Virtual Ramblings

Yesterday, I did my 500th post over here at virtual rambling. Yep “Kiss” was my 500th post on this blog.
I can’t believe that I just did that, remembering myself who had no clue as to what to communicate, what to write, and scrambled thoughts always. Today I am filled with nostalgia from blog world, people, posts and friends, so many over the last two years I have spent over here. I thought it would be nice to walk down the memory lane, and remember some of the blog world nostalgia.

When I began blogging, I really did not know how it works out, are you supposed to just blog, get someone to read your blog, tell your friends that you have started blogging, advertise, or just don’t bother about all this and just write, I think I decided to tell my friend, and “Random Thoughts” was my first reader.

That reminds me, “Virtual Ramblings” was not the first choice for my blog, it did start with the name “Random Ramblings”, just a week and “Random” got the ax, “Ramblings” survived though :).

I was very apprehensive with people online, and I hardly interacted with any blogger online. I am not sure how she came across my blog, but Ireland who used to write at “The windmills of my mind“, she was the first one whom I spoke over the IM, shared my real identity, and it was fun knowing her as a person. Its been a long time since I sent her an email, or spoke to her on IM. It would be nice to get her back to blogging. I did shoot her an email today.

There were parts of me which I totally ignored, I found it really difficult to acknowledge those hidden emotions in me, and thats when I came across Ideasmithy at XXfactor happened, and an idea of starting an exclusive blog for my pure pursuits. The idea got me in touch with people with so many different approaches to life. Many people participated in the body or soul series, and many have remained very good blogging friends. Paisley who writes over at “Why Paisley” has been one blogger who has always given me a different view, someone who always breaks the cliche, comes out with an alternative look at my subjects over at pure pursuits.

Finding someone who really gets what you mean, corrects you when they feel you are wrong, is very difficult, not just a word that you are wrong, but also make sure you get their point and realize what you are doing wrong, I was fortunate enough to find a friend who did all this, its been a real pleasure to know a good friend sunshine.

He has been my sole regular male reader for as long as I can remember now. Extremely talented writer, Matt writes over at My life as a conscious observer

Prompts, it began with “Poetry Thursday” which my good friend Darlene used to participate, I got hooked on, and then moved on writer’s island, and then many others to follow. Silverneurotic one of my oldest blog buddies introduced me to Heads or Tails, which I continue to enjoy doing every Tuesday.

Blogs were meant for discussion and honest opinions, so there were times when there was strong opinions against my posts, some of you might remember “couple of good news“, and it was real fun discussing the point of views with ashu over the post .

A couple prompts and a scribbling of poems does not make me a poet, does it, I was reminded of this by a critique over at this post, good to be brought down to ground once in a way.

I said this is one of the previous posts, there are few people who write informative blogs, highly passionate about their subjects, do research about the facts and provide you amazing factual evidence, something which I never do. Nita and Shefaly both have provided me with a different approach to blogging. I still remember Shefaly as the one who made me spell something right, something my teacher could not get me to do.

Books, so many people have suggested me books over here, I am so thankful to many people, It would be stupid to list them out here, but people thank you so much for the book suggestions.

It’s amazing how many new people I have got to read in this blogosphere, some who have got me hooked on, and some who have made me really wait for their next posts. I wish I could export my google reader over here.

Guys thank you so much for all the memories you have given me.

Veens had tagged me to link ten people, I think this counts :).

Why do I have a strong feeling that 500 should be it, the “end“?

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“

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.

I always believed that one cannot jump a traffic signal unknowingly in Bangalore, I mean there is such high traffic, and people from the other directions always all set to jump in, there is no way you can jump a signal without realizing it.
I admit I am a very lazy person, I hate to go out during weekends, specially if it involves driving mainly because of the bad traffic in Bangalore and also my extreme laziness when it comes to dealing with two wheelers. This Sunday was different, I had It planned, I was to wake up by around 8am, have breakfast by 10, catch an episode of a game show which I missed on Friday night and wanted to see how good a singer has developed, and free myself by 11:30. I wanted to get to a second hand book store at the heart of the city to buy some books for me. I had finished my last unread book at home, “Lolita” by Nabokov, and had a list of books to buy.
So as per the plan, I left home at 11:30am as per the plan, and enter the J C road, this is one street which I have never seen empty, but today it was deserted, at least by Bangalore standards, I went past swiftly and took a right turn, and bang I was caught by a policemen. I slow down and park towards the road side and take off my helmet, and a nice looking policemen stares at me for a second or two. I begin to wonder, what wrong have I done, is this some kind of a routine check?, if yes I am in a big soup, as my bike’s insurance had expired and was pretty much hoping I had broken some rule so that he just fines for that. Looking at a puzzled me, he point me to a white colored car and asks me, did you just follow the car?. I nod my head, and he tells me, “sir neevu traffic signal node illa, avranna follow mad bittirdira”. [You have just followed the car, you have not seen the signal at all]. I was very shameful and he could make out that I had not realized till he told me, he asked me not to do again, put a fine of 400Rs for jumping signal and rash driving [his version of saying be careful when you enter highly crowded places] and off I went. My first driving ticket ever.

In a way very symbolic of type of person I am, most of the times a follower, always a reluctant leader.
Anyways the main fun was to follow, I had a list full of books I wanted to buy at this second hand book store, and was pretty satisfied with the help I got there, the lad there just took the list of my hand, and within minutes he had the stack ready.

So here is the list of books I bought on Sunday.

Memory of My Melancholy whores. Gabriel Garcia Marquez courtesy
I have never read him before, this will be my first book of his. Book courtesy shelf of my blogger friends Shreyasi Deb and Dream Catcher

I came across a passage written by Mrs Sudha Murthy in a mail that was forwarded to me by someone, I always have liked people who had a middle class feel to their writing, more of what I can relate to, so here’s another first book on my shelf
“How I taught my grand mother to read and other stories” by Sudha Murthy

Sometimes when I am bored I resort to some dry wit, and so just wanted to try some humor book, so here I have “Sein Language” by Jerry Seinfeld, Yep the same sitcom comedian.

Its really surprising that I haven’t read many of Indian authors, so I caught hold of Anita Nair’s LADIES coupe, I am not sure why I picked this up, its more of a feminine book I suppose, but to be frank the cover picture kind of attracted me a lot, so went by the old saying, judge the book by its cover. [well I think I got this totally wrong, I think it was not to judge ]. Suggested by Idea Smithy

Last but not the least my tryst with a new genre, “My name is Red” by Orphan Pamuk..no clue regarding what to expect. Suggested by Dream catcher

I heard this on TV, in one of the episodes I was catching up, the lead character gives a tip “One needs to be always proud of his achievements“. It does look like a cheesy lame line straight out of self help book, [which does remind me of my wonder at why self help books are always termed cheesy]. Anyways, coming back to the tip, Its one of those lines you know, which kind of strike you subconsciously and then, in your spare time your mind kind of picks up thinking about it, almost without your knowledge.

Just the other day I wrote something, which I did not publish over here, it was about an answer to an imaginary question. “If I were to be asked what do I regret the most today“?. I honestly felt that one of my biggest regrets of today was something which I really was too happy to achieve. I mean I still consider it a good achievement, even though it does not carry so much of a value any more, to me it still is an achievement, and I know how much I struggled for it, and how much I valued it. Today I regret it. No it does not reduce the value of the achievement in my eyes, but still I regret that. I felt the price I paid for that achievement was too much, may be I never got to undo the damage caused on my way to that achievement , may be I would have done much better without that achievement but with other things which I “Want” now.

Gardon parks, well known for his photo essays for Life magazine once told that “Many times I wondered whether my achievement was worth the loneliness I experienced, but now I realize the price was small.“, I feel he was wrong, he must have paid a very heavy price or may be I haven’t reached a stage nor an achievement which makes me feel that the price I paid is small.

This post does carry a lot of abstracts, with no proper clarity of the achievement I am talking about and the price I paid. I did this purposefully, it could not just be me, it could by any of us, any of our achievements, or any of the price we paid.

Sometimes it makes me wonder, when I want something really bad, or when I seem to not achieve something, or even worse when I realize I have lost it, when I feel that I have missed the flight and now there is no way I can get back, may be that’s when I associate my failure to achieve something as a price to something which I did achieve. May be that’s why when celebrities realize they have screwed up their personal life, and there is no way they are going to get it back, may be that’s when they claim that their personal life is the price they paid for being in the limelight. Or may be when I screw up my social life, I claim that to be a price I pay for a lucrative carrier. Deep down I do know that If I want to I could have a social life the way I want, also do know that without a time occupying carrier as well I still might have ended up having a lousy social life. But all we do, blame it on carrier. “I am so busy always, I totally screwed up my social life!”. How many times have we heard people say this.

May be that’s all it is to achievement and regrets, totally manipulated the way we want, to kind of please ourselves that it was not us who were responsible, it was the price which we paid.

It does not stop us, does it?, I mean all this talk about how achievements are nothing, regrets are worthless, achievements make us pay so and so forth, we still want things badly, we still are passionate about what we want to achieve, we still continue to claim what we couldn’t achieve as the price we paid.

I think I am gonna go with the tip, a dear friend gave me in one of her comments over my earlier posts “Stop Thinking!”.

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Topic over at skittles today is “Tip”, and I think I made a lousy attempt at the prompt

It has been some time since I had something to say over at pure pursuits, an article in Times of India sparked a little debate in my mind, and the result is this post “communication and gender”. Do share your opinion.

Sorry guys I am totally blank today…my mind has refused to think..and my thoughts have refused to flow.

Photo courtesy Ainsley