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.