Day -71 Facebook Affair

One monumental discovery that changed our lives forever. Facebook. I still remember the day, i first joined facebook. It was in 2009 or 2010. I was in school then. I had so many school friends to add and i did receive few welcomes on my facebook wall. I had never used orkut ( the one before facebook), so all this was new and fascinating to me. Though that first account was hacked within few months and i made a new one which i use till the date.

First 2 or 3years of facebook were like any new relationship. It was honeymoon period. I posted a new status almost everyday. I loved the likes and comments. I replied to every single comment and like. I had this fear of posting pictures on fb, which i got over soon. And then even a picture was uploaded every few weeks.
The random posts you get tagged into, i was happy about them as well. The friend requests, chats, everything was so new and charming. I did make two or three random facebook friends (complete strangers), who are my friends till date. The likes or comments from the guy (changed very frequently) i crushed on would make my day.
Then came the games. I loved poker and that puzzle game and also that farm game. I was addicted to them. Whoever wanted to talk to me, i would tell them to come and play poker because i was badly addicted to it. I still love poker. I have the zynga poker app even now. Play it from time to time.

Slowly like every relationship, my love for facebook faded away. I deactivated my account for almost  an year. Even now i keep activating and deactivating it. Mostly it is deactivated. I hardly chat with anyone. Updating a status is history now. Likes and comments mean nothing now. How this change came? I don’t know. But my love affair with facebook is over now. But like every other relationship, a soft corner will always be there for it (like there will always be one for ex-crushes, bfs and friends).

The tale of love

I always tend to ignore my blog these days. I feel like i don't have much to talk about. I hardly go out and meet new people. To tell stories you need to have some things to tell which you see around and experience. Well, I hardly come across anything new these days. This year on my birthday i got one of the best gifts ever. It was a collection of 80 small books. They are from 80 different authors and different tales. Some of them i have read earlier, very few though and there are some which i came across for the first time.

Post my birthday i had entrance exams and stuff like that so i never got the chance to open them. Today while i was reading 'Macbeth' also a gift from a friend, i opened one of those books. Macbeth is actually boring, the only problem is that i can not comprehend the meanings of most of the lines in them. This one is in the play form and there are notes along with it which gives meanings for the words. it is a good translation atleast better than the ones i have read earlier.

As i have to constantly look for meanings, i got bored of Macbeth and so i thought of going through one of those 80 books. I chose number 3, 'The Saga of Gunnalaug Serpent-tongue'. It is a love revenge story and little superstitious as it is set in very old times. 'Helga the fair' is loved by two men and both die at the end, fighting each other in a duel and Helga marries off someone else. It is like an old folk tale.

Every time i read any love story, all the love stories i have read and seen so far come to my mind. It also puts me in the confusion about which one i like the most. I believe i am an 'old is gold' believer. I have seen and read so many but ,y favortie so far has always been Catherine and Mr. Heathcliffe from 'Wuthering Heights'. I liked Pride and Prejudice too but it comes later in the list. Catherine and Heathcliffe had too much passion for each other and the lines from the book are just beautiful, beyond imagination.
 
       ' I have not broken your heart- you have broken it and in breaking it, you have broken mine.'

And, there is this another one from '1984'.

       ' Under the Chestnut tree, i sold you and you sold me.'

Sometimes such simple lines express so much. I can never write something so soft and expressive which melts hearts.

I always tell people i hate love stories but the truth is i enjoy love stories the best. But there are certain conditions for it. They should be set in old England, women with lond dresses and frocks. I think corsets were in fashion then. I personally think corsets are too painful for women but trust me they look lovely wearing those dresses. Men little prude, gentle and shy. And the conversations they make matter the most to me. I mean if they are not expressive enough to each other through words then gestures mean nothing to me.
I like love stories with great dialogues about how much they love each other. These are my requirements for a perfect love story. I love when they wait for each others letters and they just wait. They have stopped writing such stories and even movies are very limited in number. But i would just do anything to watch or read something like this on a good day as well as on a gloomy day.

Day- 70 Am I a pet person?

Am i a pet person? I don't love any of the animals as such. I feel bad for them at times but when it comes to keeping them around me I can not really do it. I always feel kind of threatened around them. 4-5 days back my room-mate here at jnu brought a cat to our room. This cat had cut herself in the neck and was very weak so i thought it was better to let her stay. 

I see her all day. Though my room-mate takes her to vet everyday to get her wound treated, this cat still acts very snooty and never acknowledges her efforts. First two days this cat would keep staring at me continuously through her crate. I was scared while sleeping; hoping that she would not come on to my bed in the night and bite me. But she didn't, she was too weak to do that. I have not touched her even once since she has arrived in our room. 

She hates her crate and loves the only mat i own and will prefer sleeping over it then in her crate. She also loves to hide under my bed. I don't get it, my room-mate takes care of her but she would never go under her bed but she would go all the places where my things are. I just feel she is doing all this to irritate me. 

I have always hated any kind of pets. We had one dog at her house back in the days. It was a small puppy. My brother always wanted one so my mamu got one for him and one for their own house. He was a German-Shepherd dog. We named him Sheru. For first few days i never had the courage to touch him and would not even place my feet on the floor when he was around. Sheru loved shoes or any footwear and he would go right after my chappals the moment i would get down. I found it very creepy and unhygienic. Slowly i got used to him and even tried to feed him with my hands sometimes. But i never got my fear over dogs beacause one day my brother had this awsome idea to throw himdown the stairs and see what happens to Sheru. He went with it and Sheru got injured and lost one leg. Post the injury he got scary he would bark at eveyrone and would not let anyone come near him. I got scared of him again. Eventually Papa took him to a friend's farm and left him in open. 

My Nana always had four or five dogs at his farm. They loved him like anything. Some of them were as tall as my Nana and trust me, my Nana was above 6 feet. I met these dogs once in an year for a month in which we hardly struck up any aquaintance because they were too big and i was too small and would get scared of them easily. Their flashy white teeth and one bark was enough to make me run away. 

But there was this one dog of Nanu, Moti who i started liking. He was very close to my Nani and when my Nana left us, he would not let my Nani leave the house alone and would follow her all around the village and bark at us whenever any one use to come too close to Nani. I liked him a lot and felt little bad when he died.

It is hard to like someone but i guess when you stay with them for some time; you do get attached to them. I have started to like this cat. Though i still do not touch her or caress her or anything which would make her feel welcomed. But i like seeing her aorund in my room and i have even grown used too her smell in the whole room. Though i tell people she is a big headache for me right now; i feel personally that she is here for a good thing. 

One more thing i wrote the whole post and just realized that the cat is a male and not a female. But then how does it even matter? I cannot now go aorund changing 'her' to 'him' in the whole post just beacuse a thing like gender exists in our my minds. Hard to tell still whether i will ever own a pet?

Day - i don’t remember

I have lost this note but i had the images of it. The sadness engulfs you at times and spurs you to do sad things.

I

Day 69 - Endless circles of life

It started off with a cloudy night

The day went on like how rainy days should be

Full of water, aroma of earth going up to my nose

Leaves talking to me with a shy smile

Like they are too happy to meet the rain

Serene and green and wet is everything around

It ends with some lightning and some thunder 

Telling stories of stormy decades that have passed 

Making way for the sly winter, smiling at me

Comes with a pleasant wind and less of sun

I feel cold but in a good way

Looking forward to those wintry nights with blankets wrapped around and heaters or fire running on and on 

The food gets tasty, eating feels like a bliss

More I eat more warm I feel

It ends up making me 3-4 kgs heavier 

And suddenly one day around holi the winter just leaves my door 

With mild summer knocking at my door

I feel relaxed as it is a harmonious change after that gross cold which by then I get sick off

Summer turns me out 

I feel more lively in the green grounds, under trees

It completes me in more ways then i know

Suddenly i lose all that appetite i had gained over the last months

As summer gets sharper, the kilos seem to shed off easier

The heated sun is difficult to breathe in

Hot tea looks poisonous, only relief comes in with drops of chilled water 

Heat gets too much

Leaves wilt, dogs look at me with puppy eyes so that i would take them in and save them from unforgiving sun

It passes soon too though it feels like ages 

The rain blesses us with beautiful greenry and love all around again

Such is life. Nothing is lost, nothing is earned. 

Everything has a time to come and another to leave.

There is no permanence but even that is a kind of permanence 

I will always look for other things, something interesting

But that too is a circle.

I start because you know you will end

When will it be? That is on me and the fate

But trust me this will go on and on like a cd being played without pauses, problems and rewind.

Day 68 another day

Sometimes you have a bad day 

Sometimes you just wish everyone you love would just say yes to what ever you say

Sometimes you do not want anyone to agree or disagree with you but to just say yes to you.

Sometimes all you want is support

Sometimes all you want is somebody to understand 

Sometimes all you want them is to stand with you

Sometimes all you want is somebody or someone to hold your hand and say i am with you

It does not have to be a partner or your boyfriend or your husband 

It has to be someone, just someone you love 

Sometimes all you want is a simple expression of trust 

Sometimes all you care about is one hand holding you 

Sometimes all you need is one hug

Sometimes all you need is this small thing 

And you end up getting none

Because everyone will stand opposed 

Everyone will ask questions

Everyone will judge your attentions, your worth

Everyone will care about your future 

Everyone will care about what others will say

Everyone will say whatever they want to say

Everyone will find their own meanings in your words

Everyone will leave you wondering ‘why the hell do you expect something from someone?’ 

Why? Why? Do you want something from someone!? Why do you need it so much? 

Election days are on the way

This might not be relevant exactly but then politics is always relevant. But this one i wrote long back and it is not entirely new. 

Here comes another election. Tv mews channels and newspapers are going gaga over them as if something world shattering has happened. It is the same old bjp and congress nuisance, fighting the same blame game. The real thing you guys are missing out on is that the younger generation is getting big lessons on ethics from these reinvented parties, the secular BJP and the Hindu Congress.

Leave ethics aside, one thing I read every day is about the so called election reforms, which make no sense to me. Because i guess i thought of them as something else and what is being done is completely different. 

Present government said  bonds based funding would bring transparency into the parties. And I can see now how political parties have been sincerely supporting the cause. As it was very much visible in the recent elections that the parties did not have crores to spend on ads, luring voters, giving on freebies like the old times. And I was equally shocked by how rallies these times were epitome of simplicity, none of the ministers travelled in private vehicles. They were saving up on our exhausting oil resources by pooling up cars and helicopters and some even went with the public transport. 

I hope this would help us meet the international climate change targets. 

The greatness of our party leaders, the humility with which they deal with media and public grievances makes me more than happy. 

I am happy about these results because now we will see how bjp, congress and jd(s) would cook up  on alliance so that our dear karnatka gets a stable government as soon as possible. It doesn’t matter which party comes to power with whose help, the fact that matters is that they teach us to not to be enemies for long, there is always a good time to patch up and especially if it involves some monetary benefits. 

Very soon one or the other alliance would come to power and push for minestrial cabins and plush government bunglows will start. It does not matter which portfolio one gets, it is working for the welfare of people which matters the most. And if they don’t get a bunglow, they won’t be crying for the perks that come with it but for the lost chance to serve the humanity. Because they can work sincerely only within these bunglows, outside of these people who do not want the nation to grow would bother them. Plus these bunglows are just old and big government houses which they would have never preffered to live in if not for the good of the people. 

I feel so much of gratitude for our dear leaders and I am teary eyed after my realization that how they only want to help this country.  I am now able to relate to their understanding of the election reforms and the way they spend millions on elections so that the naive people like us could make a wise decision on the big day. Thank you bjp,congress and every other party for lessons in humanity service. Hope our generation learns more from you. 

Day-67 An anti-national dream

Dreams can be really weird at times.

So yesterday salman khan came into my dream. I don’t know what is happening these days, weird things. And he said something which i would never expect him to say. But after all it was a dream only. 

It was like this that we met through a friend who knew him or was related to him( which in reality is not possible, none of my friends know him). He is busy hosting a show and suddenly there is need of someone who could speak fluent hindi. So we are with him at that point of time and he asks us to read a part. I being confident that my hindi is not that bad, start reading from the paper. On the very 5th word i get stuck and then it turns out to be too hard for me to read further. I tell him i cannot, embarrassed about it though. And, he tells me Machiavelli has said that one who does not knows their national language cannot ever be a true nation loving person. And i ask him when did he say that? And he says in his book ‘The prince’. I don’t know whether Machiavelli ever said anything like that or not. But this dream is ‘Adbhut’.

I was stunned. Did he actually say that to me? Wow and there and then it ended because i woke up after that. I don’t know what it was. Still shocked. 

Some thoughts on marriage

I was going through my notes. Found this! I thought i have not posted anything like this so now is the time. I don’t know when i will see it again. I am not sure why i was so frustrated that day because what ever i have written sounds very aggressive.

Marriages are supposedly made in heaven. While sitting in the garden of this lavish marriage palace waiting for the feras to get over and contemplating what made this guy choose this girl, all I could conclude is bullshit. No body can guess a person in one or two meetings. It is like looking for a roommate through your parents. You can change your roommate but can you do the same with your groom or bride.

Then why the procedure of looking for a partner is similar to the one’s we use while looking for a roommate or a flatmate. Give an ad in the paper, ask your friends and relatives. Finally somebody comes to your door, you meet the person, confirm his details and make your decision. Now you start living together. What if that person is not able to live up to your standards? you part ways after the minimum contract is over and start looking for another one.

The same way people chose their prospective clients life partners. You give an ad, join matrimonial site, ask your friends or relatives, and offers start pouring in. You meet some, meet their family, make an enquiry and make your final decision. This is how marriages happen. But once you start staying with each other, you start to know each other. What happens later is either you adjust or you donot, either you are happy or you compromise or you chose to leave. But is it easy to leave? The legal hassles, the emotional hassles and moreover the problem of societal face value.

I am not trying to say that one should not divorce fearing the society and all the problems stated above like divorces do happen in love marriages also. 

But the concept of arranged one is very rudimentary and should be given up as soon as possible. Let’s give our young ones, cocooning fresh out of their shells, a chance to make this adult decision. Of course, post marriage also they are going to make big decisions. Parents should let their cubs fly and chose their partners wisely so that they will not regret it later in life.

Thanks

Day 66 - i love sunny days

This year winters are long. Last year by this time winters had already descended. I remember last year on holi which was on 2nd of March i was sweating the whole day because of the heat. It is already 7th of march and there is no sign of summers. Nights are so cold that it is hard to go out without a jacket.

I love sitting under the sun and for few days now i have been missing it, either i get up late or because of the rains there is usually no sun. 

Well finally today i enjoyed sitting under the sun. I got to see it after days. The wind was blowing as well so it was little chilly but pleasant. No matter how uneasy or uncomfortable i get in summers. No matter how much i sweat in summers and no matter how cold and cosy the winter blankets are. I will always be a summer person because i just hate cold days when there is no sun and usually you are forced to sit inside under your blankets. I am a big fan of long walks and i hate going on walks in winters because i cannot stand the cold. I feel winters make you lazy whereas summers make you active and crazy. Well holi is on 22 or 23rd i guess this year, so let’s see how summery is it going to be? My mom says this year winters are going to last longer may be till May. I don’t mind that much if sun will come up every day on time. 

Day 65- Kafka’s The Trial

How do i start again? When i had already written it once but it got deleted as my phone hanged for a while.

Well, i will tell you the whole story again. Two days back by chance i went to this book sale and bought few new books. One of them was Kafka’a The Trial, the book has his other stories as well so it was a bargain for me. So yesterday the whole day was spent reading him and some of it today as well.

I have been his fan for a long time, ever since by chance coincidence i read his ‘The Metamorphosis’. It was much later that i got to know that he inspired many latin american writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and others towards a new form of literature (or whatever it is called) called ‘Magical Realism’. Marquez’s famous book ‘100 years of solitude’ was based on Magical Realism only. The idea for which he got from Metamorphosis. 

Coming to the trial. I gifted this book to someone sometime back but never got a chance to read it myself. So yesterday was the day. It started off very simple, like one morning Mr Joseph K. wakes up and he finds that his landlady has still not brought his breakfast which is unusual. The day starts of simple but it turns out to be his worst nightmares. It turns out that he is under arrest for some trial but he cannot be given the details of the trial. The story starts of from nothing and ends on nothing. The whole time i was waiting to see what the trial was all about and it is never revealed, not even at the end. At that point only i realized that it is a satire on the law, courts  and justice system. Mr. K. is wronged in this case, he is never told what the charges are and still he is going around lawyers, courts and judges to make some sense out of everything. The court is disguised like a secret police which is everywhere but no one knows what it is doing but once you get stuck in it, you will not come out unscathed. K. like many others is lost in this mess like people are lost in today’s justice system. People are made to run around for things around lawyers, courts and police, when most of it is mostly incomprehensible to them.

It was a great book. It said so much without saying much. It is a literary masterpiece. I have always been awed by his writing style which is so mysterious yet so simple. I always loved his other works as well but not his short stories. This might be because it is not easy to comprehend so much from such short stories or i am not capable of understanding them.

Anyways it was a day spent well, day spent reading Kafka.