It’s Complicated!!!

Bus journeys are always joyful. Ok not always especially when they are really crowded and you have no other option than to hop into one hanging yourself in the handles surrounded in the middle of similar tired exhausted and equally irritated souls and then when you find one loser standing at the back and trying to touch you at the press of every break and jerk!!! Yeah we all face it at some point or the other. And we all hate it equally!!! Sometimes submissive and at times aggressive, we try to deal with it in our own way. But then when it is a blessed day and you get to catch that window seat as your valued possession (just for a short duration though). The crisp air caressing through your face as you tune into that favorite track in your iPod while the lovely city breeze just blows away the tiredness and exhaustion with itself. Bliss it is!!! And then as you turn around, you find a face familiar to you sitting next. Who is also equally blessed as you today. And the two of you celebrate the joy of your ‘seat acquisition ceremony’ offering a friendly smile to each other. I might sound crazy here but then you would know how it feels to get a seat if you had to travel standing in the middle of a crowded bus for 4 hours every day. And if you don’t, then I tell you, you are certainly missing out something in life.

As the wheels role forward, moves further the friendly chat with my stranger. She is the very same whom i meet every day in the bus, pass to her the ticket in the crowd, also sympathize with her when she shows her frustration to those unfriendly touches that we all are part of. We both share a similar story and that’s fit enough to strike the wavelength. And then it becomes a regular affair. Sometimes we get to converse on such lucky days, and on the others it’s just a smile that does the job.

She is not a friend nor is she an acquaintance. A fellow passenger who is now a little more than the usual ones. We laugh. We talk. We share. Not much but yes a small slice of our everyday life. We talk about the weather, the city, the people and the work. We are different yet same, as I discover my reflection in her eyes. The age difference gets washed off in the tide of laughter on sharing of a light moment from the office or tickling on a joke. Some relationships (If you call them one. I do)are difficult to describe. In the intense bright neon lights of a hectic and frantic urban life where the intensity of close relations gets dim under the cloud of work and lack of time. One tries to find her share of sunshine and solace in the small little sharing of light moments with such strangers at times. You feel the city doesn’t care for you. Nor do you care for it either. But then someone in the middle of the crowd stands up to offer his seat to you as a kind humane gesture. Someone who is yet again a stranger. You don’t know him or his name. You don’t feel the need to ask as well. You bid him thanks as you get down, with the thought of gratitude surrounding your heart. An inspiring gesture that propels you towards positivity and compels to offer your humane side back. Some relationships are really difficult to describe.

Now it’s your turn to take pleasure in the joy of giving. You lose your valued possession and gain a blessing smile in return as you get up and offer your seat to that elderly lady carrying a heavy bag. She takes out an orange from her bag and offers you her share of gratitude as you smile back and politely refuse to it. But is certainly touched by her genuine gesture. Again some relationships are difficult to describe. And they are better not. True it is, relationships are really Complicated!!! :)

Happy Independence Day!!! :)

This independence day let us free ourselves from the boundaries created by region… the restrictions of religion…let us free ourselves from the confines of caste and class…the precincts of language…let us free our minds from all the inhibitions…let’s break the block and move towards building a country without any prejudices and discrimination…coz until we free ourselves from these fiends..We are not free yet…so break all the limitations and unite ourselves into a single identity common to all…

On this occasion of the 64th year of our freedom. Let’s forget who we are…let’s forget where we belong to…let’s forget the religion we practice…Let’s forget the region we live…and remember only one thing…Only one identity…Only one nation and one religion…the land of unity in diversity…from now on let us carry an unanimous identity for ourselves…an identity that is common to all… an identity that adheres the divide created by the politics of regionalism and religion…and preaches only humanity and peace…from this 15th of August let’s call ourselves Indian…just an Indian…happy Independence Day!

Below are few lines I have penned down when I see the bias around me in the name of religion and language.

I love Jesus… I love Allah…
I love Krishna…I love Buddha…

I love the oak and the beautiful teak
Paradise in the Himalayan peak
I love the cold chilly wind that makes me freeze
Oh, I love you my blue Marina for your soothing gentle breeze

I love the aroma of fresh tea leaves from the north-east
I love the delightful Dussehra of the east
Sensual sculptures of Khajuraho becomes a cynosure
Emotions engraved on rock; my heart adore

I love the colourful people and the royal palaces of the west
A place where the dessert looks at its best
They say we are different…colour caste religion and region
But still I don’t find any reason

Deep down I see them all the same
Carrying out a single aim in different names
They call me a North Indian; some find me a South-Indian,
I look at them and smile; “see me a human and call me an Indian’’ :)

Office Office

Workplace does not mean just Work, it comes with a whole package. A big bunch of experiences and emotions….eh emotions?!!! Well I think so!! At least in my case. Emotions of happiness and joy on a job well done, emotion of stress and frustration when things just don’t work in your favour etc etc…Your office is a place where you spend the maximum hours of a day. Though they are not your friends or your family, your colleagues are the ones with whom you spend more time than your family and after sometime you start knowing them better than you know your family and friends. Just a little observation does all the magic.

They say work is worship, I say it’s all about worshipping the Boss!!! Something I preach but have never been able to practice myself. May be perhaps I don’t want to or never felt the need. The attitude “Who cares?!!!” dominates here in “My World”…Who cares if people play politics around? Who cares if someone who claims to be a friend bitches behind your back? Who cares if someone else gets the credit for your hard work? Etc etc…Who cares?!!! Alright one cannot be indifferent for long and then comes a stage when you start caring and of course thinking as well…either you find a solution or you find a better job…resignation time guys!!! People come and people go…again who cares?!!! Or do they?

Now every coin has two sides and everywhere there are two types of creatures…oh colleagues I meant…!!! Well the survival of the bad depends on the existence of the good. Lucky to have comes across many from both the types and to be honest it has been a great experience so far…with both. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the wonderful experiences and for all the learning…and if you are reading this blog…then you know which one you belong to…don’t you?!!! :P

Things that I have learned from Life so far

“I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.” -Kahlil Gibran

I am a teacher and I teach students…or am I? Yes by profession I am a lecturer but I am still a student myself, or we all are student in this university called LIFE. The real learning doesn’t happen inside the four walls of a classroom. What happen inside those four walls are just discussions on some theories created by some dead specimen ages back, what the university calls its syllabus! If you want to make your own theories and perspective, one has to come out of the four walls as the real learning starts in the outside world. You don’t have to do much; all you need to do is live your life and observe things around.

Life is the greatest university and each and every person whom we meet during our lifetime becomes our teacher, as there is something to learn from everyone.

I have learned that your strength doesn’t lie into the materialistic power but the manpower you are surrounded with. It is not the property made of money; it is the riches made of people whom you can rely upon makes you powerful. And I have also realized that very few in this world realize to this reality.

There are certain things that I have learned from life. From the people who have come into mine. The people who became close to my heart, some not so close but everyone touched my life in a unique way. You meet people…few stay with us forever…few leave us just with their memories but it is their presence in our lives that we cherish forever. No matter how long or short their stay is, it is the experience and the relationship with them that adds up to our experience. Few of the experiences are good, few not so good…but it is these not so good ones that gives us the real experience of life and makes us the person that we are from within.

I have learned that to Forgive and Forget are two key things in life…yes it takes practice but sometimes they just come on their own...

I have learned that there are certain things in life that no matter how much hard you try you just cannot do. Love and Hatred are two such things. I have learned that sometimes no matter how much you love someone you cannot make that someone love you back…it is up to that someone to decide whether to return that love to you or not…all that you can do is love that someone and no one can stop you from doing so, not even that ‘someone’...the joy of giving at times is more satisfying than receiving…

Likewise it is easy to Hate but difficult to Forgive…but I have learned that sometimes it is very difficult to Hate and easy to Forgive…to say that technically, the degree of ‘Hurt’ is directly proportional to the ‘closeness of a relation’ but the amount of ‘Hatred’ is inversely proportional to the closeness of it….I have learned that when you truly love someone or the closer the relationship is the more hurt it causes to you but then when you love someone so much it becomes very difficult to hate that person even if s/he has caused you the biggest hurt ever…you just cannot hate them. Even if you try hard, you just can’t.

Now I realize why elderly people long to go back to their children even after being abandoned by them…it is their unconditional love that breaks the barriers of conditions put across to them by their own blood relatives, which still makes them love their kids in spite of no love left in their hearts for their parents. True love comes without any conditions…it just come from within…whether the other heart reciprocates the same or not…it just can’t see, as they say ‘Love is blind’…

I have learned whenever you say goodbye make that Bye a Good one…you never know whether you are going to meet that person ever again in this lifetime… I have learned that no matter how good you are towards them, some people just cannot be good to you...all you need to decide is continue being good or just become indifferent.

I have realized that when you laugh, the world laughs with you and you cry, the world laughs louder…no matter how much in grief you are the world won’t stop and cry with you…
I have realized that life is all about making mistakes and learning from them…I have learned that the most difficult thing in life is to say the three magic words, “I am sorry” that compensates for all your mistakes, but very few have the guts to say them…


I have learned that the only person you should keep an expectation with is ‘Yourself’. ( “If they answer not to thy call walk alone, If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall, O thou of evil luck, open thy mind and speak out alone”- Rabindranath Tagore)

And yes one thing that I have just realized is that speaking your heart out does help ease you. :)

And The Search Continues….

Today on my way to office, my bus stopped at a signal. I was sitting at the window seat and noticed a guy on bike with a pretty girl sitting at the back. It seemed that they were a couple. The girl was talking something to the guy and the guy was multi-tasking, I mean not just listening to her (or at least pretending to do so) was also gazing at every other girl at the signal. Poor girl I thought. But then it is not something just with her. Every time I am on the roads this is something I get to notice quite often. Today its him ‘maaro a chance’ on someone else’s girlfriend, tomorrow it would be someone else trying his luck at his girlfriend. And the network continues….

Well we all have our share of such kind of jerks in our lives. Or in other words, all men are the same. What was he searching for? I thought. A pretty girl by his side, still he is not happy with that and seeks for more pleasure. Guys have a typical thing in common i.e. to look at others plate all the time, even if they have their own full. What I fail to understand is what results them behave this certain way? I have heard many of my friends who after having ditched by their boyfriends, often say that men are dogs. I don’t really agree with them here. After all dogs are much loyal, aren’t they? Have you ever heard of any dog who ditched his owner?

The big question that I often ask my male friends is what makes then behave this way? Why aren’t you guys happy with one girl at a time? Why more numbers of girlfriends in your list means the more hot property you are? And why is it that when it comes to choosing the their girl, variety becomes the spice of life? The more naive (or at least pretend to be so) that you are, guys like you the more. In every era, the RAVAN goes for a ‘Sati-savitri’ SITA all the time. Now that’s not fair!!

‘I’ for “Indian”…!

Once again this question was put up against me. A question that leaves me confused. Every time someone asks me about my aborigine I go blank for a second and then reply that I am from West Bengal. But somewhere in my subconscious mind it leaves me unsatisfied with my answer and I ask myself “Do I really belong to West Bengal?”. To be honest I myself don’t know where I belong to. I am searching for an answer to this question myself.

I was born in a town in East Midnapur of West Bengal. Now if that makes me a Bengali then I am certainly one. But my stay in West Bengal has never been for more than a month at a stretch. I was barely a month old when my mom n dad brought me to Nashik (Maharashtra). I was too young to carry any memories of that place with me. The only vague memories that I have of a place would be Bangalore, where dad was posted after Nashik. A place where I started my schooling from and made three amazing friends. Though all I can remember is their names (‘Kaushal’, ‘Hari’ and ‘Divya Lakshmi’). I will not be able to recognize them now even if they come in front. All I remember is that we four were very good friends and shared the same bench in class!! That was in my first standard. But my friendship with them lasted only for around six months and dad got transferred to Tezpur (Assam). Don’t have much memories of this place with me, except for few funny incidents (it became funny once the tremor was over) of me witnessing earthquakes, as that tenure was very a short one, of around six months. Yes one person I remember from my class would be ‘Neha’, a big bully, I didn’t like her at all. And when I think of her now it brings a smile on my face! After Tezpur I went back to the place where I claim I belong to. That was the time dad got posted to Bagdogra (a place near Darjeeling in West Bengal), where i made lots of friends just to bid them goodbye after 4 years of great friendship and headed up north.

It was the month of December I remember very clear. On the eve of Christmas we reached the place. Biting cold it was but I just loved the weather!!! Pathankot (Punjab) is a place I will cherish always…perhaps because some of my beautiful memories are associated to this place, which I would love to visit once more in my life. I just love each and everything about the place…be it its cold weather…the people…the food…and above all my school...My teachers…and ‘Sumeet’…I got the best of it all over there. The best school of my life, the best teachers who pampered me a lot…and my best friend ‘Sumeet’, though even after lot of efforts I went out of touch with her. That is the sad part of being a defense kid. You get to go different places, meet different people, make friends and then one day you leave them all behind and move to another place and the process continues!


And this time my journey came for a halt into the heart of India, Madhya Pradesh. Gwalior…hmmm…another place I love to the core. The thing that I like the most about MP is the down to earth and humble nature of its people. After all it is not the place, it is the people around that makes a place special, isn’t it? Well, I had many of my ‘firsts’ in life here…my first (and last) crush…my first experience of college life…and all the fun coupled with it…and yes this place gave me two of my best buddies, ‘Priya’ and ‘Usha’. This was my second time association with Priya as we had studied together in the same class in Bagdogra as well and meeting her again was like a lost brother found, and this time the bonding became stronger than ever. We three did all the crazy stuff together…bunking classes and spending hours at coffee shops…roaming jobless in the market…eating ‘pani-puris’ and ‘chats’ on roadsides shops…watching movies..teasing guys(in a decent way of course)…well those were truly the best days of my life…!! But all good things had to come to an end one day and this too had an end and I had to come to Chennai.

Delhi was the place I always wanted to go for pursuing my higher studies and the news of my family shifting to Chennai came as not so pleasant news. So after a lot of ‘rona and dhona’ I finally landed up in Chennai and it was a kind of cultural shock for me at first. I had heard enough of non sense about Chennai from my friends who had been here before but i only realized the ground reality once I stepped into this land. It was as if I was in a totally different country. The people here could not understand my ‘Hindi’ and I cannot understand a single word of ‘Tamil’…though it is a metro it didn’t look like one to me…I found my Gwalior which is a B-class city better than this place. It took me two years to get myself adjusted to this part of the world.

My first sense of belongingness towards Chennai happened when I went to Delhi for an internship. There for everyone I was ‘FROM CHENNAI’ and every time there was a discussion over the north and south divide, I unconsciously ended up supporting south and felt so proud to be “FROM CHENNAI”!!! And once am back my entire perception about this place was a changed one. Now I was very much a ‘Chennaite’ and this was ‘MY CITY’. Also it brought me more close to my friends and classmates with whom I had kept a distance for no reasons. But then do I really belong to Chennai?? Because I know one day I have to say good bye to this place as well and head towards a new destination.

So where do I truly belong to? If your place of birth is your identity then I am from West Bengal. But I don’t think I possess any other qualities from that place. After having spent 24 years of my life like a nomad and have been to almost every part of India and met people from all the states, I feel I am nothing but an Indian. I am an Indian in every aspect, be it the colour of my skin or my thoughts or my accent…it all reflects the ‘Indian-ness’ in me…and hence I am an ‘INDIAN’…and to be more specific a ‘Human Being’! Hopefully a good one…!!! :)

"I am sorry"

‘Sorry’, perhaps is the most common word that we all use every now and then. We step on someone’s feet, we say sorry. We sneeze, we say sorry. We drop something we say sorry. We break something, we say sorry. But when we break someone’s heart, we don’t. Why so? Have you ever thought about it? Why it becomes so difficult to repeat the same word one more time. This amazing word, an answer to all our mistakes, that keep coming to us very easily otherwise. Why does it become so difficult to say it when you are needed to say it the most? I have seen people around me who believe that apologizing means lowering their pride and prestige. And yes I must admit that I am no different or somewhere we all are the same. Of course a little more or less than the other! I have even seen people apologizing on their social networking profiles as their status message. Now, that is bizarre!!!


I wonder what is it that keeps them away from apologizing in person? They say that one should never apologize until you feel it from inside and never forgive unless that forgivingness comes from within. But even after realizing our mistakes how many of us really go back and apologize to the person whom we have hurt. Why don’t people realize that all it takes is, to accept that you are wrong and leave the rest to the other person? Also here the other person should try to understand that keeping the grudges is going to make them guilty as well. Either don’t hurt others and if you can’t do that, have the guts to accept your fault and apologize to it!


What is that reason that keeps us away from apologizing? Is it the fear of our apologies not being accepted or is it that huge ego of ours that stops us from accepting our mistakes? Just give it a try, you will find it much easy than you thought it is. Half of your mistakes get corrected with the feeling of guilt itself and the rest half when you apologize for the same.


Try it. All you have to do is say these three words: ‘I Am Sorry’. It is not that difficult. Isn’t it? :)

Just Do It!

Life always gives us choice…every problem comes with its own options for us to choose from. Some go the realistic way and approach it rationally, while others (Read: me) follow the way directed by the heart. And yes there are times when we are flooded with options that only adds up to the confusion. So the fewer the options the better it is. In fact having no option is the best option because that way you never make any mistakes. You have one way and one only method to approach. But if you ask me I would say the best approach would be to follow the heart, which is the check post for all the feelings and emotions to pass through. So you better do not let it down. Yet the so called sensible ones prefer the “brainy way” and put a barrier against letting the emotions to come out.

What is the thing that stops us from following our heart instead of mind? Why can’t we express ourselves and reveal our real selves in front of others most of the time? What stops us from expressing it to that someone special of how much you love him/her? Why we take people for granted? Why we take relationships for granted? Why we do not say ‘Thank you’ to our mom for the everyday cooking and cleaning she does for us? Why do we forget to say ‘I love you’ to those around us and for making our life so special? Are these emotions not so important to be expressed or is it the taken for granted attitude of ours that stops us from doing so? Yes few things go without saying but what is wrong in expressing yourself just one more time and every time? All it takes is a thought and then express it to all those who mean a lot to you and you to them. Do it, after all the smile on their faces that you will get in return is worth it! Yes we do know it is worth it, still most of us don’t do that. Not because we don’t get time to do so or don't feel to express. The reason behind is just that we are so used of taking things for granted! And forget that it is our verbal power of communication that differentiates us from the animals and makes us human. Yet we seldom realize the importance and prefer to remain mum most of the time.


So what stops you, me and most of us from expressing ourselves right at the moment and follow our heart? Well it is a strange force that I realized few days ago, while travelling in a local train. I so much wanted to get up and offer my seat to that old man who was standing in the crowd. But a strange force stopped me from doing so. I don’t know what made me feel hesitant. Was that my selfish inner self that stopped me or the thought of people around? No it is not that I didn’t want to help him, I certainly did but didn’t have the guts to stand up and offer him my seat before the other guy offered him his own. Something stopped me from following my heart and expressing me at that particular moment. So meanwhile I took my decision making time this fellow next to me gets up and offeres his seat. He followed his heart and i could not. It was just a matter of seconds but all I did was wasted time. While he just followed what came to his heart right there and right then. So now he was one happy soul and I captured by the sin. But yes, this incident did make me realise of the force that keeps people engaged in doing everything but following their heart and expressing themselves.

Be it verbal or non-verbal…all I would say is do not hold the feeling back just express it as it comes. Forget the if’s and the but’s. Just put across what your heart wants to say and make the use of article 19 to the fullest!!!
Smile at the child whom you see every day at the tea stall while passing through the pavement or at the stranger whom you meet every day in the local train while going for work. Next time when you are free call that best friend of yours who stood by you thick and thin and thank him/her without a reason, say ‘I love you’ and show your care to all those who are near and dear to you…Life is short, so make the most of it NOW...Kya pata KAL HO NA HO! :)

Happy V'day!

Ok so its Valentine’s Day today and this year too i am celebrating it all alone. No I am not here to sob about my single status but I wonder what makes people celebrate this day with so much of buzz? You don’t need just one specific day to show your love to your lover… Do you? And what if you can’t do it this day? Would you wait for the next 14th Feb. to arrive for doing so? Sounds stupid isn’t it? With the pace with which people make and break relations or the so called ‘relations’ by the time the next 14th Feb. arrives they would be having 14 new entries in the list of sweethearts! A bitter reality about the relationships these days.
Yes I know what is going in your mind right now. Ok let me stop looking at the cons and bring some light into the positivity of it. Yes looking at the amount of hatred and indifference surrounding us these days. A day to remind us of the joy of spreading love is not such a bad idea. After all celebrations are what life should be all about and if it is celebrating love then that’s a reason good enough. Then why restrict it just with couples? Spread the love with everyone around…each and every person who is near and means a lot to you. To all those who are far yet close to your heart. And also to those who are not so close to your heart. Celebrate this day of love today and to the rest of the days of the year as well. Wishing you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day! :)

Home **Sweet** Home :)

Happy New Year guys!!! Yes the few handfuls who take toll and visit ‘My World’. Finally I am back from Kolkata after a not very long but eventful tour. Coming to Chennai was never so joyful. In fact I never thought that I would ever be so happy to step back into the city. Especially after a long train journey that sap in all your energy when you finally reach your station..its a bliss! One word that would define a train journey would be boring, boring and only boring. Gone are the days when I used to enjoy it so much as a kid that I never wanted it to end. Now it sucks!!! The never ending track just keeps becoming lengthier and lengthier.
Well in a zest this trip to Kolkata was full of fun n exhaustion. Now I really want break from holidays and travelling! Yes you heard it right…BREAK FROM HOLIDAYS!!! Just can’t stand the stays in hotels and relatives places….maasi, naani, daadi, taau’s home and all…really nothing can beat the coziness and friendliness of the place that gives you the greatest comfort of the entire world. The place that you call your ‘HOME’. Finally I m back in mine and my bed is calling me…need a power nap…catch u later…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz