College To Do List

I have been in my college for nearly three years and believe me not, if you want it to be, college is fun. I never realized how fast the past three years have gone by. There are some things you have to, I repeat HAVE TO experience in college. Those few things are listed below:

1) Make best friends for life: I met my bff’s in college and I am sure we will go much beyond college. If I can call the last three years any good it is just because of them.

2) Go on a Goa trip: You can go to any part of the world, but a trip to Goa with your college pals will always be the most cherished one. Trust me, it is a crazy place, where you can be at your craziest best because what happens in Goa stays in Goa. Do not miss to plan it in your college.

3) Miss classes: Miss them to watch movies, to go for road-trips or just to sit in the college cafeteria because you don’t feel like studying.

4) Study a night before an exam: That’s the best time to study, the time when you can push yourself to stay awake and complete thirty chapters of the hardest subject while sipping coffee.

5) Live in a coffee-shop: My friends and I have literally spent our entire days in coffee shops talking, laughing and doing absolutely nothing. I remember a time when we even had memorized the entire playlist of a particular place and knew that each song played there six times in a day (yeah, we are that lame and idle).

6) Pull a prank on your friend: I guess, everyone has done it, pranks are always fun but make sure it is nothing serious.

7) Slap your friend for being serious for a guy/girl: When your friend is truly, madly, deeply in ‘lowe’ with someone and cries and whines all day because of this and that someone is not good enough then you have every right to knock some sense into your friend.

8) Get drunk: Get drunk a million times and every time that happens pledge not to drink again.

9) Think of life after college: Everyone does that, have fun but not at the expense of your future. Make sure nothing goes wrong there.

10) Party till the break of dawn: Be loud, dance the night away and just party hard.

11) Ace a subject and fail another: Nothing feels good like being perfect in a particular subject and you can’t be good with everything so can fail in one of the subjects.

12) Realize: Realize a lot of things, like how your grades could have been better, how much you have changed in college, what you have to do after college, all of it needs to be thought of.

13) Go broke: Spend all your allowances on something exotic in the beginning of the month and end up having no money for the rest of it. I believe that’s how we learn how to manage our money, making sure next time we are not out of it.

14) Own a car that breaks down fifteen times a month: You will hate it, curse it but a jalopy like that is a guarantee of you having a great time for it takes you everywhere, no matter how many times it breaks down.

15) Spur-of-the-moment-trip: College is the first time in your life you have the freedom to do almost whatever you want. When it’s a cold, depressing Friday in February and you don’t feel like going to the same places you’ve been to every weekend for the past five months, take an unplanned trip somewhere.

About getting Lucky

One valuable lesson I have learnt from my father is there is nothing called luck. Whenever I go for an exam or something important he never says the mandatory ‘best of luck’  his only two words are “do well.” Once out of  curiosity I happened to ask him why he never wished me luck. His reply was “because there is nothing like luck, if you have prepared well you will do well, nothing else can help you.”

I thought of it, he was right. It is us who ourselves can figure out our own luck, no angel can weave a magic wand over you when you aren’t prepared for an exam. I am just taking exams as an example here, there can be a lot more instances. Someone once said “Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don’t have the wit to deal with the problems of life.” How apt these words are, why blame luck for failures in life? If you were unlucky on a certain day, who is responsible? It obviously is YOU! If you failed with something, it implies that you lacked the thing, the factor in you to accomplish it. Luck had no role to play. A person didn’t get lucky if he is earning millions today, it was because he worked hard for it, right now we shouldn’t get into the wrong and right ways of doing things.

I come from a family that firmly believes in astrology, I do not contradict or question their believes or anyone who thinks similarly. What I think is feeding a black dog on every Saturday won’t change your destiny. Your destiny is what you make of it, what you do in your life and how you do it determines how lucky you will be and what your destiny will be. Luck and destiny are somehow co-related. Both are good if you have the right kind of attitude and a person himself is responsible for his luck and destiny.

On numerous accounts my brother and I have got into debates over the luck factor with our cousin. She somehow believes luck is the sole factor of success in life and has examples to contradict. I unfortunately can’t recall any right now but I will say the right kind of attitude and a little hard work are the sole ingredients of success. If you met with an accident you weren’t unlucky, it probably was because you weren’t driving properly, if you ran out of time in an exam it was because you didn’t learn how to manage time for that particular exam. I know most of you reading this will call me a fool and contradict me strongly, probably you are right in what you believe. But at the end of the day I will believe it wasn’t my bad luck if I failed it was my deeds that lead to the situation I might be in.

Beer and Buddies; Books and Brew

These are the four b’s that a human being needs to live with, if I were stranded on an island either of these two combinations I wouldn’t miss anything. They help you survive anywhere and everywhere. Friends, your partners in crime, rescuers in crisis, misguides, philosophers when not in senses are the people whose company you will cherish all your lives.

You can act silly with them, pull their legs, offend them, pretend you hate them and get away with all this, although not without getting it back. They are the ones who laugh at your lamest jokes. I didn’t have good friends until I got to college, it was in college I met the people I now call friends for life. College is the perfect place to bump into like-minded crazy insane people. It is only in science opposite poles attract, when it comes to people it is the other way round.

There is nothing like having a good conversation over beer with your best buddies. That is how you stay high on life. Together they will help you survive any calamity. The two come to your rescue in the worst of situations. Last weekend we celebrated two great creations together, it was the friendship day and the world beer day. There you go, they even compliment each other this way, isn’t that just perfect? Beer is better with friends and  friends better with some beer not a lot though. I hope you did enjoy your weekend with the tow and didn’t let it go a waste.

The second combination books and brew is perfect for the times when you want to spend time on your own. A captivating book and a strong cup of coffee are enough to keep you entertained for a long time. The best sleepless nights are spent in the company of books and coffee.  It is the best way to have some peaceful, lonely and quiet time. The coffee keeps the sleep at bay when you are reading an exceptionally good book and you don’t want to fall asleep while at it.

With either the buddy and beer or books and brew combination one can forget the world around, things around seem to be simpler and more fun. So folks cheers, celebrate the companionship of these for eternity. Brew your life in a high way.

The most splendid vacation

I am finally back from the Mumbai-Goa trip. It has been ten splendid days, the best vacation so far. We, which includes Uncle V, SS and me, got to Mumbai by train, although after this trip I am not planning to undertake any long distance train journey.Both the times the train was nothing short of a nightmare.  First time we had to share the compartment with a tobacco chewing man and his family, the moment he entered all we could smell for the next twelve hours was the pathetic red tobacco. I climbed on the upper berth at around 8 PM and climbed down only once he left the next morning somewhere around 8 AM. And while on our way back we spotted a mouse in our bogey, I am petrified of mice, nothing scares me more.

Anyways the fun part was when we got to Mumbai, the first evening we were there we visited the Juhu Beach, the walk on the beach was great, the sound of the waves mesmerizing but unfortunately the beach is filthy, at night time one can’t even think of going near the water, not because the tides are high but because of the garbage. Its like a trash can compared to the beaches in Goa.

The next day was consumed by crazy shopping in Lokhandwala and Bandra, the best thing about Mumbai is the public transport. The taxis and three-wheelers are easily available and aren’t expensive at all. I didn’t realize shopping could be so hard especially when you are buying gifts. We managed to buy gifts for everyone in six hours somehow.

Rest it wasan usual trip we spent a day at Colaba,sightseeing, the day we were there, the Mumbai Secretariat caught fire, check out these pictures I got from my camera.

We also visited the National Gallery of Modern Art, the gallery has been preserving modern art since 1850. It had this calender art where they depicted each bollywood year, it was really hilarious, just check this picture I smuggled, smuggled because photography was restricted and I could not click more pictures after this.

I am not much of a foodie, but I relished the sea food, the popular Leopold cafe at Colaba had the greatest fish fry I have ever had. Another must visit cafe is Hard Rock Cafe, do I have even have to elaborate about that?

Jumbo Combo @ HRC Mumbai

On the third night of our vacation we left for Goa, on bus. The bus ride to some extend was exceptional, all night I felt I was on some roller coaster. Uncle V had a bad experience on this bus. We hit Goa mid-morning and checked in the resort in South Goa near the Varca beach which is a beautiful beach. The resort had a nice swimming pool. SS and I wanted to swim but we didn’t have costumes. We hired a two-wheeler and drove to the nearest market, it started raining while we were driving. Its hard to explain the beauty of Goa during rains, its so green, lush and mesmerizing.

After the swim we settled for another sea food lunch at a near by shack, I had a fish with cheese, mashed potatoes and mushrooms. Another great dish, it was perfectly creamy. After lunch we went to the Varca beach for the sunset where we caught fishermen fishing. They caught a baby shark.Here are the pictures from Varca Beach.

Sunset at Varca

Most of the next morning was spent sleeping and getting over the previous night, it was something that will stay in Goa. Late morning we went to Colva Beach during the high tide. That was the best beach experience, swimming in beach, being swept by the high waves, it was just amazing.

Apart from the beaches we visited churches, the big foot museum and the archeological museum in old Goa. The Big foot museum was the most interesting place, it had an old historical Goa village setup, which was very well done. The archeological museum had sculptures from 13th century to 18th century and the paintings of all the Vice-Roys of Goa till 1961. It was in 1961 the Portuguese left Goa and Goa didn’t have Vice-Roys after that. The smallest state of India has incredible history attached to it.

After three days in Goa we got back to Mumbai for our last day of vacations. We spent that day on the last minute shopping and hogging on food. I swear I have never had so much food.

I still have the holiday hangover and its hard to get over it. I so miss swimming all day long and being lazy.The time just flew by and now I am back to work.  Here are a few more pictures:

The Haji Ali in Mumbai

 

 

 

I Miss College

After cursing and hating my college for nearly two years. I miss going there now. Yes, you heard me ‘I MISS COLLEGE.’ If you want I will climb on top of my college building and scream that. Its been one and half month since my holidays started and there is another one and a half month to go.

I don’t miss the teachers or the lectures or the dingy classrooms I have my PHP class to compensate all that. The teachers here too get under my skin. What I miss is the fact that I have no company during these holidays, no friends to hang out with, I mean I still have friends but they all seem so busy. Okay not seem, they are busy. My partner in squandering the city roads is the busiest of them all. All of us have bad time clashes with our classes. And I hope they all better be feeling this way.

So anyways I’m left all alone with a book to read or with my laptop and hey, now I have even started watching tv( Its more than a year after that I have started watching tv regularly), I don’t even go online much, so its generally the book and me or the tv and me. I do love reading but not all day long, it feels so lazy to just read or watch tv all the time.

Its irritating not to have a single joke to crack and not to be people you love spending time with even if its in a boring classroom. I miss passing the lunch from one person to another during the class and made fun of for something I do or make fun of someone else and devise ways to bunk a lecture.

I am lazy, irritated and bored all day long. I wish these vacations get over soon. I need to put my rusting brains to some work, been a while since I played a prank on someone. I don’t even feel like writing anything these days.

Oh and by the way apart from reading and watching tv I also have my PHP project to add to my excitement. Sigh! Atleast that gets over soon. I will never miss these vacations. I am not sure if I will write much now, but assure you a good dose of posts during or after my Mumbai and Goa trip. Thankfully its just six days away now.

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Alone

In the middle of the night,

when the darkness was the only dweller.

I  walked,

strolling all alone

in the deserted alley,

where only the shadows lurked.

My thoughts reflected in those shadows.

There were words left unspoken,

as the distances had grown.

Time had gone by,

the voices of the memories

that were now a past, lingered

in my rusted head.

The sweet voices of us laughing

and giggling together.

We climbed the trees

with our skinny hands and legs

and played in the greens

where the daffodils bloomed in glory.

We were young and believed

this was all ever-lasting.

That was before you turned ,

into the devil you are now.

The time snapped the ties

we thought were eternal.

Now it was just me left alone,

walking with my shadow.

And you, my brother

have flown with tides of time.

Letting go

Letting go- How do I define these two words? They are easier said than done. In our lives we might have to let go a lot of things, people, desires and dreams. The hardest part of anything we do is letting go, when these words cross paths with you, you know its time to forget everything, you know its the end. Its always better that we never end up being on the letting go end.

These thoughts may sound pensive, but life isn’t all hunky dory, we do come across situations when all hope is lost and there is no way we can elucidate, the only  solution we have is-letting go. Most of us are clueless when we have to let go something, when we have to stop being the part of something, someone, a dream or whatever it is.

I am not sure how you let go something, everyone probably has their own ways of doing that. I luckily never needed to do the letting go bit in my life. I have got what I want and am sure in future too I  will get what I want. You might think I am an over-confident, over-achieving soul patronizing people. Its absolutely not true, I nearly have no achievement to my credit when it comes to bigger things in life and I am not over-confident either. Its just I learnt to believe in myself, believe in what I do, believe in people around me. I learnt to see success in small things, find achievement in every little thing I do. That probably formed bigger steps and the letting go end never came.

Letting go has two aspects to it forgiving and forgetting. If you learn the rules of two f’s life becomes easy. The forgetting happens when you want to disassociate yourself from some past happening that didn’t  leave you happy and the forgiving is something we all should learn, not everyone around us is perfect. We are prone to mistakes and repeating those mistakes, its not easy to forgive someone or even yourself for a mistake. But we need to do that, not forgiving just makes us resentful and sulky.

The moment the two f’s come easily to us we learn to let go things. I don’t say you have to let go every single thing its always better to avoid a situation that might lead you to let go. When despair engulfs you and you have no solution, absolutely no solution that is when you take the harsh decision. I hope you never really have to put yourself through this.

 

Thanks for reading, if  you made it the end.

Love you Maa…

Its mother’s day this Sunday, although thanks to my forgetfulness I wished my mother previous Sunday. I don’t know what got into me, in the middle of the afternoon I assumed it was the Mother’s day and called to wish her. She asked me if I had my facts right, I convinced her and my poor brother had to bear the burnt of not remembering the day that wasn’t.

I don’t know where I should start from when I talk about my mother, the words are too less to describe the most beautiful lady I have ever known. The word beautiful doesn’t do any justice to the wonderful human being she is. She has been now bearing me and my tantrums for nearly two decades now and that’s commendable keeping in mind I have a brother not very different from me. We are her immensely spoilt brats, we have always been choosy with food, a little troublesome sometimes argumentative and have fought with her. She has been greatly tolerant and patient towards us making us realize when we are wrong. Atleast making ‘me’ realize, I can’t be sure of her son.

She cooks us the food we like, its an arduous task, since the three of us including my father, brother and me never like the same kind of food. She listens to us patiently, well most of the times. I remember as kids she would teach us, she worked in a school and took extra classes for older kids in the evenings. Afternoons were the only time when we she had with us and she made sure that we finished our homework in that time. She was and always has been the superwoman from teaching us to being a soccer mom, driving us to our swimming pool, fetching us from classes in evenings. She has literally been always there, in the hard times been the support and been the encouraging factor when we did something good.

Now that I have grown up, I love talking to her especially the dinner time conversations the family has. The talks range from pulling everyone’s legs to discussing serious politics to deciding the flavor of ice-cream we eat after dinner. She is more of a friend now. I hardly get scolded, the mere scolding that now happens, is when I get back home late or spent too much money, but I even like that. Its really funny to see her turn red and she is generally faking it.

She has never been too expressive with her love and I really appreciate that fact, that has made me a balanced person. Can’t say how but yes it has. She has never really spoilt me but never deprived me of anything. That just means she is perfect. I absolutely enjoy shopping with her, she gets spent thrift just like me. It feels good to swap the driving seat with her although I wish she trusted the driver in me. She nearly screams asking me to drive slowly even when I am and every time  swears that she will drive the next time when the two of us go out.

She has the perfect advice for all the situations. And they always work.  There have been many instances when I was clueless and she came to my rescue. Whether it was a problem at school, college, with a friend or when my father got mad at me she gave solutions to all, helped me out of it and even scolded me before finding a way out for me.

Its just not possible to thank her in one blog post or on a specific day. She is the best mom anyone could have. I can’t thank her enough for whatever she has done for me. Love you mamma forever and always. Here is what I give her this mother’s day:

 

Birthday off the Highway

Immediately after the exams got over this time, it was my friend SM’s birthday, her nineteenth, her last teen year. We could not let this birthday, just be any other birthday, the party had to be glorious for dual reasons. First We all managed to complete two years of college, the time seems to have whooshed by and the birthday.

SM had been throwing subtle hints she wanted a surprise party and this made the task hard for us. What surprise this time? Her last birthday party was a surprise one as well. We were clueless and had very less time to plan a surprise because of exams. That is when CK came up with the igneous idea of going to Kikar lodge, seventy kilometers drive from here. It was a perfect idea, a getaway and birthday surprise planned together.

One of the many sign boards

We decided to leave early morning, at around 8:00 AM, few of us had a class, including the birthday girl, everyone bunked it. SM was blind-folded to add more mystery to the surprise and make it look more dramatic. I didn’t have my jalopy this time but didn’t miss it at all. We had two of my other favorite vehicles, Uncle V’s car and SWAT’s two wheeler. I accompanied SWAT on the two wheeler for the first bit of journey. Majorly because I wanted to drive and she let me drive. She is the only who lets me drive, nobody else trusts me with the two-wheeler. Well, I just drove for the first fifteen minutes of the two and half hour journey, rest of it I was crooning third-grade songs and enjoying the ride on the pillion.

We made it to Ropar in one hour or a little more than that. Most of it was a good drive, the highway is really nice and we have driven there before. We took a stop near a canal and took some pictures. The adventure began after that when we had to get off the main highway and drive on the roads where the width keeps on reducing like you wished your waistline should. There were twists and turns, the driving got dicey. Suddenly the mobile signals went off, we were in the unexplored rural Panjab, with no sight of Kikar lodge.

Scared we had lost our way, we stopped by at a Dhaba to ask if we were on the right track, elation engulfed when came to know we were but were still a twenty kilometers away. That is when I started driving again, I forgot putting on my glasses and could not see the potholes, and drove into every single pothole making the bumpy ride even more so. SWAT who was the pillion was cursing me, not her fault, poor her.

Before we realized the size of the road reduced and it was no longer a road just a track where one can barely drive, there were signs leading to that place all over but the road never seemed end. Swat and I even lost our way, we missed a sign board.It was frustrating but finally after a four kilometer drive on those roads we entered the massive gates of the lodge.

The place was beautiful, rejuvenating, lush greens trees surrounded us, their pools were bright blue and I wanted to jump into them. It was really peaceful to not have mobile signals, away from the city. Kikar lodge also provides some adventure sports, check their site for details, we could not indulge into those because of lack of time and resources.

The lunch was pretty decent, after the lunch CK and I jumped into the pool, despite knowing we could not because we were not entitled to and we didn’t leave until one of the guys came to tell us we weren’t allowed. After that we just sat by the pool and talked for sometime, by 2:30 PM we left the lodge. The place is paradisiacal for a getaway, it would be great to spend a weekend there. SM loved every bit of this surprise. Here is a hint guys, give me a similar surprise on my birthday, just don’t blindfold me The drive back was easier, nothing much happened then. I realized give me a car, good company, a swimming pool, a few good books and I could live my entire life with just these things.

When we were leaving this is the scene that bade us farewell

More pictures

The Dakku Getup for the ride on two-wheeler

 

 

 

 

 

The sound of the leaves

Two days back I was walking down the street back from college after an exam. Exhausted, with my earphones plugged in, devoid of everything around me. There was a gap between the two songs, my earphones went silent for a moment and that’s when I heard that particular sound, the sound of the leaves, it was a windy day. I had not noticed the beautiful weather until I heard that sound, that’s when I removed my earphones and thought of what I write in this prose.

The maple tree leaves rustled,

as the wind whisked them,

the wind grew mightier.

The leaves whistled,

a soft whistle,

as if they had something to say,

but not a soul heard.

They cried out loud,

hoping somebody, somewhere would listen.

The beholder just turned a deaf ear to them leaves,

ignored the plea and scurried to look for cover from the wind.

But what exactly did the sound leaves want to say?

Was it a warning?

Every passer-by seemed to pay no heed.

They had forgotten to pay attention to

the little things in their lives,

so caught were they in running

through the wind.

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