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…..