While I sleep I dream!

While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
Be a nomad,
Have no past to boast about
Live in the present
Look up to the future
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
To lie spread eagled in grasslands
Covered by a thin layer of cold mist
Sun rays providing the gentle warmth
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
To feel hunger & starvation
Engage in the battle for survival
Prey upon & be preyed
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
To smile freely & cry happily
To be fearless, shun inhibitions & apprehensions
To digest mirth, excrete gloom
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
To plough the fields
Till them, sow in them
To engineer machines
lube them, grease them
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away
To swim in the streams, flow along streams
Hear the birds chirp,feel bugs & snakes crawl
While I sleep, I dream
To travel the lands far away

Do I need fame and wealth

What do I need fame and wealth for,
When your love is worth living for,
What do i need palaces and hotels for,
When your heart is the place to dwell in,
On my life I swear,
Your love is my honor,
Your passion is my name,
What do I need fame and wealth for,
When your love is worth living for,
What do I need palaces and  hotels for,
I seek no comforts, I seek no luxuries,
For your your love treats me in distress and pain,
Put me to sleep, put me out of pain,
Even if it means I have to be slain,
I seek a world that knows no material gain

Flight Of A Kite

It may depict freedom, independence
But the truth is
It remains bonded
It depends on the wind
To help it reach high, scale peaks
And turn into a speck in the sky
Without gale it can never hope of giving hope
It depends on that string
The one that makes it soar heights untouched
The same one that could draw it back
To the depths it came from
It depends on the light
To glimmer and shine bright
For in the dark it can’t breathe fire
To make itself visible
It depends on the hand that guides its dance
The hand that makes it swing and swirl
It may symbolize freedom and independence
But the truth is
It remains bonded
To the wind, the string, the light and the hand…
With a hope of giving hope
Such is the story of
The flight of a kite

Rise up or our race may become extinct

“When you have a woman in your life, things organize themselves for you. Else, you have to organize them.” Recently, a friend had left Delhi making inroads to her home in the Indian hinterland- Raipur. Yes, I call it so because, apparently, before you think it has started the city ends. She wrote a Facebook note pointing out how she doesn’t have to rummage through her room every morning looking for things right from a fresh towel to ironed clothes, not having to change bed covers, because everything was taken care of by her mother, unlike her days in Delhi.

That reminds me how unkempt my humble nest in South Delhi is. Newspapers strewn across (Courtesy- my sports scribe flatmate. Yea, he is a journo too. Much cooler than I can ever be. But, I’ll save roomie bashing for some other day :p), clothes unwashed for weeks, no laundry service for a fortnight, unclean bathroom, no groceries. Had it not been for our landlord (unworthy of my blog-space), the nest would have been worse than a garbage dump. Yes, we live with a landlord, just to remind you’ll, “Being a journalist ain’t cool.”

When I used to be in the City that never sleeps aka Mumbai, my mother would take care of such stuff. I never had to remain hungry ever – although my frail frame needs just a few ounces of food, morsels rather. Now, even after having relatively loaded bank balance I don’t feel hungry. The hunger has just died. If I ever engage in a fight with you, you would back out in pity thinking, “Ek maarunga bikhaar jaayega.”

How disconnected I am or rather want to be with Amma! Or I am yet to figure what my relationship is with her. Or maybe, it’s just a passing phase wherein I’m in love with the independent life I’ve been leading for the past 13 months in Delhi. That doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I love her a lot, but when it comes to a medium of channelizing my love unto her there is none. Zilch are the occasions when I’d call her up and talk about the struggles that I go through, the happiness I get from smallest things. I don’t even bother to inform her that I get praised at work. No bragging, but I do. Neither do I tell her when I am happy nor when sad. Probably, Amma has begun to accept that I’m a stonehearted child of hers- bereft of any love for her.

If it wasn’t for her care and I would cease to be me. As I write this blog on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti, the 142^nd birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, I quote the Father of our Nation, “ The duty of motherhood requires qualities that man doesn’t possess…The Art of bringing up the infants of the race is her special and sole prerogative. Without her care the race must become extinct…”

And a fun fact before you get bored and decide against reading any further, I usually don’t remain sad for long and whenever I am, I say to myself, “Don’t be sad. Be like ‘Chatty’. Because Chatty is just AWESOME.” True story. I disclose my nickname for I don’t want to be called as an anonymous blogger.

Leading a life in Amma’s absence has made independent, crippled me many a time. But with each episode, there were things to be learnt. She so longs for me to blabber any damn shit and yet I remain unyielding to her needs. Our telephonic conversation lasting more than 40 seconds is a rarity. But, there is this sense on incompleteness that prevails every day. I usually wind up my work at The Indian Express by 1245 am, yet I stay back till late 2-230 am. And when colleagues ask why don’t you go home, I reply, “Kya karein, ghar pe koi raah dekhnewaali nahi hai?” It amuses them and I amuse myself with this line. Frankly, there ain’t no looking forward to resting my ass at the nest.

Living in Delhi makes you bold, you live in the moment. Like once on a flight back from Mumbai, a Delhi chic sitting next to me struck up a conversation about random thing. Usually, I don’t talk to fellow passengers at all and yet here I was 30,000 ft above the sea level talking to this girl. Only to find on my way to the nest, from the airport, that this chic has left a tissue with her contact number. Calm down your excitement, Chatty didn’t call her up. And for this sin his roomie gave an earful, not to mention informed the hinterland girl about my stupidity. The Barnicle in me had not woken up to hitting on girls then, leave alone the thought of dating them. I’m still apprehensive of dating girls.

Whenever this topic comes up amongst my group of friends. I say, “I can be a girl’s best man, but not a girl’s man.” A dear friend, let’s call her Whiner, once said, “Chatty, the reason for it is, you are committed to work, you are committed to friends.”  I guess I am, very much. I replied, “I am a commitment freak.. kyunki ek baar jo maine commitment kar di toh main khudki bhi nahi sunta.” Period. The conversation ended for that moment. I fail to realise that if I don’t look out for girls, our race- as Gandhi said- may become extinct. It is the only way to give women their due. Not that there is no one else to take the race forward, I should nonetheless try my best.  

“When you have a woman in your life, things organize themselves for you. Else, you have to organize them”, isn’t chauvinistic. In fact it is the very point of your existence. You may want my room neat and tidy, home-cooked food each day but when you live alone you learn things which you wouldn’t have ever. It is for my parents’ approval that I came to Delhi. I learnt washing clothes, the art of cooking. How do mothers surprisingly present things right at the moment when you need them? Now, I know where to find the things I’m looking for. Delhi taught me, ’if your mother can find stuff for you, so can you’.

When you have someone taking care of your needs, you become lethargic, careless about your possessions. I just did that when I had gone home in August. I lost my driving license. Result – I don’t get to ride with Aragorn. (Aragorn??? You’ll have to wait). During the visit prior to the one in August, I forgot a shirt back home and kept cursing the laundry guy for losing my shirt. I take care not to fall sick for there’ll be no one to nurture and nourish me back to health.

Oh damn!!!! I started this piece to put up a larger than life picture of me and how my tea with this gentleman (from previous blog, pardon me for insulting your memory) at his home went, how I wooed his hot daughter and I wrote a sob story. I decided against it but much to your relief, Chatty is becoming popular with girls. He’s managed to get fleeting and constant glances from a girl at work (Something to look forward to). True story. As Will Turner says in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, “Keep a weather eye on the horizon.” And I do. “Aye”. So should you for your girl or your guy, for if you don’t our race will cease to exist.

Good morning watchman, the sun may rise from the west.

I couldn’t sleep the whole night and so it all began with watching How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) – Season 5 until the day broke. It was 630 and I didn’t have a smoke for almost 9 hours. And what brought me to have a puff was the episode from the American sitcom. It showed this bunch of friends doing a totally unexpected thing –SMOKING.

The guys saw the sunrise and decided that they would quit smoking eventually. And that gave me an inspiration to kick the butt. So what do I do?? I walk out of my home to the chaiwallah chacha. This tea-vendor is a grumpy old man, who has put his shop up right next to the entrance of the building which has a flat that I call my humble nest.

I asked him for my cigarette and picked up the newspaper while I lighted a smoke and I realized that I hadn’t seen a morning in a while and said to myself that probably this is a sign that I should quit it. I eventually will.

And while I was foraging through the newspaper – my source of bread and butter- yes I am a journalist (It ain’t all that cool..But, that sob story can wait for some other day), I overheard a conversation the grumpy man was having with one of his customers. I wanted to enjoy the show so made myself comfortable on the watchman’s seat pretending to read. Apparently, the customer had challenged the presence of God and this offended old man who decided to teach the bloke a lesson. The old man says, “If there is no God, then why does the sun rise in the east? If you have the guts make the sun rise in the west.” Poor customer was, as Marshall (a HIMYM character) says, “LAWYERED”.

Just a few hours ago I was asked by a woman, whom a few people call Guardian Angel, asking me to write a piece for the Op-Ed page (Google it). It is an honour. I had chosen a few topics for the piece and one of it is related to what the chaiwallah- lawyered chap duo were talking about. Recently, scientists have discovered that some particles exist which can travel faster than light. If proven, the discovery could lead to a drastic change in the laws of physics. CERN, Italy says they have experimented it for three years and discovered that ‘neutrinos’ travel faster than light.

The customer, in a way, questioned the God. The discovery challenges Albert Einstein – the God of Physics. The discovery, if true, means we will have to make way for a new equation in Modern Physics. It questions Einstein’s famous “Theory of Relativity”. It means all the laws and equations, which we have studied, that govern the nature will have to be rewritten. In short, e= mc²= NO MORE.

Who knows, with the finding, you may wake up to find the sun rise from the west. The chaiwallah said, “… if the sun rises from the west I would shut my tea-shop and have no faith in God”. A University of Surrey professor said something similar, albeit differently, “If the CERN experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV.”

So, let’s get back to business, we will have to get wait and watch if the experiment is, as Barney (a HIMYM character) says, “TRUE STORY”.

You know what, one of the best part of HIMYM is its characters. They are real, you can actually point out that an xyz from your group of BFFs is a Ted Mosby (less the charm and naivety), that a 123 is a Lily Aldrin (minus the readiness to) have sex with her lawyer hubby, Marshall Eriksen. There is a Ted Mosby around you, who dates this Goddess of Beauty - Robin Scherbatsky. And of course, you can’t miss out Barney Stinson, a guy who gets laid all the time…. WHAADuuuUUp.

Barney is a guy who gives me huge inferiority complex all the time (I told you being a journo ain’t cool at all). Come on, even you can admit you get the IC too. So, with the thought of writing my first blog, so to say, I decided HIMYM would be my point of reference (Hope I can manage some TRPs for the show).  Back to reality, there I was sitting on the watchman’s seat with not one but two newspapers (YES, you have got to read as much as possible when you’re a scribe), one of the society’s resident walked up to me and said, “Son, impressive that I see you reading a newspaper. Nowadays, nobody reads them at all.”

Flattered by his comment, I politely said, “Thank you. But one really needs to read to keep up-to-date with what is happening.”  Only in the next few seconds did I realise something was totally wrong between us. He asked, “Are you a graduate?” I nodded and said yes. Out of the blue the gentleman said, “I have been living here for many years, yet I have never seen an educated and more than that an English–speaking watchman. Why don’t you look out for a better paying job?”

Both of us were on a different plane…. a planet altogether. He mistook me for a watchman and with my mirror-cracking looks I could be a sweeper (no offence to the community) for somebody. I obliged the gentleman saying, “I am not a watchman. I am a resident of this building.” We exchanged pleasantries and he invited your’s truly to his home for a tea sometime on a Sunday evening. Apology accepted and about the tea?? A part of me says oblige thy neighbour. But, the Barnicle in me says, “Accept the invite for a tea only if your neighbour has a hot girl for his daughter.”

Keep waiting to know if the gentleman has a hot daughter, more of a journalistic life and some gyaan on what’s happening around the world. I sign off for now. “It’s been a hard day’s night and I’ve been working like a dog. It’s been a hard day’s night; I should be sleeping like a dog.”