Friday, December 30, 2011

Here comes 2012!

Posted by at 1:57 PM

Now why on earth would I start writing a post on 2012? Simple. It popped in my mind that while the world will be busy celebrating the New Year's eve, I could easily scribble and ramble some of my random thoughts related to the approaching doomsday year.

What good would 2012 do to me ? What do I expect ?

Individually, I would be in my final year and will be moving around the campus grounds, wearing black and white formals, hoping for corporate and tech giants to take me in. I would finally be able to post those fancy status messages I have seen my seniors post on Facebook, right from the beginning of the my college life- "Got selected in__!" "Yes, ___ it is!" and the likewise, with getting over a 100 likes for my new-found success or call it, new-found journey to struggle for survival. Anyways, there is still a semester to go before I start planning all this so, I won't crib much right now.

I would also get to celebrate my leap year birthday while being in the college. Yes  I am a leap year boy and this will be my 5th leap year birthday. A prodigy am I not?!

I will also get a rare opportunity to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of my college. I mean, this is something one really looks forward to. The college authorities are promising a year-long celebration and I would very much like to be a part of each event.

As an Indian, I might finally see many promising development like a strong Lokpal Bill(won't go to the debate as I am always an optimist and know that we will soon get what we stood for). Maybe I get a glimpse of Jaipur Metro before I graduate.I had many other points in my mind while i started to write this but as you can see above, I was so lost in bragging my prospects as an individual that I forgot most of the points.

As a movie fanatic, I will be treated with a  pile of big releases this year-better than last year. From the legacy of the Lord of The Rings to the End of the Legend of the Nolanian version of Batman; from a remake of a cult BigB classic  to a reboot of the classic Spiderman series, I just hope I don't spoil my studies as a final year student.

And as I discuss the points of hope, joy, and expectations I have from the new year, let me also discuss the big epic internet as well as real world question which will surely see huge speculations and media channels like News-Channel-That-Is-Shittier-Than-The Best Performance-You-Flushed-Down-The-toilet (read India TV) make a fortune, that is- 'Will The World End?' Even I don't have an answer to this, but seeing the revolutions in various parts of the world and people like Osama and Gaddafi going down, and people paving a way to a brighter and better future, I think we are doing just fine and hence, nature will not be that rude to just go and end the story!

One thing I know is: If! Yes, if this happens, and the date gets confirmed, I will try my best to do everything in my life that I was looking forward to doing, in my next 10 years. I would try to be with my relatives and people close to me, and I will definitely do all those things I had been planning to do to teach my college admin a lesson since the first year of my college(I am serious). I know all these things will make me live the ME GUSTA  moments!

In conclusion, whether the world ends or not, whether you fail to live up to your own expectations or not, always ensure you live life to the fullest and make every moment worthwhile.

 And yes, no new year resolutions please. 2011 made me realise why not to make a new year resolution(I resolved to maintain a diary that eventually lasted 34 days) and 2012 is THE year of the millennium so, party hard, stay in control, try everything, relish and of course, sleep well(I guess if you made it till this part of the blog, you feel sleepy already. Yeah well,no need to thank me).


Happy New Year!

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas Special: That Chips-Seller of Sealdah Local

Posted by at 7:00 AM
A Christmas Special post, where  I am presenting a story inspired from a real-life incident. 
Hope you enjoy reading this. Merry Christmas!

We all know we are very busy with our lives. So busy that many a times, we fail to notice the small instances of happiness, joy, creativity and positivity around us. But sometimes, some of these instances catch our eyes and we end up being more than contented to have experienced that instance. It stays in our mind forever, and becomes more than just a good story.I am sharing a similar story today.

It was 9 o' clock in the night. I was in the Sealdah station, waiting for a Sealdah local train.Madhyamgram, where my family stayed, would generally take 20-30 minutes on train. I don't stay in Kolkata but come to visit the city for a few days during my college vacations, so I don't take a vehicle of my own.It was a busy day, with people coming from far and wide via express trains and reaching West Bengal, and daily-passengers waiting on the platform,to get back home from work.

Sealdah is a busy station, and also, seen as an opportunity by people from rural areas to come and sell petty goods, food items, and earn a living. Generally, you would see a frown on these sellers' faces, clearly showing their displeasure on the job. Some of them would even pick up a fight repeatedly, and if you are not alert enough, you might end up being ridiculed by a bunch of vendors in front of the whole busy crowd.

 I was aware of these things and so,I decided to get to a local train as soon as possible, reach home, have a satisfying dinner made by my mother and, after indulging in the world of social-networking for an hour or so, retire for the night.

15 minutes later, a Sealdah Local arrived. Like a swarm of bees, people started getting into the train.Quarrels followed. Angst, frustration of the day got poured over each others faces, as people almost fought their way to find some space in the train.Fortunately, I found myself a seat.

As the train started moving, and while the rest of the people got involved in improving the country through verbal debates and 'oh-so-philosophical' arguments, I plugged in my earphones and gave myself to the warm serenity of music by Poets Of The Fall.

                                                                ☼        ☼        ☼

10 minutes later, I noticed  everyone stopped their regular routine of conversations and were looking at one particular direction. Needless to say, the train had passed two stations and vendors started getting in the train, selling junk snacks, and cheap daily items.Trifles, they say, are the most valuable source of income to the poor, as useless as they are, to the rich. So I went back to listening music.

But a few moments later, I looked up. 'Dawn' was playing in my music player.There was a commotion in the compartment adjacent to mine. I saw a chips-seller coming through. And to my amazement, I observed that almost everyone was buying from him. Curious, I removed my earphones to see what was so special that made those misers and babus of my city to cough up cash this easily, in order to buy junk food, meant to be eaten primarily by children.

In a few moments, his appearance got clearer. I could see him carrying a huge sack, full of cheap rice-chips. He seemed like a man in his 50s. Short, wrinkled, with combed-white hair and visibly under-privileged, the hardship he faced in his life, was clearly visible.


But he had this innocent smile on his face, and as he came closer, I could hear him yelling, "Motch! motch! korey khaaben! Du-taka! du-taka! Motch! Motch! korey khaaben!"
  (Here, 'motch! motch!' is referred to the crunchy sound one would generally make while eating chips, and the rest of the phrase meant, "2 rupees! 2 rupees! Eat while making moch! moch! sound!") 

I chuckled a bit. Actually, I was not the only one. The regular passengers seemed to be used to seeing this vendor, and I could see a hint of amusement on their faces.

He was selling rice-chips, for two rupees a packet. Everyone, especially the kids, seemed to enjoy his very presence. When some would teasingly complain that the previous night, the chips were not crunchy and were crushed, he would start reciting a story, in the form of a poem, to justify why his chips cannot be like crushed and unpleasant, and if they were, how apologetic he was.
                     
For the first time in my life, I saw a vendor who was enjoying his work. He knew how to please people. There was no sign of irritation in his words. And to top it all, he was providing honest entertainment to everyone.
                                                              ☼        ☼        ☼

"My kids ask me-I have 4 kids-'Dad, why do you go out to sell chips every night?' to which I would reply,'if I don't go, then you know what will happen? Many men will return home and yell at their wives and children. But if I gave them this magic chips, all of their anger will vanish, and they will return home, happily, and will hug their children and wives, the way I do when I return.' "

I was astounded on seeing that he how he had figured out the problems of people's lives, in such a simple way. I don't know whether his chips were magical or not, but I found each of his words, surprisingly comforting.

He came to me, and I also asked for two packets. "Bhai, you are new in Kolkata, aren't you?" he said. "Yes. How did you know?" I asked, surprised."Arrey Bhai,I remember the faces of each and every single commuter of this train. Here,  have one packet free with the two." he replied, cheerfully, like a friend.I could not refuse.

I was stunned to see how he was connecting with everyone. He played a few turns with the card players in the train, he danced and sang with the kids, he joked with the women and he tried teaching the toddlers how to spell 'chips'.All this happened in a mere 10 minutes of duration.I lost track of time.

I looked out, and realised my destination is only two stations away. I started getting up, when I saw the chips-seller approaching the gate. He took a glance towards me. I smiled, and he smiled back. He got off in the next station, and, as I waited for my destination to arrive and tried to cherish what I saw in the last few minutes, I saw a 4-yr. old sitting on her mother's lap, munching the chips, and uttering the phrase loud,in her childish tone: "Motch! Motch! korey khaaben! Motch! Motch!"


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Sunday, December 18, 2011

On Spammy Videos,Cancer Awareness and the New Facebook / Twitter

Posted by at 3:08 PM
 So, the talk of the V-town is majorly comprising of the changes the two social-networking giants saw, in the past two weeks. Facebook updated to its timeline profile for all its users while Twitter went for a total changeover in terms of its interface and appearance. User friendly? That is for the users to decide but we all know, cribbers and supporters will always be there, to fight.

We have a fair share of people complaining about the changes. To some extent, it might sound legit as some of them are complaining that in this fast-paced world, they really don't have time to try out and understand what changed in their social-sphere. Some even complained that by the time they will get to know about it completely, new changes will occur.

Some people are very happy with the changes. In Facebook, they are saying their old posts are visible to them in a better way. The cover photo is giving a whole new dimension to the profile appearance.  In Twitter, the concept of @Connect and the idea that the web interface is letting people know whether a user follows them or not, is good. Also, you can embed tweets now, to your own web-site. It is not surprising when some people are saying that they see a revolution.But only time will tell how successful this change is, for Facebook and Twitter both.

Meanwhile, post the Kolaveri fever, we saw some more  attempts of videos doing rounds: Chikni Chameli by Katrina Kaif, Various versions of the Kolaveri video, Flash Mobs in Chennai, Delhi etc. and likewise(I might even be missing out some). I won't discuss on these much, apart from the fact that, the lesser popularity of these videos as compared to Kolaveri only proves that there is a limit to everything-even viral videos.

The past two weeks also saw some other new things in the social-sphere: a spam promising to be an obscene video of a wardrobe malfunction taking rounds in the profiles, where when you click the 'play' button, the thumbnail gets posted through your profile, on each of your friends' wall. I wonder if Anna camp ever thought of spreading their message in a similar way.

And while the guys were busy clicking the play button which was closest to the 'other' button in the spammy video, girls were busy spreading Breast Cancer Awareness. Observe, the focus is on that same pair!

But instead of spreading cancer awareness, the girls ended up going places outside the country, and although they had planned to confuse the guys with their statuses like: I am going to France for 13 months, I am going to Austria for 7 months etc.,  they ended up confusing girls more. The girls would comment on the statuses like "Why?" "What's going on?" while the guys laughed at them all the while.
This reminded me of that "Jack Daniels-Chivas Regal" scam guys had last year. Even that failed like this.

So I hope this blog post acts as an awareness and alerts people not spam, confuse, and of course, make things viral than they deserve to be.
But I know, this won't 'change' you, even a wee bit, would it?!


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Saturday, December 3, 2011

The poetry...in my name

Posted by at 1:29 AM
Poetry, they say, makes your emotions come out and take shape...
To me, this is more than that. I enjoy writing poems, trying to make rhyme scheme(as if it were some sort of logical problem!) and reading them, on completion.
The certainty and the feeling of completeness is what poetry is all about. A song. A prose. A bad attempt. A legendary one. But never a grift. And for this reason, people should practice poetry...


Survive!
The days of sorrow.
The wrath of haters.
As there will be another tomorrow.
Maybe some apologetic letters?


Obliterate.
All those hatred, you are holding back.
All the memories of unhappiness.
Sensibility is what the unwise lack.
Then why make your life a mess?

Understand.
Your life is yours to live.
No one can take the joy  away.
Well wishers are rare, others, unwilling to give.
Hence, don't throw it in utter disarray.

Measure.
The quality in yourself.
It is good when you know your limitations.
Cherish what you earned, maybe take a page from the book in the memory-shelf?
You will find, for every problem you faced, you had the best possible solutions!

Yield.
Something impossible.
You should surprise people.
In a better way, make your work lovable.
No takers you will find for a  trifle.

Appreciate.
You get limited opportunities for that.
Doesn't matter how less successful you are.
Because only on your shoulders, that bird of aspirations sat,
 You taught her to fly,and look how she flew so far....!

The poetry in my name, an attempt, to try out something new and different, using the known rules of poetry. Do let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks for reading.
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