Great line from FRIENDS (Phoebe again - the character I identify most with)- "People would believe anything you tell them, as long as it is a compliment"

I have still not managed to use the learning from this line: false compliments are still not my cuppa tea

RAJ giri@ Bachna Ae Haseeno

Saw Bachna Ae Haseeno...in Chennai..
Really irked me..in more ways than one- may be it was the over simplified manner of "sinning- realising-asking forgiveness-being redeemed" drama that made me almost smirk with the smugness that "I know it does not end that well in real life" .The swelling up resentment against the character of Ranbir kapur-aka Raj (how the namesake is morally-or rather amorally-different from the predecessor SRK Raj of Yashraj films!), the frivolity of treating another human being's feelings, almost making me realise I was not hating him alone,rather seeing the reflection of something, or somebody in his character.
But i wonder how film makers can make a genuinely potential story for understanding the web of human emotions and feelings,almost a fable- with divine justice being met out to the boy who breaks hearts of women- calling it "Killer Raj giri" , to finally end up in love with a woman, who would refuse to have him, because she is living to an ideal image of a superwoman(I now wonder how stringent is the 'academic rigor' in an Australian B-School, to leave so much time for multiple jobs!), whose scheme of things do not leave space for a man/marriage.
It pained me to see how anybody could show a man who has wronged/caused so much hurt to two women, have the audacity to believe that a mere begging for forgiveness & the sorries of the world, would set things right or turn the course of events that happened in the past. To me,it appeared only a selfish act of seeking redemption when there cannot be any because the person who has been hurt can never get that unhurt feeling or the unchanged future back. May be Mahi was plain lucky (it being a movie) to have a husband whom she deserved more than the guy who she loved and was cheated by, but not everyone who does not have the influence of such an optimistic Director would have that luck. (Btw Kunal Kapur, even in the turban, was a treat to watch- simply because his acting outshone everybody else's , especially the atrocious lip & teeth gritting dialogue delivery of Mimisha Lamba)
Though the character of Raj does philosophise in the end about " The past being something you cannot change, but the future finally depending on what you do Today" , i walked out of the cinema hall with an unsettling feeling -how much does the future actually remain unaffected by such a painful past.
No answers...and i know why..may be i am taking it too personally ...or may be i know "being there", and wishing i had a Kunal Kapur to look forward to :P

The first penned thoughts

Months of brooding depression
Living with only An impression
The voice, the touch, the sheer presence
Whatever was spoken and its essence

Nothing seems to die down in the heart
I can’t even figure out its very start

Every object reminds me of him
A song, a place, a photo becomes a pain
Hope keeps struggling with the truth of fact
Memories complicate the present with the past

Nothing seems to die down in the heart
I can’t even figure out its very start

Love I never thought I was capable of
Big words: Loyalty, Devotion and thereof
Ideas of Romanticism all that were
Never thought a man could fit with them there

But I did fall in love as I call it
Found it through friendship as I knew it
Ended up with such a big Investment
Every sinew still cries Commitment

Nothing seems to die down in the heart
I can’t even figure out its very start

The bane of loving without reciprocation
Yet that exists with no replication
When Friendship is lost and all communication
It’s alive in my soul, beyond comprehension


Nothing seems to die down in the heart
I can’t even figure out its very start

But living alone for a while now
I have gotten used to that fate somehow
New melodies have begun to attract me
And lives of other people occupy me

I want to bring love back in my life
Someone who’s meant to be by my side
I am ready for a risk again
Hoping to find a balm to my pain

Yes, Nothing seems to die down in the heart
I can’t even figure out its very start
But how does it matter
I can faintly hear my heart singing
One ending’s enough for another beginning

Created on 12/18/2007 8:44:00 PM

And begin it did, I took the risk again
But what a balm was it to my pain!
A friendship between people so alike
That blossomed well and everything felt so right

Something seemed to be born in my very heart
Yet I couldn’t figure again when it did start

From brief talks to long discussions
Every topic somehow became a conversation
What kept getting longer were our phone sessions
And those hourly updates with the S-M-S function

Something seemed to be born in my heart
I couldn’t figure out its very start

But as the famous saying goes "Somethings never change"
Be it my luck or the pain of being again alone
To relive any such experience seems dreadful now
And yet voices in my head shout aloud
Parents, friends, relatives who do not know
That a relationship is as scary as desirable for me now...

Wish could turn back time and change
The past that lurks loomingly on the safety of the present
And someday live the dreams I cherished
Find love, that lasts and grows by the day.................

The rest Created on 20/04/2008 7:00 PM

Our trip: Kodai and Munar it was...

So the one thing I had been looking for, from the time I have been in Madurai, is also finally over.
After about 2 weeks of being posted in Madurai, Sourav, Srinivasan and I had started planning for the 15th August weekend trip, and zeroed in on Kodaikanal. Well, beyond that I should not be taking the credit for any planning because right from the task of bookings to the tougher one of convincing people (which included starting an email chain with bollywood ishtyle dramatic lines of : "at the crossroads of life.."), and enthusing the mailing list individuals, was shared majorly between Sourav and Srini. I remember how in the usual hectic work day , I waited to open gmail at the end of the day, or sometimes during it, to read some comment that someone interested in the plan has left.
In a way, I was apprehensive about the trip right from the beginning, because in a way, everyone had been in touch with each other after we had passed out in 12th, everyone had been meeting each other on and off- I was the person who had not only left the place physically , but somehow also lost touch with most (Sourav being my sole point of contact with their lives at least)- and i was feeling like i would do a mini Prodigal returning through this trip.
After about two and a half months of planning, we had 7 people finalised for the trip, and 5 people finally being able to make it ( Our very own over burdened Indian railways did not help much resulting in the absence of the other two, who remained Wait Listed on the train and ..the trip).
And the three days thence- from the night out bakars- i was surprised we did open up despite the time gap, all at once- to the travel time singing (or call it producing entertaining noise) , from Kodai to Munar- to the fireplace talks in our beautiful (over big for the final number) cottage, and palm reading in half consciousness- shouting "Rooock Ooon" at the echo point as if trying to leave a mark: we came, we shouted and echoed- it was FUN all the way.We also did manage to have really intense conversation and discussion on issues that plagued us all (the quantum varying for each)- the social obligations of dowry and rituals involved in marriage, the burden of being the " generation in flux" that is neither here nor there on most matters of such social consequences, where an individual desires change but is caught in the complicated web of how to bring it about.
But the Highest point of my trip (the question that Amol posed at me during our 'spin the bottle' game) was when while walking through the most important tourist attraction places in Kodai, called Coakers Walk, we ended up singing (all too loudly), all the TV serial/soap Title tracks of our childhood, the few but memorable ad jingles of the time, the shloka of the Mahabharata and the famous(even enacted by Srini and Sriram at the point) scene from Shaktiman...we were just short of earning money, and as Dad suggested later, we shouldve utilised it for funding some part of our trip :P
Notwithstanding the Post trip blues and almost paralysing effect of the memories on work, I just realised how much such trips mean to me and are precious, not to be missed while the age and opportune time lasts.

..Jhonka sa..

After about one and a half years,i heard the song from Fanaa: " Dekho na"
I had kept my self away from it, deciding that it was a better idea to just let it fade away with time..like so many other things..and had convined myself that it wasnt such a song that burying it in a deep grave would do much harm...and then today, somehow, as i flipped channels settling on V, and got back to work, it started..the tiny ringlets of water floating around with the soft float of that serene and pure music.
The song seemed like a new one, i did not remember the turns of the melody and the intermittent unisons of the instruments;even the words eluded me-but as the song progressed, it slowly started coming back to me-when I was in love with the song, and many other facets of life,when I recognised every string attached to it,when i hummed it in all my evening and night walks...
Was a pleasant and benumbing 5 minutes of the song...but i have quickly shifted to another,lest somthing so painfully tucked away in the cobwebbed corners of my memory, pushes itself out into the still vulnerable present.

Finally cleaned my Scooty, that I got sent from home (its one of my few school possessions still with me :) ), and rode it today. Cutting through the breeze, and almost curfewed road(Sunday wears that look in Madurai), it was the taste of freedom like good old school days. Of not totally being at the behest of destiny, of being able to go wherever i wish to (literally) and hold my own reigns.
One ride does it all !!!

"Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam, tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum..

..Jayenge kahan kuchh pata nahi,
Chal pade magar rasta nahi
Kya talash hai kuchh pata nahi
Bun rahe hai din khwab dam badam...

Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam, tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum.."

"If life doesnt make you laugh,you just dont get the joke"

Planned a market visit to Karaikudi today, for which I set off in the morning, keeping my arrival time to be
9:30am through an hour and a half's travel from Madurai to Karaikudi(as everyone had told me). However,
after almost 2 and a half hours of wobbly back breaking journey (the roads in Maharashtra were definitely
much better), I reached my Chettinad Distributor's stock point. It felt like walking into some other era, the
house was what typically is shown as a South Indian house in movies, with very high ceilings, falsely
thatched in some areas, the nondescript "jhula" , the daunting garlanded photographs of various Gods and
Goddesses all around; and mind it, this was Not his house, but the stock point which has seen Biscuits being
bought and sold ,for the past 50 years.
Market visits always tend to confuse me. As in , if I am an ASM, what is the basic purpose of a my visiting the
market. At this stage of my territory handling, it is about understanding the subtle (or glaringly big)
differences in my territory, from one area to another; some may argue it is required for being in touch with
the actual happenings, vis-a-vis competition or one's own standing; I still feel all this can be gauged, by
spending more time per shop, rather than visiting more shops, and may be by spreading one's coverage
area.Anyways, as my mind raced through all this,while I walked from shop to shop, my musical heart would not
rest unless it successfully played a silent song ( a lot of times its timed very ill), "Mere man ye bata de tu, kis
or chala hai tu,kya paya nahi tune, kya dhund raha hai tu.." , making all my existential queries all the more
emphatic.
But ironies do not stop in life ever. So as I walked to one shop on the College Road beat of Karaikudi, my
senses picked a fragrance, that, for a split second, transported me back to the supermarket near our
apartment in Nice, France, called "Casino Supermarche" which by some strange coincidence would have
smelled the same in one of its ailes.
Weird is a word not enough when such experiences keep happening...
Also, when your mother tells you that 08-08-08 is being discussed all over the news channels (who never
seem to have enough for 24*7, but these analyses), so please be careful, and you brush all of it aside, till
your innocent market visit has a mini-adventure, as your car breaks down in the midst of dark wilderness,
and you are with a driver who cannot communicate in the language you understand. But as my mother
would explain, I had managed to visit a famous temple near Karaikudi (every place here has a famous
temple), and God did help me sail out of my mini adventure without much ado.
Truly Shantaram seems so perfectly right when he says : " If life doesnt make you laugh, you just dont get the
joke"

Women in Indian Army

One piece of news(in the midst of all the tension in the country right now), that made my heart skip,was the announcement that women would now be eligible for Permanent Commission in the Indian Army.After almost 20 years of experimentation with different modes of employing women, the Indian Army has finally opened its doors to women beyond the Short Service Commission, making them at par with men in the services..almost...because it is still non combative..may be some day The Indian Army would open that front too..just hope this time it does not take 20 years.

Bridge across..

Its a hectic working day in the depot today,with the usual reports and communications that have to be made and sent, it being the beginning of the month.

However, somehow, right in the midst of the formats and excel sheets staring at me from my laptop,this came back to me..all in one...(something that I had scribbled on the white board in Jai and Bhobe's room, in 1st year of MDI-don't even remember, in what frame of mind I was when I wrote it):

“ When this world does not seem to work,
the weariness is too much to bear,
yet the mind pulls those strings-of consciousness,
to remain here,
I could only make that journey
to another plane of being
and cross that bridge..
…..the bridge across forever.”

///Friendship///

Thanks to "CNN IBN" which reminded me through some hilarious comments made by Cyrus Broacha that its Friendship Day today, I wasnt taken by surprise when I woke up to find so many "Friendship day" forwards sitting in the Message Inbox of my Cell phone.
I did chat with some of my friends today- thats not something unusual, some part of my Sunday generally goes in telephonic conversations, most with friends-but today I spoke to Neetisha after a long time (except for the short call I made the day when I heard of Blore blasts). Its weird how Neetisha and I have been good friends from MDI , but in terms of the time we have spent together, in each other's company, it has not been much. The best part is, whenever I close my eyes and remember moments with her, the image that comes to mind is of her immaculately clean room in MDI (in 2nd year) and our times in the Airport Raod Pizza Hut..instead of days of MDI!!
Which brings me to a point that somehow I woke up thinking (before actually realising today is Friendship Day) by strange coincidence- what does Friendship actually mean? As in,there may be several ways of expressing a bond that is more precious or special than any other, but does it come with its baggage of expectations like other human relationships do?? Does it also have that oft dreaded and confusing word called "committment" attached to it? Or of a Time frame to it? Because in my experiences (and I am always accused by my mother, to have "so many friends" ), I have had the most complicated and unexpected ends to the most cherished and closest friendships I had, so much so , that I am not even aware of the other person's current scenario in life, from being pals who knew the happenings of the nth minute in each other's lives. So much for all the concern and closeness shared and the most treasured gift of a true friendship- of understanding the unspoken.

May be the true test of any relationship, be it a friednship, is the test of time;may be its only the situation when it mattered, or may be its plain destiny.
At this moment, can sum it up in this SMS I read today-
"EK din zindagi aise mukam pe pahunch jayegi, Dosti to sirf yadon mein reh jayegi Har cup coffee doston ki yaad dilayegi Aur hanste hue ankh nam ho jayegi Office chamber mein classroom ki tasveer ban jayegi par chahne par bhi proxy nahi lag payegi Paisa toh bahut hoga lekin use lautane ki wajah hi kho jayegi
Jee le is pal ko mere dost..kyunki zindagi is pal ko fir nahi dohrayegi"