That small squeaky voice inside your head............

"DINGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!"  5.30 AM... And you start wondering and turning neurotic "Oh God ! Who could it be ? Is it a medical emergency ? Who is having a baby ? Is that my alarm ? "


 So when I check my phone I see a blue balloon on my screen with an astrix. And  I go - " Oh who could it be at this hour ?" Most of the days it was Kevin who is back home in Canada. Every time Kevin misses India he  makes it a point to let us know.After all 4 years in Pune had to have some irreparable damage. So every time he smells Butter chicken on the roads , my phone goes - Ding Ding Ding !

But it was not Kevin today :) It was her.

"Do you think I have accomplished something in my life ? With my work ? " she asked.

Now this question has different contexts depending on the time of the day and the concentration of alcohol in the blood. I figured  this wandering thought must have kept her up the whole night and women let me tell you - when they think they are like a ticking time bomb. They can sit right in front of you and stare a hole through you. But unlike the movies where the macho hero wonders if he should cut the red wire or the yellow, you should just let this time bomb diffuse itself. Its very easy for a woman to get back to normal and act as if nothing was wrong but trust me - for a guy the experience could sometimes be like sitting through a root canal without any anesthesia.

Honest to God, I told her what i felt at that moment. I said "No, I think you are on your way but still not accomplished anything. ts this hunt for accomplishment that is pushing you forward,making you work hard,triggering you to take up challenges.Otherwise it is very easy to turn complacent."                          Talking about accomplishments - winning the world cup is an accomplishment,climbing the Everest is another or just getting up an walking ten paces after a horrific accident with rods in your legs is one. Working 12 hours a day, getting home and studying in the dark of the night and delivering milk in the morning, only to pass your graduation with a 40% is also one. Surviving cancer and living to talk about it - look around you and you see a world pumped with gratification.

I guess it all comes down to just being content with your actions. Pushing yourself to test new limits is what we all constantly need to do.And then when you are down and out, say after a 10 km run, a 100 pushups  or holding your mark sheet or your promotion letter, that small tiny voice inside your head ( which has always been there working tirelessly with you) goes - "Yes,you should be proud of yourself"  that's Accomplishment !

Over and Out.

and 365 days later.......

Its been almost a year since I had that eventful gtalk conversation. So eventful that it lead to the biggest chain of events in my life. It started out like just another ordinary " please oblige me" talks and moved on to drama in our individual lives. She was heart broken and I was going through a " there's no one out there for me " phase. Truth be told, we were just using each other as sponges/dartboards/confession chambers.

"What do you really need when you are in sorrow?"
I would have thought of the obvious ones - Sympathy,Love,Care. But I really feel, we all need to be Selfish. I say that  because when we are hurt, we are vulnerable, vulnerable to all the pain in the world, all the thoughts, all the "crap" that's harmful. Loneliness suddenly starts appearing tempting.
We are reserved to our own thoughts and the human mind is so complex that it readily believes all the bad things and starts doubting all the goodness !

Being selfish at times is a good thing. Standing up for yourself when you are down and out  needs to be made a healthy habit. An over-exaggeration of being selfish would be confining yourself to yourself.  Yes, you need yourself but not for playing "Agony Aunt" but to fill your heart with trust, trust that you need to give yourself another chance at everything. That leap of faith is exactly what you need more than self pity. That small lingering after thought screaming back at you saying " Don't worry you don't need anybody, keep going"  when you start questioning your vulnerability getting out of sorrow !

The gtalk conversation eventually led to an exchange of bb pins and 3 months later I was outside Gate No 5 ,Kingdom of Dreams, nervous,sweaty,apprehensive ,waiting for her to come out of that back door. That is another story for another time.

Looking back at time, I guess it was a good thing being selfish for once in our lives. If we wouldn't have exchanged our individual stories we would have never  gotten to where we are today. I guess I should also add the fact that both of us didn't know each other well back then and hence were happy about the fact that we wouldn't judge each others actions.

God works in mysterious ways. I never knew he would give me a new bunch of people to get to know, a new city to visit, some funny adventures on the way. Yes, my sleep cycles have been compromised but it was well worth it.

365 days later.........I guess , it all adds up in retrospect or maybe there's more to the puzzle :)

The Inevitable Question

Okay...so the thing with questions is that usually not all questions are rhetoric ! Some may be open ended, some may be for closure, some may be materialistic , some even silly (of course in the corporate world - no questions are silly). But, you know, my favourite type are the ones which are sugar coated , draped in flattery, soaked in empathy and pointed straight at the heart. I guess there is an art to asking questions as well. It requires an audience, a setting, a background, a build up and then finally, it needs timing !  All of these ingredients, mixed in the right order and served up, gives you the recipe for a perfect answer.

Dissecting  the word I cant help but notice QUEST. And come to think of it, some questions do send you on life's incredible rides. Questions like - What am I doing here ? , Where is my life going? , Who am I?, Am I happy ? . Even whisky makers have cashed in on some of the more common ones - Have I made it large ?

But then I ask, do we need so many questions in life ? Questions may be ice breakers, conversation starters but at the same time they may actually be deadly ( if you don't believe me you've never been embarrassed at a "Truth or Dare" session, have you ?  Questions are a by product of curiosity I guess.

Having said that, in conclusion, questions are a part of life ! Its a way of channelizing all the insecurity and showing yourself that you are in control, in the drivers seat, making sure that you have answers ! We al move from question to question searching for answers and if we don't find any , we just choose to change the question ! That's the easiest way out isn't it ? But ask yourself, How long can you run from the obvious ? :) One day,  all of us would get tired of running away, of ignorance , of apprehension and just face all of our deepest questions , and having stared down the barrel , just move on ! After all , life has to go on as well , doesn't it ?

Think about it , not all questions are harmful ( unlike cigarettes)


"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." - Voltaire

Friday Afternoon

Friday afternoons , I reckon are usually a good starting point to start anything that is fun.I don't know whether blogging would be fun but then it definitely gives you the impression that your life is exciting and important. So important that you actually thought you would want the entire world to read it and say how "awwesomb" it is !



The reason I decided to finally give into the temptation of starting a blog and make plans of maintaining it with posts and other goofy stuff ( well its my blog , I can do whatever I want with it ; sing a song , cook a duck ) is because I really want to see if I can keep up to doing something which is hard work. Plus, she thinks she would enjoy reading what I have to say about my life. I just think she foxed me into giving her a free source of entertainment and use stuff I write here to hold against me when we have a huge fight. So I guess I should keep away from sensitive topics and controversial debates.



Coming back to the "she" I mentioned a while ago. I will fight the urge to introduce her right away. Reading has helped me understand the key to making a lot of money when you are a writer." Keep the suspense up, Amith ! Let it build up....". At least something like the mere temptation of finding out who she is, should work to keep you interested. And unlike "How I met your Mother" she does exist. A sincere request to those who know who "she" is - please don't spoil the "pseudo-excitement".



I vaguely remember , this time last year I was packing to go to Sabarimala with my uncle and my cute little cousin, Sriram. It is always fun to play big brother to the little ones in the family. They look u to you for all the answers in the world and yet expect you to not know street magic and other random card tricks. Sriram loves his little card tricks and even after showing it to me a 1000 times, he expects me to act surprised. I guess it comes with the job and its benefits. The trip was fun not because it was spiritually overwhelming but because Sriram shat in his pants on the way back and was running down like a headless chicken.The poor guy ended up peeing in his pants in the car and blamed the cold air conditioning for it. All in all a memorable trip !. I even wen up to the extent of proclaiming that my tooth ache was cured because of the trip. I guess it was just a small piece of bone stuck between my tooth that must have come out when i brushed my teeth believing in the philosophy of fresh breath leading to good hygiene.



What followed was something that has changed my life ( and I mean it) and I will be talking about all of that when I write further. People say I have the attention span of a 5 year old. Short attention spans are differ from flaking. Flaking is a state of giving up on thinking i guess. Short attention spans are cooler because your brilliant mind is jumping from one train of thought to another at godspeed.



Closing thoughts - Friday evenings in Bangalore are not fun when you are abstaining from drinking and eating meat ( in the hope that the Gods will be impressed by your demonstration of self control). A quick shout out to Richard and Piyush , my pallies from the Well Engineering team for clearing their Round I and II exams. That's an ordeal which I need to go through as well next year and I am NOT looking forward to studying !I guess the reason we all want to celebrate must be because we were just looking for a reason to celebrate life.





The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

-Oprah Winfrey





I will leave you with that thought....