'Pay it Forward' Day...

Dost Log,

Here I am, sitting in my bed, at 01:49am and thinking about the Friendship Day. Obviously ‘overflowing’ with all those good old memories from school, childhood, college (graduation and MBA). It is like an avalanche of thoughts...

As I am miles away from my family, friends, loved ones, and motherland; I tend to think a lot (lot of philosophical) about purpose of life, our existence etc. So, I am struggling with storm of thoughts rushing through my mind. A strange loneliness has filled up my mind. I am relishing and missing all those small things I used do. Night outs with friends, trips, long bike rides, car drives, fights, fun, jokes, PJ’s, teasing, bugging, studies, maggi’s, snaps, birthday parties, cakes, food, tapri chai, kanada bhaji, missal-paav, sports, games, all the festivals, entrance exams, classes, lectures, bunks, proxy’s, library, canteen, college day’s, social functions/gatherings/annual days, performances and what not... there are millions of things. So I thought I won’t be repeating those, but to appeal my dear friends about something. Hope you people don’t take it as a ‘Gyan’ or lecture...

When I was in the school, I was unaware, ignorant and didn’t care about the world except my family. And when I faced the world, it was NOT something that I expected. Reality kicked hard. There are so many moments of Devine despair. However instead of taking this as a defeat, I have decided to face it and change it. I want to turn this upside down. So how am I going to do this? Well, I am going to refer to a movie, ‘Pay it forward’.

“Think of an idea to change our world and put it into ACTION”. Sounds strange, weird, vague, difficult and blah blah... but why can’t it be ‘Possible’? So, I have decided to do this, on this friendship day I am going to think something I can do for one of my friends which might change his/her life. This can be doing something, calling, meeting, helping or anything. The only thing I can do is make him/her happy. Do something good for your friends. But don’t just stop there, carry it forward. If someone does something good to you, carry that good things forward by doing something good for the next friend of yours. Talk to your old friends, listen to them, listen to their pain, and try to reduce/eliminate that... Don’t just party and forget about the world around you. And if you start with people you are friends with, who knows in someday your mind might get broad enough for all the poor, disabled, needy, powerless and scared people, people who have left hope and you can be friend to them.

After all, it’s up to you to try doing this or ignoring this, BUT I am going to do this and follow it religiously throughout my life. These ‘chains’ are much better than the chain mails or those reference chains because they will create and strengthen the thread of friendship and love. Pay the goodness forward.

On this friendship day, at least try transforming few moments of a day for your friend.

God bless you all and thanks a ton for being there for me...

Passion

What a beautiful word!!!! Today, as you read through this passage, try to figure out your passion. This passion can be about anything, but you should remember that passion is different than your hobby. Passion is more intense. You create '25th hour' in your day, just for your passion. It’s the thing which makes you forget about everything, only your passion and you share that common space. If you ask me, my passion is writing. Then, that writing can be anything, may some text, may be some experience, may be a poem or may be just jotting down my emotions at a particular time, or whatever that comes to my mind. Passion is not for the others, it should satisfy you. I feel so relieved after I write anything. All my emotions get vent to express. I write for myself. Same way you should think hard to find your passion. Then it can be cooking, gardening, reading, dancing or as simple as cutting newspaper articles and pasting them in a notebook. It can be anything. Do think over it and find out your passion. If you are confused in life and don't know what to do, whom to ask; instead of thinking hard about negative things around you or future and taking tension, do think about your passion. Talk to yourself and you will get your direction automatically.

Some Random Thoughts...

Loneliness

Loneliness is the only best friend one can have. When I think about this loneliness, you know what comes in my mind? He is a person who’s very shabby, down, gloomy, unshaven, dirty and walking all alone on the streets. Loneliness is like a village without any human presence; it’s like the last leaf on the tree; it’s like the lost ship in the storm... But this Loneliness teaches you a great lesson- ‘You are all alone in this world and you have to face all the things on your own.’ I mean, sometimes the situations are like that, you are all alone, all your friends are busy in their life, no one is there for you. Then you become strong. God gives you this lesson which you learn the hard way, and hence you never forget it.

Who am I?

Who am I? Am I the fourth member of a family; or a guy from this city; or a citizen of India; or a human being living on this earth; or an infinitesimally small living organism in this infinite universe? Who am I? As we increase the radius of the sphere, we realize that we are no one. We are not even 0.0000000000000000……0000001% of this universe. Still we build n number of walls around us. I am of this race, this religion, this cast…and this is not enough we have gender bias. What can I say about this? I think all the Saints reach to this stage where they think, ‘who are we? we are nothing in front of this huge canvas of God’s creation’. And look what are we doing to this beautiful Earth? We are sucking every bit out of her. And we are dishonoring our own brothers and sisters.

Web of Relations

Have you ever thought about the web of relations we weave around us throughout our lives? Ya, definitely we weave a very complex and huge web, our parents, relatives, their relatives, childhood friends, schools friends, tuition friends, college friends, colleagues, boss and many more. But do we maintain the important threads of this web? De we take special efforts for that? Rather we entangle ourselves in maintaining the not-so-important threads… Every relation needs maintenance. We should respect our prime relations. They are difficult to maintain, but not impossible. Whenever we introduce “P & L” account in our relations then the life’s Balance Sheet goes for a toss.

Why do we grow up?

I don’t know why do we grow up? We just forget the little threads of happiness which make our childhood special. We grow up catching more and more Money, but we forget the excitement we had during our childhood. We forget the innocence we had during our childhood. We run behind the big things, but we forget the small things that we have already. Do you remember the last time when you took out time from your busy schedule and watched sun set, or searched a hidden bird in the tree who is singing, played with the curtains, slept over washed cloths (this used to make my mom angry), and many things which you love to do? Have you given time for yourself recently? You simply forget about the treasure you have with you and look for the external treasure. Loving parents, close friends, and all the love around you makes you the real you. You should not forget this and moreover you should give time to yourself. Keep that 'Kid' alive in you. This will make your life good…

These kind of days...

This kind of days are often for me… Days when you don’t feel like doing anything and you keep on thinking everything aimlessly. You can’t tell exactly what the hell is going through your mind. You keep on moving from a jungle of thoughts to another storm of thoughts. You start thinking about your childhood days. You remember your good old friends. You miss those moments when you had fights, you played various games with them, cheered them, partied hard, each and everything you can think about. Then suddenly you think of your college days. Your new group, new world outside the school, new horizons, new crushes, new meanings of same old relations, some of special moments…Thoughts just keep coming in your mind and you get engulfed in them… Not necessarily these thoughts make you nostalgic, but they surely unsettle the deep currents in your mind. They disturb you, but you can’t do anything about it. You keep on thinking and try to peep into future. You think what will be my future, where will I be in the future, who will be with me, where will be my friends? These unanswerable questions ruffle you. You can’t find the answers and that is why you tend to keep on thinking. It is not easy to get out of that loop of thoughts. Right now I have become a part of this type of loop and that’s why I’m writing. My words are may not be in the sequence and you may find this paragraph of mine is useless, but a person who is experiencing this kind of trauma, will understand my suffocation….

मन कातरवेडे

का भरून येती डोळे, का मन होई कातरवेडे?
का ऐकून मधुर तराणे, मन होई सुंदर गाणे?

का आभाळ येता भरुनी, मन नाचे मोर होउनी?
का पाउस जुना आठवुनी, मन बरसे अश्रु होउनी?

का ऐकून हळवे सुर, मन होई भाव विभोर?
का ऐकून बालगीतास, मनास फुटती पंख?

का मन हसते-रडते?
का मृदगंधित अत्तर होते?
का चंचल वारे पीते?
का भिउनी लपून बसते?
का वेडे हळवे होते?
का भूल-भुलैया होते?

का मनात असते प्रीती, खोल तळाशी दडूनी?
का असती इन्द्रधनुषी, मनाच्या आतून भिंती?

My Thought-pieces...

Missing colours of the rainbow

Today I feel like writing after so many days...I don’t know what will I be writing here; but it somehow feels right to pour out my emotions today. Today, all my past memories are rushing before my eyes, so why not simply write them down?

When does a rainbow occur in the sky? When there is rain as well as sun. It needs both of them. So if I can say that the rain represents pain or sorrow and the sun is like happiness or optimism, then the rainbow represents those incidents or moments in life that occurred at the juncture of pain and happiness and coloured your existence. Like someone with tears in their eyes and a smile on their face.

There are very few moments we feel like there is full rainbow in our life. We have our own sun shine and rain and rainbows as well, but when you look back, you will find that most of the times the rainbow was missing a colour. What do I mean by this statement? When I rewound my memories, I could see rainbows, but every time I saw a rainbow, there was something missing. When I got good marks in 10^th or 12^th, there was the tension of admission in good college for higher education, when I completed my engineering there was confusion about the way ahead, when I completed my Post Graduation, there was fear regarding my career, when I got placed there was the tension about my future job and so on. This is not just about the education, but whenever I achieved something or won an award, there was a moment of satisfaction followed by emotions about consistency, feelings of ‘I could have performed better’ and there appeared a rainbow albeit, with a missing colour.

I don’t know whether this is the case with me or everybody - that at the time of extreme joy, I miss out on something। This can be fear of the future, emotions, past memories, my loved ones or my friends... There are very few moments those gave me the joy of full rainbow in sky. Is this true with everybody that they miss something or someone, while having a colourful sky in their life? I don’t know...but I do.

Hide and Seek places

Every individual must dream. It doesn’t matter if those dreams are realistic or not, possible to achieve or not… Through these dreams you learn to find missing pieces of your soul and learn to lose your way in your thoughts. This is like playing ‘Hide and Seek’ with yourself. Sometimes your soul hides somewhere. You forget everything while seeking it out. When you finally find it in something, you realize you’ve discovered something unique about yourself…

These places to hide and to seek are different for different individuals. If a couple find out that they have some of these hide and seek places in common then they start to understand each other, start to share their pain and joys, find a common thread between themselves and they come closer to each other. However if these hide and seek places are different for the couple (which is true in most of the cases) then they should admire each others’ places. For example, by listening to a particular song, the man goes into a trance and starts thinking about the past. BUT it is not necessary that the strings in his wife’s mind will vibrate with the same frequency by listening to that same song.

Now, to discover these hide and seek places belonging to each other is journey of a lifetime and that’s why marriages are usually made to last a lifetime. It’s fun to know each other. These places can be anything- a song, music piece, a movie, CD, a book, a sport, a stamp, match box, shirt, skirt, handkerchief, TV serial, computer game, jewelry, scent, a line, greeting, a poem, story, a place, literally anything… Sometimes you find out one of the places where your partner forgets herself is a poem. You should sit next to her, listen to the poem from her, try to understand the poem and enjoy the moment. The delight you will see in her eyes will be heavenly. Both must try to know each others’ hide and seek places and try to enjoy the discovery with each other.

These places should not be made fun of. Rather one should look to respect, admire and value the other half’s hide and seek places…

Thanks Kurush for helping me edit this post... :)