It's Diwali

Diwali is still a couple of days away if you are not one of those into all that disproportionate assets case, early Diwali and stuff.

If you are an outsider and lucky to have emerged successfully out of the IRCTC with rail tickets, your next challenge is getting your leave approved by your manager. Getting your leaves approved is no mean feat. You just have to find the best possible time when you know your manager is least pissed off and less likely to reject. It also includes veiled lobbying during coffee breaks and sharing cryptic leave related jokes to the Whatsapp group to which the manager is also a part of. After all this hard work, you just cannot afford to get complacent, for it is a test of will, patience and perseverance to reach Central/Egmore/CMBT from office and then to your home town.

As we get old the way we celebrate has changed. From the days of nagging our fathers for an extra box of crackers and roll cap for the gun, to, standing at the brink of bankruptcy after all the shopping.. At this point of life, all I want to do is climb to the terrace on the Diwali night and watch fireworks for free.

With Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra, Amazon and several other online retail what-nots employing their never-seen-before marketing tactics have drilled deep holes in our wallets by taking advantage of our weakness for big, blinking, 90+% discount marquees on their websites.

I-have-more-crackers-left-wth-me-than-yours is now taken over by my-diwali-is-better-than-yours Facebook statuses and pictures. Then there are also those environment friendly folks who give endless lectures about how bursting crackers can cause a hole not only in the ozone layer but also in the roof of the huts in the neighborhood.

New movie releases! And Yes, Happy New Year is releasing for Diwali and I'm not sure if SRK is working on a movie named Diwali to release it on January 1st. Besides this confusion in Bollywood, these days in Kollywood, the actual suspense is not in the plot of movie but in its release!

To me, unarguably, the best part of Diwali or any other festival for that matter, is to get in touch with those friends you have not spoken for years. Because you really don't know how awkward it is to call somebody, after ages, just to check if he could lend us some money after our lavish Diwali celebrations. :)


Advance Diwali Wishes Folks!

cd.

Smartphones not smart enough

When I decided to uncomplicate my life, you know what was the first thing I did? I bought a basic Candybar Nokia mobile. Since then 45% of the problems got automatically solved. I really can't get the idea of spending tens of thousands of rupees on a smartphone that is going to make you dumb. Instead I decided to get smart myself rather than spending money on an overrated lousy electronic gadget. Yes! I'd prefer to call it lousy because it can't make a joke of its own when you are low on a Monday morning. It only reminds me of the impending meetings I have, the long to-do list which I only keep snoozing. Most of times, I set a reminder on the phone only avoid the guilty feeling, because anyway don't do things before the last day. NOKIA.. phones so simple as the way it is spelled. Apart of the embarrassment it causes when you travel in the train sitting next to a bunch of elders, who share their experiences with their Galaxy S4s and iPhones and why Android versions are named after desserts. 

Smartphones were invented with the idea of improving the productivity of a person in their daily life. But all I could see now is people playing dumbest of all games like Templerun and Subway Surfer, which requires just the brain of the fish to play it. Then, there are other set of problems where you are required keep on updating the apps, plug it to the charger every time the power gets below 40% and the constant worry that the phone doesn't have a camera, good enough to take the snap of Jupiter on the day it gets close to the orbit of Earth. 

In those good old days, phones were invented to speak to the near and dear ones who were far off, but how often have we used them to avoid people nowadays by staring at the phone when you encounter your ever inquisitve neighbour who is at the verge of finding out that you are working for peanuts. We are now sophisticated enough to speak to a person miles apart, but lost the courtesy of sharing our day at office to our parents at home. 

CD.

Change

Change is not easy as we think or say. Change is inevitable. How often do we think that it is easy to change the job in which we are currently in? People don't think of a change when they can still tolerate. They think of it only there is no way out. We are always comforted by routine. Time gifts the prize of familiarity. And seldom we are ready to lose that familiarity. It is happy to meet the people you already know everyday, who knows are likes and dislikes. We think it is a destiny to meet the people you are with right now. The fact is that they were also just acquaintances in the beginning. 

People of this century are confronted with uncertainty. Every morning, we wake up with the feeling of uncertainty. We are ready to do anything and everything for that one certain moment, that one certain chance, that one certain opportunity, that one certain friendship. When certainty is so much prized, taking a decision to change is not easy. People hate to see change in others, because it does not align with their expectations. People fear to change themselves, for it not only costs them the comfort of familiarity but also the fear of non-acceptance. People who change often are always under constant watch by others, to be preached when they fail or fall. Change is a risk. Sometimes it is a risk not taking risk at all!

...ceedee... 

Deja Vu

After a really long time, I had a chance to revisit and read my earlier blogs. It was the time I was jobless after completing engineering. My several attempts to get a job wasn't fruitful and I had to do something get the attention of people; had to prove people, society that I'm not done yet. So I began this blog. Named it as catharses. This word, catharsis, I read in one of Big B's blog. It was so apt to name my blog after it. Started writing so much and fell in love with writing. Writing forced me to read a lot. Know things, people, life.

Then came the disaster in the late March 2010. I got employed in a company. My repeated attempts to continue my blog weren't successful. I lost the flow in my writing. I still remember posting on my Facebook wall after six months of my employment:

"Jobless when I had aim; Aimless when I have a job"

There are so many unfinished blogs saved in my computer which I thought I would never post, until today, when I re-read my earlier posts. I still remember one of my friends sending me a big message on Facebook appreciating my blog. I still remember feeling proud when one of my colleagues suddenly stood up from the seat and said "you'll become a writer one day". These moments are the ones that makes me feel good that I've been so different the crowd then and now regret how normal a person I've become. I hate so much to be a normal person. I don't like be just another brick in the wall. I hate to be what I am right now. I want a rebirth. I wish my life had a factory reset button. I wish to use my passion for writing as one.

Another ‘Bus’time Story

Standing at the bus stand at nine in the night, in the sweltering heat, all you can pray for is nothing less than an AC Volvo Bus with a vacant seat! When I saw the same, before I had finish my prayers, I was more than relieved.

I don't love travelling in a bus. I don't hate it either. At least you don't have to worry about getting caught by the traffic cop for the lack of insurance papers or the impending scratch the next car is going to cause to your vehicle. In case of a bus, all you got to worry about is to get a seat and a ticket! I did not have any problems getting the two tonight. Experience matters. Sitting in the middle of the middle three seats in the Volvo is a not an easy job in hands. As long as you have a right balance, you can chase the climax pages of your James Hadley Chase novel, without a free fall from the seat. The bus driver's poor lane discipline almost transformed the middle of the road as his bus stop.

My eyes that were glued to the brown tinted pages of the book got slightly distracted by the foot-tapping sound of an approaching girl wearing high heels. I was really proud of my hearing capabilities when I saw a pair of fair feet clenched in red high heels, walking towards the vacant seat to the left of me. The book kept me so busy that I didn't have anything more to say about her. There were other two guys one wearing sneakers and the other wearing a sewed leather shoes. The girl next to me didn't have a voice to keep in mind but it distracted me as she was now speaking on her phone. The conversation was nothing more than teaching the person on the other end to prepare popcorn. She cut the phone only to annoy me again with her blaring headphones!

All I was doing was just giving a reading pose for the CCTV cameras installed in the bus. The feet of the two men were pointed towards the girl suggested me that they were looking at her. The curse of being beautiful? I was just worried if the girl sitting next to me was beautiful, proving my theory wrong; the beauty of a girl sitting in the bus is inversely proportional to the distance between you and her! I was no more reading the book. The bus was almost nearing its destination. It means that I'll be able to decide if my theory needs to have an exception in case of a Volvo bus.

The bus driver's jerking halt was his announcement to the passengers that they need to get down. I delayed my exit from the bus giving myself a better chance of knowing whether the theory needs an exception. The moment I got down the bus I was sure of two things. Those two guys really had a bad taste and my theory holds damn good without any exception!!