Archive for the 'These thoughts of mine' Category

Its a good thing to have friends

We make a lot of friends along the way. A friend once told me that we’re all like passengers in a bus, traveling along wherever our lives may take us. We talk, share, open up a bit of ourselves to each other for the moment and as long as time permits us. Sooner or later, we reach our stop and get off, sometimes without even looking back to say goodbye.

Thank you to all my friends, whom I’ve met, known, no matter how briefly or even if it may be from a distance. I cherish the moments spent with each one of you. For they say - you have but one life. And it was a pleasure meeting all of you.

There are a lot of my close friends with whom I’ve lost touch. People who have been instrumental in making me the person I am today. Yet we’re no longer in contact for we’ve parted ways long back. Sometimes I wonder when it was that we lost touch. Was it me or was it them? Were we all so busy and caught up in our lives that we slipped away unnoticed so easily?

I look back and wonder where all of them are, what they’re doing and wish them love and happiness in everything they do. Perhaps we shall meet again, perhaps not. I hope the former, in all earnesty, some day.

There there are some, a handful of people; who dont let distance or time matter when it comes to friendship. They are my backbone, my strength in life. I would be lost without confiding in them my deepest, darkest feelings as well as any ecstasies that come along my way.

For those who have always been there for me, even if I werent for them. True friends, with no issues towards any of my idiosyncrasies and who embraced me for what I am - thank you. Happy friendship day.

A train of thoughts

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Read an interesting post today titled: A Fan of Indian Railways by GWBE. Had to comment on it and my thought process refused to call it quits even after I hit publish-your-comment, thereby pursuing some more details about it on my own blog.

I never was a very big fan of Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav but he seems to be highly motivated into bringing some radical changes in our railway system. With his new railway budget declaration, he has sought to address a lot of concerns which frankly, I will be surprised to actually see it happen.

Given the choice between air or train travel, which one would I choose? Air travel - mainly because of the commute time. Although cost is a very big factor. To rephrase it, I would travel by air if its necessary and also if I have enough cash to fork out the ticket.

On a three day train journey, I have encountered:

  • Ace snorers. Cross bred between an autorickshaw engine and a fully automatic machine gun. Guaranteed to make you lose sleep. Especially if they’ve got the berth above yours.
  • Mobile phone battery drainage. That is if you were foolish enough not to charge it fully when you board the train just like me. And no, my train didnt have a phone charging point in it.
  • The train toilets. Need I say more?
  • Idiotic bickering with fellow passengers about luggage space. Some people look like they’re moving house when they travel.
  • Chappal-thieves. Once a beggar-thief nearly walked off with my slippers.

The bottomline is - if trains are indeed going to be safer, cleaner, cheaper, on time, entertaining (tv & internet on board) and have easily available tickets, then I am highly persuaded to switch over to their side.

Oh dear

(as they say in Tennis commentary)

I pulled a long strand of white hair from my head last night. As I watched life pass me by, I remembered two things:

If you pull one white hair, seven more grow back in its place. That means, my life is now officially over.

This one proverb kept repeating in my head - True wisdom is born with white hair. For which I couldnt help retaliate - I’d rather be a fool instead with thick locks of black/burgundy/reddish brown hair or whichever non-white colour thats currently reigning on my mood.

Three

Three days to go for the much awaited New Year bash. Also, I’m trying to recreate a ‘three things’ list that I once read in a blog. (Because of the significance of the word ‘three’, in case someone didnt get it :D ) Here goes nothing:

Three things I disliked about 2007:

1. Turning 28.
2. My non-existent travel plans for this year.
3. Stupidity - mine and of others. This point will be repeated next year too, in any case.

 Three things I loved about 2007:

1. My car, my new haircut & all the materialistic things I’ve acquired this year. For all these, I give thanks.
2. My blog. Its been nice raving & ranting about anything & everything.
3. Old and new friends with whom I’ve been sharing random thoughts about life in general. You guys are the best!

Three things that irritate the hell out of me everytime:

1. The male-female gender blender topic. Everything turns mucky after a while not to mention disgusting.
2. Long lectures. On doing the right thing. That too when I’m trying to get the left one done. (Haha)
3. Gossip. And when I’m somehow bang at the centre with no one else to blame but me.

Three things I look forward to in 2008:

1. More frantic blogging. I look forward to it.
2. Hopes & dreams coming true. Mine and everyone else’s.
3. Happiness. And a good life.

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year everyone. And dont forget to get dead drunk.

If I dont call up to wish a few of you at midnight, its probably cause I passed out ok?

Two thousand and seven

Will you look at that - another year’s all set to get over already. I just dont get it as to how a whole year goes by so quickly when I’m still thinking of this year’s massive new year hangover that definitely gets my vote for ‘Worst Hangover of the decade - 1997:2007′ If anyone’s going to be philosophical and say things like time flies, I’m going to wallop them.

Just the other day, I met someone who was talking about getting a particular place ready for the programme on the 25th. I asked - whats happening on 25th? To which came a surprised reply - Why, Christmas of course! I forgot it was time for Christmas already. What a dunce I am.

This year has been good to me. I’ve grown more as a person and have developed a much more steady head on my shoulders. I’m no longer of the opinion that everybody has to like me and that I should be the centre of all attention. I’ve realized that good friends are always there for you and that no matter what, there’s always a good day after a bad one.

This year too, a lot of my friends either got married or found that someone special or are in the process of welcoming that little bundle of joy in their lives. I’m happy for all of them and wish everyone tremendous joy and happiness they all truly deserve. I got to go back to my roots and rebond with old friends from a happy childhood, a roller coaster of a college life and basically had a blast sharing my nonstop smatter of uninterrupted thoughts. It has all been great.

I’m sorry to see this year go. You know how you get so attached to calling a year by its name - I dont think I can every bring myself to actually call it 2008. Another reason is that I dont actually want to grow older. Its strange how everyone thinks how grown up you are except you yourself. So here’s to the closing of 2007. May we all have a great next year. Also may we all wake up intact after the new year’s party this time and not suffer from that great a hang over.

Whats in a ‘maiden’ name

Sometime back, I was listening to a couple of married girls engaged in a heated discussion with friends of their counter parts. The argument in question was the importance or stubborn-ness: call it what you will - of their keeping one’s maiden name. My pet peeve however is an entirely different topic and deals with the M word although as such I have no issues about anyone’s last name, be it mine or someone else’s.

What was funny was that during the entire course of the argument rocking back and forth, I observed no spouse was having a direct verbal lashing with each other in the group. Guess no one wanted to have a grand finale of a fight later on when by themselves most probably.

One opinion as to why girls should vehemently retain their maiden name was that she should be proud of the name given to her by her parents and be that as it may the offspring will definitely be a product of the male lineage of her wedlock, she should at least have the courtesy of retaining the one symbol of pre-marriage identity.

Another opinion was that its all too complicated having to go change one’s name and then having to do all the legal paperwork. There’s this complication of having to justify your double surnames when you are in the process of applying for a new job and all? Its not something thats happened to me but sounded like a good argument nevertheless.

Whatever may be the reason to change or not to change anything, I think its an individual decision and something that should be respected by both sides of the couple. If you do decide to keep your middle name though, I still claim that there’s nothing more irritating than stupid people coming up to you and asking you how is Mr. Your-maiden-name.

No Regrets

While this used to be my catch phrase for a long, long time now, I cant help wondering whether I am still correct in my analogy of life and its mishaps that break me, shake me, hate me, take me over and all the madness stuff that Savage Garden sings about. Can one claim to be that comfortably numb and shelve things in the No-Regrets category?

Life never ceases to surprise me. Or to make me aware of how we continue to think like all mortal fools do. Not that its any good regretting things as they happen but maybe it would have been better to to able to go back and change a few things. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Who knows?