DO u pay well?

Sometimes it feels life just passed you by, like a bad dream. It does not even give u time to comprehend what just happened, it may not be plane crash intensity but quite the opposite, slow and painful and the reason you do not comprehend is cuz u you suddenly go into denial, as if it is not happening to you at all! Our psyche has its own defense mechanism that works quite well to cushion us to any mental damages that we may incur due to such incidences in our lives. I just wonder if they come back to haunt you later. I am too young to prove that right now.

I always thought that you could be in the other person's shoe and understand what they maybe going thru, but that is so untrue.. you can never know what is not, till you have actually experienced it. So the whole phrase that we generally say in sympathy "I understand" is so fake, because we don’t, and even cant if we have not gone thru it ourselves. I definitely have learnt my lessons of not using that phrase loosely.

Life is always not planned in the way you like it to be, even a small spot of doubt in your head can really mess around with the whole " I am positive _____ will happen" outlook. But have we ever thought why we doubt occurrences in our lives? There is a counter mechanism that goes in the process, head says : I don’t think its possible, and heart says : be positive; it will happen, how the hell do you listen up and to who? But here is where the gut comes into the picture. you just go by it, and bang that is what u get.. do u see how the whole organ system actually helps us to be more decisive and prepares us for all the outcome. I m totally impressed!

If you are strong enough, a negative outcome cannot devastate you, because u have the power to "let go", and seek newer pastures, it actually feels like releasing a dead fetus after 10 weeks of pregnancy; you know u have bonded with it, but because it is not viable, its needs to let go and then you move on to mate again, in quest of success.

In our lives, we have good days and bad days, and only if we have to gauge it deeply, we realize, how out bodies work double time not only physically but mentally to help us reach where our ambition take us.

I really wonder would it take us to reward ourselves for what it does for us?

Where is the time to stand and stare?

I know I have been long gone from my regular blogging schedule..but I guess I'd say that I was taking a blog holiday. :-) I really wonder if I have the same passion for writing that I did have few years ago..times change and varied priorities take precedence...but I am being optimistic, and I think times will come again when I will be able to write with the same flair.

My recent escapade; hoping many cities across western Europe got me thinking, what life is good enough for you? I loved the whole feel of the white xmas that I had always imagined only in my Charles Dickens classics, with sprawling greens enveloped in deep mist, horse carriages, harmonicas and chanting church bells. It was like a medieval world come alive, except for driving an Audi, traveling the TGV and living in hotels centrally heated instead of fireplaces. Winters were severe but not harsh enough to dampen my love for travel, as days passed by, I would not but ponder on how people lived their lives, differently in different continents, cities and towns, aloof of the existence of anything better that may exist.

As Indians, we have been bred to be competitive, a good thing I must confess. We have always wanted more out of our lives; but it is always about money, power, status and it never ends. We loose our peace, touch with ourselves, and become mechanical, just wriggling and suffocating ourselves with the day to day wrung. Festivals pass by and so do other festivities in our lives and we live only to impress our bosses from one paycheck to another. This winter, after a very long time, I enjoyed being in the company of the joyous. I did not know any acquaintances but was greeted as if they were kins! People were so happy, festive, enjoying the moment, living for the day! How many of us do that, we are too busy struggling to get a scholarship, report rolling, or a strategy implemented. We miss those moments, thinking that we’d have time for it later, who has seen that later?

Many a times I have a flash, lying on the hard ground, hit by a car with gurgling blood. It is disturbing as it is reflective, but true, gets you thinking, why not live life like there is no tomorrow?

I can actually hear a grand pa saying, invest into your future beta, you will be spending a lot of time there, but grand pa, with such a lifestyle, do u think we will have a future?

Why have festivals at all?

Festivals have always been an integral part of our lives as Indians, with so many festivals to our credit; we almost live from one festival to another.

During olden days it used to be a way to divulge from the routine humdrum of life, now days though the definitions are slightly twisted, they carry more or less the same meaning.

We link festivals to a religious, cultural or social reasoning strung by dutiful rituals, prayers and devotion to the prime deities of that festival. Our kings and monarchs celebrated all festivals with grandeur, huge pujas were organized, many people would be invited to the paraphernalia of the festivals, but amidst all this glamour what was never forgotten was humbleness. An enormous amount of money, food would be passed down to the less fortunate. Those who could not afford to live like kings, would have a heart king size, when it came to sharing the joys of the festivals with the poor.

Originally the word festival was derived from the word feast that would be in honor of God(s). A feast and a festival are historically interchangeable. A feast would mean an elaborate meal, which all could enjoy. Times change; so do people and policies. Now we still have the same festivals almost the same fervor and more than magnanimous amount of spending, but we do not feast anymore. It’s not about spreading the feeling of happiness, but how much money we can flash during these occasions, it’s an expensive parade of all that you can name. The people who are humbly rooted are considered obsolete.

Have we lost the golden touch or become so overwhelmingly absorbed in our pillar to post life that we do not stop to think to add a little sparkle in someone’s life? If this is true, we definitely need some re-engineering to do.

Happy Diwali.