Flee from me Keepers of the Gloom…

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.

Robert Plant’s words and John Bonham’s thunderous drum beats echoed in my head as we spiraled our way higher and higher on the mighty Himalayas. Though there was not any midnight sun, there was ice, there was snow and somewhere little far away there were hot springs. On a rented Bullet Electra, we negotiated the sharp curves that punctuated our journey every few metres.  Crisp, cold breeze brushing against our ears whispered tales of lands unseen. On our one side stood the giant mass of rocks and soil covered with whitest of snow. On the other side, a vast vacuum that fell down to the bottomless depths lined by the road that had led us up. Cars at the bottom looked inconsequential from those heights. KK and I had rented a bike from Manali and were on our way to Rohtang.

Right now, as I look through the window of my home at the drizzle outside, the fragrance of the soil fills my heart and livens up memories of my stay in Himachal.

Barmana, a small town surrounded by small mountain hills was where we spent our three weeks this summer doing an internship at ACC Cement. The time I spent there was perfect example of a harmonious life away from the hustle and bustle of a city and though it presented its share of problems, in retrospect it seems like a distant dream. A dream that one wakes up every morning to see broken and then comes back to the reality of his life.

Every morning the sun appeared from behind the mountains and shone brightly through the window to wake us up. After a day spent at the plant (the details of which would require another post) we would return to the guest house only to change clothes and go to the dhaba situated nearby on the highway. After having tea and munching on some biscuits from the nearby bakery we would go on a round along the highway. Picturesque outdoors would fill our minds with peace that is often pursued and seldom found. On every electricity pole we would see monkeys who seemed to be enjoying their lives and lamenting those of their brothers in the cities.

Ah, what’s better than a cup of tea at a time like this? Sipping at my tea, I go back in time.

We had covered nearly half the distance up when a very long row of cars appeared out of the recesses of the mountains and blocked our way ahead. It reminded us that it was the peak tourist season. Overlooking the fact that our journey was being mired by an irritating traffic jam, we parked our bike and clicked some pictures. After some time, we realized that our bike could wend its way through the jam which was otherwise a full stop for cars and buses and so it did.

It’s almost 4:30 and if I continue to write I would miss ladies’ Wimbledon quarterfinals, er…, what to do? It’s been a long time since my last post and perhaps men’s singles are what I really care for.

The sky seemed nearer in those lands and appeared as if kissing the hills. On some evenings clouds would gather and obscure the azure with their mighty black and then shower down as hails. The soil would smell of its virility and some long beaked birds would perch on the trees that confronted the view from our verandah.

It has started to rain cats and dogs outside.  Some children are having a nice time bathing on the rooftop of a house across the street.

After covering some more distance through the traffic jam that now packed the road more tightly, our bike had to come to a final halt. Parking the bike by a side, we took to our feet. Having walked up the road for a few metres we observed that we could directly climb our way through rocks that had somehow avoided snow. It had started to drizzle and we realized that we had been shivering from cold. Everything was cold -the trees, the rocks, the soil, the occasional waterfalls we had encountered on our way, the air and the sky.  But the cold had its own quality there. It was not stagnant, but serene. Not devoid of excitement but filled with exuberance. It invited. It was independence from worldly shackles. It was peace of mind.

Right now I can feel the way I felt there. It is as if the cold air brushes against my knuckles and the needle-like drops of water pierce my skin.  It was the best feeling. Nothing before and after it was as memorable and as exciting. Often, I long to feel this way and fail miserably. But today I would not fail.

A semful of events

Finally, giving in to an insurmountable urge to write down something and an unexplained for sense of joie de vivre, I write this post. And even as I write, I am listening to these (this, this and this) songs on a toggled playlist.

This sem, until now, has turned out be quite a memorable one.

I don’t want to fiddle with the chronology of events and therefore find it necessary to go as back in time as possible.

It was in the early hours of a cold February day at Alpahar when we decided to finally give shape to our long unfulfilled wish of a Goa trip. I didn’t know then what this trip had in store for me and for my friends. Tickets were booked without wasting time. Forthcoming days were spent planning and daydreaming about the trip. Just then, mid-term exams struck and we were shaken out of our fantasies. In spite of my good preparations, I flunked Heat and Mass Transfer (thanks to my mistaking the diameter for radius in one of the questions and forgetting to multiply cross sectional area in another). Two hours post mid-terms, mid-term blues gave way to a hope for happy times ahead. When my parents came to know I was going to Goa in Holi break, they inquired when, if not in Holi break, I would come home. And the next thing I remember is - I was home. At home my driving license was confiscated and I was advised that we hire a cab in Goa instead of riding five bikes. When I returned to college, I told my friends I loved being a pillion rider but only when traffic police was around. Just when we were looking for an economical place to stay in Goa, three guys backed out. This was the first shock to our plans. However we went on with the plan, seven guys were still in. We booked three rooms in a hotel.

Meanwhile Blogomania was going great. My apprehensions that the number of entries would be nothing comparable to last year's vanished when posts count crossed 500 and participants count crossed 120.

A couple of days later our Goa plan took its second setback (and quite a sad one, this) when my dad informed me over the phone about mom’s ailment. Her left hand had swollen due to Spondylitis. I couldn’t picture myself enjoying in Goa while mom suffered from excruciating pain back home. I told my friends I couldn’t go to Goa. Now since the soul of the party had backed out ( :P), my friends cancelled the whole trip. It took all of us at least a couple of days to realize we were finally NOT going to Goa.

On 9^th of March, we celebrated Govind Bhawan Day that witnessed some superb anchoring by P and S and some lame skits and music performances by Matkas.

Amidst the disappointment of not going to Goa and my constant worries about mom’s condition, there came an evanescently joyous occasion of a cousin’s wedding day. I closed Blogomania on 10^th of March at 10:00 p.m. Next day, while students from various colleges flooded ours to attend Cognizance, I left for Haridwar to attend the wedding. It felt nice meeting so many close and ‘not so close’ relatives at the same place on the same day. Although not a very chatty and candid person myself, I do enjoy listening to others and as a result myriad questions about my mom’s howabouts and my whereabouts were thrown at me whole day by everyone I met. I answered them as least laconically as I could so as to not make anyone feel I was being rude (which I really wasn’t). As the evening tick-tocked into night, after a whole plethora of poojas and mantras, time came for vidaai. While thousands of miles away Poseidon demonstrated that he held power over not only the Greeks but the Japanese too, a tremor of emotions led to a tsunami of tears in Haridwar. When I returned to college next morning, I was exhausted and drowsy and slept till 1:00 pm. I woke up only to find not a sign of moving souls in the hostel as everyone was busy in the techfest. I attended a pretty boring lecture by some guy from Adobe who kept going on about how to form problems. Next and the last day of the techfest was also spent killing time by attending workshops and other events.

The Ides of March which brought death to Caesar around 2054 years ago brought good news to me. While going to the mess I bumped into M who informed me in his quintessential weirdly pitched and loud voice that I have been selected for internship at ACC.

Fast forward two days and here I am inclined on my bed and typing this post on my laptop. I have just sent e-mails to the winners of Blogomania this morning and have been writing this post since then.

But wait - a loud banging on the door “Mr K, are you in there?”

“ Yeah” I reply and open the door. I find some Civil guys in not so civil a mood. They don’t look like humans. They are yellow, red, blue and green, even silver too. And the next moment, I am one of them. (I should have seen this coming. It’s Holi time.) Now I can’t write until I take bath. I hit the showers, return and pick my laptop up again and complete the post.

P.S. The post was published two days after its completion. So don't go by the date of posting.

On Life...

Two of the frequent questions I ask myself are- Why do we live and why do we die. Life’s greatest irony is that we have no idea why we come into this world and why we depart from it. What difference does the existence of a mere mortal make to the vast expanse of this universe which has been here almost since eternity and is going to be for a pretty long time (So I guess. I am no Stephen Hawking, you see). I have spent a lot of good time thinking about it and all I have concluded is that the more I think about it, the more its answer, if there is any, will elude me. Moreover, sometimes I question the existence of God. And then I can feel His existence. And then I question his existence again. The bottom line is – I am confused.

The vast diversity in this nature, clubbed with its wonderful ways of working, makes you believe that there is an intelligent designer who designed it all. But does the existence of an intricate design warrant the existence of an intelligent designer? I am a Darwinist. And from whatever knowledge I have acquired in the twenty years of my life I have come to be a believer in probabilities. What we are, how we look, how we think and how healthy we are born, everything is decided by probable mutations of the genes we inherit. Many believe that the God throws the dice. But if he really exists and is the Supreme one, he should never use a dice. What use is God if he can’t provide everyone with equal opportunities to live life with dignity? What eats me is that I can’t decide if he is really there. I have always believed that Man invented God so that he did not lose the sight of what he was up to and because the pillars of morality couldn’t be erected without the foundations of a concept higher than anything and everything else. Man’s desperate attempt at saving himself from ultimate hopelessness pushed him towards conjuring up a concept so brilliant that no other man could resist its temptation. He invented God and God gave us hope. God guaranteed us a light at the end of the dark tunnel. He assured us that nothing bad would last forever.

Our thoughts and actions are motivated by our desires and material goals. Sensual pleasures keep us too busy to contemplate the deeper meaning of life. I have no sound reason to believe that epicurean way of life is the right way nor do I vehemently support an ascetic retreat. There can always be a middle way but the problem is that I don’t know where to draw the line.

No doubt that these questions befuddle us, we can’t afford to lose sight of the immediate concerns facing humanity. Hunger, poverty, pollution, illiteracy, diseases and the associated suffering are the problems that need to be tackled before anything else. You may find yourself asking what difference it would make to the universe if you brought smile to one unhappy face. But think of the difference it would make to that one unhappy heart. So let’s leave all our doubts aside and strive towards making this world a better place to come to life in and depart from.

P.S. A recent research by a prominent evolutionary biologist says that even apes have a sense of morality. They must really be God fearing! The conclusions of that study are still not final and the research is still on.

Home Is Where The World Is

As they say “The best journeys are the ones that take you home”.

For us people the best time in college is the week or two (or three) after the mid terms when, although there are regular classes going on, we are revelling in the fact that there is no trouble (aka mid-terms/end- terms) in sight for quite some time. After the first mid-terms, a substantial part this very time of mine got marred by Jaundice. Oops! Sorry, Malaria. Our college’s hospital is the last place a patient should go to. A day after the mid-terms ended I had a severe headache and started shivering. Fever followed. Two days, two appointments with the doctor and a blood test later I was diagnosed with mild jaundice. For someone like me who had never been affected by any major disease (like Jaundice, Malaria, Dengue, Typhoid, Chicken Pox, Cancer, AIDS, Crohn’s Disease or Epilepsy) before, the coming week became a living hell. Fever rose like phoenix every day, only to be brought down by paracetamol at the end of the day. Shivering followed by fever had become a part of my daily routine. The medication was not working and I was giving up the ghost. My bed had become my world. After writhing in pain and suffering for a whole week (which seemed like a whole year), heeding the advice of a very dear friend, I called my dad and told him I wanted to come Home. Next evening I found myself shivering again but this time I had mom sitting by my side and felt for the first time that everything was fine, that it was just a matter of time. I don’t think my mom fell asleep that night. But I sure did, unlike the nights I had spent in college last week. Next day we were at a doctor’s. Again the pathology guys took a bloody part out of me and I came to know that a female Anopheles mosquito was the culprit. The doctor prescribed a medication that would rid me of a protist called Plasmodium vivax. Waves of fever appeared on alternate days with each attack of merozoites on my fresh red blood cells. But with my parents by my bedside, things went smoothly. Within a week the fever gave way, though it left me very weak. But within another week I regained myself pretty much.

The whole incident taught me, or in fact reminded me that in the most adverse times it is your home that comforts you the most, that very home which you leave behind in search of greater possibilities. Life is hard and it is inevitable that if a big opportunity to rise in life presents itself you have to leave your home and embark on a long journey. But remember, no matter how long or how difficult that journey is, in the end, after making the best of it, it takes you back home. Because, home is where the world is.

The agony and the joy...

The waves that hustle and bustle on the surface of the sea make it look very joyous and happening but underneath the surface lies the real world. A world inhabited by creatures that are exquisite, yet unseen. These creatures almost don’t exist for the outer world. Only the sea can feel their presence. It seeds and feeds them. It harbours them as long as they can live and finally provides them with a resting place.

Amid all the noise that waves make while they travel and finally hit the shores, the sound of those inner creatures is muted. It’s only a matter of getting your ears just under the surface until you can hear them. Sometimes the waves sound sweet and yet at other times they are cacophonous. Sometimes they sing in the appreciation of the beauty that this nature has endowed the sea and the land with. But sometimes they are querulous about the way shore rings a death knell for them. Sometimes they are boisterous because the winds carry them so turbulently. Waves have the privilege to expose themselves to the outer world and let the world hear what they have to say.

The creatures that dwell inside are doomed to infinite solitude. It’s not that they don’t talk. They have probably more things than the waves to tell the outer world and yet due to their sheer misfortune they cannot. They are colourful and lively. If you approach them in the right way, you find them convivial. They are desperate to have a glimpse of what lies on the other side of the surface. But they can’t help it. The vast expanse of the sea beneath its surface can gratify their desires for not very long. Some of the creatures are so naive that they have no idea there is a foreign world. Their ignorance never facilitates them to push their limits.

There is another class of creatures that are so naive that they don’t realize the existence of a boundary separating their world from the foreign one and swiftly cross it. Some of them wade through the waves to the shore. Others like to somersault and in the process they occasionally catch a glimpse of the other world. Whatever may be the way, they have the ability to witness the epiphany of the moment of their exposure to the other world.

The sea below its surface holds a whole different world. That world, though very serene and placid, has creatures that outshine most of the other creatures living outside. To ignore what lies beneath the surface is to deny oneself the opportunity to have an altogether novel experience.

Recent past, present and future.

It’s been a long time since I wrote my last post. Past couple of weeks have been quite hectic and consuming. Being a Govind Bhawan inmate is almost unlucky. I had to change my room because the supervisor discovered that my friends and I had exchanged our rooms. Although I came out unscathed, two of my friends had to bear the brunt of his sadistic nature. Not that exchanging rooms unofficially is a violation of any rule, but vocalizing our grudges wouldn’t have pleased the warden and we thought it better to not get into any trouble with him.

After room affairs and registration were over, the bromidic classes began. Evenings were spent playing tennis and in endless bakar with friends discussing who did what in summers and what were everybody’s plans for the semester. Three, including me, could find only one way to keep ourselves “really” busy and that was by preparing for CAT. Yes, I admit, the same beaten track. First JEE, then CAT. Now although among the three of us I have the least chances of making it to the coveted IIMs, it will kill me if I don’t prepare while others are busy with the same. So we went to Career Launcher’s orientation session and a demo class. It was good. Then we went to TIME for the same. It was good, too. But the fact remains that in Roorkee CL has been faring better. Moreover a senior who made it to IIMA last year recommended CL to me. So it’s CL finally. Let’s see how things unfold in the coming months and whether I am able to handle the pressure or not. The silver lining is that we have quite a light schedule of classes at college this semester, although I dread that the excruciating Machine Drawing practical classes may make up for it.

Meanwhile I finished reading Thomas Hardy’s Return of The Native. Interesting story and mesmerizing style of writing kept me glued to it. Now I am reading The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. I was also able to lay my hands on a senior’s big collection of movies and since then I have been watching almost a movie a day. I saw The Raging Bull, Finding Neverland, Kungfu Hustle, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Except the third one, all are “a must watch”.

So that’s how it has all been lately. Unlike my previous posts, this post has rather turned out to be like a diary entry. May be it’s the efficaciousness of the book that I am reading.

And there She was!!!

The day had arrived. She was coming today. His mind was blank. His lips were sealed and he couldn’t utter a word. Words had failed him today. The moment was indeed very special. He had waited for this moment three whole years. Not a day had passed when her thought didn’t pass his mind and not a night when he didn’t embrace her in his dreams. How he lusted for those curves of her! Mere words couldn’t explain it. He craved to feel her body with his own hands. He wanted to touch her everywhere and slide her hands to that large back of her which had his jaw dropped when he had caught the first glimpse of her three years ago. He would possess her now.

He vividly remembered the day. Just like other people who saw her for the first time he too was awestruck. Her beauty and elegance could seduce anyone. She was a magnate. That day he wasn’t able to take his eyes off her and had stood there for long. She did not notice him. She was the one people craved for. It was that day he had realized what was missing in his life. He had decided then and there that someday he would have her and then he would never let her go. And today the moment had arrived.

A sea of emotions rose and fell inside him as her figure drew closer. He found himself struggling with his thoughts. It was all he had longed for and then too he was more restless than ever. And then she arrived. He remained motionless for a moment. The time had stopped. The thought that one day he would be inside her and ride her had kept him excited enough for three years. It was his day today.

The driver came out of the car and handed him over the keys. “Congratulations Sir, for your new car.” He said.