Desires

What next?

Sometimes I wonder if I can ever be sure of what I want. Is anyone ever sure of what they want? Or is it that everyone keeps doing what they love while secretly desiring to do something that will offer more love, more fame, more joy?

When the sun goes down, people remember us for the joy we gave them. While we are busy targeting the next big achievement, we keep kindling the energy around us, rousing passions, motivating people and adding a bit of us in every moment.

This is what people remember us for; things we said or didn’t say, how we lived, our passions. Aspects we never noticed while we were aiming at that big target.

Isn’t life beautiful this way? The pungent smell of desire adding character to our lives.

What a life

The Web of Life

Life is moving so fast there is no time to reflect and chart the future course of our actions. You have to do everything together these days and hope that every piece falls in the right place. I have learnt that whether we like it or not, luck plays a big role in life. Yes, like everything else, this also is unfair. But that’s the way it is.

Also, the value of 22 years of education has to an extent increased and decreased in my eyes. Certainly, unlike what was promised for one-third of my life, education is not everything. It alone can’t help you, as they say ‘make it large’ in life. Education can help you achieve the basics. It can also help you define your starting point in life. However, no matter what you do, education in itself has very little scope of being a differentiator (unless you are a NASA based rocket scientist or something). Differentiators will always be things over and above education. It can be things like people skills, attitude towards clients, ability to sweet talk your boss and many other things. This is where the game changes. At the end of the day, the basics in most of the jobs are fairly simple. It is ‘what else you do’ that differentiates you from others and these are things that are not taught in schools. This game of networking, sweet talking and back stabbing is very important in life. Afterall, a mix of all this, combined with basic work we do, is the only differentiator that we possibly can create in our careers. The reason why many people who we feel are not as good as us are promoted is perhaps the same. Although their bottom lines might be lower than ours, when it comes to the mix, their figures are certainly better than ours.

Dont get me wrong. I am not saying that education is not important. It is certainly important. It opens our eyes to the world around us. It also helps us write intelligent posts (unlike this one). I am just saying that it is not everything. What matters more in life are the experiences that we have had, the different people we have observed and spoken to, the places we have visited, the games we have played, the amount of pressure we can take and many other such variables which do not fit in our school equation. These are the things that will differentiate us from others and make us leaders. So, the question is are we doing enough to create lock-ins in our professional lives so that their decisions are in our favor most of the times? Are we?

Crazy

Hey. Never thought life would change so quickly. Never thought I would miss people so much. When people wrote ‘we miss friends’ on Facebook, I never gave a damn. Now, I can’t believe  that it’s happening to me. I miss those days. Madly. Like anything. I hate schedules. I hate  filling time sheets. I love the irrational. That’s what i have always been. Unpredictable, bizarre,  confused, still passionate to achieve something. But don’t know what. That was my life.  Anything else is boring. It still is. Dreaming big. Working hard. Life will be so good if it moves  from project to project, place to place with no hangovers, no memories. Alas, life seems to have a  mind of its own and my dimaag and its; are yin and yang. I have always been desperate. I walk  fast as if I am going somewhere when I don’t even know why I am walking. Chasing something  I know not. Impatient for something I have no clue of. I am so stupid. As always, I am not in my  control.

I want to halt, think and change. I want to meet and thank all those who love me. I want to be more organized as well as more random. I want to read. I want to think ugly unusual thoughts. I want to disagree with everyone. I want to shout and tell people that they are wrong. I want to impose my ideas on everything and everyone and then disagree with my own ideas and come out with new ones. I want ideas to be more liquid than solid.

Forget this post guys. This is a tragedy.

Love Lost

It is raining outside. Some long lost memories return. I can again see that vivid red in front of my eyes. The sky is calm. No roaring thunders, no black clouds. Just innocent raindrops and their pitter-patter on my windowsill. I see those ocean blue eyes again. Why do you still gaze into my eyes like that?

A slow, cold breeze has started blowing. I remember your touch. Soft. Softer  than anything I  have ever touched. I turned around to see. Stupid electricity!  Saw you turn back and go. Cursed  my luck. You turned your head back to  have a look. Those twinkling things looked beautiful.  Somebody switched on  the generator. Got a glimpse. You went away. Did I feel something?

It has started pouring now, just like it was that day. Car’s wipers had stopped  working. Got  out of the car to check them. Dad was shouting instructions  from inside. Saw you in Hitesh’s  car. My umbrella flew away. Something  was not right. Why did you look so beautiful? Ran to  catch the crazy umbrella. Dad was still shouting.

Saw you outside Jagdish’s dukaan. You had a pack of Maggi in your hands.  Loved the red  dupatta. I can still see it around your face. Followed you.  Friends kept on teasing me. I know  you had seen me though you always  denied. It started pouring again. Rain has a special  relationship with us I  guess. Gathered courage. Ran to you and said something. You looked  astonished. Your house came. You shouted your number. I lied down on the greens across the  pavement and laughed.

After practicing for hours, called you up. Forgot everything. Said something. You laughed. I laughed. You laughed again. Got my nerves back. Talked for an hour about Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Me talking for an hour on phone! Awesome! After a month, took you on a date to an itsy bitsy Chinese restaurant. Chinese! Can you believe it! You said you loved the Manchurian. You are such a convincing liar! How do I know on the first date that you hate Chinese?

Got a job. We had been together for eight months. (Yes I have started keeping track of time). Got an apartment. You finally agreed to shift with me! Hooray! Got your stuff. You cleaned the apartment. We decorated it. We had champagne. We made love. While sleeping you kicked me in the face!

The rain has stopped now. The sun has again appeared. I am still collecting  the broken pieces of the life I lost. The office work was so much. Your MBA  always kept you busy plus the work at home was too much for you. Anyone  would have lost patience at times. But I never understood. I just saw the  world from my lenses. My dreams, my desires and my idea of our life. Mine,  mine and mine. Why didn’t you slap me and told me I was stupid? Why  didn’t you protest? Didn’t you know you were the mature one amongst both of  us? What were you thinking!

You walked out as if I meant nothing. Maybe I didn’t. I didn’t stop you. I was  a fool. You were the only  one who knew me. Somehow you even managed to  love me. I have always loved you no matter how  much I deny to myself. Now  you are with that doctor from Delhi with a funny nose and pretend to be  very  happy. I thought half bald men were never an attraction for you! I hate him.  But i hope you are as  happy as you pretend. Everything is fair. You have the  half bald funny nosed doctor and I have these  memories. Life still goes on.

Ramblings of an Adulterated Mind

Hell it has been a long time since I have written anything. Well I know it doesn’t matter much but it is better than sleeping on the couch all day or watching movies at a stretch till the time your eyes give up on you or thinking about things that hurt you and make you feel alive for sometime. I just sometimes wonder what is the purpose of this life. Does it even have a purpose? Or are we all bastard children, a mistake of an uncontrollable libidinous drive of a young guy called God with some raunchy bitch at the bar. ‘Sorry darling, I was so drunk I forgot to wear a condom. But you were smashing last night! By the way what is your name?’

We live in a fake world. We talk about happiness and love but we forget to see that this happiness is a teardrop on a tree leaf; just about to fall, gasping for breath, crying out for someone to save her but all she has are her assassins around her, laughing out loud at her helplessness, enjoying her cries, torturing her with knife wounds, burning her with cigarette butts and waiting for her to die in cold blood.

Finally she falls.

Our problem is that we trust Beauty. We just love the beautiful. It enchants us, makes us dream, takes us on a never-ending journey and suddenly ends in the middle of everything it had promised. But the fault is not hers; it is her nature to be fragile. It is just that we never see it. We look at a flower and say, ‘how beautiful it is’. But no one has any interest in witnessing its painful death. In a short span of time the beautiful flower goes pale and colorless, falls down on the ground and is crushed under the boots of someone who is busy admiring a new flower and saying ‘how beautiful it is’.

Dear God, thank you for making us your most hilarious sadistic joke. You and your friends laugh as we try to swim through the sea of contradictions that you have created. You have given us a little of everything so that we chase it like crazies, fight for it, kill for it, rape for it and in the end when we are just about to get it, you take it away from us, giving an ultimate twist to the ending. Thank you for everything. You are the best!

A White Rose

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

O, the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream white rosebud

With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is the purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips..

Longing

Hey all,

I have been reading my old diary from a few days. Earlier I had this habit of jotting down words that I felt were absolutely delightful. In fact beautiful words; like beautiful ladies have always made me feel a sense of longing for something unrecognizable. I have tried to fathom but never succeeded in finding what it is that makes me feel love, disappointment, sadness and grief all at once. This longing; she is my tormenter as well as my solace. Like a jealous lover she rebukes me, but seeing me sad her heart melts and she comforts my desolate soul. Time progresses and our love hate relationship matures. It is like those haggard couples that grow old fighting acrimoniously, never agree on anything under the sun, rake up nightmares from the past and fill their life with bitterness- but never give up. Because they realize that they are incomplete without each other. There is music even in the chaos.

Anyways, coming back to my five-year-old diary, I found this beautiful poem written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. This is an English translation of the original. I do not know who did it but I am very thankful to him as I do not know Urdu. So here it goes. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do every time I read it.

MUSIC BY NIGHT

Midnight, moon, self-forgetfulness;

The assemblage of existence is desolate,

Silence is the embodiment of longing,

The gathering of stars is a melancholy thing,

The waterfall of silence is flowing,

On the four sides a sort of unconsciousness is prevailing.

Life is like a part of a dream,

All the world is like a mirage;

On the dense trees is sleeping

The tired voice of moonlight;

The Milky Way with half open glances

Breathes legends of self surrendering love;

From the heart’s unplucked strings

Echoes of blissful raptures drift –

Longings, dreams and your beautiful face.

– Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Cynara

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses, riotously, with the throng,

Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

—— Ernest Dowson

Lady, why you love me…

I have always been perplexed as to why you women fall in love with us, men. If you think of it, it is crazy! Women are the God’s most wonderful creation. You are the beautiful one, the one through which life sprouts. You are deep as an ocean and calm even in the face of disaster. You are innocent and pure and always ready to smile even when the world is against you. You are gentle in manner and stern in action. And still you fall in love with us: stupid, half angry half confused, irritable, indecisive MEN.

There has to be something really crazy going on in your minds girls! How can you fall in love with someone who criticizes everything from the way you tie your hair, to the size of your handbags and the things you carry in it to the wildly colorful collection of fancy footwear that you have! And then he tells you that YOU NAG! Seriously, had I been a woman I would have never put up with the antics of a dysfunctional and bizarre creature called MAN. It is impossible to comprehend what power in the whole wide universe makes you love and gives you the strength to keep on trying to make us better. I doubt any of the women folks know either. At least the one that wrote the following did not know-

And yet I love this false, this worthless man,
With all the passion that a woman can;
Dote on his imperfections, though I spy
Nothing to love; I love, and know not why.
– Ephelia fl.
‘Female Poems’ (1679) ‘To one that asked me why I loved J.G.’

Well, all I can do is to thank you for believing in our dreams. I must tell you that your belief in us gives us the courage to carry on following our dreams to achieve a better life. It is because of your faith that the world breathes and progresses.

* Ode to the Nice Guys!!

A friend sent it to me. Read!! You would love it!!

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

* This was originally published for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal