Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A World of Dependents

I've been alone at home the past 2 weeks. It's the longest I've had the house all to myself. Well there is Kasper....:). But he's welcome... let's me do my work and he does his(which is sleeping of course).

Amma usually stays with me. She's gone to be with Dad for a few days. I don't talk much with Amma. But I realize now that though we may not talk much I miss just the presence of her.

It's nice to be on your own. But the truth is days are long, and nights even longer. I long to go out... meet some friends... etc. There are books... but sometimes... the presence of another person cannot be compensated by that.

You know... this got me thinking about how dependent we all are on each other.

Imagine if one day the world around you collapsed and you were the only survivor.... how would you live? Can you find food for yourself? Can you make a fire without matches or a lighter? Can you climb a tree? Can you fish? Do you know which plants are poisonous and which are not?

Do any of the degrees we've earned matter when we are faced with a raw situation like that? The futility of education....

I hate being dependent... and it kills me that after all these years I'm still not on my own... but we are never really independent are we? We are never really free...

We are trapped in society... we must live by it's laws... must submit to it's demands... because otherwise we(as a whole) become worthless, powerless.

Now I understand those people who cling on to old ideas, customs and traditions... even though logically it doesn't stand. It's part of the process by which all of us submit to society... to each other... that's what's enabled us to survive...

But must this come at the cost of reason? Must our customs and traditions inhibit us? Growth of societies invariably depend on the growth of an individual who changes things forever with his vision and action. Instead of making things so tough for these individuals shouldn't society be enabling these people?

We need each other to live.... we need each of us to do our best so that we all may grow... these are basic things that every person should be able to deduce.... then why all the madness, superstition and non-sense around us? Why?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Confessions of a Cricket fan!

Namaskar. Is karyakram mein aapka swaagat hai!

Late last night I'd met up with a few friends in Coffee Day. As usual I was the early bird and I had to wait a good 45 min before I got some company.

Anyways... I was there. I prefer sitting outside to indoors. So I found myself a chair and sat down.
Well I was the only non- looove matter person there outside. Every other place was occupied by a couple. In fact it had to be that way. I'll tell you why- because of the god-damn mosquitoes!
I couldn't sit outside for 10 min and had to go running inside. You had to be in love to not realize the god-damn mosquitoes! God bless them couples...

So I went inside and here the crowd was a more even spread. You had groups of guys and girls sitting around. I was the only loner. I didn't mind. There was a hot-chick sitting with her-gal friends and I found myself a nice place where I could get a nice 'view'. :)

I found that I had to look at the TV too. So I did. Ah...What is this? A cricket match! That too India playing... against Sri Lanka... how come I didn't know! How come none of my friends told me about it! What the hell?

So as a true gentleman I pretended to focus on the match on TV while my attentions were actually else where.

As I was watching Dravid got bowled. Nice... Then Yuvraj was trying his best to edge behind to the keeper. He finally got lucky and did just that. Then Raina came in and showed Yuvraj exactly how easy it is and that he shouldn't have wasted 6 balls trying it. Raina did it in his first one!

K... screw the match... where is the babe? Yes... she was there... and yes she caught me looking at her... girls always know... and she gave me one of those 'i know you are looking' stares, and she got with her friends and giggled... i knew she didn't mind being 'looked at' by me.
Just as I was about to muster up the courage and actually go and talk to her my friend calls and he's like 5 minutes he'll be there. Ah.... what the hell... I decided not to proceed. I stayed put in my chair.
(5 minutes turned out to be 30... but he has a girl friend... and like the old saying goes...''love takes time".)

The cricket was excruciatingly boring. Every time the ball went to the outfield I'd find myself counting in my head till the next ball was bowled. And it was consistently in the 3-figure mark. GOSH! I'm here sitting jobless trying to watch my fav game and I couldn't. Yes... there was the distraction... but I think there is a deeper reason to it. ODI's have lost their thrill. 20-20's have taken their place and I think it's just a matter of time before ODI's get 'phased' out. Luckily for me there was the 'distraction'. :)

So I was waiting for my friends... pretending to watch the match... and generally enjoying myself... when suddenly I felt like I was being stared at. I looked around and suddenly found a head moving sheepishly away. No it wasn't the chick. It was a guy! Apparently he walked in after I had... and he was sitting alone too.

Right... I thought it was a one-off. But no... this guy kept staring at me... I was like what the bloody hell. I felt like a chick. I moved my position a little. Still staring at me... I pretended to look at the TV and watch him through the corner of my eye, and yes, he was still staring at me. Now I was getting paranoid. I took a quick glance in the mirror to see if there was anything on my face... I couldn't find anything except my face! I looked around to see if my fly was open. It wasn't. Everything was fine... and I still felt naked.

By this time I'd lost focus on the chick. I realized that this is probably the way chicks feel when I stare at them. I felt guilty. I prayed to God and begged him to take this guy away from there. I made promises that I'd never stare at a chick again... though all along I could hear a voice in my head saying "who you kidding?".

All right I told myself... focus on the match... God damn.. it was so bloody lousy anything else had to be better... yes there was the chick.... but no... there was my 'admirer'.

I couldn't take it beyond a certain point... So I finally got up... walked to the guy... and asked him what his problem was... he looked helpless... and at that moment I realized he was squint... and i felt terrible inside. One glance at the girls and I saw them giggling... I felt like a bloody fool.

I thought of walking out just then... but my friends came in at that very instant... talk about timing...

None of them reads this blog and I never gave them the full story of the awkward moment there. It was way too embarrassing. I hope you won't tell them....

Now if only the cricket had been good... none of this would have happened!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Connecting with your Blog Dosts

Hola!

How to you to be doing is? All well?

Been some time. Well it was nothing but the old writer's block. And if not for Issam's call today I don't think I'd have actually written this post.

Issam is the only follower of my blog whom I'm personally in touch with. And the blog often features in our conversations. It's something that connects us. A passion that we both share. And that's only enhanced our friendship.( People out there- pls don't start getting ideas... I'm straight... I can't vouch for Issam... but I am STRAIGHT! )

You know sometimes it plays in my head that we should be able to contact each other. Connect in more ways than just our blogs/comments. We could share ideas. We could actually become friends... coz hey.... we all love blogging don't we?

But then there is the apprehension. I mean... blogging is actually putting your thoughts out there in to the big bad world. And well... quite frankly... we don't know what kind of people are out there. Maybe it's better that we keep our identities to ourselves in the virtual world. You know like Frost's poem about the wall... and 'good fences make good neighbours'( in this case bloggers!).
Being anonymous allows one to be more frank about things. And any clash in thoughts can be handled right here.

But it would still be nice to know all of you out there. I didn't like tagging... but you get to know a bit about the people around when you go through their tags. That's nice. And maybe we should do more of that stuff.

I don't know... maybe we could be good friends... maybe we'll never hit it off. But do you think it's worth a try?