the feel good times...

its Diwali again....the time for school holidays, cousins coming home, cleaning the house, buying that new trouser, moms making those farsans and mishtans and kids finishing it all up, craving for that one extra cracker, girls taking hours of pain in drawing that amazing rangoli and guys happily spoiling them, decorating shops, going to mandir at 6 am in the morning to get the special darshan and mom specifically instructing to keep footwear in the paid section to prevent them from being stolen, getting countless blessings in one day and countless times more valued than that, the 500 odd rupees that elders gave...debating the superiority of rassi-bomb over laxmi-bomb..getting fascinated by looking at the rockets up in the sky and the jamin-chakkars on the ground, considering yourself infinetely superior than your friends coz u managed to grab those two extra choclates from that aunties house...mom telling you to study on new years eve hoping that you actually would study the rest of the year....and this...and that.....and this...and that....

nothing narrates better times more than diwali in India...so here's wishing u happy diwali in a novel way( and since somebody accused me of plagiarism..:-), here is the disclaimer: this is not written by me..i lifted it from a forward. ).....

Bhagwan kare aapko...

Chandragupt Ki Shakti
Meerabai Ki Bhakti
Ramchandra Ka Gyan
Karan Ka Daan
Einstein Ki Buddhi
Nobel Prize Ki Siddhi
Gandhi Ki Ahimsa
India Ki Parampara
Vajpayee Ki Maryada
Manmohan Ki Sampada
Michael Jordan Ki Salary
Arundhati Roy Ki Vocabulary
Bhagat Singh Ka Deshprem
Sweetheart Ka Amarprem
Google Ke Share
Rupiyo Ke Dher
Tata Ke Senses
Ambani Ke Licenses
Birla Ka Bangla
Daler Ka Bhangra
Hrithik Ki Style
Madhuri Ki ishmile
Amitabh Ki Personality
Aishwarya Ki Popularity
Worldtour Ka Ticket
Duniya bhar ka cricket
Mercedez Ki Car
Diamond Ka Haar

Aur Logon Ka Dher Saraa Pyar Prapt Ho...

happy diwali!! :-)

How to make sense of it all...

My friend Murtaza always repeats this one line whenever I get a little low or start cribbing...he says that "Eventually, good things are bound to happen to good people...that is the law of life.." He always says that. Always. And then he gives me an example...of some different person...everytime...and then I believe in those lines for some days...but I see so many problems and so much pain with so many people I know, that I almost always end up wanting to refute that 'feel good' statement. Because if that statement is true, then the conclusion to be drawn is that all these people I know are bad...and the answer to which is negative. So what is the reason for all this misery then? Before I jump to a conclusion, its important to notice his statement that these 'good' things will happen over a long period of time and happen when you least expect them to happen. And that is when his statement truly sinks in. Life does not pay you back in the same currency. We would get it back, but when and how is not for us to decide. And there lies the problem. We have this dedicated calculator in our minds that keeps on calculating whether we have got our dues back from life. And that calculator is not working correctly in most minds. It is biased and adds our problems more than it subtracts the goodness that we have got back and thus the total never reaches back to zero and we always end up feeling that life still has something to give back to us. The day we get this calculation fine-tuned to work correctly, I believe most of us would be happier.

My reason for this philosophical indulgence is because my friend is going thru a bad time. B A D bad. And these lines, from the Jagjit Singh song 'Kyon zindagi ki rah mein.....', perfectly summarize her situation:

Aisa nahi ke humko, koi bhi khushi nahi..
Lekin yeh zindagi bhi koi...zindagi nahi...

It's like this feeling of emptiness, even when you are in a group of friends. You dont really know why you feel so sad about something or is it even justified that you feel sad about it or whether that someone is even worth your sadness. And even after knowing all these things, the truth is that you do feel sad about it. All the time. When after every laughter there is this silence when your memory takes you back to some old situation...when everything was so good. And then the mind, given its perfect sense of timing, pops up this 'will it/I/they/life ever be the same again?' type of question.

Thats when helplessness starts to sink in. A person who is so used to being in control of the situation, someone to whom others look up to for help..all the time, someone that others think is so poised and confident has infact become so fragile and brittle within. And I feel helpless about not being able to help my friend out. I can only talk her out of it and talking doesn't seem to work. And thus again I see Murtaza's belief-system of good things happening to good people failing. Or is it just that my minds calculator is not fine-tuned? And while thinking about all this, the only lines that come to my mind are from U2's 'Stuck in a moment you can't get out of'....

I never thought you were a fool...
But darling look at you...
You gotta stand up straight...
Carry your own weight...
These tears are going nowhere baby...

How long must we sing this song...

I am not a big fan of photography....and neither do I understand it much...but I do believe that a picture can say a thousand words...and some pictures speak more than a million words....but this picture below did not speak a million words...not a thousand...not even one word....it forced a silence....and then it just hit a bullet...ripped off right thru the center my brain...i have not seen such a picture for years now....it made me numb...and it keeps coming back to me....which i dont want to happen.....

Why??

Because i don't want to distort my illusion...things are perfectly fine...arent they?? Life is great, I get instant hot and cold water...I have the option of choosing between White, Italian and Wheat bread...I can buy reduced fat, 2%, skimmed and Fat Free milk, Friday nights at the clubs are only $5, U2's new album is awesome and the JDK 1.5 has this new Scanner Class built-in which makes reading input from the console a lot easier.... and I am only living my life within this hallowed circle...My teachers and parents have always taught me not to worry anyway.....





we are ONE...but we are not the same....
we have to carry each other...carry each other...

HELLO HELLO...I WENT TO A PLACE CALLED VERTIGO

Event: U2 L.I.V.E in Concert
Date: 09/20/05
Venue: United Center
City: Chicago
Experience: Priceless...No, MasterCard cannot buy it!!

Went to see U2....yeah..U2, my fav band U2, the biggest and best band in the world U2, U2-the masters of making you feel good and bad about the same thing at the same time ...., live in concert... L I V E...am yet to recover from the experience...I had not really imagined that I would get a chance to watch them perform live...it's one of those things that I always dream while taking a shower....me singing together with Bono...or me writing a song with Bono...and some dreams do come true...there I was..right there..singing "Where the streets have no name" in sync with Bono and 18,000 other like-minded people...while 'The Edge', in his trademark numbered jersey and cap, was strumming away his guitar to glory, totally oblivious to the sheer web of magic that he was weaving. Met people who have been seeing U2 shows since 1984...and who still feel the same euphoria on listening to those golden oldies....

So now I have experienced U2 live in concert, I have seen A.R. Rahman in concert...I wish R.D. Burman was alive and I could watch him live in concert...that would have completed my pilgrimage of the holy trinity....Yahweh...

*********

Its complicated to advise someone about love, especially when u haven't had many real experiences of rising in love yourselves....but it amazes me how those words of wisdom come to a persons mind when giving advice about love to his pals....and then (s)he ends up doing the same mistake when their time comes....they say we should learn from others mistakes....why dont we learn about love from others??? OR, is love to be learned from others???

*********

My friend SinUrge, has a very interesting small story on his blog...the latest post...the story is small..and it leaves the space to draw a conclusion wide open...pretty funny and interesting incident...

*********
Song of the week: 'One' by 'U2' from the album 'Achtung Baby', 1991.

Did I ask too much? More than a lot....
You gave me nothing, Now it's all I've got....