Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Nobody understands me..

This a blog written by by Vibhore Gupta on 22 Dec 2008 on MSN India I loved it and have put it up here. Hope you guys too like it.

There is one statement I’ve heard more often than any other, that statement is, “Nobody understands me”. To be honest I am not at all surprised by the frequency of this statement, the reason being, it is the tendency of human beings to stay a little secretive. Understanding a person depends more on the steps taken by the person himself as compared to the steps taken by the people around him. After all, it is me who will decide whom I want to keep inside my circle of trust and whom I want to keep outside of it.


Understanding a person does not mean doing or saying something which will please the person concerned. Those who have narrow ideology they have a tendency to please everyone around them. But a true friend of mine will be one who will recognize my long term gains. It’s very simple to be understood by someone, all we need to do is speak our heart with someone whom we feel to be trustworthy enough. We all love our families and to be honest though we love them a lot but we cannot share everything with them. It’s not that they will not understand, it’s just that our culture prevents us from doing so.


I think there are two categories of people who say, “Nobody understands me”. First category consists of fools and second category consists of again two kinds of people, one, who are betrayed by life at every step of this journey called life and second, who are lost in their own thoughts.

I don’t think it would be an effective utilization of time if we start discussing the category of fools.


So lets just jump to the other category, people who are betrayed by luck and circumstances; these people form an iron cladding around themselves, these people don’t want anybody’s help but they are ready to help others. These people are as hard as rock from inside but as soft as cotton from outside. I believe they even start hating emotions but the catch is hate itself is an emotion.

Recently, I had a conversation with a girl who is qualified to be put into this category. She says that she is the best friend of her every friend but she does not appreciate somebody’s helping attitude towards her, I think I should replace the word appreciate by hate in the previous sentence. I don’t know her even a bit but I know that something has happened in the past; something has shaken her from top to bottom. She has had losses; she has had setbacks but she stood against the tides.


When we have had failures, setbacks, losses, then we tend to become numb towards emotions. We think, “I am used to it now”. And this is exactly the statement which takes us away from our friends when we need them. We rely on ourselves way too much that we tend to forget the existence of others, and in this process we start hurting our friends and one day we are left all alone. People are all around us but we have come so far from them that now even if we try to call them all we hear is our own voice. I don’t know how to phrase my emotions here, I've been on that road, I’ve walked down that isle and I know there’s lot of loneliness on that road, there’s a lot of hatred on that isle.


I am not trying to show sympathy to anyone nor am I trying to change the thought process of someone, but if someone can get back on the lines of sharing his sorrows than I think this post will achieve its purpose. I know these people strive on the policy, “Happiness is for 'us' but sorrow is for 'me' ”. This policy leads to a lot of respect but even lot more loneliness.


Now, comes the second kind of people, the people who are lost among their thoughts and the realities of life. The problem with these kinds of people is that the actions of these people are affected by the thoughts of others. They are full of negativity, they picture themselves as a person who has all weaknesses and no strengths. They don’t think about it too often but if somebody tells them, "you think you are great", "why do you behave like this?". These words kill the self confidence of these kinds of people. The irony is that these people are surrounded by negative thoughts yet people around them think that these people are natural egoists. People think they are arrogant and are more interested in themselves and they don’t care about the people around. But believe me, they care about the people around them more then they care about themselves. But honestly, what I believe is that these people should believe in themselves more than others. Believing and caring are two different words, they should learn to go with the flow of life.

After all, every wants to be special but for that, one should know how to believe in his dreams. There is no beginning or end of this circle called life and we should know when to start running around it, it doesn’t matter if we don’t know how to walk.


I don’t know how to end this post so I’ll just put my pen down, but hey! I’m not using a pen. :-)

Monday, October 05, 2009

Troublesome trio Gen next!

Well I know I haven’t penned for a long time about the troublesome trio. I had written in my earlier post that Neets had got married.

I guess the next generation of the troublesome trio is in the making. Neets was the first one to start on the next generation. Well I guess it is because she is still the only one amongst us to have entered matrimony. She had a baby girl on the 3rd of October and thereby I hope starts the next generation of the trio. It was while watching the movie Wake up Sid that Mariya and I got the call. Though I was watching the only sad scene in the movie I was smiling to myself in the theatre. I just cannot wait for it to be December so that I can see that little angel. And to think I got back to Mumbai from Cochin just last week.

Pssst… when I had seen a very pregnant Neets last week I had predicted to Mariya that Neets was sure to have a baby girl. Well looks like I was bang right.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Water

I never get tired of watching the rain fall and also writing about and since it is the monsoon here in India it is the second write up on rain pretty soon. After a long time I got to see the rains of Kerala and it is as beautiful as I remembered it to be. When the rains come down in torrents it is as though the grass in the fields and the trees are waving their hands and dancing in happiness.

They are nodding their little rain drenched heads and opening their tiny hands to welcome and hold as much water in them as they can. Mother earth becomes one big river starting off with the small rivulets, those then joining the bigger rivulet. Eventually all of it flowing into the canals and the rivers which get filled up leading it to overflow from the boundaries set up by man. It is as though all of nature’s element are in their naughtiest moods and are back to their childhood days with the coming of the monsoons.

I don’t know if you have noticed but babies are attracted to water and I am sure their main loved activity of the day would be when they are given a bath as they get to play in the water. Because the rest of the time the bathroom are locked and the bucket and mugs are kept empty by the parents knowing very well that the babies would not miss an opportunity to play in water.

What is it about water in the form of the still water in the pond or the flowing water in the rivers or the rain drops that fall that attracts us to it. It brings about calmness to our souls and gives us peace. It even attracts the babies to it. All of us love splashing away in the rivers and sea and also love drenching in the rain. It attracts not only the babies but also us towards it.

I had my hearts fill of splashing in the puddles and small rivulets of water when in Kochi but it is only in kochi that I splash away to my heart’s content because I know that it just pure rain water and not water from the gutter mixed with rain water as seen in other cities.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Sunday Evening blues

I do not know if others experience it but I suffer from Sunday evening blues. Yes, and it started quiet young since childhood actually.

It started during school days on the thoughts about the next day and normally even after having completed the home work and assignments I used to have this depressing fearful feeling in me which I absolutely detest .

Later on when I ended up in Bangalore in the hostel it just would not leave me alone but got a bit better over the years as my roommates and friends used to end up talking or doing something which used to take away my mind from this. But it used to surface once in a while when I used to see the sunset and the cloudy Sunday evenings during monsoons.

Now that I am working the feeling should have gone away since I do not have assignment and project for submission. But no I am not cured of it even now; I hate it when I get my Sunday blues. I end up feeling all alone and a totally bad depressed feeling. Essentially making me feel that after the Sunday morning it just goes on to being Monday mornings...taking away the Sunday evenings in between...

Rains

Opening up of the heaven is what I would describe the rains and the monsoon season to be. It brings out the romantic and the nostalgic moods in a person (personal experience). When I see the darkened and cloudy day in anticipation of the rain it just brings a queer but feel good ache in my heart. It brings back all the nostalgic memories from childhood and over the years that I fondly like to remember. It is also when I feel like penning down or blogging.

I do not know the reason why I feel so related to the rains and the monsoons. It could be because the day and time I was born it was raining heavily as my Mom recalls. I feel myself being re energized when I see the droplets of water falling in such torrents on to mother earth.

I have always played in the first rains of the monsoon during childhood. Seeing the rains today I wanted to play like during the old days but did not as I did not have anyone to accompany me in this feat here in Hyderabad. But I will drench myself in the rain once before the end of this monsoon season. :)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The greatest blessing of being born a woman

The miracle of carrying a new life within you and bringing it into this world is the greatest blessing a woman has. The experience of those nine months is something every woman looks forward to and I guess would never be forgotten after experiencing it.

The joy of knowing that you are carrying inside you a new life and that now you are not one but two. 2 of my friends from school are expecting and they say how the baby kicks since their 6th and 7th months of pregnancy. The period when our whole personality changes when we start eating thinks which we hated before just because the life which we carry inside loves it. How our disposition changes to some of what the baby would have. We start loving some particular scents which we never knew existed before.

How we can know even before the baby is born if the baby is going to be a late or early sleeper or riser. My aunt while she was expecting my cousin brother would tell that he used to be up and active till after midnight and used to get up late in the morning sometimes getting her into panic as he used to not move until 11 in the morning. When my cousin was born this was what he continued to be a late sleeper and a late riser.

I am yet to experience this miracle which I have been looking forward to. The miracle of carrying and giving life, it is something which I count as the greatest blessing that God can ever bestow upon a human being and he blessed only us women to do this miracle. One of the reasons I feel lucky to be born a woman.

Splendours of the sun

The rising sun is synonymous to a bindi adorning the forehead of a married Hindu woman enhancing her beauty and making her feel complete.

The rising sun is like a reddish orange glowing bindi adorning the white summer morning sky which has just risen from its slumber. Yet to reach its fiery best and shoot arrows of fire down on earth, the time when we can match eye to eye with the sun. A spectacle if to be seen we have to rise early.

The beauty of the rising sun is different from that of a setting sun. The setting sun is much more beautiful and is more splendorous as it wants us to never forget it and wants us to wait eagerly for it to rise again the next day. The setting sun casts it spell on the moving waters and the whole of the land glowing at its best till the last rays ebbs out for the night. The colors that a setting sun splashes out on earth are numerous spreading across the expanse of the whole sky layered from top till bottom.

The smell of life

The smell of mother earth when she receives the first drops of rain after the parched summer months is the best scent in the world. It is a smell that can be enjoyed only for a short time and only when there are the first showers.

It is a smell of joy, of hope, of longing, of new life, when these droplets touch earth she is so happy that you can literally feel her dancing with joy and that is when this beautiful scent arises. She has been longing for these showers for a long time and when it hits her it gives her the hope of starting life anew on her. All the plant and living creatures that are her children will now thrive. New buds will come forth and earth would turn green and young again. She won’t look all dusty, parched and lifeless it is the time of rebirth and starting life anew for mother earth.

It is my favourite scent in the world a scent for which I too wait like mother earth just longing for it through the dry dreary months. I dance out with joy like the peacock when I see the black cloud rolling in and know that finally my long wait for this unique smell has come to an end. I too like mother earth feel it in my senses when the first drops touch earth and the scent just rises up. A scent most divine the scent of joy, hope, longing and new life.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Consequences of marriage

Some of my good friends both guys and gals have taken the plunge and have started on the bend in road, “marriage”. And it is wonderful to find that there is pattern that is common existing to all of them. 3 of my girl friends (don’t get me wrong friends who are girls is all that this means) and 2 of my boyfriends (same applies here guys who are my friends).

My girlfriends have quit their jobs and moved to Mumbai, Bangalore and US where their better half are employed. All 3 of them have taken it as their life’s mission to excel in the world of culinary art. As they have quit their job and are now endowed with the name of housewife till the time they find themselves another job in the cities they have migrated to, their major source of entertainment is that of cooking. I guess they are trying to prove the saying that “The way to mans heart is through the stomach”. Well I think this activity would ensure one thing, them getting into shape with out having to hit the gym :)

Well with regard to my boyfriends they seem to have achieved greater levels of maturity in matter of days. One of them is in the process of setting up his house from scratch and the effect of this effort on him has terrified the rest of us into taking this step in life. They seem to be suddenly entrusted with responsibilities and rudely awakened to a life they never thought would happen to them.

Monday, March 02, 2009

Let her be

This is an article which appeared in the Sunday Times in O-Zone on 1 March 09 and wanted to share it. It has striken a cord with me and my friend, I guess it is the best descrption of what I am feeling right now on the subject.
How do you know who is the right man for you, was the plaintive question a colleague, Ritu, just entering her 30’s asked the other day. Under pressure from her parents to get married within the year, she despaired of finding the right guy and dreaded ending up with the wrong one.
Actually, how do you know who’s right or wrong for you? Surprisingly one finds more women than men debating this question. You hardly ever come across a man scared of being hitched up with the wrong woman. Or at least not one who openly expresses this fear. Women are more commitment phobic these days. It used to be a man’s problem, but today many women don’t get into matrimony for fear of getting attached to the wrong partner. What goes on in a girl’s mind when she is seriously considering the ‘M’ question?
Shilpa, a professional who is unmarried at 32, says, “What holds me back is the fear that a man I like may be pretending to be somebody quite different from what he really is; how is one to know? It’s one thing to enjoy a cup of coffee with a guy and quite another to commit the next 40-45 years of your life to him!” She doesn’t feel as paranoid about striking a new friendship or getting a new job. “Well, of course not,” she says, you can always walk away from a friend or a job; the emotional commitment isn’t so high, but not so from a husband and a family!”
Amrita, a colleague who at 36, is yet to tie the knot, says, “My fears stem from a lot of ‘what ifs’... it’s like you want to know or sort out issues before you actually marry, later will be too late! Is he a cribber? Is he honest? Does he have a sense of integrity? What if I end up tied to a man who is a big bore!”
When Hillary Clinton was asked how she knew that Bill Clinton was her one true love, she replied, “How does anybody know about love? If you can describe it, you may not fully be experiencing it.....My husband is my best friend. We have an endless conversation...we never get bored.”
A lady bureaucrat, Pooja, now happily married with a daughter, recalls how determined she was to satisfy the “inner romantic” within her. “I had to find ‘Mr Right’; the only other option, which didn’t seem too bad either, was to stay unmarried. I could support myself, my time and space were my own; what did I need a man for except perhaps for companionship and to enhance the quality of a life I already led?”
“It had to be someone who shared a general sense of compatibility with me, someone who enjoyed and could share what I wanted of my life. He had to share my value system and be a man I could respect; or at least someone I couldn’t just dismiss; someone who was not unintelligent...”
Note the way the selection process became one of elimination rather than selection for Pooja. She wanted an intelligent guy, but would have been happy with one who was “not unintelligent.” A guy she could respect, or at least, as she put it, someone she “couldn’t just dismiss.”
Sometimes the choice becomes easier by first eliminating what you just will not accept in a life companion rather than looking for the qualities you want. For instance, if you are clear you will not be able to respect a guy with a squeaky voice, or a man who finds it difficult to smile, or someone who drinks or smokes, those are the things to watch out for and clarify first, and the rest follows.
Coming back to how does one know, most women who have met their destined men, insist that you just know. “It’s a feeling,” Pooja tries to explain. When she did meet her soul mate, she describes it as “a gentle feeling...he was bright and fun loving. I knew men... I had enough friends and batch mates...but what was most appealing about my husband was that he was one of the few men I met who gave me this feeling of space...I could be Pooja around him!”
And really, this is what most women are seeking in their men today; just the opportunity to remain themselves. Agrees Ritu, “I want the freedom to keep doing what I love — reading, writing, composing poems. I don’t want someone to clamp me or my aspirations. I want a deep companionship, where we can enjoy the same things together. I want friendship, and passion — for each other yes, but that fizzles out, so passion for the same things in life...” Is that too much to ask for? To just let a woman be herself?

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Alone in the teeming crowd

Have you ever experienced this feeling of being all alone in this world with no one to turn to and there is no place you get that contentment and peace that you are looking for. When you are choked up till your throat and you just want to get a shoulder or an arm into which you can fall into and cry your heart out. And when you thought that you would get it from one of hundreds that are milling around in the crowd but nobody seems to even look into your direction and does not even seem to notice your distress that’s when you get the feeling of being ‘Alone in the teeming crowd’ .

This feeling makes you want to run to the ends of the world from the teeming crowd……. A place no man exists ……from all these people but you can’t you tied up with ropes and can’t move. Your choked up tears are threatening to break the barrier that has it contained but yet not one person in the crowd is extending that hand. It is really hard to hold onto your sanity at these moments.

These are moments when you get to really know the crowd that are swarming around you because you had always believed that this crowd cares for you and will always stand by you through thick or through thin but it seems like it never was that way.
It was always meant to be that you would be ‘Alone in the teeming crowd’

Friday, February 20, 2009

Life in Hyderbad

I have already written my experience of the first job has been very different from what most of my batch mates have experienced. My first thought, when I had joined the project that I am into now, was that I am going to quit and go sit at home. But my experience of the 1 year and more has made me realize that how shortsighted I was because I wouldn’t trade this time I have spent here with anything else how much ever enticing it might look or seem.

The friendship that blossomed here within the group that I got into is so strong that they are the extended family who look out for and take care of you here. The friendship and the time I spend here is making me wary of taking the next step in life because if I take it I am going to lose this and I really don’t want to lose this but want enjoy this as long as it lasts. I had heard a lot about the politics that is there in an office but then I never experienced that here instead it was like an extension of the life at college where we used to work together as a group in the assignments given to us. This could be because of the reason that the whole groups of us were fresher from MBA colleges and this was our first jobs and first project. And we were lucky enough to have Mckinsey consultants on this project who guided us in the work we did and incorporated in us their work culture which is so much different from the work culture seen in our country.

So instead of rivalry amongst us there blossomed a friendship which has been something which is really great. Now we are like the characters of the famous TV serial FRIENDS but of course without the romance angle that is present in the serial. :P

A blank canvas awaiting to be filled.............the random thoughts which seldom stop.....a spark