Moments and beads

We never hold the moments as they pass by. At the end of a year we somehow walk on the same path to pick up the moments like beads we carelessly dropped. A year is too long a time. Some beads get lost in lanes of the mind. The beads we carved beautifully.  The beads we thought were exclusive and we felt that we were privileged to have. Beads from different locations, with different people, different emotions- Pride. Joy. Satisfaction. Relief. Pleasure. Peace. Tension. Frustration. There are also some beads we carefully hid to prevent us from stepping on them and then slipping back to the times, to the thoughts we had when we first encountered them.

Each bead like a tiny moment of joy or sadness, a simple moment to hold in you hands, a moment that can slip through the grip of your mind. We silently contemplate on the final days of the year. We pick up these memory beads and string them together. We collectively talk about our year being good or bad but we rarely recollect each moment as a separate entity a separate bead. We get so fixated on the thought of adding one new number in the date and it makes us mentally ready to plan changes and resolutions. We forget the laws of nature and hanker after things to change overnight just because of a change of date. We forget that there is nothing like a new year. All that is new is just our thought. A new addition in the date boosts our confidence. We decide that we can suddenly take up challenges and actually do all the things we planned to do but never did. We forget that again in a week or two… this newness will wear out.

We need to shift our focus from the dates. We need to look through the lens of time as a string of these beads. We should work to make each bead a Beautiful. Memorable. Delightful. Prideful. Moment.  We should understand that our newness lies in the ability to pick up these beads. Ensure continuum. Understand our capability to start afresh any moment. Just like simple act of choosing beads. Dropping the unwanted ones and picking up the ones that catch our fancy. Our ability to define and redefine our lives just by holding each moment like a bead and not waiting for the end of year to string them together from lost lanes of the mind.

P.S: The idea for this post came while I was reading Susan's post on New Year. Well, she has a beautiful blog in case you want to take a look at what she writes about.. go ahead and you will be amazed by the brilliance and simplicity of her thoughts.

55 Fiction #6 The Gift

Tiny little goose bumps spurted up on her arms. She sneaked out of her bed. Her heart sang the merry tunes. She crawled behind the tree and peeked through the dim lights. The smell of baked cake distracted her and she missed it. Her tiny hands gripped a beautifully wrapped present. Dreams do come true. 

55 Fiction #5 Again

She suddenly felt the wind brush against her skin. Tiny little goose bumps spurting up on her arms. An inaudible noise played in her ear. Maybe it was that Chirstmas effect. She felt a tiny elf running in her throat with his pointy shoes. Her nose blocked and her smile faded. Achoo. . cold again!!

Change

Out the most frequently used English words - change would definitely clinch a decent top ranking. All we have learn't about change is being open to change. Being adaptive. Not being stuck in a rut. I understand being paralyzed by same things, same situations and thoughts is bad. It is. But what if you are the kind that cannot succumb to regularity? If change is all you could do? Some people would term it as reckless, random and strange or plain lack of will when we fail to do certain things repeatedly. Some say we should have a little determination to hold on to things for a while.

But what if change calls to you. Change like a wave lures you to stand in that beach on the shore. Each wave of change adding a little more to your life. Each wave of change washing over your feet and leaving you little different.You feel the sand slipping and making a new ground with each passing wave. You suddenly realize you are no more standing on the same sand. Sometimes change becomes a wave that meets resistance and it splashes and erupts against the rocks. But what if it leaves a tingling funny feeling like a wave-froth on your feet that makes you smile? And what if you can't resist standing in that beach, looking at each wave and anticipating what it would feel like to float away with it?

What if you just keep losing interest in a place, in a person and anything you like? Too quickly. Unknowingly. Without pain. Without Guilt. And what if you are the kind who changes at an unacceptable pace?

Flashdrives of flashbacks

Memory is a very strange thing. At times we are delighted to be reminded of something in our past and at times it leaves us unpleasant. But what is thrilling is how we store this memory. I am not talking about pictures, photographs or videos here. Those are unreal, without feeling, without emotion and they are not lasting no matter how hard you try to preserve them. I am talking about those tiny little memories packed up in some senses. Few days back a chocolate ice-cream with mint sauce took me back to the day I licked out choco-mint creme from a biscuit. I was 10 maybe. I had comfortably forgotten it. But that day the smile didn't leave my face. I was so happy to have reconnected with a tiny insignificant part of my childhood. Similarly today a spoonful of milk powder melted on my tongue and I gleed with joy and felt like a child. What amazes me is not the memory. It is the way I remember it. Now if I think hard I can actually remember particular scents. A favorite teacher's saree. Or the smell of my mom's cupboard when I could comfortably hide there and be untraced when we played hide and seek.  A unique voice. A funny manner in which someone walked. The way someone gestured. The way someone smiled. A similar sight, taste, sound , smell and touch can unlock a whole new world from our past. Lot of it stored unconsciously. Insignificant things surfacing in the present but bringing back the same old feelings effortlessly and unknowingly. It is a pure delight. Most of these memories are not connected with joy or sadness. There are just those grey areas you never make an effort to remember for years. No value as such. But its sudden recollection that slips through some sensory detection- marvellous and miraculous. So if we actually understand this brilliance our flashbacks are stored in the flashdrives called senses.

55 Fiction #4: Story of our lives!

Her hands locked in a reassuring embrace. Her thoughts chained to a lost world. Eyes, staring into nothing but still seeing. A warm smile across her lips. Her heart like a marshmallow dipped in chocolate. She looked around and sighed. All good men-married, gay or untraceable. Falling in love- very easy. Finding a guy- never.

Spillage

Emotion is the best thing that happened to humans. It is marvellous how we can sense, read and understand the emotions of every person we see. We need not know them personally. We need not be close to them. Still we would know. The most beautiful aspect of it when these emotions spill. Have you ever caught a glimpse of someone you didn't know but you can tell is very happy, someone who silently wiped tears in the public but it just caught your eye. Someone you didn't know. Did it tug your heart pull a string or two? Did you smile when you saw them being ecstatic? Did you worry a bit when you saw someone cry or feel sad? Was there a moment when someone stood up for themselves and it inspired you to do the same? Were there moments when someone was very generous and you in turn were generous to them? Someone picked up a fight with you when you never intended to and then you fought?You didn't know them but their emotion rubbed onto you. Happiness and sadness are the highest and most common forms of expressing emotion. See little deeper and you find a million shades.There are more emotions than we are capable of expressing in words.  I don't know how that works. I'd like to understand them us colours. Each colour a emotion. Like no colour can be good or bad. No emotion can be good or bad. Each emotion just a different shade.At times you like a colour at times you don't. Same is with emotion. And these colours the emotions. They leave back their shade on every interaction. The colour of emotion rubs onto everyone we see. In turn their emotions are being rubbed onto us. When a beggar tries to gain your sympathy and becomes successful at it. He is just using this aspect of emotion. He displays self pity and it rubs off onto you. You feel sad for him. You give him what he asks for. This is just one example. There are countless others. Look around you many more examples. Even every one sided love story that ended in triumph. One's emotion spilled onto the other. You might argue it is not always true. It is true. The thing you call as negative emotion. An unwanted emotion. I'd say. Is still an outcome of someone's thoughts along with our own giving a shade of emotion that pains us and others. We have these wavelengths of colours we can accept. You have the power to choose these wavelengths. You can identify a colour you do not wish to be rubbed on to you and move away from it. You can. But never underestimate the power of this spillage. If you remain in vicinity of those colours (emotions) it will spill onto you, You can't help it.  Thats how it is. The only power you have is to choose the wavelength of colours. People who can keep spilling these emotions. The emotions you want. The emotions of the colour in your acceptable wavelength. Someone very rightly said -Life is a canvas and you have to throw all the paint you have got on it. I'd say. Make it a brilliant spillage of all the colours you love. A spectacular mix of emotions you desire.

Colour spill

There was a white. It was clam. It dashed into a red on its way. Now it had a reddish tinge. Its balance now, little skewed. It saw another white it lost the tinge and became white again. The red that dashed into that white found some change. It could now suddenly control its rage. This red further met a green. A sense of clam sprouted from within. The white then met a cheerful orange. The orange splashed its colour and white so clam gleed with joy. The white now with an orangish cheer and the yellow met the purple. They all threw colours and then a happy new colour smeared all over them. Just then this party had gloomy entry. Entered the blacks,reds,the depressing greys and the whiny blues. The bright happy colours now reduced to lighter shades. They could do nothing but take them in. Because colour like emotion always spill. These happy colours now  shuddered that their smiles would be lost in this gloom. One brave happy splashed a drop of colour on them. The gloomy couldn't help but desire that cheer. All the happy spread their brightness, laughter and the gloomy, depressed, whiny and  red lost its colour. The happy party now had new members all a shade lighter but still shades of joy. Now that is what is colour. The colour of emotion. There will be blacks, reds, depressing greys and whiney blues. They all will effect us. They definitely will.No. We have nothing that we can choose. The only solution is to have a very bright shade of joy and cheer. A sense of balance a white base. A groups of loved ones who can keep spilling these colours and the gloomy shades will get lost is this splatter.

55 Fiction #3: He Quit

He was shocked. Marlboro. That was his choice too. He was reminded of the day when he too was around sixteen. His first puff meant a sign of being a man. He smiled with a tinge of sadness. Tears poured as he pictured his teenage son smoke. A little too late but, finally, he quit.

Unsighted

We all have a image of people we meet, see and talk to. The parameters of judgement different for each one of us. What we fail to register is the hidden qualities of individuals which like an illusion shows us a image and challenges us to discover the hidden side.

Last evening I was sitting in the crowd watching different individuals dance, sing and perform.It suddenly hit me. There is a lot more to a person than what we understand them to be. I personally feel there is nothing like a woman who can dance and a man who can sing.There is nothing like a person being able to hold the crowd in awe with what he or she can do. Nothing. But once the situation changes the value of the talent diminishes. It is more or less like a stock market value. At different times we are valued differently. For someone who has invested in us feels proud and happy and someone who hasn't aches for our company. Just like with newly signed deals and progress and new information the stock value gets altered.  Uncovering of some information. A little more knowledge about a person.Changes our perception. We see them in a altogether different light. But this light fades over the time or at times get so strongly associated that it blinds the other person of all the remaining appreciable or inappreciable qualities.

While some of us drum beat our talents- some keep it hidden. Some are so exclusive of their audience that most of us will never really understand what the other person is capable of.  I sometimes laugh out loud when people say- "I know him/her/you" . The truth is we never know. Never. Like the stock market can put a Satyam in high charts just before its fall. The human stock value (as I call it) can be tricked to be high. Or it can be tricked to be low.  We are under the misapprehension that someone's mind, someone's nature, is something real and enduring.Something we can fully understand. Only when we sit straight and look into that person , does it become clear that  we haven't looked enough. We are just not capable of that somehow. 

They say we have a blind spot and we cannot see everything with our eyes. I'd say our eyes are incapable of seeing anything at all. Forever we will continue to remain unsighted because anything worth seeing has to be seen with a mind, a perception, a emotion, a experience, at different dimensions and with understanding.

The battle

I stepped into a unknown territory today. I knew there was no escape but to face it. So be it. Before resorting to the final option of walking there alone. I dropped many hints to my friends who are very comfortable in this area foreign to me. But they all smiled and stepped aside. I understood it was a now or never situation. I had to fight this battle alone.

Honestly, I was shit scared when I opened the door. Having never visited such place alone. I found everybody and everything intimidating. I communicated my requirements. A girl who seemed more interested in chewing her (spearmint flavour?) gum than what I had to say nodded her head. I found this creepy. Finally I was made to sit in a chair on which I was made to lay back to such a degree that I thought I'd fall back. I was made to close my eyes and immense pain burned around my eyebrows and above my lip. I heard someone ask -"everything fine?" With one eye overflowing with tears and the other shut tight I guessed it was the same girl - monster -I could smell mint.

This was still a pain known to me. What followed was unexpected. My face was immersed in a steam outlet. I could only hear and feel high degree water boiling on my lap. A small miscalculation or error could burn my face. I am in a enemy territory- unknown territory. It was confirmed. A few slaps on face with something I couldn't see or smell but just feel on my skin. When the pair of hands left my face the slimy paste that was put on my face weighed 8 times the skin beneath it. I could barely breath. Just when I figured out a way to breath normally a needle like thing poked the tip of my nose, the ridges, edges and every little contour of the features on my face were attacked with an unknown weapon. Tears rushed through my eyes as I silently wept and thought- it was a mistake to come here in the first place. A cold liquid like clay touched my forehead and before I knew covered my entire face. I was just about to open my eye when that opening was also sealed with something too heavy for my eyelid to lift. Fifteen minutes later I found the clay like thing hardening around my face suffocating me. I had never felt so trapped and helpless. I tried to get up and get the hell out of that place. But a pair of hands forced my shoulders back to a dangerous angle reaching which I could rest my back.

I was left alone- as if sealed in a enclosed cabin with its walls inching in and digging on to my facial skin with every passing minute. I raised my hands in moments of despair.  My eyes still closed, my back at a angle that made it impossible to move. I gathered no attention I guess. Nobody came to my rescue. Long after I gave up and sulked behind the hardening clay thing dreaming about open fields I smelled the mint gum monster. A slight tap on my cheek as if of to check if there was anymore room for the clay to dig into my skin. The mint gum smell faded and I was forced to dream again for ten more minutes. After the torturous ten minutes like a sudden rescue for the home army water hit my face and cleared off all the clay like thing. I could suddenly breath normal again.

A exchange of few words with the mint gum monster and a reflection of my clear face made me realize the mint gum creature was an angel. I paid for my freedom. As I pushed the door I walked out from a territory not unknown anymore but conquered.

This was my successful visit to a beauty parlor alone. A good accomplishment for the tomboy I have been all my life.. till now.

55 Fiction #2: Untaught

Her eyes looked around for a hint of affection. A pair of eyes to acknowledge her presence.  What pained her more was how comfortably everybody moved on and how they believed that she also should? Tears rolled down her eyes. He taught her everything but, never prepared her for this- losing a husband at sixty.

The fabric

Slowly. Unknowingly. We reach a point where we clearly know what makes us happy what doesn't. What we like what we don't. Who annoys us. Who makes us happy. Who is appreciable who is not. Ninety percent of our daily activities are figured out. Solved. Why is that people say life is unpredictable when we are always learning and unlearning? They say that because of these moments.

Those moments that are fickle. The moments when emotions fail to register. Feelings suspend. You simply don't know. Your memory cannot relate to what is in front of you and what you think you had figured out. You think you will be too happy but you try very hard to pass a simple smile. You surmise you will be hurt but you remain strong. You cannot figure out the fabric of behaviour and feelings you very carefully wove through millions of interactions you have had with the world. That fabric in which each thread is touched and felt by you. The colour of emotions, the set of reactions -everything defined by you. Now. Suddenly. You don't know. You pause for a while and peel the layers of emotions you experience. You keep seeing a different shade each time. Different. It is illusionary and  enigmatic. You cannot stop.You have to continue. Each shade is marvelous. If you peel a layer of happiness there is grief. Beneath love there is pain. Everything beautifully hidden. You may peel off the layers and stop at what you think is what you want to feel. There is no end. There really isn't. 

What is even more gripping is the amalgamation of our surroundings. Just like a fabric fades in the scorching heat and might burn a thread or two. Our fabric of emotion gets affected. It fades. It gets torn. It has patches of different cloths. It has nothing of its own. The emotions are adopted by our surroundings.The thing that makes this adoption exciting is- the choice. The choice of surrounding. You may choose to dye your fabric in the darkness of envy or self pity or pain. Or you may venture out into a unknown colour. 

The trick is to keep conditioning that fabric of emotion. Fully realizing  the power of its dynamics. Understanding that it is too complex to be fully understood. But, too simple to manage. Just a fabric, that we weave. The fabric which is palpable just in those fickle moments.

Lights

The energy is little different this time. Unlike last year we are little bothered about how we decorate home this Diwali. In our campus such is our reputation that people look forward to our Diwali decorations. Thanks to my sister's amazing art works. But this year, we have a bigger occasion. After two years of my parents and sister taking different sides on the whole marriage issue. My sister wanting more time to be single and my parents frantic about all the good grooms being taken away [:P Indian family dramas]  They have found a common ground in my Jiju. So.. with the wedding dates set to November 18th. Cards distributed. Dresses stitched. Sarees packed. Jewelery made. With a engagement ring adoring my sister's finger. My mom's dynamic trio (her brothers) helping with the arrangements. All relatives waiting for the first marriage of this generation. The eldest grand daughter from both the paternal and maternal connections.The hour long STD and ISD calls with elders in the family.  A few cousins expecting to get hitched at the wedding get together where a pool of eligible singles are expected to gather.

As my sister enters this new phase of her life. We all mom.dad and me also will have new additional roles to play. Our family tree is now in the growth phase. We are branching out. My sister will have one more family. This is the occasion that running on our minds. We are still pacing around with the last minute preparations. With only a handful of days left for the marriage. We cannot think of any Diwali.. the lights of anticipation of a new ties that await our family.  The every passing minute making a who-oo-osh sound. We all await this big occasion- My sister's wedding. My sister's wedding.(Still sinking in.)

Social -"Not"working

I am a free bird. Off the hook. I am back to the times when people will have to call to get in touch with me. They will have to be the real friends to actually know about my "status updates". I won't tweet to some random people. I won't be posting my pics to be viewed by 256+ "friends".

I did it. I am off any social networking site. I killed my Orkut account when I opened a FB account. Having two accounts embarrassed me somehow (I cannot justify it. Some inexplicable feeling). I had a twitter account. I did. I carelessly forgot its password and never got back to that site. For a person who has a full blown romance with blogging.. twitter appears to a be a trivial affair. Today I requested a password reset and deactivated the twitter account too.

Before you ask me how short lived this abstinence from Social Networking is going be.. let me share my true feelings* now (subjected to change in future). The websites did their best to keep me hooked. The FB page flashed the faces of people I interact the most with. It took the names of few friends and said "XYZ will miss you!". I didn't have a second thought. I went ahead and deactivated. I clearly know... to interact with these people.. I don't need the crutch of a social network space. I will happily go back to the times of emails. The twitter bird shed tears and said "I will miss you!". I was touched . No sarcasm. Look at the amount of effort they take to make the digital displays -human and pump the buzz of social space into these networks.

I have bad record. I have deleted my Orkut account ...twice[:P]. Two of my blogs both of which lasted for more than a year with 200+ posts. So, FB and twitter wasn't that painful. I won't say I won't get back to the Social Craze. I might get back. But for the experience I have had so far. I might find a new approach to this whole concept.

55 Fiction #1 : A day

A beautiful dress, confident look. A friendly smile. Beautiful morning. Broad daylight. A jump in her walk. Little joy her heart. A bike rides by. Some random shout. Unpleasant. Unwelcoming. Disgusted. Unsafe. Irritated. Frustrated. Anger. No age. No race. No religion or place. Few men everywhere manage to kill the joy of being a woman.

Beautiful..

Beautiful .Nature.Sight. Scene. Flower.Words. Life. Concept. Song.Music. Colour. Shade. Texture. Light.Weather. We can talk about a million things that are beautiful. But, the one that is the most beautiful and spectacular. The most powerful creation - Person/People.

I am really grateful for the kind of people I have in my life. There are a zillion things I have learned. A million I have unlearned. They all taught me so much. No advices. No suggestions. Just by being themselves. I'd say the first learning was from home. Being born to a dynamic strong young lady who never let me settle for anything less than what I deserved. Who held my hand. Made me sit on her lap and patiently listened to all my confusions. She just shared her side of view. I'd look at both the sides. I was given the freedom to choose. Always. A person who signifies strength. Immense strength and patience.  How much she endures but how beautifully she glows. How lively she is. How much happiness she has added to my little life. The courage and strength she melted on to my personality. The way she says.. you are a amazing kid. The effort she takes to actually make me believe that. Love her. Love being around her. But. what I love the most is understanding and learning from her.

Family is a small world. And there are people all around us. In the ocean called life. Time waves bring different shells on our path. Some shimmer like gold. Some just miss our eye. Some we pick up and then they become a part of our life. Like when you hold a shell against your ear. You hear all sounds of the magic beneath the ocean. You can get the essence of the whole world and the essence of life from these few dynamic gems. Being surrounded by good people is the luckiest thing that could happen to you. Trust me. That's true. If you don't believe me. Take your time. I'll wait and there will be a day when you will realize. I am particularly surrounded by these awesome women. Each one who defines her life uniquely. One finds divinity in dance. For one life is fun. For another its love. For one its ambition. For one it's pride of parents. For some its love for siblings. For all its respect for family and friends. How well they mark their boundaries. How quickly they break them to express their joy for something good that happened to me. How soft their heart.. that they shed tears on unrelated pain. How strong their values that they can discipline the scroungiest crooks. How they keep their head held high. The way they appreciate self reliance. In the little fights. Silly gossips. Discussions over food. Fun. It always shows. Beautiful souls. Beautiful souls.

G.R.A.T.E.F.U.L

Grief.. in decibels

I can't remember what quiet surrounding means. I am not sure if I can sit in a calm place without noise and still be normal. My mind plays around the sounds of the drills. I sleep listening to the noise. I wake up with a disturbance. I have forgotten the purpose of a window. My window is shut from what it now seems like centuries. I can't slide my curtains aside. My privacy is endangered. My solitude is lost. My room is on the road. I get restless at times. I have constant background noise. At times I pause. Is it my cluttered mind? Or my mind is cluttered with this noise.

The thumping of the hammer. Random strange voices.Music in different languages. Men shouting and howling outside my window.The ever on drilling. I can't live like this anymore. I really can't. The beautiful environs look dull. Trampled. Tortured. The dust everywhere is making my mind itch. My boots have cement traces.  My ears are jammed. I want to take a eraser and rub it all. Rub all the added concrete, the dust, the things that killed this heavenly place. I want to tear down blow up that ramp outside my window on which men,women pace up and down. I have a pent up frustration that is building up like a volcano. I need to get away before I burn out my brain.

I cannot fathom the situation in war struck zone. How do people live there? I cannot take it any longer in simple construction area. When people do stop the work. I still hear the noise. The slightest of sound is like a pick on a nerve of my brain. With every added decibel, my life is strained. Out of curiosity I checked up the decibels of a hammer blow -130dB, that is 20dB less than a shot gun blast. 130dB is 70dB more than a strength of a normal conversation.

I do sympathize with the people actually doing this work. I can't imagine what they go through everyday.But it is their life. Their choices. Their constrains. I have a baggage of my own. I am not a part of this change. I am just a person in the right place at the wrong time. I need my silence.I need a clam place. I need peace. I need to function- like me.

Different worlds

It is not a new discovery that time does not move at a constant rate. When we are happy it moves faster. When we feel little low it moves very slow. They say we seem to miss things staring in our face. This is just another thing under this category.

I am amazed that we all look at the same clocks everyday.. at times we do the same things (e.g. attend a class) and still the time moves at different rates for all of us. Imagine the impact of the human brain on how our life unfolds. Were we born with a hypnotic view of what is expected out of us, of what is normal and what is not.  Or do we catch this contagious disease of normal/social/excepted/right-wrong kind of value system as we meet people and keep benchmarking them as a standard?

Why do we judge people, why do we want them to behave in a manner we expect them to? Why do we fail to understand that just like we have different rate for time for each one of us, we have different worlds? It doesn't take a brainwave to decipher this. When we are in a bad mood the slightest of behaviour irritates us to the height that we can bash up people. When we are in a good mood we take the nastiest comments in good humor. For two same people in different mood the world appears different at the same instant. Then, how do we hold conversations with people who may or may not be looking at the world as we do and blame them for being irrational? How do we at times find a connection and few common souls who more or less see similar worlds and call them friends?

It is very funny how we "all" think we know it all.. better than our fellow humans. Each one thinking his/her judgement is correct.

Strange ways of understanding behaviour and people. Just another perception illusion.

The power of unrest

Have you been through this..? That state of unrest when everything that defines you malfunctions?

The times when you have to decide something 'important'. You won't rest till you have considered the opinion of everyone you value and have projected its possible outcomes, looked if there is flaw in your perception ...phew ya thats the state of unrest. You won't eat well or you'll eat too well [:P] , do random comfort giving things.. buy a book, get a haircut (then worry about bad haircut :] )

Play around for a while but in the end.. you have to talk it out to know.

When we decide something .. think about something.. it is easier to let it rest in our mind. What is difficult is to open it for public discussion selective public discussion. When others give their opinion it is like a blow of hammer. You react and justify your stand. You come up with reasons you never knew about why you want to do what you what to do. That state of unrest will capacitate you for everything that you don't know. It is like the shimmering fire that melts down all the pointless thoughts. Then all this unrest ends.. there is a clarity like a FL graded diamond. Thats when you see what you really want. Thats when you know what to choose. That is the power of unrest.

Two shows

I happened to attend a live concert. With the little MBA dented head and skewed perception of mine. All I could think about was - How the crowd was being managed?, Checking the systems in the place, getting the performers be there on time, selling an experience. I know. SICK. Thats what I thought about myself too. Thankfully this thought process shifted to an altogether different channel when my friend made very impressive negotiations with the police officers and we reached the green room. I was soaking in every possible sensory signal in that room. That was the closest I ever got to dance and art literally and figuratively.Colourful costumes,bright confident people, some strange energy..  Everything was interesting. It was all new. 


The evening was magical. Amazing dance compositions by Ms. Nirupama and Mr. Rajendra and their team took us to another world altogether. One easily forgot the muddy puddles beneath one's feet. Forgot the presence of some 5000+ odd people in the surrounding. It was dance, music, colour and you. Thats it. The moment froze. It couldn't get any better. In the later half of the evening we witnessed the power house called Sonu Nigam. Brilliant energy . How he engrossed the entire crowd. We clapped and rooted for more as he sang. The energy of the crowd was contagious. 


There was another show LIVE on our campus. It was also equally magical. 5 people fought it out and won the opportunity to work in a reputed organization. Here also we had these celebrities. They walked out victorious and drove the crowd into frenzy with a shared happiness. This too transported us to different worlds. A world of dreams for some, a world of anxiety for some. A state of abeyance for a few. But all happy in a strange manner. At times you miss your beats.. you fall out of sync... it is just not your tune. While you find your rhythm... it is wiser to dance to the victory of others on your way to yours. That energy shall take you further.