Zindagi kaisi hai paheli...

There are ups and downs trials and tribulations...and yet life is life.. you hate being yourself sometimes.. Wish you weren't yourself when you are depressed about gaining that extra pound or when you have a nagging pain pounding your head.. or this one's my favorite.. when your going through a heart break.. You feel.. why am I myself.. but the universe answers for you. You are what you are for a certain purpose it which fits into the bigger picture, if you were not there the chain of events would have been different.. If you are facing difficulties, its for a purpose and not in vain.. and so're the rest of the people around you. Sometimes I come face to face with people who I secretly wish could be vaporized from the face of the earth... just for their incompetance or their stupidity.. it can be frustrating at times.. but then I realize after they've left that they might be better at something else.. they just may not be the best people in my field.. and I owe them that benefit of doubt that they are in the wrong place.. all they have to do is identify their purpose in life.

Hey and whoever said life's perfect.. either is smoking pot.. or is in a deep bliss of ignorance. I see people laughing and playing and getting almost everything they wished upon the star for, but the point I try to think.. they have luck.. so what? I have perseverance.. and thats what comes handy when luck runs out. I was really jealous of all those people who got jobs I'd kill for and got paid and laid much faster than I did, But then.. if I had followed the suit..I would not be here with a higher degree of education and of respect.. I love myself now.. the respect I get when I tell them I am a doc! So there was a purpose for me not getting an instant placement..

I used to scorn when my mother in her typical nirupa roy tone used to tell me " Jo kuch hota hai, sab acche ke liye hota hai". I realize now that what she meant was not that whats happening is going to beget good.. but you can make it a life experience and learn from it.. So one might question... So what did I learn by being involved in a relationship that gave me nothing but sadness.. like my friend asked wide eyed and tearfully, when her 7 year old relationship with her boy friend came crashing down two days before her final.

Tough.. I said.. but you will realize eventually.. and well yeah she did.. realize the new found freedom and the ability to make her own decisions and joys of being single again!! And the pressure before her final made her flunk it.. but she made it up next sem with better percentage..! a tiny winy minor detail!

But the point is.. life is tough.. its not perfect..swings like a sinusoid.. but hey.. its your's and its upto you what you make out of it.. Depression can pull you down.. or just shrug and walk on.. and you'll realize the beauty of life..

Zindagi... kaisi hai paheli haii... kabhi to hasaye.. kabhi yeh rulaye...

Gham se ab ghabraana kaisa...

... Gham sau baar mila... Thats what gurudutt sang in pyaasa..may be thats true.. and more so in my case.. Met with an accident two weeks back.. and its changed things, no not physically but it was a rude push into the real world for me. I was living in my own sweet dream sequence that never had serious life threatening issues.. where nothing can shake a person.. its all in the mind... ya it still is.. but now I know.. things are not as simple as my mind had conceived them to be. But why that title you might wonder.. well my car accident was followed the next week by another accident this time with hot water. Two accidents and a couple of lectures from friends later my mind at least has started questioning itself...Lemme start at the very beginning.

It was a gloomy cloudy day.. never wanted to start to office in the first place.. the very begining of my mental inertia.. but reluctantly woke up.. and dressed shabbily for office and started out. It was raining and I was thinking , can't quite remember what.. it was never that important that I don't notice a red light fall infront of me.. I saw it.. I stared at it.. and lo behold.. I did not stop..I did not react.. I saw a car come from my left and again.. I did not react.. kept staring at it.. and then I banged into it... my mind the inert.. was just watching all this happening.. I went and banged a pole.. and then let out a shout.. Screamed and airbag burst on my face. hit the dashboard.. and thats it.. I knew it was over.. and still I feel that was a condition reaction to scream... my mind was in inertia all through.. why was that .. can't explain.. why did I not break? why did I not stop even when I saw another car approaching? Why? Was it the rain? I guess not.. It was my mind.. which I sincerely believe was not ready to come into the present.. just stayed in a "sleep mode".

And then the ordeal began.. with million calls to insurance agents.. Well thats not quite it.. I got away with only some ordeal.. but eventually all that matters is that I am back with a car and my faith in humanity is replenished fully.. thanks to my insurance agent and the accident and insurance investigator! I do have someone else driving though.. But its surprising that I survived.. and more surprising that I did not 'feel' it when I was actually involved.. it was after it was over that I realized what I did and the magnitude of it...it was I was watching myself from a distance go bang into a car and a pole. What was going on in my mind? I dont know.. it was emptiness in the mind and numbness in the body..although there was no physical harm all that there was a mental pang of guilt mixed with hordes of dreams of mental atrophy..

Hardly had I recovered from that I poured some hot tea over my self.. and burnt my skin so bad it still hurts... and why was that? Again the inertia.. I was not even thinking this time.. it get progressively worse I guess...there I was drinking and it was too hot even to sniff and I tried placing it on a table it spilled over me and I lay there still.. staring.. and then i got up and put a cream.. the absolutely wrong thing to do when you have burns!! I learnt it the hard way.. First Aid has never been my forte.. but still common sense should've been. I was at least conscious enough to call my friend and ask her what to do.. she said no ointments just cold water.. and volunteered to call the emergency for me... and I stared down at the lump of ointment I applied..washed it off while the emergency arrived... Three shots of morphine and loads of painkillers later.. it dawned on me..and I questioned again .. what was I thinking? and the answer is anyone's guess.. nothing.. nada.. nil.. why? Why does the mind go wandering when you need it the most? Why does it go into lapses when it needs to concentrate more.. it goes into sleep mode stays there.. refuses to change state..but why?

Unanswered questions ... but one thing is for sure I am not afraid.. yes there is the inherent fear of the unknown and the prayer that this not happen again.. but apart from that .. I am used to it now! .. and again this might be a game that the mind is playing... going back into the state where it thinks nothing matters.. pain, agony, ecstasy, sorrow, happiness.. none of it makes a difference.. its inert!

Ghar aaja pardesi....

Hmm.. home sweet home.. but where is it? ..I wonder often, where is home.. is it the place you were born in? is it the place your roots trace back to? Is it the place you reside in.. where .. it can be quite a confusing and emotionally challenging if all of them are different and in different countries even... and in the current generation there are increasing number of people who are that way.. I did think home's the place you miss the most when you are away.. but that is not the entirety.. may be is the one that is closest to your heart.. but isn't fair to let go of the rest.. sometimes I feel I am being rude when I think that the home I decorated with my own hands is the closest.. there are my other homes that are equally close..one that holds memories of my childhood.. and another which helps me understand my true identity as an Indian.. the soil is dearest to my heart.. and yet I want to return to the home in US..as I am so used to it now and its customised to my comforts..Never thought that this would be so confusing..

I did try.. aka Karan Johar's/Yash Raj film's ishtyle.. close my eyes and think.. and the one I love the most.. alas.. never works the way it works for them in the movies.. sometimes I even get the famed portabello (75 million house in California) in my mind's eye.. and I don't even own it..and yet its there..perhaps my dream home.. Nicest part of having so many homes is that my memoirs have variety..the one thing that spices up life.. whenever i am bored with one home i just go on to the other.. vacation.. change and then i am in love with it all over again..

Isn't life full of hurdles and troubles all the time.. so much of inconsistency in mankind.. that you need something that can stick in mind as a constant.. never changing.. and that's your memory of home.. something that has been a solid (literally) pillar of support!! If you are still wondering why all the fuss suddenly about home.. its vacation time!! time to go back in search of your favorite home with favorite memories and loads of laughter and happiness....

Happy Holidays....!!

Naam Bade Aur Darshan Chote...

Yes.. the world around me does remind me constantly of this song that I used to often hear on my Dad's Old Hindi Songs collection... "Bholi surat dil ke khote, Naam bade aur Darshan chote" a cry of frustration when one is duped by the dangerous hype that completely evades the actual truth.. this is prevalent in every walk of life.. there is famous saying that goes "Empty vessels make more noise" no one seems to be realising that these days... It might have started years/eons ago.. but has taken a different and for-the-worse twist now.. and as someone great I know said.."We are living in perilous times darling.. The World belongs to Bullshitters". Oh God .. what wouldn't I do to keep things straight forward.. instead of playing with words so much that they eventually mean nothing..all though this has been existing from long long time.. the frustration with such people came back with vengeance not too long back... and with a movie called "Saawariya" ... in two words.. terrible disappointment.. I have read white nights.. and expected the director to do some justice.. as the story itself has not much in it.. its all the characters... and the melancholic wait of the lady and then the man..its not about innocent love.. its about the passion in their wait... he has all his priorities wrong in the movie.. took some really straight forward people and complicated them to hell.. played with hysteria and voila... saawariya.. oh and by the way the 40 crores that were wasted on this movie.. and Sanjayji asks "I have visuals.. and I have good songs .. what else does the audience want" .. How unassuming!! Hah! Does he think his audience is as dumb as him.. Good Lord made a soft romantic short story into a nightmare.. this could have as well been done on a pretty bridge by the dal lake even.. and would have been a hit had he stuck to the book... but alas.. had to waste crores... can never get over that fact.. I am not against using opulent sets.. no way.. I am probably the most ardent fan or art directors.. people who are constantly ignored.. and the art is good.. only when substantiated by equivalent goodness and soundness in story, direction, action... Alas.. we don't live in that world anymore.. and what hurts me even more.. is that people actually think its a master piece.. It took me a galore of Hrishikesh Mukherji's movies to get me back to normalcy..

And just when I was recovering.. bullshitters strike back with a vengeance... and I realized that they do this more often than any supervillian in a comic book does..In a certain class I take I came across this one person who speaks.. and oh my does he speak.. anyone with even an ounce of knowledge of the subject will know that its bull shit! but he chooses his victims carefully.. and talks about the subject as though he's known it all of his life.. the truth is nada...nothing at all.. nor knowledge, nor facts.. but yet people listen to him with rapt attention as though he is some Guru... I did feel like walking up and yelling and saying.. wait.. this is not real stuff.. he's just speaking for the sake of it... not real matter.. And I would have if sense had not prevailed over me.. but that was not the end.. a certain professor I spoke to replies to a query when asked what is the value of this constant? It could be N .. it could be N+1.. it could be anything.. its more important that you understand that it could be anything than thinking perse what it could be actually...." Grrr.. the truth there was that the constant could and should take one and only one values else the whole theory is annulled! I did not know whether to break into tears or laughter... and the philosopher who created the "may be" theory... that proposes that man should never be certain about anything.. even the plain visible facts.. no the grass may be green, pink or blue.. you never know... yes but what is visible to you, there should be some absolutes somewhere.. axioms of which you derive and propose theories.. they may be disproved.. but then there is another axiom that has come into picture that has disproved it.. there has to be a fixed point somewhere..

But what happens to all these people in real life? The student gets a job offer in a reknown company even before he can complete his first year .. the professor has got an opportunity in a another univ and left ours (thank God for that ).. and millions of copies of the book by that the "may be" philosopher are sold... why?? covering things in ambiguity has become a fad these days .. a person in a job is not told his exact responsibilities.. why because they don't simply know.. throwing terms around and shrouding them in ambiguity.. and laugh around at people who stand up against it and demand clarity "Hah.. you don't understand us??" Why can't people be simple and straight forward.. everything would be so clear if one just said straight forwardly.. this is what it is.. this is what you should do.. else a simple I don't know... lets find out... Its as simple as that.. if its not.. we'll tackle layer by layer.. but if the issues, facts, nothing is straight what can one do? except.. sing the way I did "Bhole surat dil ke khote, naam bade aur darshan chote"... and thus the world disappoints me...as I await the day when questions like "are you living? do you exist" come up with the answer "may be... who knows.. nothing is certain.."

Suhana Safar... Final part

Don't we always feel that the time should stop in its tracks when we are truly enjoying something, be it the company of a person or of nature, you just wish you could just freeze the moment and stay with it...yes I know there are photographs that you capture and keep it as a memoir for lifetime.. never let go, but then thats not the same as being in the moment for ever and ever more, thats the same feel I had when I was touring the cliffs and valleys at the Waimea canyon right upto the starting cliffs of Na'pali coast, the kalalau lookout. Honestly speaking, I felt for all my life's worth that this (the lookout) was truly the world's last piece of land, and I had actually reached the Horizon itself..the point where the sky meets the earth... don't take my words for it, look at the pics below.. you'll see for yourself that you can't distinguish the sky from the ocean.. they look like a continuum. Reminded me of the lyrics of an old hindi song.. "Yeh aasmaan jhuk raha hain zameen par, yeh milan humne dekha yahin par"





























Waimea was just like grand canyon of Arizona with lot more vegetation..and loads of pinapple stalls right at the parking area... and God the pineapples did taste divine! You never get such tasty ones ever in the Mainland.. makes a hell lot of difference how and where these fruits are grown I guess! It was slightly drizzling, which made the place misty and foggy like London weather.. rather Hampshire I'd say.. it was afterall more like country side than like a crowded city! but this really made the place look more romantic and just gave you that warm and mushy feeling!



There is a lot more adventure to this place than plain tours there's hiking, surfing, snorkeling, other rides but just not enough time .. there never is.. as I was saying right in the beginning, if there is something you really truly enjoy then there is never any time or space to get enough of it , but I have a theory that the universe conspires to bring what you want the most back to you when wish for it with utmost sincerity.. and thats the only thing that held me when I was returning home from Kaua'i, the hope that I would return to this place, sometime again, and prayed that the place remains as pristine and as pure as my memory holds it... the bluest of the blues, and the greenest of the greens with a tinge of Mai Tai and Tahitian fire torches and the famed Hanalei moon.....