Random Musings

It was sometimes back when I heard a quote saying “Bad Memory can be a good thing”. For all the conventional thinkers the quote might seem unreasonable or unjustifiable for the matter of fact, but to me it appealed a lot. Recall the instances when you had a terrible fight with a loved one of yours or a case when you experienced pain of some sort or recollect the instances when you failed at something and felt the pang of disappointment in your heart. Well, I reckon not many would choose to remember all that. On the contrary, the adversaries of my expositions would argue that in reality those are the instances when we as humans learn the real lessons preparing ourselves for the hardships of this so called journey of life; without any questions I agree with them too. Memories are indeed an effective catalyst, having the power to alter ones behavior at the blink of an eye.

But what if you get a chance to erase some memories or say people from your memories?? Indeed, a far-fetched idea!! It was last night when I happened to watch a strange movie with a concept, so alien, that provoked me to come up with this blog. “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind”, the name of the movie with a plot wherein the protagonist, in order to free herself from the bonding of the sour relationship with her beau ends up erasing the person from her memory with the help of some advanced medical technology. The beau on facing the harsh reality goes on to do the same, until he realizes in his dreams what actually he was doing was nothing but foolishness. “Impulsive” is the word that defined the action of two characters. Though in any case the concept of the movie moved me to an extent to question myself “Would I really like to delete few memories from my brain??” and the answer that came out was a loud “NO”. Memories are, undoubtedly, the single most effective source of motivation for me. Remembering a certain someone trying to squeeze lemon over sliced onions is enough to bring a bright smile to my face.

But what if such an advanced medical technology really comes into being?? Would it really help people solve relationship problems, just as it was projected in the movie?? Won’t the action be called an act of intentional brain damage?? Wouldn’t deleting the harsh times undermine the sweetness of the sweetest memories?? The questions are just as fanciful as the whole concept is, nevertheless, it is worth questioning yourself “Would I really like to delete few memories from my brain??” Just ponder over it.

Memories, good or bad, are indeed powerful, so just cherish them always!!

P.S. - Happy Valentine’s Day To All of You !!

P.P.S. –To my friend with so called “Chinese Origin” A Very Happy Chinese New Year to You !!

Eccentric

I wonder sometimes what have I made of myself, a distraught writer blabbering every now and then or an enthusiastic gamer whining every time on losing a FIFA match or a cynical urchin dabbling aimlessly in search of an aim or a worthy opponent defeating his inner-self each and every day of his erratic life or an anxious Romeo who is missing his Juliet a lot. “Eccentric” is the word that sums up all those aforementioned avatars. Entropy of a system always increases, that’s what I was taught a few years back, but this sudden surge of entropy in my system seems to have taken me aback. I am propelling myself forward with every possible force, searching for some motivation from everything and everyone around me, sometimes smiling smugly at the glories of the past, often admiring the beautiful uncertainty of the present and more often cursing the unpredictability of the future.

I remember in my first year at IIT-R a certain Miss. Bubbly from the Humanities Department came to our class. We were shouting and behaving like raging bulls. She quietly stayed there in the middle beaming with an undecipherable look of satisfaction covering her face as if that was the thing that she expected from us. After few random questions she said “I wish you all be the same person, just as you are today, 4yrs from now...the energy, the ebullience, the shouting...never lose it....what I have experienced from my interaction with the 4th yearites is the fact that they get so much involved in their jobs, studies, girlfriends, politics etc that they tend to lose their sheen, energy and the ebullience....So just keep them intact.” Today, I reckon Miss. Bubbly was damn true and her advice as valuable as twenty four carats of gold.

But the million dollar question still remains what exactly is driving me to have such introspections?? Why am I peeping into the past to deal with the questions of the present??Am I really missing something in my life?? Is The Raconteur losing his sheen??

Well, no need to answer all that, I already said “Eccentric” is what sums it all !!

A Word on This, That and the Other

Ahh

A blog at last. A moment to pause. Relax a bit. Smell the roses. Hear the birds chirping. Watch the water dripping. Listen the trees rustling. Take a deep breath or a two perhaps and enjoy the lovely sunshine after weeks of hazy days and chilly nights. Reflect on not the Good, Bad and the Ugly incidents of the recent times but about this, that and the other. It’s really hard for me to even explain myself the reason for the longest hiatus, 120 days to be precise, that has plagued my blogging history. But never mind, I am writing something and that’s reason enough for me to be happy.

My final semester at IIT-Roorkee and perhaps the coolest of all. Minimum lectures and Maximum fun (conditions apply!!). Almost two months of placement season is over and that has left me in a position to brag about my present status of being among the chosen few who are still unemployed amidst the crowd of employed. It has also endowed me with a special status of being the “unlucky guy” or the “job hunter” who having faced 8 interviews in all (the sources say insti highest is 9), in addition to the much talked about higher-studies-hoopla of 5 companies, hasn’t been placed yet. But for me it’s been a nice experience till date for some valid reasons. To state few I have fully utilized the cost as well the display potential of my dashing suit, I always have had a story to tell after each of my interview, I have perfected the ways in which one can screw himself which in other words alludes to the fact that I have learned about my mistakes and perhaps that has been a worthwhile lesson for me. I sincerely hope of not becoming a living legend carrying the beacon of mediocrity, for all my junior counterparts, who got his name embossed in the record books for having screwed himself the maximum number of times before actually getting placed.

Reflecting on other things I have found that I have been reading a lot these days, thanks to the flexible time- table which bestows me with 4 days of freedom every week and also to the sorry state of the internet connection in my hostel. Lately, I have also been watching number of series, xo xo the Gossip Girl being the latest in the list which also includes my all time favourite How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. But after much said and done one thing that’s really annoying about this newly attained freedom of 4 days a week is the emptiness that it has added to my routine. Sometimes I just sit back in my cubicle with random melange of thoughts, good as well as bad, worthy as well as worthless, growing and bursting like the tiny bubbles of water after a torrential downpour. I end up assuring myself that things will be fine in times of come, the bad will transform in to good, the good will take the shape of better and the better would surely turn up to be the best. I think that’s what optimism is all about.

Just to end I would say that though the final semester has brought with it the freedom that I have been looking for since ages and I am also relishing it a lot but what I really want is a feeling of being liberated from my very core, something that would last forever and ever.

P.S.- Sorry for sounding so melodramatic in the end but that's how my mood has been for the past few days.

Desolate, Dejected But Determined

The three D's , that make up the title of this post, precisely sum up the situation in which I am. Mid-semester breaks are on and instead of going back home yours truly decided, for the very first time, to stay back here in the R-Land. Though it's just the beginning of an eight-day long break but I have already started to despise the ambiance which I have been subjected to in the first couple of days. The corridors which are always lively and resonant with the shouts of ebullient souls are in a deserted state, giving me a feeling of numbness as I walk through them. The roads which are always busy and beaming with students and vehicles are empty. The street dogs are having a party every night in the hostel corridors, evident every morning from the rampaged state of the waste-collectors placed at the very end of the corridors, growling ferociously every night to express their joys.

There are no people around except for the few noble haddu-matkas who have stayed here and are giving me a silent company on this marooned island. I have plenty of time to eat, to drink, to sing, to dance, to watch movies, to litter around, to study, to surf, to blog and to sleep. But even after having so many options at my disposal yours truly decided to spend his plentiful time on sleeping, CATing, GREying my brain cells, and watching few movies and probably that has led to the second D i.e. Dejection.

The mock tests that I gave have served the only purpose of making me feel nugatory, all my endeavors as a mere chaff, and sometimes aggravating me to an extent that I literally shout on myself. But even after so much of dejection, somewhere I see a glimmer of hope, and perhaps that keeps me going, and with every passing day I become more and more determined to give my best, for that's the only thing that I can strive for, the rest is certainly beyond my reach.

Well, someone has rightly said that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Though I don't reckon my state as the darkest one but I am eagerly awaiting a lively and a much brighter dawn.

A Moron's Account...

It's really been a long hiatus since I last updated this space with the good, bad and the ugly incidents of my cherished life. The only person to blame for this ghastly act of procrastination is none other but yours truly himself, not to mention his characteristic laziness and his comfort loving bum, which has always been a topic of heated discussion amongst all his well-wishers. So as an effort to atone for my sins of not updating this blog for as many as 52 days, I hereby proclaim to come up with as many as 3 blogs by the end of this month, of course, with the tacit assumption that the current blog is the first of that blogotrilogy. But, after all said and done, the actual reason behind this act of expiation is the fact that I want to keep my crank shafts moving, I want my medulla oblongata to feed my cereberum and cerebellum in the same way as it did a few years back, for I feel, perhaps the time is apt when I need to be on the tip of my toes, amidst the constant flux of events, and writing, according to yours truly, is the best way to expunge oneself of the mental constipation and a veritable mean to stay in touch with the world around. In short, writing keeps one going. So for all those aforementioned reasons I finally resort to this often so neglected activity to keep myself occupied and active in every sense.

Now as I was recollecting the incidents of past few months, I certainly found out a few that have been legen. ..........wait for it..............dary in some regard and that surely deserve a special mention. So here's a list of them-

1) Master Federer Losing in the U.S. Open finals- Now this particular incident was really heartbreaking for me. Considering the magnitude of effort that I put in to arrange for the keys of the TV room to watch this particular match, expecting Master Federer to beat the lanky Argentine, what I actually got in return was nothing but disappointment. But hats-off to Del Potro, no doubts on his credibility as the Champion. He played some of the biggest forehands that I had ever seen.

2) My Jaunts to the Central Library- If I had to mention one significant development that occurred this semester, then , undoubtedly, it has to be this one. For the first three years of my stay here in IIT-R, if I recount the number of times that I visited the Central Library, the resulting figure would barely end up being a double-digit (the data is excluding the usual TBLS that we have every semester) , but that was until this semester started, and my jaunts to the Central Library has become so frequent that it is a matter of utter consternation for yours truly only.

3) Professor A.K. Jain- If the students of Civil Engineering Department, IIT-Roorkee were asked to name the person who they would never forget till the last day of their life and that too till their last breathe, indubitably, it would be none other but Prof. AKJ. His fear coefficient is tantamount to the effect created by an AK-47, the entire batch of students is terrorized by his sheer presence and clearing his course is no less but an achievement that would endue each and every student with a feeling of ineffable satisfaction and happiness.

4) GREy Day and CAT- After months of dallying I finally chose 9th november as a suitable day for my GRE exam. While the preparations for the GREy day are on, the wily and the crafty CAT also, finally, got out of the bag and 29th Nov. is when I've decided to bell the CAT.

5) Munshi and His Chocolates- After completing his internship in Italy, Munshi was back, and not just back but back with bags full of Chocolates and Wine. From dark chocolates, with 50% cocoa to 99% cocoa, to liquor chocolates, I tasted them all, not to mention a spoon-full of red wine also became a part of my Chocolate fantasy.

So these were the five worth-mentioning-events that more or less sum up what actually I have been upto for the past couple of months, which were otherwise replete with prosaic, monotonous and sundry stuffs. Champion's Trophy is on and I am expecting Team India to do well, especially the Little Man. I wish the Little Man gives his usual best.

All The Very Best to the Men In Blues !!

Adios !

To Dalu- "My Sweet Little Sis"

The sweet little angel is finally all set,

All set to spread her wings in the infinite space ,

All set to take a flight which would be the most defining for her,

I just wish God be with her,

For I am always behind her,

Through the thickest and thinnest of times,

Complementing each other like the Humpty-Dumpty duo does every time.

I just wish God bestows her with the Strength of Titanium,

Determination of the Mt. Everest, Calmness of the Pacific Ocean,

and the steadiness of a cool zephyr.

I just wish she learns to have faith in her own ideas,

even if everyone tells her they are wrong....

I wish her to be gentle with gentle people,

and Tough with the tough,

Have sublime faith in herself and do whatever she feels is right,

scoffing of at the cynics.

I wish she learns to be happy even in tough times,

laugh even when she is sad,

For the ultimate pursuit of life is happiness.

I know she would understand everything I have said,

For she listens to me with both ears spread,

You see so sweet is this Little Sister of mine,

My sweet little “Dumpty”,

All the very best to you from your very own “Humpty”.

The Final Frontier

With the 6^th semester ending I can most certainly declare that yes I have finally reached the last rung of the engineering ladder, my final year at IIT-Roorkee. The thought of being the senior-most in the college not only fills one with a feeling of joy and engenders a strange feeling wherein one wants to be away from the daily humdrum of life with solace being the best companion, but also reminds one of the plethora of responsibilities and the hopes that he/she carries on his shoulders. As far as I am concerned I am happy to reach the last rung but it’s hard to describe the random melange of feelings and thoughts that swirls inside this tiny brain of mine on reaching this epoch. On one hand it’s a sense of achievement of reaching this stage without any hiccups, while on the other it’s a feeling of regret for not being able to achieve few things that I always wanted to. It’s a feeling of having learned so much in the last three years while on the other hand there is a feeling of having not learned everything in the last three years, it’s a feeling of treading along on the right path, the one that I have chosen for myself while on the other hand it’s a feeling of drifting away from things that are dearest-est-est to me while treading along the chosen path.

Perhaps as I dive in the depths of time and reminisce the colourful series of events that have transformed the previous three years as the best years of my life, period when I learned a lot as well as was spurned a lot, period that metamorphosed  me to a completely different person, I just wish that the fourth and the final year carries with it the same vibrant colours infusing in me the same amount of energy and perhaps bring the perfect ending to the delightful  odyssey which started four years ago. As far as my plans for the final year are concerned there are plenty of them, from doing well in academics, visiting some new places, doing well in numerous exams in which I appear next year to blogging more frequently, coming up with a new cartoon blog, proving my mettle in Chaos (in FIFA) next year, getting a good placement and lastly having that much awaited dinner which has always been in my list of cherished desires.

As I finally sign off and leave for my home sweet home in a couple of minutes allowing the curtains to fall on the most awesome, no wait,  legen.........wait for it......... dary three years, I’ll just join my hands, close my eyes and pray god for his blessings, for the year(s) going to come would be the most defining year of my life, one that would shape my future in every possible way. May Time be with me !!

Adios !