randomized

This is a new year. Not very new in strictest technical terms, but new in terms of my blog. A happy new year to all of you. I have been absent from this space for quite a long time; so long that sometimes I even thought that my 'phase' of blogging is over and that I am done with it. But thankfully it wasn't and isn't. And while I was still skeptical about this whole thing, I did never think of, and would probably never will, think of or have the courage to close it down. I cannot do that, it has too many good memories associated with it. Having said that, I will still not make promises to whoever stumbles upon here, that I will keep the updates coming on comparatively regular intervals from now on. I can't make any promises about this; I know better of it. Instead, in this post, I am going to just thank you all who still remember this blog and sometimes come to see if there is anything new cooking about. To thank you for being part of this journey and ...

Today is a full month since I left my home and my home. It is a strange place that I am in. Different yet not so different. I don't know what it is to be like outside your home. I didn't know. I still don't. I am learning homesickness; it is all coming very slow is what I feel. I am not sad like how people are when they leave home for the first time. I am in fact very happy; I am staying in my aunt's home. It feels just like my home, almost. I feel strange sometimes though. It feels like I would roll my always-ready bag to the ariport in a couple of days and go back home. And carry some tales with me about the vacation I had. I use 'home' to refer to my country too, in some of these sentences; specially my city, Delhi. I am in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia right now. I boarded a plane for the first time in my memory, that night. I say 'in my memory' because it wasn't technically the first time but rather practically the first time. After all, when y...

It has been a good year, 2014. Not great, not average, just good. And I grew a lot as a person. I did better than last year on most fronts, but some were still left screaming for mercy and progress. I learned a lot at work, I read many good books, I met people and interacted and laughed with them and became more confident. At the same time, I became fat and failed miserably in keeping up with online courses and writing. I made a post in January about Resolutions and Wishes for 2014, and let us just say, the plane didn't stay up long ... and crashed, voilently, into a Saharan desert type of a jungle and the pilot was eaten by a crocodile when he found water after wandering for three days in scorching jungle heat and being bitten twice by a non-poisonous and once by a poisonous snake on the butt.

People often say that you gotta be a hellish perfect guy in the field of your work (or study, or play. It is all the same) if you want to be someone . Someone here indicates one who has earned respect, wealth and in some cases fame. A well worn cliché dialogue succeeds, or precedes, this kind of a conversation and which goes like(surprise surprise),  "Jack of all trades, master of nun none" Well, good for you, sensible serious people. Not for me but, no thanks. You see, I've been always reminded by a lot many people with not much lesser of a zeal than of those credit card sales people about how sticking to just one speciality and focusing on that full time without indulging in other distraction would be the way to go career wise. And how if I travelled on two boats alongside, I am going to have a torn set of pants and a sore crotch. To this I ask, rather want to ask, what if I want to travel in three boats simultaneously? What if I want to be a book critic, a h...

Hello people. Happy New Year. Let's begin. Yeah, just like that. I am not going to think of a perfect start to the first post of 2014 here. I am not going to give any background or a reason about why or why-don't I believe in resolutions. I guess it doesn't make much of a difference when you are eating butter day and night and thinking back to your keeping a healthy mind  resolution, which rooted on your 'healthy mind leads to a healthy body' belief. So yeah, let's move ahead. Yeah ;)

A few months ago, I received this comment from this reader who wrote how she essentially read my whole blog in a single day and even though I sound like a narcissist douche, I was and am pretty sure it was more ‘her’ ability to sit around than anything else.    The P.S. of her comment, where she wrote how when we meet, she is going to take my autograph, made me both overwhelmed with happiness and silly and I responded saying that we would get a photograph clicked and I’ll make a post about our awesome meeting on my blog. Even though I was genuinely happy, at that time I presumed, as I did not know her or had a look at her blog, that she would be just another blogger teenager, all fascinated with my amateurish attempts at writing and someone who maybe did not have much literary exposure. But boy was I proven wrong when I actually met her and found that she was as much like I had imagined her as east and west are same and when incidentally, as it happens with me always,...

Let me tell you my story in relation to friends. When I was 7 perhaps, I was admitted to a new school, in 2nd standard. There, among other things, which included marvelling at the size of the building and playground and discovering that I could buy an amazing hot samosa and a hotter bread-pakoda, both in all of ₹5, happened something quite  remarkable . I learned a new term, Best Friends . I didn't know exactly what kind of friends were called best friends,  but from what I did get, I was pretty much enchanted by the idea. That day, I saw a boy tell another how his best friend  from the class was on a vacation abroad and was going to bring him a gift from there. Later that day, I saw two boys, whom somebody maybe referred as the best friends , walking around during recess or maybe after the school ended, hands on each other's shoulders, chatting excitedly, like they were having the best time in the world. So, I assumed that perhaps best friends ...

Hallo you! I am happy today. For no reason. And this post is about awards. Which you might have guessed by the title already. And I am going to receive, with much humility and bows(not the ones you shoot with), the awards that I have been awarded. Because well, I am happy and this post is about awards. Before this gets any more weird and foolish, I should just hop on to the stage with my speech. But before that, let me apologize to the two amazing people who gave me these awards. Months ago. Sorry Abinaya and Srishti, I am a hopeless procrastinator, do send me some remedies. All right then, the first award is the Creative Blogger Award  given by the ever so sweet, Srishti from  LIFE...as it is . Thank you so much Srishti, I alwardly feel too happy and reading your post again made me even more happy. So as part of the award taking ceremony, what I have to do here is a special dance  follow some steps/rules which go like this,

Here's what happens. You pick up a book you are really excited about reading and which you have heard about a lot from your friend. You've read the blurb, which looked pretty promising and seen some amazing five star reviews. To add to its appeal, it also happens to be one of those books by one of those writers who almost everybody swears by. So you get down to read and you like how it starts and you read more and you like how it's going. You like the characters, you like the humour, you like the use of metaphors in it. So you keep reading and you keep liking, so much so that you read more than three fourth of it in a night. The next day you continue with it and finally finish it. Seems good enough, right? You've read it fast! You must be feeling good, happy, contented, excited(even more than how much you were before starting it), right? 

Sometimes, even the tiniest of things can make you happy. Things like waking up early morning and watching the sun rise, going on a walk all by yourself or with a friend you haven't met in a while, watching a baby cackle with joy, being out in the first rain after a long summer or smelling something which instantly brings back some of your most treasured memories. It could be thousands of things, all different and diverse and sometimes quite magically, the same. They fill you up with joy, makes your heart pump a little more blood, and your lungs a little more oxygen. You feel elated and refreshed and confident. It makes you feel like you've always been so happy because in that instant you forget all the problems, tensions and difficulties you might have in your life and you just enjoy and live in the moment. View from inside the mosque. Something like this happened with me today and I was so happy that I didn't want it to go away before I captured it in somet...

Although I am not a very resolutionary (yes thank you, I know that's not a word) person I wanted to do a resolutions as well as a wishlist post this time anyway. And since it's too much work making two posts and more work for you reading I decided to do them together.  And even though most people find many things to be happy about the departing year, looking through the time-glass, I didn't find anything worth giving a toast. 2012, as I  realise, has been the most boring, vexing and basically  the most pathetically idle year of my life. I never ever had more sensation of precious.. precious time being wasted before. The year sucked. Actually I sucked the whole year, and bad. Still, if I were to look for good things about this year, I do find some good moments scattered here and there. And most of them include my friends, and discovering how awesome friendship is. The other moments include meeting new people and reading some very good books. And writing of-c...

Yesterday, I came around a post by Aaekay , one of my fellow bloggers where she had answered a little  questionnaire which she found on Me 's (another fellow blogger) blog, who in turn had found it on a really nice blog about .... well, life.  The original post on the blog reads  '50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind' . Now since, I can totally use some clearing up tips for my mind right now, I couldn't wait at answering those questions myself. So, let's get on with them. - - - - -  ***  - - - - - 1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?   21. I think it would be a great age to stay on forever for me. 2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?   How can you know if you never try. 3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?   Because life is a balanced scale of dreams and reality.

Sometimes, I get totally annoyed with myself and feel completely enraged with the things that  happen to me  I do to myself. Procrastination and not being able to complete things(goals which I set for myself) on time, turn out to be the main reasons for this rage most of the times. And it's not that I freak out at the drop of a hat each and every time, but I do feel angry and even helpless sometimes when certain tasks or things I intend to do keep on getting delayed. The recent reason, and big enough to actually write about it here, is one article, actually not just one article but a whole series of articles that I intend to write as a sort of something special on this blog for a long time. And I have an idea to do something like this since forever. I know the theme, I've decided on the subjects I am going to write on, I've even thought about format a little, it's just the content which is keeping me from writing it down and posting. I found this image after ...

Google I have a small-big problem. I don't remember names. Small, because nobody punishes me for forgetting a name and moreover, people forget names all the time . Big, because unlike normal people, I don't forget names occasionally, instead I recall them occasionally.  Which means, it doesn't matter if you met me four years ago or just introduced yourself four seconds ago, there's is a high chance that I don't remember your name.

©Ashna Banga .....I am standing, shifting my attention between the two people sitting in front of me. The first one's  asking for water, for the third time maybe. I nod my head at  him just as the other one says something about a shop. I answer him referencing the odd time of day, afternoon. I hear a dialog from TV in the background. Something about blood. Then suddenly, something happens and I run to my room, only to be left severely disappointed by the mess I am landed into. After a while, while going I don't know where, I hit my head on the door. Hard. And I just sit down holding my head.  Looks like a bad day.... 

                ' a cross between fiction and reality, related to personal life and its happenings ' In response to this prompt, rather a meme by Ashna Banga , this post gives an account of a horrific event of my life. Trust me, its really horrifying. © Ashna Banga

... then she said,  'tum hote kaun ho' and I couldn't say anything afterwards A random thought.

Hi                      This is not a sorry note. I know that's not how you a start a letter but I had a feeling that I should say it. Since I promised that I won't say sorry ever again, I won't. I shouldn't. I needn't. Neither will I do any other useless inconsequential talk. This is a different day and I had some things to say to you.             You are a wonderful person, everybody who has met you, knows this. And there are a lot of incredible things that you are going to do in life. Make your dreams come true.

He's a hypocrite, yes that man lie and pretend, that he can but to self sir, not to clan Lives he in dreams, flies he on boats contradictions always, fill on his notes

I don't have anything to write, still I sat down to do it just because I felt like writing.  I know this is not something I normally do, but this time, I'll just let the careful editing take some rest. The following incidents are taken out of the short 'life-story' I once wrote for somebody. Incidentally, it never served its purpose. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -