Engaged… finally :)

The title of the blog looks a little deceiving I know :) 

I’ve been catching up with old school friends on Facebook for the past two days. It was nice to recall all the small memories from school. Then suddenly among all the nostalgia the enormity of the time that had passed after I left school struck me. It’s been 8 years since I left CJM Waverley (Mussoorie) but it still feels like yesterday. I can still recall small things like walking up the slope, sweating it out on the field for sports day and going shopping for friendship day. 

There was this funny tradition or you may call it practice we followed as kids in school.  We would make it point to write statements like ‘don’t forget to invite me for your wedding’ or dated till you get married in scrap books and friendship day cards. At that time it felt like eternity and now when I look around so many of my friends are engaged and all set to get married :) Then I think yes it’s really been that long… and time actually flies… :)

Are we used to the violence?

The Gujjar community in Rajasthan has been protesting for the past few days and the violent nature of the protests has already claimed more than 60 lives.

About a week or so back blasts rocked the pink city of Jaipur.

Both these incidents happened less than 250 kms from where I stay… But they don’t induce a sense of fear or insecurity in me anymore and not in anyone around me either. Have we become insensitive to the plight of others? Or, have such incidents become so commonplace that they don’t matter anymore? I don’t think we’ve become insensitive. We feel sad we do… but somewhere deep down we say ‘Thank God I wasn’t there.’

For news channels that are multiplying by the dozen, such incidents are ‘revenue.’ To some extent I think these news channels are responsible for inducing that element of insensitivity in the way they report these incidents. This reminds me of something I saw on a popular news channel and I realised that news channels had reached the peak of commercialization. Almost a week ago a 14-year old girl, Aarushi Talwar, was brutally murdered in her house and the murder has been shrouded in mystery ever since. Crime is something that evokes human interest without effort and crime news always has a ready audience. News channels went berserk reporting this incident covering every possible detail and drawing up every possible theory. However, this particular news channel (Star News) went ahead and actually made an ad based on this incident. The message of the ad was something along the lines of we bring you every detail of the Aarushi murder case the fastest!

It left me stunned.

Eternity… and beyond

I’m writing after a long time… a few weeks I guess :) A lot has happened in the past few weeks. Decisions taken, strategies rethought and tried to learn the art of living… :) I did the 6-day art of living course. I had heard a lot about the course, the out of the world experiences when people did the Sudarshan Kriya and the elevated feeling they were left with. I joined the course more out of curiosity than anything else and I guess somewhere inside me I was hoping I’d discover how to make my life more peaceful.

The first day was an introduction… just the first step. The second day was almost like a revelation. I did the Sudarshan Kriya for the first time and it was a wonderful experience. I wasn’t even aware I could feel the way I did. I felt alive for the first time in my life… I felt my breath, it’s rhythm and I  realised how we take our lives for granted every single day. I felt eternity… felt it seeping through my body. I felt nothing existed… neither my body nor my mind. I could only feel and hear my breath…I felt I was slowly rising above the ground. I truly felt elevated…

But this feeling comes only after you near the completion of the Kriya. While doing the Kriya there comes a time when you feel you can’t take it any more and you want to stop. You feel your body and your mind giving away and you want to stop. But it pays to go on because the experience is worth it… and more.

It’s been so long…

It’s been so long since I connected with myself.

We get so caught up in  ‘living’  that we forget the real purpose of our lives. It’s like a struggle to survive from one day to the next. The day begins with a

‘to-do’ list and ends with one too. But the surprising part is that we ourselves don’t figure on that list. I lost two and half hours of work today and the first thought that came to my mind was ‘I’ll miss today’s target !’ My eyes were and arms were hurting from the strain  of having worked on the computer for more than three hours without a break but my only concern was my target.

The question is : Do I want my life to be a chronology of achievements? Or, do I want it to be an experience and have whole lot of memories to cherish 30 years down the line. Instead of happiness and peace do I want to measure the purpose of my existence by how much I achieve materialistically? Do I really want to lose myself and render my existence futile?

The answer is No. But the next question is : Is there a solution?

I miss the missed calls :)

It’s been two years since I left college and stopped talking in the ‘missed call language.’  There are two constants in college: the prepaid balance in your cell phone is always low and you’re perennially out of cash. Almost everything in college was communicated through missed calls. It was like a code which was predecided. For example: one missed call meant you’ve reached the destination, two missed calls meant class is going to start and frantic missed calls meant the prof is in class and you better run with all your life!  It was such an effective way (read cheap and economical) of communicatin and you could re-write the language whenever you wanted :) 

How can you forget the time you made maximum use of the stop watch in your phone? When every phone call was preceeded by setting your stop watch to zero to make sure you don’t go over that one minute and if you do you don’t disconnect before the sixty seconds are over.

 I guess adversity is the mother of all invention :) The advertisity in this case well… non-existent cash ofcourse :P 

I’m impressed :)

About 3 weeks ago I ordered a laptop from Dell. They sent me an invoice charged my card etc etc. Two hours after they had charged my card something happened and I didn’t need to buy the 50k laptop anymore! I called the guy from Dell who had taken my order and told him that I didn’t want it. I was expecting a very ‘indifferent’ reaction but the person from Dell was extremely friendly. He said he would check if the laptop has gone into production if it hadn’t then he would cancel it otherwise I’d have to contact the customer service. Considering most of the customer service experiences I’ve had, I was expecting the answer ‘I’m sorry ma’am it has already gone into production and we can do nothing about it.’ Instead he told me that he had cancelled my order because it hadn’t yet gone into production and someone from his finance department would get back to me and initiate the refund process. Also, if I ever wanted to buy a laptop I could call him. I said yes I would and really meant it. I was so relieved, I had just saved myself 50k :) .

Today I received the cheque for the refund and I was expecting it to be less than the amount I had been charged. I was assuming they’ll atleast charge me processing fee or transaction fee or something. But to my utter amazement I got back the entire amount and before my credit card’s due date :).

I had another wonderful customer service experience. I had bought this Sony pen drive from Sony World in CP, Delhi. Accidentally, someone sat on it and rendered it unusable :( I thought I’d claim a replacement under the warranty but I just couldn’t find the bill (after  2 months I found it in my office drawer :P). Maybe I’m too optimistic but I thought I’d give it a try without the bill. I went into the store told them I didn’t have a bill and couldn’t  remember the date of purchase also. The store people actually looked up the last 6-8 months records for me and gave me a duplicate copy of the bill (they did this when the store was full). Then with the duplicate bill in my hand, I got to know that pen drives don’t have a warranty! All the trouble for nothing I thought :( The store person said that they would still send it to the service center and try. I wasn’t expecting anything but I still went back after a week and guess what they replaced my old pen drive with a new one :)  

Isn’t Ctrl+z just amazing!! :)

How often have we thought about Ctrl+z-ing something in our lives? Today I was going through this training and our trainer asked us ‘Which is one of the most amazing things man has ever made?’ I started thinking and the first thought that came to my mind was the wheel, someone from the back yelled ‘Ferrari F 350′ and a lot of random answers kept pouring out. Then my trainer said ‘Ctrl+z’ and his statement left everyone surprised. His next statement was ‘how often have we wished that we could Ctrl+z something in our lives.

For example, after an exam when you walk out of the room and suddenly realize that you made a silly mistake that could stop you from getting that coveted grade. What is the first thought on your mind? You hope with all your life that you could just go back for a minute and rectify that error or you could just Ctrl+z. I’ve had this desperate feeling so many times and I’ve almost pleaded with god to give us the ability to Ctrl+z. Maybe when God comes up with Life 2.0 he’ll consider adding this feature :)

Another passing thought, how many times have you wished you could give your specks or keys a missed call when you can’t locate them? Answer: Close to atleast a thousand :P

A Filmi Weekend !

I’ve been in Hyderabad for the past two weeks and having seen almost all the ‘tourist places’ (read Char Minar, Golconda Fort etc..), I decided to catch up on all the movies I had missed out. Well in Hyderabad the one thing that you can’t do at the drop of a hat is go watch a movie over the weekend. It’s an event that requires planning and making arrangements well in advance. It’s almost like planning a weekend trip ok.. that was a slight exaggeration :P

You need to book your tickets on a Tuesday or Wednesday if you want to watch a movie over the weekend. I decided to watch Jodha Akbar on Saturday at Prasads and booked my ticket on Wednesday. Then began the hunt for the second movie which I would watch on Sunday. After reading  a couple of reviews I decided to watch ‘Across the Universe.’  When I booked my tickets for ‘Across the Universe’ at PVR something happened that made me go watch a third movie. It almost felt like a revelation and saying that I was elated would be an understatement. You can’t blame me for feeling like that after all, I was getting a 50% discount on every movie ticket at PVR because they had an offer on my credit card !! :) I was so happy that I decided to watch another movie(s). The third movie was Taare Zameen Par but couldn’t find a fourth one because there were no other show timings that fitted my schedule :P

I’m quite a movie buff but my schedule in Gurgaon doesn’t allow me to catch up with movies on a regular basis. I liked all the three movies I saw. To describe them in a few lines each:

Jodha Akbar: Good Camera, beautifully shot, subtle emotions and a few extra sequences that could have been removed to make the movie shorter. A one time watch certainly.

Taare Zameen Par: The kid is better than Aamir Khan, a wonderful movie and an eye-opener. Please take a box of tissues if you generally tend to sob during films you’ll certainly need it here.

Across the Universe: Watch it if you like musicals and are a big Beatles fan. A certain sequence in the movie will make you think you’re probably watching an avant garde film but other than that it’s nice and worth a watch.

Valentines Day?

Today someone came up to me and asked me “What plans do you have for tomorrow?”  Then I remembered that tommorow is Valentines Day and most people are expected to do something :) Somehow, I’ve never found Valentines Day to be special. I think it’s because the whole concept of this special day has been commercialized a little too much. I feel nauseous entering Archies Gallery a week before Valentines Day. The moment you step in you feel like you’re in a ‘heart’ factory. Why the hell does everything have to be heart shaped on Valentines Day?

Finally at peace…

There are times in our lives when we actually feel at peace. It’s like a burden taken off your shoulders and it’s surprising how everything starts looking brighter. I just finished with a couple of MBA entrance interviews I had and I’m feeling great.  The effect is almost narcotic. There is no need to rush back home to get something or the other done…  I can finally sit back and relax. At least for a while :) It’s like half-time during a basketball match, you get just enough time to catch your breath. The analogy may sound funny but that’s how I feel :P

It’s like a short spurt of rain that gives you a moment of respite in the scorching summer heat. It may not last very long but the impact is magnanimous. It’s like being liberated.  Very often we plan our lives around events and not vice versa. Not many people can actually control there lives and plan events to fit into there scheme of things. An example would be the ‘great’ engineering and MBA entrance exams. But are we really to be blamed? It’s the way we’ve been brought up. Get good marks in your tenth board exams and you’ll be happy for life. Then it shifts to competitive exams and the likes. Some people actually measure their lives on the number of competitive exams they have been able to crack or rather those are the only parameters they’re aware of.

How many of us strive for personal fulfillment?  I wish we could actually live life and not use it as a bridge to get from one exam to the other…