Virtual Ramblings

It was never meant,
to be this way.
A feeling of guilt,
Is here to stay.
You said, its gonna be
Just another kiss
A pair of closed eyes, and,
A moment of bliss.
I knew you were wrong,
I just went along.
Moments like these are
seldom un-meaningful,
A “kiss”
never unfaithful

——————————————————————————-

I promise that this shall be the last of my romantic poems ..

The prompt today over at writersisland is “unfaithful”. Should I add that here’s my “fictional” piece on the prompt

The movie prompt over there this week is “fantasy”, I did this some time back, thought will add the link here

My Fantasy

She

Some of the weird things I have prayed for…

Oh God,
Please make sure we get the movie tickets today
[I am very passionate about my movies]

Oh God,
Please let her not get more marks than me in kannada
[It was my weakest subject in middle school, and used to always loose top position because of this subject]

Oh God,
Please make me big enough, to fit into normal adult jeans
[I had a tough time moving up to waist 26, where all  pairs of standard jeans began]

Oh God,
Let me wake up one day, and power of my eye vanish
[Used to hate wearing specs as a kid, even now I do]

Oh God,
Let me not get any calls tonight,
[On days I am on call, I may have to wake up middle of night and work]

Oh God,
Please get me the joker, in the next time I pick a card.
[Card games can be fun, and am never less competitive]

Oh God,
Let India win today, don’t want them to loose this one..
[Cricket is an important part of most of us]

Oh God,
Please do make the Microprocessors paper go easy
[The only subject which I thought I would have tough time. Surprise surprise I got highest marks in that]

Oh God.
I want to ask something, but having nothing on mind now, so just surprise me this time
[he he believe me I did this once/twice]

And the list continues…

After an unexpected and fun evening with S on Thursday, Friday turned out to be another unusual evening too. Many of you guys know that I don’t smoke, but then this is what I did on friday evening

My friend set up a hookah at home, being a non smoker had never tried one, and it turned out to be fun. As I do not like the tobacco smell, we filled it up with strawberry flavored non nicotine stuff, all in all an unusual experience and a fun filled one.

Meanwhile its been a long time since I posted something over at pure pursuits, so here it goes
I call it “Amateur thoughts“

After a long time met up with S at a cafe with her husband N yesterday, it had been almost close to 5 months since I met her, after couple of hours of chat and a Cappuccino and espresso later, it feels good to realize we still have the old connection intact. I was a little apprehensive first, and so was she I guess. But like old times, it was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As a kid when I passed by an icecream shop I was drawn to it, I wanted one cone, I never felt bad that I wanted something, I have never dismissed my wants, I have always wanted them passionately, and I have never dismissed my passion, infact I have been proud of my passion for things. But passion can easily grow into envy and then to jealousy. Traditionally both envy and jealousy have been termed bad, people are told be beware of those to feelings, and told to guard themselves away from them.

Theoretically I agree that jealousy is an extreme feeling, and generally harm people who get into it. But isn’t jealousy a very common emotion?, just like you feel happy/sad/angry naturally, you also feel jealous too isn’t it?. If you guys have much self control over emotions that you have never envied anything/anyone than may be I am a very less of a human being. I do envy things, I do envy people, and sometimes I do feel jealous.

As a man in his quarter life, I am on the look our for many things, yep I finally have broken out from the quarter life crisis, not knowing what I want, suddenly things I want seem to be falling into place. I am no saint, I have materialistic things on my list to work for, and also non materialistic things. So now that I know what I want, I am working towards them, some with immediate actions, some with a plan, and some just waiting to have in future. These things amazingly prioritize themselves too, I mean some I seem to want a lot more, and hoping that they happen somehow, and most of them fall into the last category, I mean my wants for the future, which directly I may not have control over, and some which I can do my efforts and have no control on the outcome. Some are really materialistic, and I am surprised I want to have them because there was a time I loathed people who went after them

Over last few months, one of such wants is making me envious. I do not have the word power to express what is it that’s making me envy some, infact every time I get the feeling I am feeling a little bit of envy, I am unknowingly getting disgusted at myself, and driving me out of the scene, making sure I don’t get to listen/view or discuss the matter, and the sad part is that people involved, even though they do not know about it, secretly I have a fear that I may begin to dislike them, like the way its illustrated in all possible media, the rift formed by envy/jealousy. I fear what If I get into that groove.

Jealousy is always considered to be self centric, a selfish act which helps no one, but if you do not think about the extremes, it does help people to work with a better zeal towards the goal, when I grew envious of the kid who used to top the class always, I struggled for 3 full years to topple her at the top. It has not always been bad to me, and I know that, but then why do I fear now?, why am I afraid of my envy?.

When the thought of writing something on my jealousy came up first thing I did was to look up at wikipedia. And I was surprised at their definition and also their distinction between envy and jealousy
Jealousy : “Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival”
Envy:“Envy may be defined as an emotion that “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.”
“Jealousy concerns something one has and is afraid of losing, while envy concerns something one does not have and either he wants to acquire (nonmalicious envy) or he wants the other(s) not to have (malicious envy)”

After going through this I realize, I have never used the word properly, may be going by this definition I am not jealous, I may be lot more envious.

As usual I am left with a lot of questions at the end.
Is a feeling of envy/jealous normal?,

Is it normal if you end up feeling a little envious about things you want badly for you?,

Does it always indicate desperation?,

Does one need to panic when he feels he is feeling a little envy,?

How does one get himself out of it?, is avoiding a good solution for it, if at all this is a problem?,

Do you feel envy/jealous at times?.

Yesterday’s directions have still kept me wandering, I pick this quote from a lovely blogger friend Autumn who writes over at “Random Autumness“. She is a new blogger friend of mine, and its been nice to discover her over last couple of posts. Yesterday I was just bowled over by this quote she made in one of her posts.

“I can walk any path. I no longer need to control my direction.”

I think somewhere we need to pick this confidence for our life, I mean reach a stage where we feel secure, and believe that we can walk any path, so what if some of them are hard and take a little more than the other sections, so what if we lose our way a little, we will get back on our feet and walk the path.

I also picked up this small meme over at her place , its a set of questions for which we need to answer in one word. So here goes my attempt

Yourself: Boring
Your Partner: Absconding
Your Hair: Receding
Your Mother: Advicing
Your Father: Cool
Your Favorite Item: Food
Your Dream Last Night: Naughty [for a change]
Your Favorite Drink: Coffee [Vodka in alcohol]
Your Dream Car: Mustang
Your Dream Home: Crowded
The Room You Are In: Bedroom
Your Fear: Loneliness
Where Do You Want To Be In 10 Years: Travelling
Who You Hung Out With Last: Co-Workers
What You’re Not: Patient
Muffins: Blueberry
One of Your Wish List Items: Friends
Time: Punctuality
Last Thing You Did: Work
What Are You Wearing: T shirt
Your Favorite Weather: Rainy!!
Your Favorite Book: “Tuesday’s with Morrie”
Last Thing You Ate: Chat
Your Mood: Tiresome
Your Best Friends: away
What Are You Thinking About Right Now: Dinner
Your Car: yet to buy
Your Summer: hot and humid
What’s on your TV: IPL [Cricket]
What is your weather like: HOT!
When Is the Last Time You Laughed: A week back
Your Relationship Status: non-existent.

Remember the question I asked some time back?

“People who do not affect us, people who really do not care much about us, people who were close to us once upon a time, people who have grown up and apart, why do they still matter to us so much?, why can’t we forget that people who have drifted apart?“

I think I am back to the same thought again today, I think I found the answer, “Time”, how effectively it makes us forget people, and reduced their need, their importance.

This put a even bigger question on my mind, are people really important?, people who did not stand the test of time, do they still matter to us?, is “mattering” just a function of time?, or time just hides the importance and people will be back to haunt us soon.

Smiling faces attract me. its very easy to appear beautiful, not just to me, but many others like me, all one needs to do, is smile. Smiles of any kind are attractive, the shy one, the reluctant one, the one on verge of a laughter, a highly controlled one, any type for that matter. I just can’t resist a smiling face.

I have about 30 minutes in the morning, between getting ready for work, and actually leaving for work. The 30 minutes are reserved for having my breakfast and a morning cup of my tea, while I am having my breakfast, I sneak in 30 minutes of Television. As my evenings go in either calls, or reading/writing blogs, the only time I get to watch television are 30 minutes in the morning, I need to cram in couple of cartoons, and some Kannada songs on U2, and some hindi ones on any music channel. Now in between while surfing, I generally lookup movies playing on TV, and do get to watch few minutes if the movie interests me. I got to watch few minutes of the movie mili on Wednesday, I have seen it earlier, but I had always dismissed the movie with an opinion that it’s a imitation of “anand” one of my all time favorite movie. Both the movies are about a person suffering from cancer, and their journey towards their death.

As I was watching the movie, there was one scene, when the patient is down with fever and almost in final stages of her life. One can see the heavy dark bags below the eyes, the face is almost down, and once very enthusiastic mili is very dull and quiet. That’s when she sees the leading actor Amitabh walk in to her room, and her face instantaneously picks up and she smiles. I have to admit, I just loved the scene, its so natural, and one can genuinely spot happiness on her face, even in desperate situation, the smile of hope is something a class about the ones I mentioned at the beginning of the post. The hope evident in the smile was highly impacting on me, I must admit I was kind of floored, I liked the scene very much.

What is it about hope that makes it so wonderful?. Being hopeful in this world is pretty difficult, I mean with so much of darkness around even hoping for a ray looks foolish, but not everyone has lost hope isn’t it?, I see many a hopeful faces around, I see them smiling, and believe me there is no one more beautiful than these smiling ones.

Topic over at skittles today for heads or tails is “express”, I am not so sure which way she meant it, was she talking about the express pace, or may be she was talking about “to express” which means to communicate.

Thinking of expressing oneself, I guess people are good at expressing themselves in different ways, some find it extremely easy to speak and express everything just through their voice, some on the other hand express brilliantly in written words. Some are comfortable in expressing through spoken words, there are others who find it easy to say it in words written, and some who do not express at all.

I think I am one of those, who does not express anything well, but then find it comfortable to express through written words rather then spoken sentences. I have tried to think about this many a times, why is it that I find it easy to jot down my thoughts, rather then socialize, meet someone and express the same in person. May be I have become extremely addicted to the anonymous stage the written world provides, may be I am so used to not owning up to what I say, may be I do not have the confidence to carry off my thoughts and my stands, or may be I am not so social in person.

Not all of what I said earlier is true, I find it really easy to communicate what I need to say professionally, I do end up resorting a lot of vocal sentences to express my ideas, and when needed step up and fight for my stand. When it comes to normal communications, I think a I have a long history of not caring enough to converse, not caring enough to discuss with people in person, even with friends and family.

I am a horrible person to speak to on phone, I mean I am blank almost all the time, just last week a friend of mine from work, suddenly called me up, I was totally not prepared to talk to her, so kept drawing blank every few seconds, I mean I really had no topic to speak about. This is not the first time it has happened to me, I have drawn blank even chatting on IM with many of my friends. Why is it that I find hard to find topics to talk about, or even express anything impromptu, when I can do it easy over here.

I am working on this one for sure, I want to improve my ability to express, I want to be able to come up with a decent conversation with any stranger I meet, my dad is excellent a that, I think I should learn a trick or two from him. Any suggestions people?

Hinduism is known for a lot of festivals, even though over time many of them have lost its festivities, some of them have survived modernization and lack of time. Some of these festivals are my favorites, some because of the way we celebrate them, some for the sweat memories associated, and some for the philosophy behind the festival, today happens to be one such festival. Today is the first day of our new year.

Like Chinese calendar which has 12 years named after animals, Hindu calendar has an year cycle of 60 years, and each of them are called samvatsara, at one point I could name all of them, but aging body has affected my memory ;). Today happens to be the beginning of the sarvadhari samvatsara, and we call the festival “Ugadi”, which literally means a beginning of the new year [era]. You can read some more info about the festival here.

On the day of  Ugadi, apart from the normal practice of taking an oil bath, and praying to the god, we have two very unique practices. One is we touch the feet of the oldest in the family, and he/she will provide us with the blessings and hand out a mixture of neem[margosa] and jaggery [unrefined sugar], the other thing is the eldest in the family, generally the male reads the almanac or panchanga [Indian calendar] .

I like the philosophy behind handing out the mixture, as today is the beginning of the new year, this practice is a symbolic way, of the eldest in our family to tell us, life is going to be a mixture of a sweet jaggery and also the highly bitter neem, so the elders bless us with the courage to face both the highs and the lows. As kids I used to hate eating neem, as it is very bitter, especially the flower is much more bitter than the leaf, but then as I began to realize the importance, the bitterness became more symbolic, and at the end it really solved the purpose, you cannot eat just the neem its too bitter, nor can you take just the jaggery its very sweat, so its always good to take life as a mixture.

Reading the almanac, is again a group activity, like many of the other festivities, this again is an attempt to gather the family members, almanac has a lot of predictions for the year, including the months where rains are  predicted, days which are considered to be auspicious, days of eclipse and stuff like that, it provides a common platform where the family could really plan the year ahead, and take inputs from each other. Its again a symbolic gesture, we really don’t go through the almanac, and only as a formality my dad generally reads through some paged of it, but good thing is we all get together, discuss what we are planning for the year, and more importantly know a bit about this samvatsara.

Wishing you all a very happy ugadi, and a very prosperous Sarvadhari samvatsara.