Friends

I liked A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini quite a bit, at time a bit less than Kite Runner but at times even more. Although the book is more about hypocrisy of men, their MCP and treacherous ways, some thing sweet about men too did catch my eye.

“Laila learned that boys differed from girls in this(friendship) regard. They didn’t make a show of friendship. They felt no urge, no need for(show of) ……. Boys Laila came to see treated friendship the way they treated the sun. Its existence undisputed, its radiance best enjoyed not beheld directly.”

This is definitely a tribute to all those sun like friends around who bring about all the light in our life and are really unobtrusive about it. They play along celebrating our success, laughing at failures, showing us the lighter side of even the most terrible events and often adding a new colorful perspective to life. When they are far and out of sight they may remain out of mind too. But when we meet, we find to our own pleasure that there is no love lost.

We need no miss-you card
Nor we need any sweet word
For all the decades since we met
Just a big warm bear hug
And a kick on the butt is all we need
To gets life started from where it left.

Nostalgia - Too much

This post is based on a comment from my office friend AS on the post Nostalgia.

“If you extremely wish to re-live the past then you are not doing enough to love the present”

Well I agree with him a happy smile on the face as you recollect past is fine and healthy. If you find yourself longing excessively for the past and remembering the past brings in a huge sense of loss then definitely you have lost you soul somewhere after that past. Looking back 10 years on from now you will have nothing to remember this day.

It is true we should live in the present. Move on in life, make new friends, try new things, and learn. After all it is important to forget too.

The Cool and The Careless

This post is born from a discussion with a friend about movie Jab We Met and about being “cool”. The movie was quite philosophical is a really non-preachy way. The leading lady is running away from home to marry her love and to escape from the arranged marriage with a childhood friend for whom she has no sentiments now. And the hero a very mature and serious guy who is a guest at ladies house has to accompany her.

The hero (the kind of practical guy he is) is shocked and advices her to think before doing such a stupid and risky thing and asks to be a bit serious about life. And girl with all her cool attitude talks about the importance of thinking less. Afterall problems even happen to people who are serious about life she reasons. This movie has been a catalyst for mushrooming of a few Jab We Met motivated cool young guys and girls around.

I believe there is a very fine line between a real cool one and a careless looser.

Majority of the cool guys I see are plain careless looser acting to be cool. Most of these so called cool people thrive on running away from or ignoring anything even remotely looking like a problem. Neither do they have an aim nor do they take up any responsibility. The emptiness inside them is often packaged in attractive covers, garnished with 3 table spoon of smile, a table spoon of luck, a pinch of sense of humor and traces of attitude.

But then I have also had the fortune of being with some real cool ones, chronic optimists, with a huge attitude and surprising confidence to take any problem at hand with right sense of humor.

Talking about problems and challenges in life, I feel all of us share one boon with King Bali. King Bali in epic Ramayana had this cool boon that any enemy he fights looses half of his strength which gets added to Bali’s own. So the stronger the enemy the stronger he gets. In the same way bigger the challenge we face, out comes the best within us.

Traffic

Traffic was getting stuck early in the morning. An autoriksha driver had stopped in the middle of the road for some unknown reason. Behind him the white and blue BMTC city bus driver was trying to squeeze in through some imaginary space between the auto and the median but realized the futility and started honking. All this was at a T junction was not helping the matters. The Toyota quails call-center cab driver who wanted to turn right on to main road from the cross road had to stop. With him the traffic in other direction too came to a standstill. And in between all this there were motorbikes trying to squeeze through. Together they had made up a huge zigzag pile of vehicles on the road. Vehicles of all sizes, from Bikes to Buses were stopped at various angles forming unimaginable patterns. Bangalore was having its usual traffic snarls on an unusually warm Monday morning.

He was out of his house early in the morning. His wife had got his clean, crisp starched white dress ready. He had to drop his grand daughter at nearby primary school. The little flower school was at walkable distance. He did not have to worry about traffic today. But the traffic block was making him uneasy, he shouted out to the auto driver to move to the side. The auto driver gave him an indifferent look but still moved on. This irreverence from common auto drivers was new to him. The lack of prompt reaction from the driver irritated him. With a brief instruction not to move, he left his grand daughter on the footpath and moved in to stop the traffic coming into the main road from the cross road. Slowly the traffic on the main road started moving. He could see his grand daughter worried look, urging grandfather to move on. After all it was no more his duty. The change from the traffic cops white shirt to a retired man’s white shirt was too big. Even well anticipated and planned change is a change after all. The first day of his retired life after a long stint as a traffic cop was feeling stranger than he had expected.

With in a few minutes the traffic flow was back to normal. He felt a sense of satisfaction. With an inconspicuous smile on his face he continued his walk to the school with the kid in tow. As he passed by the nearby local fast food center he saw the duty traffic cop having Rava dosa and tea. It was the traffic cop's daily quota of free breakfast turning a blind eye on parking violations by hotels patrons.

Horror has a neW address

I was walking into PVR to watch new Madhavan movie13B. I went to the PVR directly from gym and had my sneakers and gym dress in the bag. Thanks to all the terrorists you can’t walk into any decent place with a bag and without some stranger peeking into it.

So at PVR too we had this nice gentleman, who happily opened my bag poked probingly at the shoes and the dress. And then he looked amused

“Sir aap gym jaate hai” (Sir do you go to gym)

“Yes” (being a “busy” IT engineer I was quite proud of that feat)

“Dekhke to nahi lagtha” (Looking at you I don’t feel so.!!!!)

“What the f*** #@#%@@~!!!” (in my mind)

Well I should say the tag line of the movie 13B came true “horror has a new address”

Also I have really encouraging friends. After seeing my blog a friend forwarded a really encouraging quote to me.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self : Cyril Connolly

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be

I always liked stories. I always looked for stories in my life and in life around me. And I am a big fan of nostalgia.

When friends meet up the best moments are when we browse through the chapters of our memory and there is a flow of funny and interesting stories. Often with a sweet surpise we realize there was more to the stories than what we knew. Many of these moments were probably not so funny then. It is sad to feel that we would have already forgotten a lot of those funny or sadistically funny things about life.

It is fascinating to know how much this world has changed. Not those big changes that become history, but small changes that go unnoticed. I loved the old time stories my dad and mom told me as a kid. I liked the old time stories my brother told me. Then in school and college I liked the stories that seniors told me. It is sad that as our worn out brain forgets or even worse when old bones go to the graveyard we loose all those stories and memories.

And so I liked the very idea of a site for Nostalgia. Actually it’s a site on the way things were. It is fun. Check it out.

Link: The Way Things Where

It would be greater fun if we could make up some kind of a book or a website about all those fun moments from school and college and life there after that I could read and enjoy.

I also like the comment that came along “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be”

loVe In the Time of Recession

It was the second time that I had the chance to read “loVe in the time of Cholera”. First time few years back, I rejected the book because of the name. I felt it had nothing for me. Then this time my room mate brought it. After hearing the abstract of this book after he had read it, both of us wondered how important Cholera was in this book. But after completing I am convinced Cholera is really important part of the story. So some of my favorite lines.

But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.

“The only disease my son ever had was cholera” She had confused cholera with love.

Few more

One night she came back from her daily walk stunned by the revelation that one could be happy not only without love, but despite it.

His professor of children’s clinical medicine had recommended pediatrics as the most honest specialization, because children became sick only when in fact they are sick, and they cannot communicate with the physicians using conventional words but only with concrete symptoms of real disease. After a certain age, however, adults either had the symptoms without the disease or, what was worse, serious diseases with the symptoms of minor one.

Amazing advice on accepting love proposal.

“Tell him yes” she said. “Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.”

At last at least one on real love

Only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love

Next on my to read list is “hundred years of solitude” :D

An Old Beggar

I was coming out of the restaurant after my meal. I could see the regular old beggar sitting on the foot path in front of the restaurant. Exit of the restaurants should be the second most lucrative location for begging. After god in the heart (or mind) it is food in stomach that makes people dig into their purse and part with well earned money.

There is also something about old people begging on Bangalore streets. These old and wrinkled faces, brought closer to earth by the hunch gifted by old age, having difficulty to move their arthritic joints do strike our conscience. They evoke more sympathy in Bangalore than in Kerala, as we see them shivering in Bangalore’s colder climate, often the worn out blankets not providing enough warmth.

I saw him from a distance as I was walking down the steps of the second floor restaurant. Hands instinctively checked both the back pockets of the blue jeans which were my usual storehouse of change. They were empty. With no change on me, I took a route farthest possible from him, making an effort to avoid any eye contact and started walking away. Suddenly he called out to me in English and that too in an accent that would put to shame any average Indian government employee “Hey man, I am a beggar, I need your help, Please give me something and go.” I looked back shocked and he gave me the final blow with his warm toothless pleasant smile.

Quite a marketing gimmick I should agree. He managed to extract from me the most lavish donation I ever gave a beggar.

Pic: From some forwarded mail :)