Paanch Saal Baad...

Five years? Has it really been that long? I recently discovered my long lost blogspot account where my first post was about a promise to keep writing. Well as my second post says, life keeps changing with every breath we take, this too changed. (And yes The Monk.. I am using the word breath and not breadth :D)

Like I said earlier, it's been five years. If a lot can happen over coffee then five years definitely warrants the abysmal. I have completed my undergraduate degree, have had a job, have left it. I have made wonderful friends and lost some very close ones, people I thought I would never give up on, along the way. I have seen babies being born and have seen my grandfather pass away. I have seen my VISA get delayed and have been drowned in the hopelessness that came along with it. And right after that, experienced the excitement, the joy, the furor coupled with anxiety, apprehension and jitters of being accepted and moving to a new country to start my new life. The same new life which has gifted me with homesickness, loneliness, angst, the pain of staying away from family and eventually the forbearance to deal with it, the skill and know how to live alone, the endurance to bear everything with a never say die attitude, the knowledge that everything will be fine one day, no matter how hard the times present themselves  and above all the zeal to enjoy life in all it's glory and all it's pain. And en voyage, I have gained some and lost some. I have become wiser yet at the same time have never felt more nescient, more ignorant. I have gained humility yet have never been more arrogant. I have believed, yet have lost faith at the slightest misgivings. I have helped strangers, yet at times have forgotten that charity begins at home. I have reassured and enheartened the despondent while I myself have wavered in the dark. I have become courageous, yet have never felt more timid and daunted. I have found my dawn and my dusk yet I don’t know which twilight I am in. And as Robert Frost said, I have “miles to go before I sleep”.

So here I am, still clueless about what I want to do and why I am writing this post since reviving this blog now won't result in anything substantial when I’ll go back into my writing hibernation. All I know is that I was once again in a dark place and on the verge of giving up. And then I came across the blog when I was googling my name (That’s right, I was googling my name) .  I saw what I had written.  “Nothing is ever lost forever. If we fall down, we can still get up and start as if we never fell. We should never lose hope and never stop believing in ourselves because life changes with every breath we take”.   So maybe after 5 more years, if I am ever in a similar situation and in the need for a pep talk or a hand to push me back in the right direction, this post will serve as my “little guiding light” which will infuse in me the right amount of strength and energy to move forward in life with positivity and gaiety.

P.S. With all the so called wisdom and experience I have gained, I wish I would have gained some considerable improvement in my writing skills :P

A Voter's Musings

Vote karo! Vote karo! Agar aap vote nahin kar rahe ho to aap so rahe ho. This is what is being shown in the commercials nowadays. Well, today I exercised my right to select our government. It was wonderful, I mean, suddenly realizing that you are important and your decision will choose the people who would run our country. But then, did I make the right decision? Who knows? At least, I did my duty of being a citizen of this country. I am above 18, educated, knowledgeable about the scenario of my country and can think for myself. Most of my friends and my college mates who are all above 18, don’t even have their voter id card, leave alone going to the booth to vote. Before the elections, when I asked them if they were going to vote or not, they said no. That’s it…a flat no. They are more interested in studying for the upcoming semester exams than in having a say in choosing the people who will actually work for our country. I am not saying that examinations are not important. Of course they are, but if we youngsters don’t cogitate, who will?

With great powers come great responsibilities. If we have been bestowed with the power to select the managers of the country, then we should be responsible enough to do our duty properly as we expect them to do theirs.

P.S. I really should be studying now or I will lose my right to use the internet anymore :|

"Where The Heart Is"

(Before this article,I would like to state that this is actually the first piece i wrote today and added fuel to the inspiration provided by Neerja's blog to start my own blog)

I saw the movie “Where The Heart Is” today. I had downloaded it because I thought it was just another ‘chick flick’ which I would watch during my free time. I like watching such kind of movies because they are light-hearted and always have a happy (although predictable) ending, which leaves you feeling nice. But I was soon to be proved wrong (in a good way of course).

This movie is about a girl named Novalee Nation who is pregnant and is abandoned at the Wal Mart store in Oklahoma by her boyfriend when they were on their way to California. She starts living in the shop secretly for six weeks till she delivers her baby. In the meantime she meets Sister Husband, a religious, but promiscuous woman, Moses Whitecotten, the Wal Mart photographer and Forney Hull, the librarian, all of whom help her rebuild her life. In fact it is Forney who sees her living in the store on the night she gets her labor pains and breaks in to help her deliver the baby. After the birth of her baby, she gets national recognition as giving birth to the "Wal-mart baby"(who is later named as Americus). She also makes friends with Lexie Coop who works at the hospital, has four children and has her fair share of trouble with the opposite sex. Novalee is taken in by Sister and finally with the help of her new found friends, Novalee, who was once the homeless teen from Tennessee, becomes a successful and strong woman, and more importantly, a part of a makeshift but wonderful family she had always wanted.

The kindness shown by the strangers to Novalee is not something we get to see so often in our lives. This was the point that struck a chord with me. In a scene where Novalee and Lexie are talking, Novalee tells Lexie“ Life changes with every breath we take….We all have some meanness inside us, but we also have a lot of good in us, and the good is what is worth living for.” Today we have become so busy with trying to survive for ourselves, that we have all forgotten the very essence of our being who we are, the very essence of being human beings. We have forgotten how to love, how to help and how to care for our fellow beings. Most of us are preoccupied with what WE want, who WE love, how to lead a successful life, and all thoughts related to our selves. How often have we visited an orphanage or an old home? How often have we asked a needy man what we can do to help him? How often have we thanked God for what we have? I’m sure most of us would not want to answer that. Or maybe some people can justify themselves by saying that the world is not as grateful or fair as it should be. To all those people I would like to say what Novalee said to Lexie. We are living because of some good that is left in us, some hope, some faith and some belief to do good. Whatever happens we should not let that faint light burn out. I know it is hard, but we can start making the faint light regain its glory. We can make people hear a song out of the din of humanity. We don’t need to bring in a homeless stranger and offer him our place to stay or we don’t need to go and donate all that we have to some charity. But what we can do, are little good deeds which we are capable of doing and make people around us happy. This will make the world a better place to live in and all the breaths we take, worthwhile.

So I had picked out a “chick flick” because I did not want to watch anything which would have made me think. But this movie did exactly what I did NOT want to do and I’m thankful. It taught me that kindness and love still exist. Nothing is ever lost forever. If we fall down, we can still get up and start as if we never fell. We should never lose hope and never stop believing in ourselves because “life changes with every breath we take”.

My first blog

I have no idea about what I should write in my first blog. I think I’ll start off describing myself. Now that is something I’ve always tried, but failed to do so, miserably. One can ask me to learn Latin and I know I would succeed in doing that. But describing myself, is the toughest thing for me to do.I took a long time to actually fill that 'about me' section. The only thing I actually know about myself is that I learn something new with every passing breath. I keep trying to know about new things, about why things that happen, happen. Every phase of life is a lesson for me. Although I’ve been in this world for almost 20 years, I’ve only started discovering myself since the last three to four years. And trust me, I’ve learnt more in these four years than I have in the fifteen years before that.

I’ve always wanted to write about things that go on in my mind. I’ve wanted to channelize my vast expanse of untamed thoughts. But each time I sit down to write, my mind embarks on one of its aimless journeys. And by the time it gets back, it is too tired to think about what I wanted to write in the first place.

Yesterday I read my friend Neerja’s blog and was really inspired to start writing my own one. So here I am clueless about what I should write but still making a brave effort to do so.

I know I should be studying for my math exam on Saturday, but I don’t want to let go of this new found urge to write. And I hope I stay true to this feeling for a long time.