Saturday, February 13, 2010

To St. Valentine, with Love

Cupid strikes
He’s hit
She evades

Cupid waits
He tries
She resists

Cupid strikes again
He’s hit again
She evades again

Cupid’s baffled
He’s hurting
She’s indifferent

Cupid’s pondering
He’s cursing
She’s receding

Cupid flies away
He waits
She waits...too

Friday, December 18, 2009

Facebooked

In the past few months of joblessness, if there’s one thing that I’ve been regular with, other than sleeping for long hours, it is giving Facebook quality time from my limited remaining hours of the day, managing to login there about 10 times daily! Whenever I’d open my Internet browser thinking of something interesting to do, after a few vague and unsuccessful attempts to reach an engaging website, I’d inevitably start typing facebook.com. I actually realised today that even if I had nothing to do there, I’d just go because I feel I have to. It’d satiate some unknown urge within me and even if I have to torture my eyes to go through countless Farmville or Mafia Wars activity feeds on my homepage, I’d do it, cursing their hundreds of users as I scroll down to look for ‘meaningful’ activity.

But while I religiously keep doing this every single day, occasionally a modest 3-letter word rings in my head: WHY? Just why am I doing this? Is it just me? And the earnest response from within is: NO! Backed by figures, there are millions of users around the world doing the same thing. Then follows a string of questions: Why is everyone doing this? Why is there this need to spend hours of our day staying logged on to a social networking website when clearly we could be doing something more meaningful with our lives? Why is it important to comment on somebody’s pictures? Why is it that we even end up commenting on certain status messages that talk about how some acquaintance is feeling? Why is it that we want to check out what groups the others are a part of or what/who they become a fan of?

To all this, I could just think of one rationale: we have a need to ‘connect’. An unsaid desire to know what the others are doing and making them know how our life is treating us. I’ve always believed that every human in this world is connected in some unknown way. A heart speaks to another, even without words or gestures. And a way to acknowledge this connection is to communicate. And that’s what we try to do, directly or indirectly, by writing status messages and waiting to receive comments from all those who get to read it, by playing random games with or against others, by posting our pictures and checking others’, by sending birthday or anniversary greetings, by joining interest groups, by sharing reviews about a movie that we watched or a restaurant that we ate at or a place that we visited or an experience that we were a part of! All this, just to ‘communicate’! To reach out and keep that unknown connection alive and to nurture it by feeding it with little doses of ‘Facebook Indulgence’ to replete its hunger.

P.S. By the time I finished writing this post, I’d checked my e-mail thrice to see if there were any new mails from Facebook! Good job, Mark Zuckerberg! :)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I Found Happiness

Nothing compares to catching up with a dear friend after months and reliving the old times.

Nothing compares to meeting new people and making friends.

Nothing compares to singing karaoke non-stop for hours.

Nothing compares to eating the poori-chana-halwa combo.

Nothing compares to a long drive back home at 3 am, listening to ‘Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison’.

Nothing compares to being the "only one in the queue" at the CNG filling station.

Nothing compares to having a fun filled evening in an otherwise stale phase of life.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Never Know

It’s raining outside
And inside of him as well
The raindrops knocking at the glass window
Of his temporal existence they tell

The clothes and the curtains dampened
Likewise, his spirits too
The sky turning grey
Enough to restrict his vision to a foot or two

The sight of a kid on the street
Dancing merrily in the rain
Reminds him of his cherished childhood days
The time he can’t regain

The puddles on the road
With the paper boats afloat
The washed green trees
And their fallen yellow leaves

The peacock’s crested head
And its large fanlike tail
The earthworms from the sand
That slithered on the garden rail

A smile crosses his face
As he remembers the life that was
As distant as it is now from him
He savoured the little trip to the past

The present wasn’t so pleasant
All the planning fell apart
Not that he could do much about it
Bad luck played a big part

It consoled him for a while
To know that he’s not alone
There were hundreds of other mortals
Fighting the same battle on their own

He wished he knew the end
To this pain and distraught
To the annoyance of being a victim
Of circumstance and not his fault

He looked out in the grey
In a hope to find an answer
A vibrant rainbow appeared at the horizon
And the smile returned; this time it was wider!

Friday, February 13, 2009

She came. We talked. She conquered!

Words were few but the feelings grew
And I wanted the night to get longer
The time would oppose, but a connection arose
And it only became stronger

But she had to go back to where she belonged
Too much at stake, she didn’t wanna be wrong
“Whenever I sing, she’ll listen”, she said
Her words etched in my heart, never will I forget!

Monday, May 05, 2008

The Next Bend

Come 19th May, and I'll set out on a journey which takes me to a life which was long awaited, had been dreamt of in the past, then forgotten, virtually given up on at a point in time, but one fine day emerged from nowhere and presented a sweet surprise! The journey which takes me back to a life where I won't need to wait for the third day of the month to receive my salary slip, where I won't need to worry about the income tax returns, where I won't need to invest a huge amount of money in investment plans to save on some of my hard earned money which would have otherwise helped pump the government's treasures!
For the next year, I'd officially be a student again.

The last day at work this Friday, launched the countdown to the big day, when for the first time I'll leave the luxuries that come with being at home with family, to search for a space for my head, not only outside the bounds of this city I'm so in love with, but also this country that I feel strongly rooted to.
Going away from the friends who were always around in the good and the bad times and some relatives who have always been special, the restaurants that have given me reasons to honour their tables time and time again and the coffee shops that have been the homes for some of the best conversations I've had, the occasional photowalks that kept my Sunday mornings busy and the more regular, beloved post-dinner walks in my own company!

!!SNAP!!

Putting the sadness to rest, there's a new world to look forward to, and my word am I excited! I feel like a kid inside, who's promoted to the next grade in school and is waiting for the new session to start. Awaiting a new set of people that I'd call batchmates, some of them who'd become good friends, some who'd add their names to the ever overflowing list of acquaintances, and some who I might never see again after a year, but all adding to the experience of learning from each other, of togetherness, and contributing to each other's personal growth. It'll be the year that will finally give my career the direction that I had been longing for. And hopefully, at the end of it, I'd finally be having a good time at my workplace for all the right reasons. And for someone who loves travelling, spending quality time in two new cities, meeting their natives, getting an opportunity to immerse into two new cultures and maybe managing to pick up snatches of their local languages, it all suits me perfectly fine!

As promising as it sounds, I can expect this year to be highly taxing, as is characteristic of B-schools. But as the saying goes and I do believe, "Once you're in it, you'll get through it!"
I hope that this will turn out to be one of the most memorable years of my life. Insha-Allah!