What makes one different may not be a different thing altogether.

I do not play squash, nor do I go for go carting. I am no keen blogger, not a painter, can’t sing outside bathroom and I can’t paint even an amoeba. I like watching cricket but don’t have the stats on my tips. I like clicking pictures but never bothered to buy a camera to click some award winning stuff.

I get short of words when asked about my hobbies or interests. But isn’t it possible for someone to be content with life without actually pursuing something interesting, unique or at least different from what is usual. Hobby or interest is something very personal to someone, just like someone’s choice of underwear or a curry in a restaurant’s menu. Then why should it be a matter of pride for someone to be swimming in English Channel if one is simply following an interest which might not be of any interest to someone else. It’s almost similar to someone watching cartoon on TV or playing pinball the other moment if we consider interest as something which interests you. It’s agreeable that when somebody spends time, resources in the pursuance of some activity then it could be called as interest or hobby. But how different is it from somebody switching from one thing to the other where none of the activities the person indulges into is too unique or awe inspiring? Here the object of pursuance is not the activity but the aim to spend time as the mood permits. So we all have hobbies, it may not be well defined obsession for something but something too trivial. It’s just that we need to identify the real motive of a hobby; it’s the peace of mind and getting some time spent for ourselves without any profits or losses involved. We may find that peace in the work itself where we may try to put something extra without the goal of being appraised by our superiors. We may find reading history interesting but may not be passionate enough to become a historian, ultimately the goal is to be able to do something that interests us (even if for just that single moment). So rather than trying hard to find what interests us from the already subscribed list of so called passions, I feel we should try to find that happiness, contentment and satisfaction which should ideally be the outcome of the follow up of those passions.

What interests me is what stimulates as well as calms my mind. After all it's all in the mind.

When heaven had its first entrance exam.....

Angels were having a tough time with a lot many visitors knocking the doors of heaven. They all brought well written statements of purpose, had one of the best experience certificates(of noble deeds), and many of them had even brought special recommendations from renowned religious people. But due to lack of funds and pressure from 'not so elite' heaven guys of keeping special provisions for other 'not so elite' yet' not so poor' applicants, heaven couldn't afford too many berths. Apart from that a poor 'Apsara'-'Heaven inhabitants' ratio was making the matters worse. So a few 'I am the king, you just sing' kind of heavenites came up with a superb idea of putting a filter finer than a tea strainer to filter out 99 out of every 100 visitors. Each visitor was supposed to climb a wall, and only one out of a batch of 100 was selected who may or may not be the first one to climb up the wall. But soon it became a strenuous task of judging hundreds of thousands of noble, learned,knowledgeable and hungry visitors as a part of filtration process, so they made it simpler for themselves. They asked the applicants to bring a record of all their previous sins, be it 100 births earlier and started rewarding visitors, with a relatively cleaner record. Sinners who had later turned into saints were pulled out and reprimanded for all the sins they had committed, even if unknowingly and were filtered out. As a decade passed by, heavenites noticed that almost three-quarters of the entrants had blue-colored tails. They tried to bring in other colors but those colors just couldn't pass through the filter they had put in. Desperate to see different colored tails, heavenites blamed blue colored tail guys as of  forming a coterie and not allowing other colors to mix in. So heavenites passed a decree "A blue tail visitor can use only one out of two legs to climb".
Isn't that happening in our reputed MBA colleges, first half of the seats are to be filled by those not so poor and not so needy yet so called underprivileged aspirants and then for remaining half you score a high percentile, then before you actually boast about it somewhere you get to know that no IIM has shortlisted you. Reason is straight and simple, your past is not that bright, and the shimmer you tried to bring in with your CAT percentile hardly matters. Second issue is with you being an engineer, your seniors committed the sin of performing good, proving their mettle and beating others. And the X-Y chromosomes they brought in made the matters even worse. It's now you, a 'Male Engineer' who has to climb the ladder using one leg(5% reduced for being engineer, 5% for being a guy). I ask these profs, did they have very clear thought about what they were gonna do in future and how a little less percentage of marks scored in SSC could hamper their post-graduate educational prospects. Is there nothing like mending your ways, and go in the right direction when you realize it. You better invent a time machine and go back and change your past, but I wonder would one even care about an MBA degree after inventing it!!      

Kis oor

chhod hariyali bhare ujiyaale maidaan,
nikal pade uss kiran ki oor,
pakda fir ek path andhkaar bhara,
ek pagdandi jispe na dikhti bhor,
kaamna ujaale ki karte chale,
chalte chale uss orr
 

jab thake kadam,
jab bhar aaya mann,
na dikha kinara jo lete ghadi bhar dum


umr hai beeti,
nikle kitne basant,
lakhsya ab bhi dikhe nikat,
duur reh jaaye fir bhi anth


karun jo chintan, jo sochun kya tha uddeshya,
yatra hai jaari kintu tha kya lakshya

antim padaav pe pahuncha jeevan rath,
dikhe na chhor bas badhta jaaye yeh path

ab sochun kyun chhoda woh basera,
jab tha sukhi mera woh ek dera

thaga kisne mile kisko yeh dosh,
mann me hai glani fir kispar yeh rosh,

kat gye pal,
jinme tha woh kal,

wahin tha ujaala, thi bikhri wahin muskaan,
jeevan tha saral wohi, tha wahin sab asaan.

What time is it?

It rang at 6:50 AM, it sang actually. And I got one day older, the calender jumped one step ahead and would never come back. I find it crazy, world revolves around Sun and comes back to its original start point(if it has any), then how come our lives are unidirectional. Is it just because we age with time, and we are a temporary phenomenon. I miss my grandpa who passed away a few years back, I thought time took him away, away from me. But if this whole universe, this creation just revolves, then why can't this time be a cycle, just revolving around, weaving a net around where our individual lives are threads, interwoven in different patterns, designs, intersecting with each other. Now I feel I never lost him, it's just that his thread has been displaced, it's just that his horizon has moved further away from mine. The design has changed, but our threads still intersect when I remember the way he used to carry me on his shoulders, those fond memories of my childhood. So now comes the point that if our lives are also cycles, then why do we always invest ourselves for the future, why don't we strengthen the thread right here right now, why don't we make our present colorful, when it's this thread which is going to intersect with our future. Why should we run to make the ends meet, when these are anyways going to meet as a part of a cycle.
We are always making ourselves ready for the inevitable, our demise, our departure from this mortal world. But do we make enough efforts that we touch other's lives in a beautiful way, we make their memories rich with the experiences they shared with us. Is insuring our lives, buying better return plans, accumulating wealth to be inherited by our offspring enough to make the moments they shared with us memorable. And do we experience enough beauty in the world that our eyes are filled with serene, scenic pictures when we are about to depart. It hardly matters how big your bank balance is when angels are waiting at the door, to take your soul, displace your thread. Death can't be as beautiful as life is, and life's beauty lies in those very moments that are indelible; that always exist through memories, legends, feelings...threads keep on changing positions, changing colors but these never cease to exist....

Dharamveer - Meet the Spartans!

Some movies have been a great source of entertainment,some quite enlightening and some really informative. But i believe Mr.Manmohan Desai's contribution towards the cinema is unmatchable. He showed the world how the same 'old', 'boring', 'pathetic', http://thesaurus.com/browse/pathetic could be presented in a different and entertaining way (at least for the front stall). Even a term was coined for his genre of movies, i.e. 'Masala Movies'. I watched Dharamveer for the first time when i was a kid, and i am not ashamed of accepting that i really got entertained by the epic saga of two brothers separated by their wicked maternal uncle played by Jeevan(now-a-days Akshay Kumar is trying to mimic his nasal dialogue delivery in almost every movie), but they still became best friends and one became a Spartan looking blacksmith Dharam played by Dharmendra(our very own vampire, who has a great affinity towards dog's blood) and other a Portuguese looking Indian prince Veer played by jumping jack Jeetendra, it also had a cow-boyish Pran who happened to be the sperm donor(biological father of DharamVeer). With some really tacky costumes, dialogues with high sentimental count and a war galley(yeah and Sheroo-the wonder bird) it was a complete non-sense, unrealistic, history defying entertainment. But that didn't stop Mr. Desai there, he went on to change the medical science too, where a direct blood transfusion took place between three,yet again separated brothers and their poor(healthy) mother.This time it was not a mix of two different civilizations but three religions. Dialogues were even more pedestrian(thanx to Mr. Chadar errr! Kadar Khan), but the values that the movie held were still the same. A non-sense, unrealistic, science defying entertainment but a money spinner, it was 'Amar Akbar Anthony'. But in my opinion his best creation was 'Mard', there have been several movies on British Raj, but that blunder was the greatest of all. And this time dialogues were even more power punching, thanks to our own He-Man(oops! Hanuman) Mr.Dara Singh who played the role of Amitabh 'Mard' Bacchan's father and delivered some really memorable dialogues with punjabish-hindish-english accent(Halena, Karjan for Helena and Curzon). It was even rumored that once he hired a teacher to learn english, though classes ended up with teacher started speaking only punjabi. Once again our hero gets seperated from his mom(same poor healthy lady) and father too. Though this time therez no wicked Mama, but a wicked anglo-indian doctor played by Mr.Prem Chopra. This time movie has a wonder dog and a wonder-horse(in love with a statue of a mare, i dont know how did he figure out the gender of that statue), the movie had almost all the viceroys,generals ever deployed by British in India together to get annihilated by Mr Mard. Oh i almost forgot to mention the story behind 'Mard', Mr Dara Singh before getting seperated from his wife and infant son, brands his son as 'Mard' with a knife and our super-hero(he later became that in Ajooba!) smiles :). Well this time yet again the values were the same non-sense, unrealistic, science,history,death,everything defying entertainment. A blog is not enough to describe the 'Greatness' of this great filmmaker. So a small walk through: 


"Anhoni ko honi karde honi ko anhoni , ek jagah jab jama ho teeno, amar akbar anthony"
"Saat ajoobe iss duniya me aathwi apni jodi, arre tode se bhi na toote yeh dharamveer ki jodi"
"Peeth pe maara hai seene pe khaoge"
"Haath ke badle haath, maa ke badle maa"
"Mard ko dard nahi hota"
"Bure kaam ka bura nateeja, kyun bhyi chacha arre haan bhateeja"
"Na tune signal dekha, na maine signal dekha, accident ho gya rabba rabba! Allah Rakkha,aaa aaa aaa"
"Main hoon mard taangeywaala"
"Maana ki hamara aadha khoon paani hai, par aadha toh pure hindustaani hai"

A scene in Amar Akbar Anthony where three seperated sons of a mother are donating blood to her through miraculous direct blood transfusion, here at the backdrop(seen from the hospital window) there is a temple at the back of amar(hindu), a mosque(akbar) and a church(anthony). Marvelous!

Mr Pran jumps off a fort's high wall on a horse with Dharam Veer's mom.


Mard's horse(Badal) runs away with the statue of a mare which turns into real in the climax, and 'Mard' Bacchan who is riding badal is rescued by father Mr. Dara Singh(Raja Azad Singh) by offering his Hanuman shoulders to him for his wedding.

Indian looking Karjan(Lord Curzon), Haleyna(Elena), Harry, General Dyer and they speak only Hindi.