People enter our lives for a reason!

I strongly believe in the title of my post and as I am experiencing life, I've begun to believe it more than ever before. Can there be another explanation possible? Maybe we say this to make ourselves sound rational at the loss of an integral part of life but this also makes us ponder that, if something is meant to be yours, it will never go away from you. Or maybe it'll go away and then come back to you. Or maybe it'll keep coming back to you. Who knows what the future holds!

And that's precisely why life continues to intrigue me at every phase. How many times do we have a feeling that comes gushing to our heart, that tells us, 'Yes... this is meant to be...', 'this will work out fine...', 'yes... I am glad this happened...' or 'oh! this will not work!' And how many times have all these feelings fallen flat on their faces? That is what life does, it plays along with us, makes us happy and then suddenly comes the blow, out of no where, and we think, 'what went wrong?' And we ask this to ourselves not once not twice but possibly as long as it takes us to figure out what exactly went wrong.

But in the middle of all this fracas, people coming in and going out of my life, there came some, who today I feel are meant to stay. I can never be sure of that, but then again, as much as I hate to say it, this is life. They are those people who I never expected to stand up for me. There was a time when I did not need anyone or anything. There was a time when I was very happy with what I had or the little that I got from life. While something significant kept me rooted to this belief, i kept discarding many people for the happiness of the ones with me. Even a tree that sheds it's leaves in fall, knowing that soon there will be new ones accompanying it in spring, must have felt more than I ever could.

And suddenly today, I feel I have been nothing but mean to all those who tried to be there for me even when I didn't need them. I would say I am glad I realized this now, but I also know that now it's too late. Too late to go down that road, too late to re-live those moments and too late to get back. How hard was it, when we were kids, to say that one is sorry or to simply smile and say, let's be friends again? How hard is it now, to look someone in the eye and tell them that they're not needed and to suppress all those feelings and for what? To satiate the needs of ones ego? To make one feel that they have not lost face? To show the world how ones ego triumphed over the others? Swallowing ones pride is extremely difficult, it never tastes good either.

Moreover, there are people who make this journey called 'life' less harder than it is. In a world where one may not even trust ones family to be with them throughout, we make friends. Friends. Not as easy as the word sounds. And if they were not there for me, I would have felt differently about the whole concept of friendship. Friends are there when you want to have fun, when you want to feel silly, when you feel 'BLAH' [yes I am referring to you dear ;-)]. But being there when you never expected them to be, is sometimes a new experience all together. I never felt that kind of bond with anyone until now. Perhaps I was unsure to trust anyone around me. Too afraid to take someones hand and hold on to it. I feared being in that place where I had been before. I feared letting myself go. And now fresh thoughts enter my mind erasing the old ones like the first rains washing away the traces of dust particles from a leaf. And this is also how new people came in my life, pushing the older ones out.

I never really thanked God that much, but today I want to say Thank You God. Because of You, I realized so many things, I learnt to learn, to forgive, but never forget. One can never forget. Thank you, to those, whose chose to stick with me, and also to those who came for a reason. And leaving, just as swiftly as they came just like wind. Testing times have shown me why people come into our lives. For what reason. And when the God wills them to go, no matter what one may do or say, there's no stopping them. And finally, when they are gone, one learns again to be content with the few people one has in their lives. Finally realizing the mistakes made, and the time lost, the tears dried up. And hoping, with all ones heart that, Time, the biggest healer, will take everything away. And there will again be a new beginning, a new day.

I also want to thank those who are no longer in my life. Not because I want them to be or out of relief that they are not, but for teaching me the lessons... The lessons taught by each one will not be forgotten. One lesson that I have learnt very well is that, one needs to be weary of people who say that they will be by your side, no matter what. Sometimes they may be the ones who turn their back on you when you need them the most. Thank You, for teaching me that life goes on, no matter what. And after the lessons are over, leaving the space you occupied, empty, for the one who really deserves it.

Thank You All.

Inarticulate... Words.

There are so many things the heart would want to say, but how do the feelings make way for words? Words are hard to come by, there are times when one needs more than just mere words to convey deep and unfathomable sentiments. We feel people who are close to our heart are the ones who will understand easily what the mind wants to say. But yet we stand corrected. Life is indeed a mystery.
We look for our near and dear ones in troubled times, but often realize that out of the so called dear ones, few even understand the unknown, that which cannot be expressed in words. It's surprising how something we didn't utter or something we didn't say, flies across from us to someone we didn't know would understand. And we feel subdued and amazed at the people who betray us in the middle of adversity. Who understand, but pretend not to. And then we find out that there are others, preying on our sentiments. These are masked, and many too. Sometimes they are good, sometimes, just plain evil. And suddenly they stab us, right in the back, and one feels, how unfair is life, how wrong are the people or perhaps the only things that are wrong are our choices.
And yet one cannot articulate what one feels in words. Words - they have the power to influence the world. Words, they are so powerful that they and can possess the healing aura. The whole world seems to melt away when someone says something the soul longs to hear. A famous and romantic song goes, "It's only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away..." They are the also the ones that break your heart into pieces, pieces that you cannot find. And if ever found, they will never bind. Wise men always say, one thoughtless word ruins everything and does damage that is irreversible.
And then one day we find that words seem to fail us. And then the mind screams. Screams so loud, the highest octave, that only the heart can hear it, but the world outside is calm, serene and undisturbed. When the mind, in it's absolute frustration yells, wants to be heard, but is silenced by the desire to remain sane... It looks for words that may help articulate the pain, the struggle, the imagery from the dreams that have haunted our sleep the previous night. And tears come streaming down the face, when one loses someone or something which cannot be replaced. These tears also try to communicated, as a last resort, in the place of the words...that... have failed us forever.

Blue moods.

Have u ever come across a situation where u so desperately wanna talk things out but no one wants to listen and everybody wants u to just shut up?
Have u ever wondered y sometimes while reading a book u end up reading a particular line twice or more than that bcoz u keep forgetting that u already read that?
I am sure it feels heavenly to go out of ur way to help someone to the fullest but how does it feel like when all that 'commitment', 'hard work', and most importantly 'time' goes to waste?
How bout sitting a jam packed room and still feeling lonely and alienated?
How does it feel when everyone in your entire life loves and supports you and all u do is vie for the one persons support who doesnt wanna do it?
When u run away from everything around u when that one person goes away.
When everything u try to fix and mend ends up 'breaking' into pieces.
When tears rolling out has more impact than than a shattering glass.
Could living be worse than death?
Can there evr be more answers than questions?
Can there be a start over... another begining... a second first impression?

Indian Chronicles.

France seen from here.

The Indians are not maybe the most enthusiastic or adventurous travelers, still there are so many in the queue to climb the Eiffel Tower. Very little or no knowledge of Moliere’ language is certainly not a travelers major asset to get along well with the Parisians. The impressions for them are rather moderate. It is necessary to look at the things opposite: to Paris, one agrees well, there are more tourists than the Parisians themselves. The Indian tourists who speak very loudly, the Japanese tourists concerned about you to take a photo, the American tourists cultureless but not accent-less, the Chinese tourists who smile all the time… the Parisians have enough to leave the capital to go to live in Alaska! This plan does not always progress; they are obliged to make use of a cold shell to protect themselves. Recently, the Indian press had published a survey carried out on the inhabitants of some hundreds of metropolitan cities around the world, and Paris appeared first in the list of winners classifying the most impolite, followed by London. “It’s very relative. We cannot generalize people like this”, says Sarah who has lived in Paris for three years. “It’s necessary to stay there in order to understand the natives, that I have done. In my opinion the Parisians are neither very polite nor very impolite than the people of Mumbai. It’s true that they have a bad reputation in the world concerned to manners, but thanks to a few French words, once the ice is broken, they begin to seem very pleasant.” Because, we can continue with the clichés,” they will look up at you, while fuming their pipe, and believe themselves to be superior to the others. They are chic, elegant, and in my opinion, very laidback They are also very conservative and seem to suffer from an extreme xenophobe. The Mittal enterprise is an illustrated example!” says an 18 year old student, who as yet has never gone to France.
Ah, the stereotypes are hard to crack!

Translated article.
Compiled by Shwetabh Sinha, L'Impressions.

Sinking Soaking Mumbai.

The monsoon is not just a season anymore. Every monsoon brings with it, certain unexpected events which we think may happen once in a lifetime, as i earlier said, but they don't! Now every year, it's the same story with the rains. This area flooded, Central Railway shut, Western Railway late, all this with the recording "inconvenience to passengers is highly regretted." It's not exactly the railway authorities fault, not is it the BMC's fault ( why am i even saying this???) But when one is desperate to reach somewhere and it's a do or die, win or lose, today or never kind of case, who is one to blame?
I woke up this morning, with an air of finality, saying to myself, It will be a good day. After all, today was my admission day in college. Jai Hind to be precise. My name was on the first list of several colleges for BMM. But i chose JH! Peeping from my blanket cover i look out of the window, it was raining cats and dogs! I really wished there were no season like the monsoon! Got out of bed, it's only 7:00am. I knew i had to reach college at 10am. You see something went terribly wrong, either i did not pray to the Almighty last night, or i am having a bad day, (same for my hair!) Hurried had a bath, breakfast; and mum came storming out of the kitchen," you are not going anywhere! The college will postpone it till Monday." Like i am a relative of the Queen!
All odds were against me, but i had to go. I said to myself, it's not the first time i am going out in the rain. But i knew, that there was no guaranty that i was gonna come back home safe and sound or for that matter, the same day. I got a train from Goregaon at 10:30am and guess what??? I reached college at 12:45pm. The things i saw from the trains! The trains negotiating with the waterlogged tracks, the Mithi River which actually looked like a violent storm-hit Ganga, out to destroy the river banks; the waterlogged tracks, the plastic wrappers floating in them, also some leather footwear; the pitiful Central Railway trains which had stopped, with people stranded inside them who were just at the mercy of the water filled tracks! Worst hit areas were Mahim (of course because of Mithi River), Dadar, Mumbai Central, Grant Road - and i am just taking about the WR tracks. There were many things that i was regretting at that time, one of them was forgetting to take my digi cam :-(.
Who can i blame for all this? It was such an important day for me, and to go through all this? But i was determined to succeed. And i did, though i reached home pretty late. I did see that the BMC was trying to do it's best but i guess they don't believe in the saying, 'it's better to be safe than sorry'. But the way the Western Railways took initiatives to keep the life-line of Mumbai going was commendable. They were moving slowly, very slowly, but they did not stop. And the BEST made it rather easier to commute, by avoiding water logged areas. I want to thank them for their efforts. THANK YOU WR AND BEST!
Well, in the end, all's well that ends well!

Rain rain....in Mumbai again.

Here comes the rain... the view is just heavenly from my window. The trees are lush green and swaying in the wind, the flowers blooming, the sweet pitter patter of rain drops, the cloudy grey sky, the wet surroundings. Really heavenly! Looks great, feel like a walk in the rain. And i go down, to have my share of fun. But looking around i feel, i should have just stayed at home, curled up under my blanky, reading a nice book, with a steaming cuppa cappuchino. The rain suddenly turned so ugly, the roads flooded, people angry faced, garbage floating in the nallahs, broken branches of trees lying around in the middle of the road. At first i thought that the rains brought such a relief from the sweltering heat, but now it also brought back some old memories.
Not good ones, not bad ones either, but the ones that i thought were a one in a life time experience. It turns out it's not a once in a life time experience. It may happen again. I am talking about the 26/7 deluge, i myself was stuck the entire time away from my home, only to reach home on the third day. And i guess now it's gonna happen one again. The rains are spelling havoc, or so it seems, is it the rain that's bothering or the infrastructure of the city that's obnoxious. It's really irking to see people tugging on to their belongings, holding them high up in the air and looking for a way out of the formed rivulet of gutter water in the low lying areas. So much for the empty promises made by the Government and the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai.
I think about the times when we were being ruled by the British, at least the drainage systems they put in the South Mumbai are more than 100 years old, but yet i haven't heard a flooding anywhere there. And the drainage systems they put in are still alive and working. But the facilities given to us tax payers in the suburbs where people account for the 55% tax payed to the government are rubbish, unsatisfactory. We are just being duped of our money. With no strategies, disaster management facilities, this is a shame, our money being flown like water over nothing. It's become really depressing to watch Mumbai sink like this.

Now BMM Entrance Test Scraped!!

Whoever said that there is always calm before a storm must have obviously experienced it himself. When you think everything is going fine, suddenly a news strikes you like a bolt from the blue. Just like the BMS Entrance Test, now even the BMM Entrance test has been scraped! And i read it today, in the news paper i would least expect to read it in, The DNA( Why scrap the BMM Entrance Test?, 7th June). The Mumbai University has scraped the BMM test for reason best known to them. So, therefore, the admission of the students in colleges will be considered on the basis of their marks obtained in their std 12th exams. This decision has been taken by the Mumbai University, just two days before, the HSC results are to be declared. For all those students who were not really sure of their HSC scores, will have to fret over their marks, and the cake will of course be taken by the meritorious few. This will also leave aside the opportunity for students not very good in academics, but having a genuine interest in the course. While, certain colleges like Xaviers, had already announced their cancellation of the BMM test, other colleges dont see eye to eye with the decision of the Mumbai University. "BMM course is more about skill, aptitude and application rather than mere high scores, the colleges will not get the right mix of students, and the course will also suffer because of several students applying as a 'backup', hence, the sincere students will have to wait till they leave their seats for some other course they earlier applied to" say the experts.
All i can say is we can do nothing about this ill fated news and just rely on our HSC results coming out tomorrow. This is absolutely unfair to the aspiring and genuinely interested students. And if such a compromise is done in sieving 'academically excellent students' from 'deserving students', we will see a very disturbed face of future world of advertising, media and journalism.