Escaping the bubble

(Warning: this post has nothing to do with any personal experience, it's just a work of fiction)

He was pressing his ear hard against the wall trying to hear everything he could. Feeling a bit sad that his own friends were gossiping about him, saying bad things. A few days ago, he used to be on the other side of the wall. He used to be one of them. Gossiping about everyone around while staying up all night. It was fun, it's always fun when the joke is on someone else and you are the one who's having a roll. But now, things have changed.

He's bored of the gossip. He's bored of the non-sense trivia. He's bored of staying in the bubble. Individual ambition sometimes takes over the group spirit. Actually, the group spirit is also weakening. He sees people secretly fulfilling their selfish interest, while he has been faithful all this while. He has seen the group divide into fragments yet pretending to be one.

Slowly, but steadily since then, he has isolated himself from the group. He is no longer interested in the politics, the back-biting, the silly jokes and all. The jokes that once upon a time entertained him have become boring and repetitive. The once enthusiastic group was clearly past its prime. He was tired of taking the initiative every-time. This task was becoming increasingly difficult. It wasn't worth the effort anymore. He couldn't go alone and  do the things he liked as it would mean breaking the group spirit. 'Group Spirit' - Huh, he knew no such thing existed.

He is no longer enjoying life in the bubble. He wants to venture out. Go out in the open; do things on his own. He wants fresh air! New activities. All his social life had died in the bubble. It was a great chance to revamp it. He knew that he would end up gaining more than he was about to lose.

The next day, he hears his name faintly. He starts walking towards the 'wall'. He stops there, something has changed! Stands there and smiles. Doesn't want to listen to what's being said at the other side of the wall. His new world is so beautiful that he ceases to care what's happening inside the bubble.

Les Amis

It has been more than 3 months in America and personally a lot has changed for me. The biggest change has been my circle of friends. My closest friends in life are people who think more or less in the same way that I do and have kind of a similar approach towards life.

Now, for a change, I am around with people who have a completely different take on things in life around me. 5 of us staying together in the same apartment with a lifestyle completely different from one another, sharing very different opinions and having a very different persona.

Initially, I was a bit skeptical about how things are going to work and are we really going to have a good time together? Now, when I look back at these 3 months, I think we've gelled together quite well. Each of us has a very different nature and has brought something unique into the group. There is liveliness all the time. The variety is so vivid that there are people who stay awake in the night till 6 and then there are the ones who wake up in the morning at 6.

I feel it's good to have people with different approaches about the same thing around. It's like if you are in troubled times in life, you need friends who will keep assuring 'There will be a brighter day' and give you some hope where there seems none around. On the other hand, you also would like friends who would shout at you and say 'What the hell are you doing with you life? Stop cribbing and start working. Why do you need lady luck to help you?'

Both approaches above are effective in their own way and we need both of them!

Back to the original topic, would it have been better to have similar thinking friends? The answer is, 'I don't know'. At times, it is good that people cannot read my face.It is good that I can keep some of my happiness and pain to myself. It would have been freakish if friends around me all the time would figure me out completely. But, sometimes you feel that your friends should figure out what you want to say without you actually saying things. There is always a trade-off.

This is just the beginning. At the end of 2 years, it might be a completely different blogpost. Time will tell.

The Big Apple

A week ago, when I went to New York, the first thing that I noticed after two months of staying in DC is the change in ‘Pace’. This change was refreshing! ‘Pace’ was the thing that was missing from my life for a while now and ‘Pace’ is the thing that is certainly missing from Washington DC. DC gives you a feel of living in a Mid-Sized town and the part where I live gives a feel of life in a village; a village with 24 hours electricity.

New York is in many ways like Mumbai city. The traffic problem, the parking place crunch, the beggars in the train, streets crowded with people; more interestingly it has the potholes, filthy streets, the street food, the bargain shopping streets et all. The metro is city’s lifeline and the only way to reach any place in time.
If Mumbai is the place where people from all over India come together and settle down, New York is the place where people from all over the world come and settle down. You will find restaurants serving almost all cuisines of the world. An Ethiopian joint which I went to served good food. Like Mumbai, different areas have a different feel to It.

You can distinguish Manhattan from Bronx in the same way that you can distinguish South Mumbai from Thane. In Mumbai, once you cross the Vashi Bridge, you realize the change instantly. You realize it’s not Mumbai anymore. Same thing happens when you cross George Washington Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel to go to New Jersey. Now, New Jersey is another big modern village.

Like Mumbai, this city has no room for expansion. No matter how far away from the city you live, you have to take the morning local to town. The peak time traffic in New York is as bad as in Mumbai, if not worse. Except the peak times are a bit different. Morning 7 to 9 is the peak time here, whereas in Mumbai, it’s usually 8.30 to 10.30. The metro works 24*7, no respite.

At 4 in the morning, there are people on the street. The Starbucks is open, the city feels safe. The New York city metro is quite unattractive than the metros in other cities. The metro stations look like jails with all the barricades and stuff. Like Mumbai has a National Park, New York has Central Park. The difference is that Central Park is bang in the middle of the city and 100 times well maintained. It’s amazing that such a wonderful thing survived this concrete jungle.

People walking on the streets, such a rare sight in US; yet is such a common sight in New York. The parking taxes are towing fees are so high that people prefer to park their cars in the last stop of New Jersey and come across the Hudson river using public transport. From here, all of Manhattan is walking distance away.
The PENN Station resembles a lot to CST where both long distance and short distance trains meet. Just outside is the Times Square which was showing some match on the huge screen. Like Mumbai, this city looks brilliant at Night from the Aircraft. The Manhattan skyline is simply brilliant from the Jersey City side.
I am going to visit this city more often! Gives me the feel of Aamchi Mumbai!

Unfortunately, I don't have the photos of New York to upload. I'll do that after I have enough money to save and buy a camera!

The Madness...

On the way to New York, I was sitting besides a psychiatrist. I always thought that they are the kind of people who must hate their job. After seeing so many crazy people everyday and dealing with them, who wouldn't? But, like most other Americans, he enjoyed his job.

I had a nice discussion with him during the journey and got to know lot of interesting things. He said that most people become mad as they cannot achieve what they want in their lives. Or rather, they would not accept who they are or what they have become. It can happen to anybody who finds it difficult to digest failure (or rather be jealous of the success of others).

After this, I was curious and asked him how people who seem to lead a perfectly normal life turn wierd all of a sudden. He said the process of getting mad is similar to the thing that happens when people get drunk. When people get high, the part of the brain that regulates what you speak mellows down and you begin speaking what you really wanna speak, without filtering it.

Similar thing happens when you become mad. The difference is that when you are drunk, you get back to normalcy within a few hours, it's not the same when you turn mad. It's very difficult to come back to the state of normalcy for them. The worst part is no medicine can bring your brain back to normal, you yourself have to work your way out of it. Medicines can only temporarily put you to sleep or mellow you down, but not change anything. It is like taking painkiller, the pain is still there, just that you don't feel it. There is no standard way to bring things to normal, different things work out for different people.

He talked about some weird people that he treated. He had a patient who used to be normal all day and turn mad after 10 in the night. Some people turn mad when the come across a particular person or see a particular color or object. These are the type of people who are the most difficult to treat. Their brains are wired to think in a particular way. They have to be taught to unlearn that, which is very difficult. People are a lot more reluctant to change rather than they seem to be.

He says, the best part about his job is that a lot of people come back happily to him and thank him for bringing them to normalcy. According to him, a lot of doctors in other fields do not get credit for the job they do. People visit them in times of sickness and when they get well, there is no acknowledgement.

His happiness lies in the fact that he has brought lives of numerous people back to normalcy!

The Job Hunt

If you didn’t believe in a thing called luck, come to US and hunt for a part-time on-campus job. How long does it take to find one? Well, there is no definite answer to that. The first door you knock could present you with a job. On the other hand, you could roam around the campus for the entire semester and yet be without one!

Your qualifications and resume do not matter much in this hunt. At some help-desk jobs, the qualifications on your resume work against you. They need people with little technical background who would never leave for another better job. All Said, the process is exciting and the stories I’ve heard last month or so are super-thrilling.

My job hunt story has many twists and turns. Two days after landing in US, I had the opportunity of an interview in a Classic Japanese restaurant. That person even offered me a job with an astronomical sum of money which could have paid for half of my MS studies. For a moment, I was tempted. Tempted to work for an illegal job; tempted for the money; tempted to put work ahead of my studies. After eating the only 2 vegetarian items on the menu, I ended up rejecting the job.

In the next few days, some lucky people got jobs. If you get a job very early in job hunt, you should either be super lucky or super desperate for a job. You are travelling in a bus and start a conversation with the person next to you and he ends up giving you a job opportunity, this is how lucky can you get. There are some others who have roamed all the buildings in the campus all month long without getting one! Wait a second, you can be luckier that this too! The person who arranges your temporary accommodation could refer you for a job that would save you half your tuition fees. In some odd cases, the seniors you stay with would treat you as alien and not even let you use the kitchen utensils. Luck as they call it. Then there are some dumb people. One guy forgot his bag in some department. After an hour or so, he realized that. On the way back, someone asked him are you looking for a Graduate Assistantship (GA). That idiot said; no I’m looking for a bag.

One fine day, one of my friends calls me up and says there is a GA position which requires VB experience, you should apply. I didn’t know VB, yet there was no harm in giving a try. I walked all across the campus to reach the building where the job was to submit my resume. Fun part, the lady who read my resume tells me there is no VB on this resume. I don’t know what to say. I walk in for a VB job without VB on my resume! I end up telling her that I’ve done things more important than VB and there’s no space to fit in VB experience. I still can’t believe how she took that reply. Ten minutes later, two of my friends walk in the same fashion, say the same thing and that lady drove them away!

A simple estimate of the replies to the job positions, if you apply to 200 job positions, you end up getting reply from about 10 of them. 5 of those say sorry, we don’t have a job, 3 of them say we don’t have a job currently, 1 says we are considering your case and 1 actually calls you for an interview. My bad luck was so bad that I got an Interview for the VB job out of all that I applied. I read an email at 11 in the night saying that you have an interview at 11 next morning, we will ask questions about Visual Basic and databases.

This was a nothing to lose opportunity. If I didn’t get the job, I would end up learning VB and adding something to my resume. I slogged all night, reading some stupid internet forum about VB and went for the interview where I realized that I was fielded against 3 other computer science people on their ‘Home turf’. Despite that, I feel that I did well. I can say that because I got an email saying that I got a half-time GA position and that implied that 25% of my tuition fees are waived of and I end up having 1000 dollars a month. This joy however was short lasting and in the next 15 minutes, I got another email saying we currently are filling only one position, so we cannot offer you the job. In 15 minutes, I was dreaming about the things to do with 1000 dollars and now walking on the ‘Boulevard of broken dreams’.

In the meanwhile, one of us came to know about a sure shot job opportunity. 2 people wanted that job. To decide who gets it, we held an event called as 'The Coin-toss'. A job was at stake and 10 people were watching as someone was about to get lucky on the flip of the coin. Eventually, it turned out that some other guy went on to get the job.

An email was circulated in most university departments regarding a c# job opportunity. I had funnily replied to that email saying that I have a 3 year work experience in C# and many projects when I had none. I got an email from them saying to give them a 10 minutes ppt about the projects and work I handled in C#. It is funny, but I made up a 10 minutes ppt adding all the crap projects that I had done and stating that I had used C# for it. I decorated some slides with the photos of databases from my BE project, a piece of shit which I hoped would never help anyone ever!


The presentation was nice according to me and I went quite close to getting that job too which eventually went to a Chinese cs guy. In the next few days, I came close to getting a job in crazy departments far different than the thing that I am here to study for. I came really really close to getting a job at Agricultural Department, A photographer’s job, A job at the Food and Nutrition Department, A job of straightening wires at Mechanical department. The people in the US raise your hopes a lot. You cannot be sure of a job until you see your name on the pay roll, no matter how close you think you are. In one case, someone was told to come the next day to discuss salary issues and when she went in the next day, she was informed that the position is already filled.

All said, I finally have a job in Civil Engineering department. It doesn’t pay much, but I’m happy that I like what I’m doing. I wish good luck to others who are still finding on-campus jobs in US.

Ten good things

1. Calling to India is cheap and it gives a great feeling.
2. The internet simply rocks; you never have to wait for streaming.
3. Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream rocks, I am going to buy all the flavors in the next 2 years.
4. Cooking is a lot of fun, at least the initial few days.
5. Weekends are totally worth the hype.
6. University is a whole town in itself.
7. Laptop, Ipod and everything electronic is cheap.
8. Girls are good
9. Pedestrian crossing is more valued than car crossing
10. Everyone you meet has a smile on their face.

From the Observation desk...

This post is about various people I’ve met in last 10 days in US. I like to observe people and how they go about the doing thing.

The one thing I liked the most about people working in US is that they have a smile on their face, have a cheerful attitude even if they actually don’t like the job that they do. They are eager to help you. A simple thing like opening a bank account, which is a boring task in India given the amount of paperwork is such a fun task here. They treat the customer as a friend and talk very freely.

Now, a little bit about the Indians I met here. I came to this place with a bit of prejudice about my peers and seniors whom I would meet. But things are not the same as I pictured them to be. Our seniors are extremely helpful. I expected there to be some ragging, but there wasn’t any. Infact, all of us freshers had someone to pick up at the airport.

I live temporarily with 4 Bengali phd students who prepared food for me for the first day and brought food packets for me for that would last 10 days till I find a permanent apartment. Bengali food tastes great I tell you! The Indian student bodies working here are doing a great job. They are full of enthusiastic students, there is no senior junior divide, and all of us sat together in a conference room and sketched a plan for the Indian Independence day program in the university. We played cricket and football and hopefully play that ever weekend.

Now, about the batch mates, there is a lot of variety over here. Many of them are quite diplomatic. I think that’s because most of the students who have come here carry a form of burden which will ease as time progresses. ‘When I get a safe and secure job in the university I’ll give you the information about all the other jobs available in the campus’ is the indirect message everyone around is carrying. Safety first is on everyone’s mind. There is a bit of professional touch to friendship, you help me and I help you. Give and take. I’m sure if I’d met these people in Engineering Degree College, they might have made great friends.

One thing I like about blogger more than facebook or twitter is that not many people read it! So, you can be more frank about the things you write rather than writing the edited version or the polished one.

I hope all of us here get good jobs, at least the hourly ones and things around change for the better. One more thing, a long lost friend called yesterday. I don’t know where he got my number from, but the conversation went something like this….

A: Hey Sanket, wassup, how’s life, Aaj teri bahut yaad aa rahi thi.

Me: Oh Sahi hai, good you remembered after such a long while. How’s life.

A: Life’s great, acha sun, Can you help me with one thing, actually…….

Now I know why he remembered!!

A new beginning

It has been a really long time since I’ve written something, but it’s not been long since I’ve thought about writing something.

This past month has been a crazy one for me, both in India and US. Things have slowly started to fall in the right place, I’m enjoying every bit of the journey. Uncertainty has been a major part of life. 2 days before coming to US, I didn’t know my date of departure; I was clueless what I would do in New York, how I would land in DC with all the bags all by myself. But these problems are a problem only if you see think of them as one, they eventually get solved.

Every Indian student who has come here is in kind of ‘a race’; a race to finish all the tasks in one go. Finding an apartment, buying a phone, laptop, University ID, registering for courses, making a resume, cover letter, hunting for an apartment, making departmental contacts the list goes on and on. Now I know why they call it ‘Apartment Hunting’.

There are a few things I learnt in US. Patience is the key to getting your job done and there is a way of getting things done, you just have to figure it out. Secondly, you have to be at ‘The right place at the right time’. Things change here from time to time. There have been times when we thought we were extremely close to getting an apartment right away, but minutes later, it was not to be. One moment, you think the forex card that you brought from India will handle everything, next you realize it can’t be swiped.

There is no point cribbing about such things as every Indian who goes abroad for studies faces such kind of crap. The thing is, you cannot become too excited about the fortunes that come your way or dejected by the misfortunes.

The place where we live feels like home coz of many Indian students in the vicinity. Everything that’s there in India is available, so while coming, its okay if you just bring along only a bag filled with clothes. Sometimes it’s painful to convert the dollars to rupees while buying stuff, but that conversion will stay till we start earning in dollars.

Hope that happens soon, waiting to write more, will do soon.

PS: All the people in my bloglist seem to have stopped updating!!!     

A Call for Strike

To
Chairman
Auto-Rikshaw Union
Mumbai


Subject: Rikshaw Strike


Dear Sir,


This is a humble request for keeping a one day Auto-RIkshaw strike in Mumbai. The CNG fares have increased and the government has not increased the Auto fares. This is injustice, go fight for it! Don’t ply your rikshaws on the road. 


Mumbai is a wonderful place to travel with no rikshaws, all roads clear, no bottlenecks. Try to take the Taxi drivers with you in the strike, then whole of Mumbai will be a better driving place. Last time around, me and my friends went for an amazing long drive during the strike. There was never a better day for driving in Mumbai. 


My apologies for people who do not drive in a car or bike, but I guess they can manage for a day and take a day off and enjoy or roam around in their friend’s cars. Sometimes, it’s better waiting for a bus rather than asking 10 Auto drivers for nearby fares and then you ppl saying no.


Last time, I went to Pune, there was a rikshaw strike for 5 days. Why is the Mumbai Union lagging so far behind. Very few strikes, that’s not good for your reputation. The last strike was long time ago. Inflation has increased, prices of commodities are steep, meter’s have been manipulated to the maximum extent possible, people’s salaries around you have increased, why should you suffer. Plus you can have a day off from work. 


I am sure you would pay heed to this advice and go on a strike as soon as possible. Afterall, it’s for your benefit.

The Premier League Paper

Engineering question papers have a typical Style of setting the question paper.

If we had a subject called premier league, we would have a paper something like this.

Here it goes

Premier League

Note: 1. Question number 1 is Compulsary
2. Figures to the right indicate marks
3. Attempt any 4 out of remaining 6 questions
4. Any assumptions made should be clearly stated.

1. (a) Why the only good thing about Liverpool is their history? Answer with reference to 18 titles overall, No title in 20 years. (10)

(b) Money cannot alone buy you trophies, Explain. Also, compare Man City with Chelsea (10)


2. (a) Describe the incredible success story of Harry Rednapp from 17th position when he took over to the top 4 finish. (10)

(b) Describe the revenge of Leeds United over Man United (10)

3. (a) Explain Chelsea’s misfortunes in Champion’s league semis with the mention of Luis Garcia and Tom Overbo (10)

(b) Average age of Arsenal Squad is currently 23 years and 3 months which is decreasing at an average of 5 months per year since Wenger took over. How many more years will it take for the average age of squad to be 16 years. (10)

4. (a) Describe the legendary Champions league final where Milan beat Liverpool with no mention of Istanbul. (10)

(b) Who are better, Hicks and Gillett or the Glazers? (10)

5. (a) Distinguish between Liverpool minus Gerrard and Torres and Wigan Athletic (10)

(b) Why is every successful manager in the world tipped to replace Alex Ferguson? Jose Mourinho, David Moyes, Martin O’ Niall to name a few. (10)

6. (a) Why do most of the players leave Arsenal at the peak of their career? (10)

(b) Why is the Istanbul game the only one for which Benitez will be remembered for? Can you name any member of that team still surviving in Liverpool squad? (10)

7. Write short notes on.

(a).Burnley at home with and without Brian Laws. (5)
(b). Birmingham’s 12 match unbeaten streak. (5)
(c). Italy, a retirement destination for premier league players. (5)
(d). Van Der Saar, Still going strong at 40. (5)

The final Countdown

(Warning...long, slightly boring post ahead...)
College term in coming to an end; a 4 year wonderful journey will soon be over. With incredibly talented people around me, I’ve transformed quite a lot in these years. From being a quiet, low profile schoolboy who was comfortable talking only with a closed group of people to somebody who has decent interaction with each and every person of the class.

Few days back, I saw my junior k. g. class photograph. I could recollect a lot of faces in it, but couldn’t identify who they were. One thing that I regret about my school life is not having interaction with a lot of people (interaction beyond the hi-hello). In college, I’ve distinct memories with almost everyone that I can never forget.

There are many reasons behind these interactions, the most important one being that you clear the misconceptions about people that you had in your head. People are sometimes a lot different than you think they are. Secondly, it’s interesting to listen to a variety of people living life very differently; People watching champions league till 4 in the morning and coming to college at 9 and people running from college at 5 to catch their 7.30 pm TV show.

Also, these interactions will remind people about me (hopefully) and I’ll remember them by the same incidents. Many people see this socializing habit of mine as some kind of flirting or friend circle improving exercise. Let them cook stories. But the truth is I am not in it to expect something back in return. I would be more than glad if I’d be in contact with 2-3 people from the class ten years from now.

I’m terrible at maintaining friendship. I’ve lost two of my best friends to the degree that we feel awkward being around each other. The reasons for both I know and I had an opportunity to correct things. But I didn’t feel like doing that. That’s how weird I act at times. But yes, the first time, losing a good friend had created a big void in my life. From talking almost daily on the phone, to never seeing each other for 3 years, the transition was difficult.

Luckily, I’ve not done things to alienate friends this time around in college. I want to end things on this happy note. The last day of exams would be the last time I would be seeing many of my college friends. It is going to be an emotional day for me. For I know, I’d be missing a lot. Ideally, I would like to leave the college as soon as the exams get over, amidst the cheer of the crowd and go alone to one of the beaches, switching off the mobile. Walking with the breeze and bringing back the memorable moments from 4 years to mind and relishing them.

But, I know I might end up in college doing exactly the things that I wouldn’t want. 68 people trying to get an individual photo with all others, then the group photos. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t need photographs to remind me of the good times with my friends. I mean we already have roughly 100GB of photos from last 4 years, when are you ever gonna watch them. After the photographs, couple of hour’s discussion about which place to go, where to eat, what to do kinda crap….. some side planning....some other side planning…some more side planning….some heads turning here, some there…..A Hundred bye-bye’s. Possible night-outs. I’m actually looking forward to the final day stories.

Motorcyle diary

It was late at night and I was driving back home on my bike on the S.V. Road. The road was largely empty with cool breeze blowing. I love riding the bike at night, no signals, no traffic, good weather et al.

A guy was riding a Bajaj Discover alongside my bike and an empty truck with speed of around 60 kmph was behind us. I usually give way when high speed vehicles are behind, but at that time, I was in no mood to let someone overtake. Neither was the guy on the Discover.

I remember exactly what happened next. This guy looked into the mirror to see how fast the truck was approaching. While doing this, the front wheel of his bike got stuck in a pothole, he applied brakes; the back tyre did a little wheelie, while the truck was still approaching with fairly the same speed. I took my bike to the side of the road, turned to the mirror praying for the biker. He pulled his leg out from under the bike and took an incredible 5 feet long jump. Next moment, the bike was thrashed by the truck.

In 3 years of my driving, I’ve seen people die in accidents, people severely injured, badly crashed cars, lots of bikes skidding in the first rain, but I have never seen such a miraculous escape. This was the best real life stunt that I’ve ever come across. The description seems like one of Akshay Kumar’s movie scenes, except that it is highly predictable with Akshay in it. Our life is no movie. Trust me; you would never want to see such a thing in real life.

I stopped my bike; the truck driver had driven away without stopping, nobody was around. The biker lay on the footpath, absolutely numb, cold as a rock, not knowing how to react, wondering how he came out of all this. His body was shaking and couldn’t speak for couple of minutes, eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t believe that instead of being in a pool of blood, he was in a pool of petrol which came out of the broken tank of the bike.

2 very different types of people live in this world. One who cannot bear the troubles in their lives, succumb to them and commit suicide and the other kind, who are ready to put themselves through all kinds of trouble just to be alive.

Moments like these make you realize how precious life is.

Westlife

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see….

I heard this song playing on the radio a few days back. It brought back wonderful memories to my mind. Memories about the times when the only English songs I had listened to were party tracks like Who let the Dogs out, the Vengaboys, Escape, Un Dos Tres, Living la vida loca, It's my life et all. One day, out of the blue, I thought of buying an audio cassette of any random English Songs and listen to it for a change.

I happened to pick out the album ‘Turnaround’ by Westlife, and I am so glad I picked that one. I’ve listened to that cassette for atleast a 100 times before it finally broke a couple of years ago. Each and every song is amazing. Struck gold with the first cassette!

Now, many people will say Westlife is not that famous a band. They are not that great. Many people wouldn't even have heard them apart from songs like 'My love'. But for me it’s never about famous. It doesn’t really matter that the thing that I like must be famous. Also, it’s not necessary to like what everyone likes! Infact, I prefer Westlife songs over other famous Boybands like Blue, Backstreet Boys, MLTR, Boyzone etc.

I’ve listened to every song that Westlife has sung and everytime I listen to them, I get a different feeling. The feeling that no other song can give. I can very much relate to the lyrics, they are the best!

Many people feel, the problem with a lot of Westlife songs is that they are not original compositions. I still feel that Westlife has done a good job with them too. It’s not that I am in favour of remixes or something, but sometimes the same song in a different way, feels good. Infact, I’ve liked the Westlife version of ‘Uptown Girl’ more than the Billy Joel one. There are people who hate Guns and Roses for remaking the ‘Knocking on Heavens Door’, but what’s the problem if they have done a great job. Infact, if you search for it on you tube, firstly you’ll get the GnR version.

Also, Westlife have a lot of original compositions, some of which went unnoticed, yet were pretty amazing. These songs have helped me cope up with some of the dullest moments in life till now, during the tough times. They continue to be special for me. I am still looking for the ‘Turn around’ cassette in every music store I visit. The day I’ll get that one, it will remain with me for life.

In the end, I would like to mention a list of the best Westlife songs that I feel every music lover should listen to:

• Home
• On my Shoulder
• Fool Again
• If I let you go
• World of our own

Addiction

You like something, you start with it, you keep doing it and sometime later, bang! you are addicted to it. The worst thing is, you don’t admit it when people say that you are addicted. Or rather you don’t realize that you are addicted.

Addiction can be about anything, absolutely anything. About playing Counter-strike, playing cards, facebook, chatting, bowling, and watching movies, anything. Getting addicted to a girl also counts here!

The general idea about addiction that when you are hooked on to something for a long time, it’s addiction. It’s not my way of looking at it. Addiction is when you find it difficult to live without that something. It’s like when you play computer games for long time, that's not addiction, but if you feel restless when you don’t get an opportunity to play computer games, that’s addiction and that’s bad.

There are people around us who would call it a dull day if they weren’t to play some stupid game on facebook or talk hours and hours on gtalk. People who would get frustrated if their favorite IPL or EPL team is playing and they can’t watch it. People, who would not be able to bear the thought of not watching their favorite director’s movie on the first day, first show and so on.

Addiction is bad because it takes control over your life and moreover, you don’t even realize that. It’s like the boss who dictates you the terms. People are so addicted to chatting or texting or phone convos that they do not acknowledge the people around them.

I never want to be addicted to anything in life and I’m pretty sure that I will never be. I might get a hundred good things from life, I might buy another hundred good things, but there will be nothing that I will not be able to live without. I remember a good line I once read.

I would like to earn so much that I could buy whatever I want. I would like to grow up so much so that I could live life without all of it.

Nice sentence. It’s also true with all the things money can’t buy. Like close friends. If tomorrow the person whom you love gives you a cold shoulder, your life should not become a disaster; instead you should have the courage to move on.

Life is all about making the best of what you have, not about what could have been the best for you!

Problems

Problems, everyone has them, but the way we approach them makes us different. It is good to be a spectator sometimes, listening to the problems of people around you and how they tackle them.

At times you are hearing about people who feel the pressure in handling the smallest of the problems. On the other hand, there are some who will never let the gravest of the problem tear them apart. You learn from both the type of people. One teaches you what not to do while handling a crisis, other one tells you how to face the crisis.

But, it’s not so easy always. Sometimes you see people stuck with a problem not handling it the right way. You feel had you been there yourself in that situation, you would have done things differently. But, one fine day, the same problem strikes you. You fare no better in handling it. Weird, but true!

I admire one of my friends when it comes to facing problems. He tells me, ‘Most of the things that we consider to be problems aren’t problems in the first place’. I feel he’s right. Problems are there for a reason. They make us who we are, how our lives shape up depends on how we handle them. If it is something that will shape our lives, then how is it a problem?

I’ve never seen this friend of mine succumb to any pressure from problems around, not cribbing about any of them. Not running away from them either, sometimes going from one defeat to another with no loss of enthusiasm. He was once consolidating someone who has just dropped from 80 percent to 70 percent saying things would be fine, whereas he himself had 60 percent marks in the exams. He was a person who would give in his best and then accept what the scoreboard says. This guy didn’t even get pissed off when his girlfriend of long time dumped him. He instead gave us a break-up party!

A week before the 12^th board exams, he fell of the staircase, fractured almost half his body, the left side, was bedridden and still appeared for the boards without a writer. His scores were affected badly, but he never cried about it. Maybe someday his scores will ruin his chances of getting admitted into a premier educational institute, agreed, still how is crying about the situation going to help? Making the most of what he could achieve was the thing he should’ve done and he did exactly the same.

Life is not a disaster when you are plagued with problems. Life is a disaster when you stop fighting the problems around you. Nobody could’ve known a certain Lance Armstrong if he didn’t have the fighting spirit.

These and a few other examples make me want to reflect on my own life. I’ve sometimes let problems dominate me, acted weirdly in situations, freaked out. But that won’t be a problem anymore. The world is full of people fighting millions of problems. I’ll face my share of problems, that too in a sporting way!

Optimism

I feel like a jerk today. Told someone that he/she is being excessively optimistic. Being an optimistic person myself, I should’ve never said that. Never crush the ray of hope people have about things turning the way they want them to be.

I think the word ‘reality’ is now-a-days more closer to me than ‘optimism’. Optimism sure drives you a long way. It tells you if a certain Ambani who came in with 500 rupees and made billions out of that in this city, but it will never tell you the story of millions of people who came to the city with 500 bucks and left with nothing.

By no way I’m talking negativity, but sometimes by choosing optimism, you make yourself ready for only one result, that’s called victory. Thousands of people come to Mumbai each year to become a filmstar, unfortunately, not everyone can become one. Raising your hopes high is good, but when the dreams crush, you should be able to handle it the right way.

I think the best approach would be about being optimistic throughout the journey and accepting the reality dose in the end. What’s wrong in thinking you can achieve massive things, thinking that you can be the best? But when it comes to the final outcome, you have to take it sportingly. You’re going to win some, lose some and accept whatever comes your way.

Optimism may tell you that you can climb Everest, reality might keep you happy with Amarnath yatra. Still, if this optimism would’ve gone missing, nobody would’ve climbed it till now.

Itz Mie Life!

Today, as I walked out of college, my bike was the last bike parked in the Bhavan’s Parking lot.

2 years back, this was an everyday scene. I was amongst the 10 crazy people who stayed in college everyday till 11 pm. Today, I had a feeling of Déjà vu. It brought back great memories. Memories of pushing the bike half a kilometer till the Petrol pump at 12 in the night coz’ some idiot stole Petrol from the bike. Coming Home on 4^th gear, full throttle, no brakes 6 kms, 7 minutes that too without a power bike. Cool nights. Counter Strike, Warcraft with full fledged sledging and cursing one another. Nostalgia!!!!

Around a month ago, I had decided to kick the word ‘Boredom’ out of my dictionary, and am very much happy to have lived without it for past one month. Idea is to stay occupied and not give boredom a chance. Most people feel boredom is related more with things around you rather than yourself. I feel the other way round. You are the one who lets boredom creep in.

I know people who keep themselves so much occupied that they utilize the 5 minutes that they wait for the train at the railway station to read the day’s newspaper. In a world where people cry for want of time, why should we aspire to kill available time by giving boredom a chance? We should live life in a fashion such that there would be no regrets later. Else, you’ll end up saying stuff like “I had so much spare time, I wish I had studied driving. Now, I am in a 14 hours job in an unknown city wasting much of my time waiting for the crowded bus to my office”.

After a comparatively dull semester, I want to be back working pretty hard again, making the most of the time I have, interacting with many people, pursuing my hobbies, living my dreams. Not thinking of college as just another 9 to 5 activity, being active in the society, completing some of the projects I’ve undertaken. Having a life! Not just having a life, I’ve began to love my life. For the last month or so, I’ve been very much active socially. My father is a very popular person in our neighborhood and many people know me as his son. I want to venture out and work so hard that people know me by my own identity. I want the pace. I remember Lance Armstrong saying ‘I want to die at a hundred year old after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour’. That’s the spirit.

So, hopefully I won’t be saying ‘I am bored’ for quite some time now, coz’ I know, I won’t be bored!

This is my 50^th post. The blogging experience until now has been great until now. Pratap and Yugandhar’s blogs have inspired me to start blogging. They both have killer blogs with amazing creativity. I also thank all my readers who spared their precious time to read my posts. Thanks to all of those who pointed out my mistakes, thus helping me improve. I’ll keep blogging.

Night-out

First Sunday of the year, I was standing amongst hundreds of people waiting for a chance grab a seat in any of the Mumbai bound bus at Pune station. After a prolonged waiting period, I somehow managed to get into one of Igatpuri bound bus which had a halt below the Vashi flyover. Now, this bus dropped me near the Vashi flyover at 2 in the night and I was the only one to alight there.

Late for the last local, too early for the first one and apart from the fast speeding cars, I couldn’t see a single person around. I started walking towards the railway station. The Green Day song lyrics that I was listening to made perfect sense…’I walk a lonely road…….’ Nobody in sight till the station arrived. As the station was nearing, I could see around 5 people sleeping next to the closed ticket window. I printed an electronic ticket and was about to enter the platform where one of the security guards prevented me from going in for safety reasons. So, I had to wait staring at the indicator saying 4:00 ST and next to it, the time 2:14.

Instead of staying put, I decided to roam around the place a bit. Outside one of the call centre office, I saw a chaiwala cum omlet-wala. I thought it would be a good idea to converse with him over a cup of tea and omlet. New year has not started on a brighter note for him as most of the BPO employees are on holidays and his business has gone down from 500 cups of tea a night to 50 cups, most customers being mall cleaners. I consolidate him saying his business will prosper soon, not knowing that soon would be too soon!!!

There was a group of around 100 students around my age, walking towards the Vashi station, some of them stopped for having tea. They seemed very friendly; one of them asked me what I was doing alone at this part of the night. He said that they are a group of last year B-com students from Shillong who were on a 3 city trip of Mumbai, Goa and Kolkata and were waiting to go to CST to board the early morning train for Kolkata.

Pretty soon, I found myself talking to many students from the group. They were talking about their trip experiences, the places they saw, the culture difference, the good things the bad things et al. I felt like being a part of the group. I asked them a lot about Manipur, about the North East and they were eagerly telling me about the places to visit, food to eat, ways to travel and lot more. They say Shillong is as safe as Mumbai, if you travel at the right time of the day and that the people considering North-East unsafe is to a great extend untrue.

The topics shifted to songs. After a while, we were singing famous Hindi and English somgs together, out loud. Variety of range from Bryan Adams to Sunidhi Chauhan. It’s 3 in the night, I’m surrounded by 30 unknown people in the wide open space outside Vashi station singing songs and having a good discussion. When does life ever give you such wonderful experience? I had 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, but the songs and the discussion kept me wide awake.

I asked them did you like Mumbai. ‘Fantastic place!’ came the uniform answer. However, they had some minus points as well. They said that people see us as foreigners wherever we go. They are considered more Chinese or Nepali rather than Indian. They are cheated moneywise while paying for the auto fare etc. ‘Why should we be treated as foreigners in our own country’, said one of them. Many of the girls experienced eve-teasing a lot more in Mumbai compared to North-East.

These students were quite different. Normally when you are in a group, you almost never talk to the people outside, but they never made me feel like an outsider, I felt like being one amongst them. They were the people who cared more about the result of confederation cup final between Shillong and Mohun Bagan than Leeds vs United. How quickly time passed and we boarded the first train. On the train, they gave me another reason to visit Shillong. They say they have a student group in their college who arrange jungle trails in Meghalaya. Do visit, it would be the nicest trip of your life, one of them said.

‘One day surely’, I said.

A Happy post for a happy new year!

Ever experienced a feeling of loneliness despite having a cluster of friends around? Friends with whom you have an endless list of topics you can talk about. Friends who you really hope meeting forward to, who are jovial, great people to hang out with, still, somehow the boredom creeps in. Happiness fails to find a place.

Similar story, few years back, I went to see the Taj Mahal. Although I had seen it before, I was very much looking forward to seeing it again. After all, it’s one of the Seven Wonders of the World and who wouldn’t like to visit it? Surprisingly, this time around happiness eluded me. I still say that it’s a magnificent piece of art, no denying the fact, but just that it did not bring me happiness then. Maybe it was the crowded atmosphere, the array of agents lined up for explaining history, hundreds of professional photographers occupying every clickable area, the black soot, the yellow colored marble, I really don’t know what. If this place doesn’t give me happiness, then what will? Something’s sure wrong with me, I kept thinking.

On the same Delhi trip, I visited Akshardham temple. It was then recently build in Delhi and had not become popular yet. I went there with no expectations from the place and had planned to see it in an hour’s time and leave. But once I went inside this beautiful place, never realized how time passed by and ended up spending the entire day in the temple. The place has some of India’s finest architecture and very detailed stone carvings. I was awestruck with the majesty of the place. It certainly brought me happiness, the feeling of joy. I don’t want to compare it with the great Taj Mahal, but just want to say a few things about things that bring us happiness and things that don’t.

• Happiness is not always there where you expect it to be.
• Having the best things around you does not guarantee happiness.
• Happiness doesn’t mean things are in perfect melody.
• If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.
• Happiness depends on me rather than the things around me.

A long time friend accidentally meeting you will bring happiness. A phone call from a person whom you never expect to hear from will bring happiness. A childhood note of yours lying in some old cupboard will bring happiness. Accidentally finding money in your old jeans will bring you happiness. Unexpectedly tuning into your favorite childhood song on the radio will bring happiness.

Don’t keep searching for Happiness, it will come to you anyways! But not in the ways you thought it would…..