Some dance to forget, some dance to remember

Almost one year into the “job”, you start feeling like a veteran and the emotion gets compounded when you see the latest “products” beginning to crowd the office floor. A sense of lost happiness, lost hair, and the thought of increasing number of candles on your birthday cake engulfs you. The pangs of boredom and clock like repetitive and predictable life start pinching hard. But you are ready for it. That’s what Engineering teaches you, to find the twinkling glimmer of hope in the night of lost cause. You never lost heart when day after day, month after month, and year after year you saw the “girls of your dreams” being escorted away into someone else’s life. You have accepted the law of continuum and embraced it in your life with wide arms, open heart and a compulsion thrust upon!! You have realized the eternal mystery of life, accepted it, are living it, stopped cribbing about it, after all you loose some, you win some. But then the satanic voices inside one’s head begin to complain. One more year in college would not have been bad; a girl in life would have perhaps made it more “complete and fulfilling”. But then you do not get flustered by these preachers of doom. That’s what Engineering teaches you, to unconsciously identify and cut the shit out from its very stink and makes you immune to crap!

I have put my mind to the extremes of “remember” exercise but can’t recollect when was the first time I heard those two words in my life. Issues! Deliverables! A French philosopher once said, “If there would have been no GOD, it would have been necessary to invent one”. If not for these two words, the industry of “Information Technology” would have had to invent their GODs. As you step into the world of “work”, you begin to hear, learn and understand a new language which is filled with strain, tension, back-bitching and deceit, you start to breathe the air of dullness, and most importantly you begin to do something called “work” (“Embarrassingly”, I hear you whisper), which unquestionably is a criminal waste of your talent power house. But you do not flinch, you do not panic. Not a single brow of frown appears on your face as if you had known it all along and was ready for it since you crash banged yourself into your mother’s ovum! That’s what Engineering teaches you, to remain calm; not to panic in unexpected, unwarranted situations. The process of acclimatization and acceptance takes some time and you have learnt to give it all the time it takes. Sooner or later, you have to learn it. So why sooner, you are not dying tomorrow and if you are then why take the trouble. Right! That’s what Engineering teaches you, to put the things in right perspective and avoid undue, unnecessary thinking and importantly to completely abhor the work which stands no chance of bringing a Nobel Prize or Salma Hayek to your bedroom.

You have become the master of time and hence a more dutiful student as well. You begin to understand the scope and importance of your sense of timing as you begin to explore it, discover its beauty in all its hues. From how long it shall be taken to pee, to how long it would take to complete a programming module; your inner body clock tells you all. A too quick a work is sign of “madness-certified” and a too late a work is sign of yet to be “IT-trained” mind. Every second matters. If you want to gossip, the evening coffee can take thirty minutes. If you have a meeting in the noon, the morning tea can be taken at home. If a code is to be submitted on 31^st December, 2008 and even if you have known it since you learnt to suck your thumb, it shall still be finished and submitted on January 3, 2009 EOD, as December 31^st, January 1^st and January 2^nd are holidays!! If you complete it before 31^st December, 2008 then it just goes to show the sheer disrespect and contempt you hold for deliverable timelines and office procedurals. And anything after January 3^rd, 2009 is pure incompetency! But from where do you inherit this enviable trait within yourself. That’s what Engineering teaches you, to mastery time; the most important asset that a human being can boast of, apart from their reproductive capability and how majestic they are at the process therein involved!

Remember those discerning, agonizing moments of deciding which lectures to attend! They did not go in vain. From attending lectures in right proportions you made sure that you did not get yourself over taught and retained your natural flair. From those eleventh hour fifty ninth minute studies routine just before exams, you learnt to filter out the significant from important and important from ordinary. You learnt the importance of devoting your time in meaningful activities which will later stand you in good stead in life. Those thousands of hours of debates and discussion on the mating tendencies of an ant was by no means an act of a lunatic, it heralded the coming of a revolutionary thinker. Sleeping for days like a dead log was the beginning of the realization of your inner self. Day dreaming about those millions of beauties lying in your arms sowed the seeds of the new age of mankind on whose doors you are knocking today! Years and years of indulgence in nature friendly hobbies of bird-watching rendered you with that eighth sense of identifying their kind and species with just the sound and smell of their feathers!

And, thanks to those meaningful activities done in right proportion by giving them their rightful time which they commanded, you have inculcated in yourself an amazing, an enviable and a superb sense of timing plus a greater achievement of the purpose. That’s what Engineering teaches you, to give due importance to everything and everyone and to religiously follow them. “No searching for codes on Google on Fridays” shall and must remain no searching for codes on Google on Fridays, come what may!

It’s a competitive world. “A cut throat competition”, I must emphasize. The fittest will prosper, the fitter will survive and the rest shall be forgotten. Hence, it is very important that you have it in yourself to go the whole hog, and that takes just not some talent but some steels of principles in your ideology, beliefs and attitude. Writing an essay on “Honesty is the best policy” was like a daily affair in school like morning ablutions. You are doomed if you blindly take the essay out of your school copy to your real life because you will find that there are so many “honesties” around you that you won’t know which one to choose! You boss’ crap sounds like an honest crap, your colleagues sincerest appreciation of your work sounds like an honest bluff, you indulging in gossiping looks to you like an honest team building exercise. Hence, it is very important that when it comes to the matter of policies and beliefs you must choose the most opportune of honesty that will reap the maximum harvest at that time. That’s what Engineering teaches you, to be flexible in attitude, to be generous in beliefs and to indoctrinate an ideology of wider horizons and carefully pick the best for the moment!

If there was some particular work which was to be done by a particular meeting and you happened to have not done it (“Very rare”, I hear the sigh!), you amazingly discover that you are not feeling yourself in the pink of health that day and perhaps slightly feverish too! Looks like you won’t be able to make it to the office and would have to skip the meeting! Such a catastrophe! Even when your body temperature refuses to go a dime above 96 degree Fahrenheit, your mind still rules that you shall take rest and must not go to office. That’s your mind ruling over the body.

Then there are those rarest of the rarest of almost extinct moments, when you actually accomplish something in the office and there is a “surprise” felicitation program at the end of a particular meeting. The speech is ready. But you find yourself down with fever with body temperature refusing to budge a cent below 102 degree Fahrenheit. And then you astonishingly happen to greet that “Human Spirit” inside you about which you have always read and heard, that enables a man to succeed over the goliath of discomforts and mighty of challenges, and makes him come out triumphs in all its glory. A whiff of that spirit and you find yourself receiving the highest of accolades bestowed on your-kind! A clap of appreciation for you! Doesn’t matter how fake it might be, doesn’t matter how envious it might be, what matters is that you get to blow your own trumpet and to deliver the mother of all speeches! Heavenly! But that discovery of human spirit was by no chance an accident, it was certainly not a mysterious act of GOD. That’s mind ruling over the body.

You were not born with it. Your parents, relatives and friends didn’t teach you this. There is no book for it from where you can read and learn it. You learnt it when you decided to skip an exam because you already knew its outcome. You learnt it when you scored above average in the next exam and went about helping the rest of mankind in that subject. That’s what Engineering teaches you, it gives you that power to destine your future, a defeat in sight; you decide to follow the principal of peace, absence and abstinence. There is no glory lying in tatters. And doomed you shall be, for that is a sacrilegious sin if you do not greet that moment of glory, success and fame in all bashfulness and shamelessness!

“It has always been my axiom that the smallest of details are always of paramount importance” said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective chap (can’t remember his name). You might be intelligent, perhaps a mighty genius or stinking rich and famously successful, but what will always stand you out is none of these. It will always be your character, your manners, the etiquette which your personality possesses. Playing game on your mobile during team meeting – Instant Recognition! Talking loudly on phone with your friend (few lucky ones murmuring with their girlfriends) – Chirpy Character! Digging your nose and then polishing thy finger in your colleague’s chair – Friendly Soul! These little memories engrave thy image in people’s mind and establish your immortality in world’s history. I know that it is not easy to build such a character! Takes years and some grave painstaking efforts! After all, it’s not easy to rub away the mound of morality, culture, so-called “good behavior” which was being thrust upon since you did your first potty in public! That’s what Engineering teaches you, to build and nurture a character which will “stand you out”; no matter how tough the journey is, you take it and do not stop till the goal is achieved! Remember being out of the class, sometimes thrown and sometimes to serve the greater cause of “bunking”, those were the stepping stones. Remember those mindless bouts of “almost-fights” and innumerable threat calls made and received but hardly any delivered, those were the building blocks. So, next time you pass a silent yet fatal fart in a packed elevator and cannot resist a smile, you know from where you have got guts for that!

Another tiny-winy yet a unique trait that Engineering teaches you is to catch and hang on to the shittiest, dumbest, the most insignificant of dust in the sand storm of intelligentsia. Like, if you are still thinking that I erred in taking January 2^nd as a holiday then what can I say. A true compatriot indeed! And if you are still cribbing about me lying about December 31^st being a holiday, then sue me!! As if, I care!

That’s what Engineering “makes” you!! CAREFREE in “those” times!! Cheers!!

Let’s hear the song

“In life, not everything turns out to be as you had thought it to be, as you had dreamt it to be. There were thousands things you expected that would happen to you, you dreamt of becoming, thought you could become or would do; told by your parents, promised by teachers, expected by friends, gossiped by neighbours, and when nothing of that comes true that’s when the ” reality” shines upon you; but you still continue to dream, continue to think of thousand other things, some good, some bad, that could, would, should happen to you. You just cannot stop dreaming. It’s the greatest of gifts. It’s the heaviest of burdens.”

What makes them so special? So powerful, that you cannot even consciously control it. They silently creep inside your mind without knocking, without giving any notice, even at the times when they are least expected to. They grasp you before you can even acknowledge it. And by the time you come to know of it, it has acclaimed its mastery over you. They are one of the most potent of might that a human mind boasts of. They show you the possibilities, the eventualities, the highest of aspirations, the darkest of fears, the deepest of yearnings that you possess. You feel reluctant to accept them, you might shrug them, or you might love them, you might follow them, whatever; they are yours!! They tell you, what you could be, who you could be, what you want or not want to be, what all you wish to achieve to be; they stem from the very person who is inside you. To realise oneself takes time and to realise one’s dreams takes thyself.

They take you to the world where you want to be, they make you the person you yearn to be. There are no rules there, no boundaries, no constraints of space, time, science or spirituality. It’s your world. Be it anything; be it Spiderman or GOD himself; be it Shah Rukh Khan or Tom Cruise; be it Bill Gates or Saddam Hussein; be it Cindy Crawford or Mother Teresa; be it Tiger Woods or Steffi Graff; be it the topper of your Class or the world’s richest person; be it a Messiah of peace or the champion of terror; be it the greatest parent ever or the loveliest spouse ever; anything, anywhere, anytime, you are there even before you can realise that you are there! You want to fly, you don’t need wings. You want to run faster than wind, you are running. You want to stop time, it has stopped.

“An illusion, a hallucination”, proclaims thy rationality; isn’t it! “Or is it the possibility of reach, the zenith of purpose, the ambit of action”, questions the Dreamer! Neither can I refute either of it, nor can I accept outright. The perceptions will vary, the swords of beliefs would be taken out, and the boundaries will be drawn. Both sides would be boasting of their share of people rooting for them and their undeniable logic in its campaign. But there is always a point of submergence, a moment of acceptance. When hope is met with despair, when possibilities meet with failure, when action results into fruitlessness then the switching of sides is swifter than breathing and similar is the fate when illusion is struck with an unexpected reality, when hallucination is greeted with a pleasant possibility.

The most abstract of a man’s nature is that they do not possess any flip sides where you can call for a head or a tail and rest assured that, atleast, something will show up. But here, the coin just might refuse to show any of it’s face. There are no “Whites-n-Blacks” here, everyone carries a shade of different texture, different colour. But still in this vast complex labyrinth of disparity, I really find it amusing and strikingly bewildering to find that common threads of thoughts, similar modes of actions, driven by the purpose of their very own, albeit always striking a similar cord in the greater canvas of thoughts and purposefulness, of ultimate aspirations and dreams which are being sought.

The differential existence of each being defines the very existence of that person. But, still there is that common thread that we all possess. Infact, it is a bundle of very small threads made into one big thread. We might treat it differently, we might seek it differently, but we shall, and we must acknowledge it, hone it, use it, nurture it. To different eyes, it might take different of shapes and features. To some, it might look the heaviest of burdens but to me, it is the greatest of gifts we have been bestowed upon. It is this gift which makes us feel that we could be some thing more; it is this gift which makes us feel that we could be GOD; it is this gift which makes us feel the deepest of our emotions; it is this gift which shows us the naked truth of our own persona. The limits are boundless.

“But of all the thousands things you thought of, you dreamt of, you hoped for and when you get a glimmer of achieving even any one of it, can feel the distant existence of it then the greatest gift turns into the deepest of thankfulness and the greatest burden into the purest of blessings.”

We owe it to ourselves to make the utmost of this gift, rather than defining and searching for the rationality of it. There shall not be any expectations neither shall be there any disappointments. Only shall there be joy; joy of seeing and believing in the world which is as abstract as our very existence, which is as mysterious as our beginning but the fact remains that we exist, we did begin somewhere, sometime and the same shall hold true for it. Let’s not question it, let’s not try to authenticate it. Let’s just enjoy the sheer power of it and paint it with the wildest and deepest of our desires, the most genuine of emotions, the darkest of fears, the warmest of happiness and the earnest of aspirations. Let’s just try to make sure that when we stroke that brush, at the least, the splash is bright enough to light up our soul. As they say, “When you begin to tread the journey of your dream, you begin to hear the song of life”. Let’s hear the song.

Blind Alleys

Underneath the complex labyrinth of human emotions, it’s difficult not to loose the rationale behind one’s deeds at times. The rationality in itself doesn’t breathe on its own; its very existence is defined by the person who beholds it.

I read once, “Greatest are the wars that a man fights within himself”. There are moments when one finds oneself being torn apart from the emotions arising within him or her. There is too much of pride and self-respect to show one’s naked emotions to the soulless, barren world and the war wages on. There is fear too. Fear of what, I don’t know precisely; may be, the fear of revealing one’s weakness, fear of loosing one’s esteem in other’s eyes, fear of an unknown darkness which threatens to engulf you.

We all have secrets; secrets which could either be evil or angelic, secrets which we hid beneath the walls and roof of our conscience, secrets which might destroy us or reborn us. These secrets define the very true nature of a human being. Because there is no escaping them, there is no faking them, there is no manipulating them; they are borne on their own, inside one’s conscience, feeding on the very same emotion of a being which has created it, developing a symbiotic relationship with its creator. These secrets fashion a lot of human emotions and actions like anger and patience, some championed to protect it and some to keep it away from the light of visibility; because we are never sure of them, we are never certain how they will shape out to be once they are out in the open. We are afraid of these secrets because of a very simple reason that human nature does not hold affinity to change, to bareness of its soul that’s why we guard it with utmost veracity in various manifestations of human emotions.

Amongst these secrets, fears, shame, anxiety breathes hope and happiness. Period. “Hope! The quintessential element of man’s greatest strength and also his weakest moment”. And truly so!! It is within our weakest moment that we find our greatest strength; it is within our greatest strength that we greet our fallacies. Happiness, how do I define it! I guess, happiness is a manifestation of goodness. By goodness, I do not mean charity, serving older and poorer, being a mantle of righteousness; goodness is something which makes you feel good. Could be the things I just said or could be spending time with friends and family, or drowning oneself in the high spirits of a party, or making love with your spouse-lover, or playing with your kids, your nephews-nieces, or reading a book, or enjoying a cup of tea or watching the sun-set, or watching an airplane fly, could be so many zillion whole lot of things. Goodness is something which brings out that one emotion inside you which makes you feel good about yourself. It need not be an ecstatic feeling, it need not be an orgasmic feeling, it need not be a GOD sent blessing; it’s just a tiny bubble bursting inside you which makes you feel good about your existence at that particular moment.

There is always a tussle going on between the “good-me” and “bad-me”. Sometimes, good-me wins, sometimes bad-me. I really don’t know what causes good-me to win or what causes it to loose. But I want my “good-me” to win; always. I think deep down inside all of us we want to be good, we want to be happy, we want to grow old merrier and “richer”. We all want our “good-me” to win, but somewhere deep inside us we fail our “good-me” for want of courage. The human nature is servile, submissive in its very core except for few non-radicals appearing now or then on the horizon of human kind. It is we who fail our goodness. It is we who fail our dreams for lack of courage and strength. It is we who do not listen to our instincts though we can hear it loud and clear because we do not trust our spirit. It is not that a human spirit is completely devoid of courage, character and strength; but we do not live up to our very own “good-me” choking inside us, gasping for that breath of courage and spirit; and this is something that is done both intently and instinctively to chain our spirit in the blind alleys of familiarity.

But remarkable is a man’s quest for prosperity, better future, a better being. It is this quest of man which makes him look outside those windows and doors. It is this quest of man which ignites that zeal to fly in that open sky, to meet that never ending horizon. It is this quest of man which gives him the character that resonates with his “good-me” and breathes life into it. It is this quest of man which dares him to find a way out of his blind alleys to a new era, a new land, a new mankind, a new path, a new journey. Not all achieve it, not all dare it. Only few kiss this glory and the rest of mankind basks in its glow.

Everyone wishes to drink this elixir of glory but what really makes a man achieve that? I guess there could never be any definitive answer to it. But if I may dare, “passion”, I say. This passion manifests itself in various quests that men embark upon. Passion alone does not bestow success. Passion alone has a very short life; it must co-exist with courage to meet its very cause of existence. Passion might drive you but it’s your courage that will take you to the very zenith of magnificence. “Courage of what?”, I hear. Courage to accept, courage to reject, courage to believe, courage to dare, courage to act, courage to submit; and triumph shall be yours. I once read or heard somewhere that ancient Greeks always used to ask just one question when a man used to die, “Did he have passion?”

Those voices inside you start making themselves audible - “Can I, Shall I, Could I, Will I?” as the roots of unrest starts finding its ground. Only destiny has the answers to the questions that we all are seeking and with time it will unravel itself; the most one can do is to put one’s best foot forward and let our “good-me” have a chance of striking it rich ! Let us celebrate what we are meant for, what we are destined for, what we shall journey for – a better being nevertheless.

Melting Waters

“ In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff’t is made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself. ” (Act -1, Scene-1 Merchant of Venice)

Free as a wild stallion but still there is something amiss. Tinges of bareness, vagueness have crept in. I read somewhere that when you have nowhere else to find solace, dig deep into your memories; they are yours’. Ashoke Ganguli says to Gogol in The Namesake,” Remember that we made this journey alone, only you and me, and we went to a place where there was nowhere else to go.”; life is nothing but a journey where people come and go, some stick for long and some do not but the important thing is to cherish it, remember it that there exists a moment in time which belongs to just “us”.

Allow me to flip back through some pages of my journey and breathe them once again through the following words.

1. First Steps

It was seriously funny. Though I was part of the drama and would have preferred not to be but there was no escaping it. It was the first day of school. My memory fails to recollect the date. The Sun was mild and a cool breeze was flowing, the rustling of leaves could be heard amongst the din of multitude of “proud” parents and their “burdened” children. Papas and Mummies were still not finished with their advices, wishes and expectations. Mummies hugging and kissing their children, wishing them luck, Papas preaching their last minute wisdoms; the drama was unfolding in all its totality. Thankfully, my parents were lot less dramatic than what was the prevalent mood. There was just a casual bye from Mummy and Papa just standing next to Mom, seeing his son walking into a new era of life. Agreed that it was the first day of school, many of those venturing into a life away from the shadow of their parents, taking a journey out of their parent’s ambit but things could have been less dramatic. At sixteen, you are good to go!! The problem with sixteen and their neighbours is that you get caught in no man’s land. Slowly but surely the “eleventhers” gathered together in the ground for the morning assembly, parents waving and intently watching their offspring walking into a new realm of life, and the second act started to unfold. First came the prayer. Well, to my shame I didn’t know the prayer which was nothing but holy “Gayatri Mantra”. Call it my religious impunity or a miss on my parents’ side to inculcate their son with religious doctrines. (Just for records, “I will be always thankful that my parents’ never really pushed me into religious activities/ doctrines, in fact they never really pushed me for anything, they always allowed me to discover it, learn it and adapt it on my own.”) Then came the lecture. Ram Eqbal Singh, an interesting name nevertheless (Ram and Eqbal together and Eqbal starting with E), the then principal of Dayanand Anglo Vedic Jawahar Vidya Mandir, Shyamali started with his speech. His speech was flooded with doctrines of discipline, knowledge, study, life ahead, etcetera of which all of us already had enough from our parents. And finally, thousand odd students were asked to look for their names on the notice board so as to find out their respective sections. And a commotion broke out!! The unrest, the accompanying noise, the prevalent confusion marked the beginning of “my journey”.

(I have called it “my journey” because the decision to do my Senior Secondary from DAV JVM, Shyamali was my very own; there was no one else involved. I went there in spite of my Mom being not so happy about it, but still I did because somewhere inside me I had this feeling that this was going to work “good”. It worked wonders, and as they say,” the rest is history”.)

2. Deep in Dumps

The class was awkwardly silent. Anxiety, hope and energy were in the air. One could sense it. I was particularly awe struck. Sitting in a class of around 50 students and all of them toppers of their schools and flagging their marks sheets with late 90s, one can breathe the elitism of the moment. There was not much of talk going on; everyone was waiting for the teacher to descend upon, which he did very soon. A short, dark-complexioned man with a very neat and crisp hair do entered. He walked fast and talked even faster, while constantly moving across the class. It was hard to follow him. After a very short and brief introduction, which I could hardly follow, he fired the first cannon,” Lets see how good this class is. What’s the differentiation^* of three ex cube?” Before I could even grasp the first word of what he had said, almost the whole class blurted out in unison, ”NINE EX SQUARE”. One hammer down. “What is the differentiation of three upon ex cube?” Infused with confidence, the class thundered, “MINUS NINE BY EX TO THE POWER FOUR”. Two hammer down. I was dumb struck by this unexpected and severe onslaught of enlightenment, and my poor soul had no place to escape. But one thing was clear that the guy was in love with three. The subsequent questions which followed did have three in them. As they say, grope in dark and you will start to see. Something similar happened. It didn’t took me long to notice that I was not alone in the class with a sewn mouth. I had few brethrens suffering with the same predicament, and the nearest one was sitting just right to me on a different bench. Eyes bare it all and smiles followed no sooner. It was a smile of brotherhood, of relief that there was still justness and normalcy in this world. We didn’t utter a single word or a sigh until the madness of differentiations and integrations stopped after one hour. The glory was in tatters, the pride being raped and it was time to sought refuge in washroom, away from the crime place. As I was returning into that doomed class, somebody tapped my shoulder from behind,” I am Nishant. Kahaan aa gaye hain bey humlog?” “I am Rohan. Jahaan bhi aa gaye hain, ab toh yehi rehna hai.” I do not know where is Nishant now or what he is doing; we didn’t go on to become bum-chums but that was one special moment in space and time which we lived together, experienced together, journeyed together!! I do not remember how that day went by but it was no different from the hour which had just gone by. What is still fresh in memory is the humiliation which my pride suffered as I was brought down to knees, then on ankles. But what is also alive in my memory is that how I first crawled, then walked and finally sprinted my way back to redeem my pride in myself which took almost an year, when I was able to stand along with the elitist of my class and made myself count.

(^*Differentiation and Integration are the fundamental chapters of Senior Secondary Mathematics. 90% of the class had already been "coached-up" with these chapters during the holidays before the start of Senior Secondary and was done with the basics of not only the chapters in concern but also of fundamentals of Senior Secondary Physics and Chemistry; while I spent my holidays as holidays. So that’s why the few unfortunate ones in the class, who garnished their holidays in the spirit of merriment found themselves choking in the inexplicable, unexpected wave of studiousness.)

3. First Flight

It happened in September of 2002, don’t remember the date but it was Friday. It was unusually hot day for the capital in the month of September. I was having my lunch as usual after returning from the excruciating boredom of FIITJEE classes. The time would have been around 3:30 p.m. I was almost done with my lunch and was all set for an afternoon nap. I had few things to discuss with Bhabhi, but thought better not to disturb her as I knew she would be sleeping. As I was about to get up from the dining table, suddenly Bhabhi appeared from her room and said,” Hrisheksh chala jaaye?” Said me,” Chaliye. Kab chalna hai.” Came the surprise,”Abhi chalein. Waise bhi weekend hai. So abhi chalte hain.” Not used to such sudden traveling sojourns, I could only muster, “Abhi bole toh Abhi-ka-Abhi ?” Came the decider,”Lets leave by 5. Kareeb paanch ghante lagenge. We will reach there by 10.“ I could just nod my head in agreement. And we, viz. me, Rishi Bhaiya and Bhabhi, did leave for Hrishikesh at sharp five o clock. “A casual trip”, you say but for me it was a watershed moment in life. That trip to Rishikesh which also found its way to Neelkanth and Mussoorie kindled a new passion inside me. Traveling. Since then, I have been to various places with friends and family but the seeds of exploration and traveling were sown in that trip to Hrishikesh. It was in that trip that I discovered the joys of traveling, the knowledge it imparts to you and the thousand things that you get to learn about different cultures and traditions. But most importantly, it gives you a sense of belonging, a sense of being a journeyman which in itself is an ecstatic feeling. It would be criminal of me to finish this space without penning down few words for one of the most exquisite places I have been to in my life, Hrishikesh. There is something mystique about Hrishikesh. A town of few thousand souls on the banks of river Ganga, a sacred shrine for Hindus where Ganga appears in all its full glory for the first time in its traverse till it kisses Bay of Bengal; a place which has been immortalized in various mythologies. A place always teeming with tourists flooding in from all parts of the world, from various cultures; some in search of spirituality, some to capture the beauty of Lower Himalayan Range and River Ganga in their memory, some for fun and river rafting. Hrishikesh has got a soul, even in its commotion there is an aura of calmness and peace, even the speeding waters of Ganga stop for a moment to bless you and bestow you with that unexplained, unimaginable feeling of contentment and inner peace. Just sitting on the banks of river, and watching the river flow past you, hearing those gurgling sounds of water fighting with each other in the lap of Lower Himalayas gives birth to an amazing emotion of peace and ecstasy inside you, which I may dare to call,” a spiritual orgasm”. If you have not been to Hrishikesh, the author literally pleads you to go there once before your final rituals are read, you will come back “richer and enlightened”.

4. Steps of Heaven

My first day in Manipal. Just read the post, The Life Thereafter – Part I, below this one.

5. Dry tears

“The fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony”, said Morpheus and adds Rohan,” also not without an impeccable sense of humour”. It all began with a cloudy, rainy, pleasant day heralding the beginning of a new journey, and it ended on a no different note.

They say that in retrospect things look better and happier than they were. I beg to differ. I have different notion about it. Its been almost an year since the day I saw people crying, some shedding tears, some fought on to hold theirs but found their voices choked; who will perhaps never cry again in their life; who were crying because a part of their life had come to an end, a part which will never come again and a part which would probably remain the best part of their lives they lived or they could have lived. With each passing day, one realizes the importance of what has been left behind which is not going to come back again; which will be treasured forever by everyone who was part of it and cherished by all.

It still seems so unreal that four years have passed by so fast. I can still vividly remember each and every moment of my first day in Manipal, the passage of four years has not been able to rust away those memories. And its just not the first day, the days spent in 6^th Block during the first year or days spent in 9^th Block and D-Block during the second year or the time spent in 10^th Block, and ofcourse the time spent in college, all of it is still so alive in memories that its hard to believe that it has come to an end. But it has. Each and every nook and corner of Manipal has left an indelible memory, a story, to remember, to treasure.

There is so much to write, so much to tell about the four years of Manipal but not now. Some other day, some other time, may be at some other space when there will be nothing else to look forward to but to only cherish the moments of your life which truly made it worth living.