Thoughts-Cover up

The level of your integrity is sometimes determined by the extent to which life is willing to cover up your mistakes

The city of my childhood

I was forced to leave the city i love so much, the city where I grew up, the city that gave me so much - my education, my sense of well-being, my first crush, my first love. Unforeseen circumstances led to giving it all up, to move to greener pastures, looking for new horizons.

Chandigarh is a city for the privileged, with it's beautiful architecture, greenery,gardens, planned development, cosmopolitan and warm-hearted people. It was not easy to say goodbye to the city which had witnessed the best seasons of my life, to bid farewell to friends who had so much been a part of my childhood. I remember touching the walls of my room and crying that lonely cry before I turned by back to the place which had been home to me for 17 long years.

I would like to go back some day, maybe when I am retired from work, to spend the rest of my battered life in peace.

The calm

Desperate days

What an appropriate end to a bad day...was my first thought, as i lay on the road, right leg underneath my motorbike, right arm, right & left knees, ankles badly bruised. The helmet had rolled off, while 2 cops picked me up from the middle of the road to the footpath, and applied ice on my bruises. My fault was that i pressed the brakes a little too hard when i saw a man crossing the road on foot and suddenly he was sheilding himself from the headlights of my bike. i reacted immediately and the next thing i knew i was down, and smiling that sarcastic smile to myself. After all, it was not the best of days. Since yesterday morning, i was not feeling good - some strange depressing thoughts were creeping into my head, making me uncomfortable. My mind can play games sometimes, and it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly is bothering me the most, as there were several things that had got me upset and it was all building up. Wanted some fresh air, so decided to check the night breeze on my bike. I am lucky not to be in hospital. The pain has shifted- from mental to physical!

Fag-end of Life

The lonely child

As a single child of my parents, I have seen loneliness in all it’s colors in my childhood. I used to be a shy child, introvert, and withdrawn most of the times. The most difficult task I would face was to enter a room full of strangers. It would be such a difficult task to face people I did not know and to make conversation. I remember an incident when my aunt took me to her friend’s place when I was a 5 year old. The moment I entered their home, I saw about 10 people sitting in the living room. I was so overcome by shyness that I turned around and fled from the scene. I crossed the roads and found my way back to my aunt’s place where I was putting up for my summer holidays. I was punished when my aunt returned home, mad as a bull, because she suddenly found me missing and was looking everywhere for me.

So many times, I had wanted to participate in a group, but had withdrawn. Something would pull me back, and I would regret it later. Always feel left out because I had the chance to be a part of the group, but I had let that chance go by. The summer holidays would be long, spent mostly in the city of Kolkata, at my grandmother’s home. The terrace of my Grandmother’s house would be a wonderful place for a lonely child like myself – there were so many things to discover, the small plants and weeds that would grow in the not-so-maintained terrace floor, plucking and devouring the tulsi leaves, the space below the water tank where there was a cat occasionally taking the afternoon nap, the grain boxes in the family store house, gulping down the nokul-danas (small balls of sugar offered to the deity’s idol during prayers), chasing the pigeons, watching the busy street below from the height of the terrace – there are many memories of the summer afternoons spent by a lonely kid at his grandma’s home.

The numbers game

What is this inexplicable obsession with numbers? I like increasing figures – numbers that go on growing infinitely, be it the number of visitors on my blog, the number of kilometers covered in the dashboard of my vehicle, the number of points earned in the game of a community site, the months spent at the gym, the number of years spent in the city I currently live in, it is a strange obsession – and it gives a kind of satisfaction, a reason to look forward to the next day, the reason to live and to go on & on. Have you ever felt this madness?