotic behaviour of some of the people I had the (mis) fortune to work with. This, to a person I was seeing for the first time.

It was not as if I felt as if I had to impress this person or to make conversation. I just felt...comfortable. I felt I could say anything and get an honest response. And that does not happen too often with someone you have just met.

I don't know if we will meet again, but heck, I would just like the person to know that, for almost three hours yesterday, he or she made me feel more at ease than I had felt for a while. And also made me realise that I could talk non-stop for that much of time!

I do hope our paths cross again in the coming days. I promise I will be more silent this time, if that helps!

The importance of sincerity

Towards the end of last week, I tried a minor experiment – I went out of my way to be outrageously funny and comic. And well, I succeeded to the extent that I decided to stick to the new ‘format’ - you know, wave farewell to the brooding, serious chap that I generally am and instead be full of bright humour.

And well, everyone seemed to be delighted with the change, and kept remarking about how cheerful I now was and how nice it was to see me enjoying things so much, instead of loping around with a grim face.

But not one of my oldest friends - we go back all the way to 1998. When we were chatting on the phone a few minutes ago, she suddenly asked if I was all right and why I was behaving like a silly idiot!

“Well, I have just developed a keener sense of humour, ” I replied.

“Yes,” she replied. “But this is not you. And I know it. So knock it off, at least with me.”

“You don’t get it!” I bleated. “No one likes me being serious and broody. Even you keep telling me to lighten up.”

“I do, ” she snapped. “But I sure prefer your being sincerely mournful to being artificially hilarious. It’s a sad reflection on me as a friend if you have to put up an act in front of me.”

There’s a moral there somewhere, I think.