Today there was a farewell in my Team and to present a good luck gift, one of my colleagues invited a youngest person in the team to do the honours. And I was the one. In midst of all this growing up business, it feels superb to be the youngest in a certain group. You feel you still have the life others have lived in their times.

An important realization after 3 Idiots:

Hostel life can't be comapred to anything and has it's own charm. Gone are teh those days but will always be cherished.

There was a time few months back when I missed my friends a lot in Bangalore. I used to be occupied with office people and missed taht IIT life.
Well somehow that phase is over and I am in total love with my new life. I am independent and gradually learning to manage my life. From purchasing groceries for home to thinking every new way to make my place better to live, I am living it all. Work is good and challenging at times, very different from the academic scenario at college. The feel that I am gradually growing and turning old in my twenties is at its peak. The heart wants to be young always and full of enthu.
After saadi dill, Bangalore has finally taken my likes. The people are really good here despite language barrier at times. The weather rules here. I remember someone saying that its always cool under a tree in Bangalore is no doubt very true.
Working with people of different age groups, discovering friends in them is something I am doing for the first time in my life.
I keep discovering new ways to live my life so that boredom doesn’t creeps in.
The only thing that freaked me recently was the marriage of 2-3 colleagues of mine of comparable age as myself. But yeah everyone has his/her own perspective to discover their happiness.
One more thing that came in was the hard earned money. I took gifts for my family on recent visits home. The glow in their eyes was unbeatable to anything.
Finally it’s all good and great to live.............

I missed my college friends a lot today. Living a corporate life thrives its energy from the way you energize yourself on weekends. And for me its doing something different or trying something different. And that's where I miss my friends because here I still dont have that kinda group (except for one creepu bete) comprising of people on whom you can count for meeting up, having some fun, chatting around and so on. I do have friends in office but not what I expected.

I so sincerely wish that soon I am able to find such a group, new one here too. Because its too difficult for me to sit at home on weekends. Or I wish to find some good engagements apart from work where I can divert my mind to.

One thing that I am increasingly able to appreciate in B'lore is the way food is served here in restaurants. I visited a restaurant named RAKABDAR today for lunch. The ambiance was super and a particular waiter assigned to you takes proper care of you till you leave the place. And they don't look too interfering also at the same time and are very courteous. They will come occasionally to serve food and will serve in proper quantities. It was nice to witness.

I so hate this feeling when I feel terribly lonely.... When I dont know what I am missing in my life, when I loose my enthusiasm and spirit of life.

The only good part is that I know it is a matter of few moments only.

I have finally settled into this city, with a new house, flat mates, colleagues, specific job training started and so on. And to admit I have started liking this new life and also the surroundings where it is dwelling. It’s a lot different from college. I am independent in many senses and responsible for my own livelihood and that’s really a big thing. Working for five days and then trying to find ways to have good evenings after work and good weekends occupies a lot of my thoughts these days. The city is good in many ways especially the weather which is amazing. I can take a walk whenever I want during the day and it’s difficult to feel the sweat here. It is a crowded non metro and the traffic is mind blowing. It is different from Delhi but it is not hard to have a satisfying life here. My office is good and has a very open work culture which I like a lot.

Hope to have a lot of interesting memories here. Here I am to live and work Bangalore.

Hawa ke ek rukh ne zindagi hi badal di

Galti bhi to is dil ki hi thi

Ye ret ke mahal mein zindagi bitaane jo chala tha

Turning to the 23!!

In one word, its weird. I had my 23rd birthday some days back. I went home for 2 days with my cousins. My going ticket had 22 as my age and the return one had 23. I have lived 23 years of my life and I felt old. This b'day was not as usual ones. I was not very excited or not very expecting. Though my family gave me a surprise celebration at 12 midnight, my brothers me dirty with cake. I knew they were planning all this but then too I gave them the perfect “Oh I am so glad you did that” look :P. The next day I had a lot of home made food by dearest mom, dad gave a small party at night at a traditional rajasthani restaurant. I also witnessed a gazal nite there and had a song dedicated to me by lovable dad. I boarded my train back to delhi at around 2 am after all this. All of people I expected to wish, wished me. So all in all, it was nicer than I expected.

But then too, God I am 23 now. Its just this tag that dreads me and also the attitude of people around me. My parents feel that I am growing up and should be serious about life. They want to know what I am planning next, how long I want to do the job, what after it, after how many years will I marry someone. I have no data to fill in their answers. I am not thinking at all about it. A batch mate and few school friends got married this year, ohh that still freaks me out.

Anyway besides these, I feel more or less the same. I am still the same kid at heart. I still worry about meaningless things. I still love to live in my dreams. I have no whereabouts of future, I am all living in present. I still crave for dark chocolates and other related stuff. I still blindly believe in friendship turning to love and then into a long term companionship. I am focussed to the work I like and dream about making big in life someday. Shopping for clothes, footwear , accessories and hairdos still drive me crazy and never ends. I still can't stay at my home for too long. Database of newer novels is on steep increase, no hold here too. So more or less my faiths and likes are the same what they were 4-5 years back when I actually started framing my thoughts.

SO what it is that dreads me at 23. I guess its only the number and expectations of people around me to do certain things in certain manner for which i really dont feel ready at the moment.

Yeah you all non-dual degree ppl may pity this as yet other irony of mine but it was fun also............During my past four years, I have given a lot of quizzes, some planned , others surprised ones. It used to be fun and normally I rarely cheated but used to show my copy to ones sitting behind or sideways. It all used to be a normal chore and we all used to dreaded by TAs who might catch us. We often pleaded for extra time also. I used to keep track of time, wanting it to pass slow enough to complete the paper.

But today, I was staring at my watch often wanting time to pass as soon as possible. I was on the opposite side and was strolling across the hall and waiting for one hour to be passed. God, it is difficult to kill one hour this way. And then my prof told me to keep an eye on one particular student, sitting straight was difficult for whom. I saw him many times requesting his friends to show their copies. And then at last I caught him speaking to his friend in front. I don't know what happened to me, I went to him, showed a bit of my angry eyes and told him "Mr. I am seeing you since a long time". After that I walked away and could not stop my laughter.

Things change so randomly :P

swinging between :
What I should do?
and
What I want to do?

Today I fell into a heated argument with some of my friends over a peculiar issue that I see most often in “Indian Marriage” scenarios in particular. The thing is that in every relation, people often reach a stage where a compromise has to be made if certain common ends are to be realized and most often it is the female partner who is expected to do so. This has been going on since ages. Earlier girls were not independent and use to enter a new world after marriage and a long chain of compromises used to start. They used to do that because there was no other way possible and use to search for a real or fake happiness in this new world only.

But today when I see independent, highly educated girls doing the same, I feel really bad. Suppose a girl is getting married (lets take an arrange marriage here) and that particular girl is in a good job with a good career prospect but in different city or country as compared to her husband. Now who is the one who will leave his/her job, in a large and large majority of cases: my fellow gender will do it. Why? Is marriage a series of compromises for a girl only. Even the same so prominently (though a bit less) happens in love marriages too. Are so deserving and independent girls of today lacking the power to change traditions that are so going against them?

And what is the saddest part of this situation? Most of the girls today also call this only as happiness. I don’t consider them wrong, I in fact admire them that they have so much courage to curb their desires and accept everything new. What is more soothing to our forefathers when girls only are being so submissive? Compromise is not just their duty. Compromises must be shared upon, not just burdened upon females only. And girls of today have the power to get things their way, the way they want to be happy, the way they want to compromise.

I start doubting the institution of marriage when I see this, it really turns me off to be a witness to such marriages.

One of the interesting things I discovered in my final year (5th year, last semester) was to attend classes of an open category course that is normally done by students in their 2nd year. I couldn’t do it earlier so was doing it now. It’s at times really out of place and weird to be in a class where 98% people are three years junior to you. There talks and behavior involve most of the times those things that have past away in my life 2-3 years back. At other times, there are things of which I have seen so much and so often in past that they now look monotonous or too repetitive.

My fellow 98% start talking about studying a week before the exams or at least start bothering about syllabus etc. Probably they have 5-6 courses and may be 2 exams in a day. They want to be serious. But for me it’s just a course to get my degree out and I just have 2 courses so no botheration about exams too. More importantly there is no enthusiasm left think it about; I just want to clear it.

When politics started in IIT, I heard a group talking about who will become cult (cultural secretary of a hostel) and etc. There was an excitement in their talks as they were experiencing it for the first time. Same happens when they discuss about trophies of their extra curricular clubs and boards. They have a genuineness and curiosity in their mind about the results. They are so excited about various Boards’ nights. But what about me, I just give it a laugh and I feel as a grown up, very grown up for I had seen all this enough in past four years. And at the time missing the times when I have been in their places.

Being in 2nd year, they all try for interns too and I once saw them congratulating a friend of theirs who got an intern in some foreign univ. There talks showed shadows of dreams that were there in their eyes for they all wanted some good place to go as their friend got. Having worked across 2 interns and now placed in midst of a "recession placement", I could only think that how much more they have to see now in iit. And if they are tensed at this, how many more tensions are left in their lives here.

One day I saw a guy in the seat before me trying to talk to one of the girls of my class. He was a bit hesitant to talk. I can make out his face that he kinda liked her, may be a fling sort only. And behind me was a group gossiping about them. At once it all looked so familiar to me. I have seen it in my 1st and 2nd years too, only faces are now different.

Once I pointed a mistake among a sleeping class in one of prof's derivation. He was calling a term as velocity which was actually acceleration and had explained everything on this basis. I was waiting for someone to say something but when no one woke up, I myself told the prof about his mistake. At once many students start discussing it. I felt as if they were kinda shocked as how could I see what they didn’t saw, I felt as a total outsider. Here too I couldn’t stop my smile. They were perhaps under the impression that I had flunked earlier in this course. huhhh.... not done.

Later a guy asked me if this is the second time I am doing this course. I was embarrassed and guessed that most of them definitely had the first impression that I have flunked in this course previously and hence am repeating it.

It’s really weird to see how IITD makes you grow and change. It’s faster than any other noticeable changes in your life. You are a different person when you walk out of this place than when you stepped in here. I have been in the shoes of the rest of my class. But 5 years of stay in this place have made me grow over things that matter the most to them. I don’t think about them the way they do. May be I have been offered a lot more other things to ponder about. Whatever it is, it’s an experience to see what I have left and grown over. These people make my memories all the more alive of the time I have spent here.

I love you and I am there!

Almost every person in this world has certain dream of a perfect relationship and certain fear of a successful break up. Whenever I look around my self over break ups that were at some point of time good relations, I always find one factor in most of them.

“He/She is perfect for me but at times (or always) is not there for me when I need him/her the most”

Relations make us share a lot of stuff with the person we date. And then that becomes gradual and any change or absence in this thing sets the trigger to rotten a relation.

The reasons for not being there may be many, different career paths, long distance, different work schedules and etc and etc.

This is natural also in the highly career oriented life our generation lives in. Our dear and compatible friends won’t be always around us as at some point or the other our professional and personal priorities become all the more important than our friends. Hence that’s why we start looking towards “Mr. /Miss One” more and more often. We want him/her to be with us when we need him/her. We start wanting that “Mr. / Miss One” to be the first person in our calling list in case of an emergency or a problem. This is the time when the other three words “I am there” become more important than “I love you”.

On one hand we want to be independent today but on other hand we yearn for a trusting dependence on someone. Does that mean that this independence is relative?

Is this country full of stupid men!!!!

The recent incident of attack against women at a pub in Mangalore is a shocking example of the mentalities of our countrymen. What do these extremists expect from girls? They want to end the western culture; they don’t want women to drink, to go to discs, to roam about hand in hand with guys and so on. Well I just have a pretty one question to all this and a pretty one answer as well. The question says “who they hell are they to tell us what to do in our own country” and the answer is “It’s none of their business what kind of life a girl wants to live”. If a girl wants to enjoy with her friends in a pub, it’s her will. She knows what is right and wrong for her. You can guide kids but not grown ups. Times have changed and we must move forward with it.

If a pub has been opened up within a city, it’s truly with the will of the government of the locality. Then why these extremists create a mess for innocent people. If they want to end it, go and fight with the government.

If a girl today receives the same education as men, works in the same environment as men, then why can’t she live and enjoy her life as men do. Gone are the days when girls didn’t have rights to exercise their free will. What difference will be there between India and Taliban if here also people in the name of culture restrict freedom of girls? Cultural ethics can’t be imposed on a person. If some people don’t feel good about certain western elements coming into our country, they can very well reject them for themselves. But they have no rights to restrict the free will of any other citizen. It’s a democracy where everyone has the right to live freely according to his/her own will.

Times have changed and we must accept it. We live in a democratic and secular state, not in a religious one. People have to learn to respect the freedom of girls. These so called extremists just need an excuse to be in power, create news and spread terror among people. Our leaders have to realize the danger of such activities and take strict action rather then supporting these people for their vote banks.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I am sure these people must be busy training their followers how to create havoc for people who would be willing to celebrate this day.

Oh yeah !!
my final sem in IITD has arrived. It’s not that I longed for it. I have enjoyed every bit of life at IIT but now all those bits are over.

To start with it, the starting was great with a great job in hand; an awesome vacation at home, full fun time with family; coming back into campus and meeting my great great old friends again, spending all wella time with them and chilling out to the fullest; a much more awaited weekend with my dear boyfriend.

And so all in all, it was going so great. But now, today, everyone gone and all evaporated, stupid time flied so soon leaving me alone in this campus. I am feeling sad and missing so many things in my life. Still I feel lucky for myself that being in a dual degree I still have some peer group friends. But then, those so awesome days have ended. Time is still free but what will I do.

I have many options to kill time, to make it fly fast…….crack my MTP, movies, books, etc and etc. But they all require a thing called enthusiasm which is so lacking. And above the chilly weather here kills every desire to do any useful work. It only imparts godly laziness.

I will do something definitely at sometime but right now the cold winds outside are only advising to take a nap and stop applying my brains. So I am obeying them only and heading towards my cozy bed but I will do something definitely :P