Just one of those days when i am sitting a little late in office. But the difference is that i really have no reason to stay late. i have some deadlines but that doesnt mean i need to burn the midnight oil. and yet i just dont feel like getting up. I am finding something here that hasnt been with me for a long time now. Silence.
Its been a long while since i have felt this. The overwhelming power of silence. And today, i am feeling it, taking it in, drawing a long drawn draught. Awhile ago i was working and listening to some music, and reading a few beautiful blogs. and then i stopped. I stopped working, stopped the media player, closed the blogs. and just sat.
Except for one more of my freinds, there is no one out here. and since he is busy doing some work, there is no conversation to make and so i am sitting in complete silence. oh of course there this ricketty old fan ( the table one mounted on the wall), with its continous whirring sound to give me company. Other than that. Silence.
Its not that i am in mood for an introspection or meditation or any of that sort. In fact these days i rarely feel like doing that. I am not even thinking about anything. Am just taking in this silence. Its calming , soothing to me.
Silence is beautiful. Sometimes i just walk out of my room in the dead of the night, and roam on the streets, when there is no one out. Just watch the buildings, the trees, the lights, all silent. Nothing. and then the solitary shriek of an owl that breaks it all.
and there are times when even in the midst of the greatest amount of noise you feel it. Sometimes even in the rush and the crowd and it all, you feel the silence around. You feel you dont connect to it all. But thats because you are connected to yourself.
A lot of things, a lot of emotions, a lot of feelings, ambitions, reactions, all mixed to color your life. and everything then colored by this one force. Silence.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Of Railgaadis, the lower berth and the Parsi aunties
I am fond of travelling by trains. I simply love it. Not for me the get up , get down and before you blink your eye, you are there, air travel so to speak. True of late, i have been travelling more often than not by air, but its more of a necessity than a fascination. But given a choice i would travel by train.
In fact i keep telling myself the reason why i have so far not gone to the US of A while so many of my freinds have been there and back is because Indian Railways has still not started its special Rajdhani Express from New Delhi all the way to New York. I am waiting to be the first passenger on that.
And when it comes to getting a seat, i simply love the lower berth. Oh to sit on the window seat and watch the entire world speed by, the forests, the fields, the cities, the typical ways the sounds of the gaadi change when you travel over a bridge on a river, the hundreds of smells in the air as the train stops at a station, its all bliss.
As a kid it was always me and my sister fighting on who would get to sit at the window seat. and being the elder one that i was, i generally had to give in to my sisters demands ( psst, hope shes not reading this)
When i grew up and started travelling alone, i heaved a sigh of relief. Atlast i could travel on the lower berth and sit at the window all to myself.
Alas!
It was not to be. It just so happens that when you are travelling alone and are a bachelor male like me, you will always end up getting Side upper berth. and if you have someone ten times your size ( and i already am fat), sitting on the side lower berth, you cant even get to sit for sometime before bedtime on his seat.
But this last time that i was travelling from Mumbai to Delhi and back i decided that i had enough . I bribed, threatened, cajoled my travel agent and finally managed a lower berth in the main compartment for both return and onward journeys to myself. And i felt like standing like Leonardo Di Caprio on the Titanic and shouting " I am the King in the World".
So you see there i was on the d-day all happy, at the railway station when i would rush to my bogie, my compartment. And i did walk in like a king to meet his subjects and his queens. And then........my heart sank.
Giving this young king company in the compartment would be two lovely parsi grandmas, one lady with a son who wanted to be an IITian, and a young chap from the navy. Now i dont have anything against my fellow passengers except for the fact that you already know you will have to give up your much desired lower berth to the aunties, who have been givenn the upper berth which they cannot climb due to their age.
And give my lower berth i did. so did the other young chap. I mean i am all for helping people and especially the elders but yaar ek gal dasso.............kissi ko meri lower berth se kya dushmani hai bhai. Bachpan mein behen ne nahin baithne diya ab autiyaan nahin baithne deti.
Anyways so there i did the good deed, much to my dislike and the journey went on. And it would all have ended on a solemn note but for the fact, that the two aunties / grandmas seem to have taken a liking to me. Now i know i am fat, but am not so uglily fat as to look sick and in need of urgent attention.
And so it was that i lay shocked and astounded and all the other eds, when one of the aunties called out to me a half hour before we were to reach Delhi station and gave me a loooong lecture on how i need to take care of myself. And the crux of that looong lecture was...."GET MARRIED SOON"...........your wifey dearest would take care of you...give you proper diet,....make sure you exercise and blah blah blah......wooosssssssssshhhh. all i could do was just listen and say hmm, aah and all that when the whole of me wanted to run away. Naah.....it was not that munna raaja sharm de naal laal pila hoya paya si, ki aunty ne us di shaadi di gal ched di. Par yaar take a chill man. Ek thi meri daadi, ab ek ho gayee aunty.........somebody tell me ki kya mere chehre pe likha paya hai " Single Desperately Ready to Mingle".
Anyways i know the aunty meant well. and i really liked the aunty. in fact both of them. they were not the typical naggin ladies who would keep telling people not to disturb and all. In fact they made good conversation and it was an interesting journey.
Just that there were two sore points..........My Lower Berth and of course "Shaddi kar le mere laal".
Mummy.....if you are reading this...i promise. Ab main roz gym jaaaonga. next time aunty wont say anything to me.
adios.
In fact i keep telling myself the reason why i have so far not gone to the US of A while so many of my freinds have been there and back is because Indian Railways has still not started its special Rajdhani Express from New Delhi all the way to New York. I am waiting to be the first passenger on that.
And when it comes to getting a seat, i simply love the lower berth. Oh to sit on the window seat and watch the entire world speed by, the forests, the fields, the cities, the typical ways the sounds of the gaadi change when you travel over a bridge on a river, the hundreds of smells in the air as the train stops at a station, its all bliss.
As a kid it was always me and my sister fighting on who would get to sit at the window seat. and being the elder one that i was, i generally had to give in to my sisters demands ( psst, hope shes not reading this)
When i grew up and started travelling alone, i heaved a sigh of relief. Atlast i could travel on the lower berth and sit at the window all to myself.
Alas!
It was not to be. It just so happens that when you are travelling alone and are a bachelor male like me, you will always end up getting Side upper berth. and if you have someone ten times your size ( and i already am fat), sitting on the side lower berth, you cant even get to sit for sometime before bedtime on his seat.
But this last time that i was travelling from Mumbai to Delhi and back i decided that i had enough . I bribed, threatened, cajoled my travel agent and finally managed a lower berth in the main compartment for both return and onward journeys to myself. And i felt like standing like Leonardo Di Caprio on the Titanic and shouting " I am the King in the World".
So you see there i was on the d-day all happy, at the railway station when i would rush to my bogie, my compartment. And i did walk in like a king to meet his subjects and his queens. And then........my heart sank.
Giving this young king company in the compartment would be two lovely parsi grandmas, one lady with a son who wanted to be an IITian, and a young chap from the navy. Now i dont have anything against my fellow passengers except for the fact that you already know you will have to give up your much desired lower berth to the aunties, who have been givenn the upper berth which they cannot climb due to their age.
And give my lower berth i did. so did the other young chap. I mean i am all for helping people and especially the elders but yaar ek gal dasso.............kissi ko meri lower berth se kya dushmani hai bhai. Bachpan mein behen ne nahin baithne diya ab autiyaan nahin baithne deti.
Anyways so there i did the good deed, much to my dislike and the journey went on. And it would all have ended on a solemn note but for the fact, that the two aunties / grandmas seem to have taken a liking to me. Now i know i am fat, but am not so uglily fat as to look sick and in need of urgent attention.
And so it was that i lay shocked and astounded and all the other eds, when one of the aunties called out to me a half hour before we were to reach Delhi station and gave me a loooong lecture on how i need to take care of myself. And the crux of that looong lecture was...."GET MARRIED SOON"...........your wifey dearest would take care of you...give you proper diet,....make sure you exercise and blah blah blah......wooosssssssssshhhh. all i could do was just listen and say hmm, aah and all that when the whole of me wanted to run away. Naah.....it was not that munna raaja sharm de naal laal pila hoya paya si, ki aunty ne us di shaadi di gal ched di. Par yaar take a chill man. Ek thi meri daadi, ab ek ho gayee aunty.........somebody tell me ki kya mere chehre pe likha paya hai " Single Desperately Ready to Mingle".
Anyways i know the aunty meant well. and i really liked the aunty. in fact both of them. they were not the typical naggin ladies who would keep telling people not to disturb and all. In fact they made good conversation and it was an interesting journey.
Just that there were two sore points..........My Lower Berth and of course "Shaddi kar le mere laal".
Mummy.....if you are reading this...i promise. Ab main roz gym jaaaonga. next time aunty wont say anything to me.
adios.
Run
I borrow this title from Neeraj's poem.
Have you ever had this absolutely innane urge to run?
to run and to keep running forever. Run, no not because you are escaping from something ( you never achieve that by running anyways). But run just for the sake of running.
Run hard, run as fast as you can. Feel the blood rushing in your veins, the wind beating against your face. Feel the muscles strecthing, aching ( for someone like me, errrr, it happens a little too quickly :)), the body breaking. and then when the body finally wants to give up, you want to carry on a little more. so you force it to go on and on.
Its exhilarating. to do something only for the sake of doing it, not because you want to use it to achieve something. To do something like its the only thing left to do.
Just run.
Oh well, right now i might as well just run for my "billi".
Have you ever had this absolutely innane urge to run?
to run and to keep running forever. Run, no not because you are escaping from something ( you never achieve that by running anyways). But run just for the sake of running.
Run hard, run as fast as you can. Feel the blood rushing in your veins, the wind beating against your face. Feel the muscles strecthing, aching ( for someone like me, errrr, it happens a little too quickly :)), the body breaking. and then when the body finally wants to give up, you want to carry on a little more. so you force it to go on and on.
Its exhilarating. to do something only for the sake of doing it, not because you want to use it to achieve something. To do something like its the only thing left to do.
Just run.
Oh well, right now i might as well just run for my "billi".
Friday, September 01, 2006
Life...........You Sang to Me.........
Its close to midnight, and i am still in office, which is a little unusual for me, because i rarely get to stay beyond 5 in the evening at office. But had some work and just about wrapped it up. and thought to drop a few lines before i say goodbye.
I take the liberty of an empty workplace to let my computer play Marc Anthony's " You sang to me", for me. Its a beautiful song. Beautifully sung, great music. Strange that i never ever listened to it before. and now i cant stop listening to it the whole day. The song just does something to me. And no its got nothing to do with the fact that its a very romantic number. It just is cheerful, shall i say. lifts one up.
Just this morning i was having a long winded discussion about life and its idiosyncracies with a freind. A number of points we touched. Talked about negativity and positivity and the likes. About aims, hopes, aspirations, love, and so on and so forth. And i made a statement i had concocted some time back to him " Negativity has an aura of romanticisim that is irresistible, and yet i prefer the mundane positivity of life". Wont go too much into it though. had a long innings on that.
Tonight, i am feeling good inside. about a lot of things. About life in general, some special ones in particular. and that includes self too. Its like you get to speak to some people, some close ones, your dearest freinds, who touch you just at the right moment, the right chord, and you just wish you would fly out to the clouds.
Life does have its own ways. One moment, you think it couldnt get worse. and next, it couldnt get any better. Maybe its lifes way of telling you, bear with me, i have my own idiosyncracies. But i am with you. I love you and i am always with you.
to you my dear life, to you sire and to you princess.........i raise a toast. Let the music flow.
Adios for the night..........have a new mission to complete before next summer now.:)
ciao
I take the liberty of an empty workplace to let my computer play Marc Anthony's " You sang to me", for me. Its a beautiful song. Beautifully sung, great music. Strange that i never ever listened to it before. and now i cant stop listening to it the whole day. The song just does something to me. And no its got nothing to do with the fact that its a very romantic number. It just is cheerful, shall i say. lifts one up.
Just this morning i was having a long winded discussion about life and its idiosyncracies with a freind. A number of points we touched. Talked about negativity and positivity and the likes. About aims, hopes, aspirations, love, and so on and so forth. And i made a statement i had concocted some time back to him " Negativity has an aura of romanticisim that is irresistible, and yet i prefer the mundane positivity of life". Wont go too much into it though. had a long innings on that.
Tonight, i am feeling good inside. about a lot of things. About life in general, some special ones in particular. and that includes self too. Its like you get to speak to some people, some close ones, your dearest freinds, who touch you just at the right moment, the right chord, and you just wish you would fly out to the clouds.
Life does have its own ways. One moment, you think it couldnt get worse. and next, it couldnt get any better. Maybe its lifes way of telling you, bear with me, i have my own idiosyncracies. But i am with you. I love you and i am always with you.
to you my dear life, to you sire and to you princess.........i raise a toast. Let the music flow.
Adios for the night..........have a new mission to complete before next summer now.:)
ciao
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