Be careful what you wish for

It’s human nature to always wish for things that we don’t have. Whether it’s our birthday candles or your eyelash, or while we stand in front of the almighty God or even sending those annual letters to the North Pole round about Christmas, we’re always wishing for things in your life, to fill that void that we all have. But how many of us truly and really believe that someone out there is actually listening to our wishes, jotting them down, only to be fulfilled when the right time comes.
I could never decide whether I believed in God. I believed in a supernatural force that probably controls the entire universe, but whether that entity is God or not…I never could decide. The only time I was sure that there is a God, is during my exams or when my results would be due. Hell, I prayed like anything at those times, making a zillion promises to the divine. I’ve somehow always been taken care of!!!
But sometimes we do get carried away with our wishes. Maybe it’s because we don’t really believe that there might be someone who’s paying attention, or maybe it’s just our social structure that builds up so much of mental pressure that we force ourselves to wish for the most outrageous of things. And then, when we least expect it, there are times when those very wishes are fulfilled. While sometimes they might be a blessing, sometimes, most of the times it just seems as if fate’s having a huge laugh at our expense. What we wished for, backfires, and we realize what a stupid dud we’ve been for having wished for something as stupid and idiotic.
I guess what I’m getting at is a personal experience that I recently had. All through my life I’ve always wished to be slim. Getting teased every single day, wasn’t exactly my idea of an ideal life. And since I was and still am the laziest person in this big wide world, I never lifted a finger, other than to pick up my order of Chicken McGrill of course. What I did do was wish for a serious or fatal disease, you know, the ones that just make you lose a tonne of weight. Year after I year, I made the same wish. And you know what. It came true.
Recently I had typhoid, coupled with ARSD (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome): A potentially fatal combination. And things did get critical. There was a time when the doctors were doubtful if I would be able to make it out alive. Day after day, night after night, getting shifted to one hospital after another. Afraid to sleep, because every time I closed my eyes, something always seemed to go wrong. My parents were worried sick. So were my relatives and friends. And with their combined wishes and blessings, I pulled through. Yes, I have the occasional fight with my parents still about not being able to go out because I’m still supposedly weak, but I’m thankful every single day, that I at least exist. My wish of being taken seriously ill was most certainly fulfilled, but somehow, I didn’t manage to lose any weight. What really happened was, I realized how many fabulous friends I have.
Life has weird ways of teaching you things. I learnt my lesson (well, a little of it at least). And at the same time, it gives you so much in return for nothing, we just don’t know where to look, or in fact, we don’t know HOW to look, because the best gifts are right in front of us. I wished for something outrageous and it was fulfilled in the most terrible way possible. I never really though about the friends I might or might not have, and I got saddled with a whole bunch pf precious people, and I ain’t complainin’. So be careful what you wish for, or better yet, don’t wish for anything for yourself at all. Life just seems to have a way of handing you the best things ever, just without asking. I got some great friends, what more can I ask for???
Ohkay, so I can think of a couple hundred things…but seriously…. ;-)

An ode to doctors: Thank You guys!

It’s weird how certain experiences in life change your entire perspective towards it. The past one-week has been one such experience. In and out of consciousness and hospitals, you realize how you can’t even take such a simple thing such as breathing for granted any more. Sleep had changes from being a period of respite and restfulness to something to be fearful of. I’d close my eyes only to open them to find a flurry of activity around me, and two other high tech gadgets attached to my body. Looking around, I can see the technological advancements that science has made – my blood oxygen level, heart rate, breathing rate, B.P. – all displayed in one machine, oxygen masks on my nose should I require extra oxygen, a continuous flow of intravenous glucose inserted into my veins for immediate effect. They’re all there to save me, protect me, take care of me. My life and well-being was in the “able” hands of ‘cold-blooded’ machines, which could do no wrong. So, does that mean that the machines had conquered?
Asking the senior doctors “when will I be fine?” the only answer I got in return is “we’re doing our best…we can only pray.” So, there is something that these ‘perfect’ machines cannot do. There does exist a power and being above all of man’s manufactures and creations. We still rely on that one re-assurance from our doctor’s mouth, that one smile, that one handshake that tell you “everything will be okay.” We don’t place our faith, and the lives of our loved ones on a bunch of high-tech gadgets; we place them in the warm, caring, trusting hands of our doctors. And you know what? They always deliver. They spend days and nights taking care of others, when they’re at their worst, only to be forgotten when life’s back on track. And God forbid, should you come back, they’re right there with their arms wide open and a reassuring smile on their faces.
It’s a thankless job, but they do it selflessly. Thank you Doc! ‘coz there are no other words that can express what we feel!!!

(This is an ode to the doctors at the Metro Hospital, Noida, who’re nothing less than Gods on earth, and trust me...they take care of you as one of their own. I speak from personal experience.)

What is it???

Where did I go? Where was I? Where am I right now? Is that person I see everyday in the mirror...me? That girl who's walking beside me on the window panes of these shops on the road...is she really me?
I can't seem to recognize her...I can't seem to recognize myself. Things have changed, ideas have changed, thoughts have changed, perspectives have changed, ideologies have changed...how? When? I didn't even realize.
It's weird how you change without even realizing it. I'm doing my PG now, from an institute which is supposed to be the most prestigious one in India, maybe even south Asia, but it just doesn't make me feel anything. I mean, I remember how I was back in college...all full of life...the will to do my best...putting my all into everything...working my 'butt off' (excuse the phrase, but I couldn't think of anything else that would be appropriate)...taking challenges head on and conquering over them like they're that eye-ball that Uma Thurman stomps over *phachak* !!! But since when did I concede to mediocrity? Since when did I lose my drive to give the best of my abilities and to push the limit? I seriously don't know.
Is this what life does to a person, or is this my escapist quality taking over the steering wheel again? Or is it simply that for the first time in my life I've been forced to live out of my comfort zone?

THE CHENNAI DIARIES

Cats, Dogs, Puppies and Kittens
There’s a thumb-rule about the Chennai weather, it gets “hot-hotter-hottest.” I disagree!!!
What’s a thumb-rule any good for if it doesn’t work on any try??? The weather is anything but hot, at most it gets a little warm, with the humidity levels way beyond my level of comprehension. But the frequent visits of cats and dogs…puppies and kittens sometime all throughout the day is quite a respite. Although it’s really cruel if you have to sit inside the building when the soft pitter patter of rain on the classroom window beckon to you…playing with your imagination…enticing you with those patterns that they draw out on the panes.
Listening to dido, looking at the green leaves outside….dancing and swaying in the slight breeze….the tiny droplets of water glistening like diamonds in the sun, it feels as if there’s not a care in the world. *sigh….then google returns the results for my search on “background scores in movies adapted from books” and my flights of fantasy come crashing down to my computer screen. But I’m not going to be cast down….I will defy the laws of human concentration and attention….I Will Multi-task !!!
It’s my eleventh day (21st July) in Chennai…and life has been quite kind. I’m in a hostel, with four others, and I haven’t messed up (yet). I’ve gotten lost at least two times, but managed to reach the destination on time (kudos to me). I’ve traveled in the most crowded of Chennai buses, hanging on with two fingers. I’ve had the most scintillating conversation with complete strangers in those buses. You know, I’ve always heard of those famous political discussions on Kolkata buses where the people keep on changing but the flow of conversation never stops….i finally had the opportunity to experience it. It’s amazing how friendly people can be when there are several reports on the channels about communal violence…man killing man….man killing men, and here I am, a north Indian bong having completely scintillating conversations with people from the South, most of the time trying to guess what the other person is saying…considering I don’t know how to speak the local language. But then, when have language constraints been a hindrance to my vocal chords….they just blast off whenever they want to. ;)
Coming back from a programme one day, it started raining so hard that the streets out here immediately transformed into huge rivulets of water. The water clogging problem is so much here that within minutes there was knee deep water on both sides. Now yours truly was trying to come back in the bus, and adventurous that she is…she came back to the apartment changing two buses, walking (read wading) through knee-deep mucky-disgusting-not to be thought about water, and completely drenched. I could have taken an auto, but then it’s remarkable how I found the whole experience quite charming. It made me relate to the people here, it made me feel like a person who’s from Chennai, instead of an alien, who’s here for just a visit.
The weather here is more unpredictable than Delhi. I mean one day it’s as hot as the Saharan desert in the afternoon, and it suddenly starts raining cats and dogs in the evening, while on other days when I carry an umbrella, all I’d be treated to is a couple of puppies and kittens falling sparsely here and there.
But you know what the weirdest part is…I think I actually like the city. I’m still IN LOVE with Delhi though…don’t ever get me wrong on that.

Looking out…

The monsoon’s started in Delhi, and somehow when it rains…it seems as if every natural colour is automatically enhanced and is ten times more beautiful. The skies…when you can take a peek seem bluer, the trees look greener, the white clouds look whiter and the grey ones look…well…grayer. The kind that will envelope all around you, making you feel either very secure-warm, or adventurous-alive, with all your nerve ends tingling with an expectation of what unknown thing might happen next.
Usually, we’re all so busy thinking about the next event in our lives, grumbling about it, planning about it that we rarely have the time or the inclination to sit back, and look at how our lives have turned out, but somehow for me, when it rains, life suddenly turns into a fiction book, that you read…but somewhat don’t relate to. Especially, when you’re sitting in a bus, in the window seat looking out at the rest of the world. The occasional drop of rain caressing your face, giving that momentous exhilarating relief from the humid climate. The wind hitting your face telling you that time is going fast by, while you sit in one place. Well…not really, you are moving with the bus, but then you don’t have to really exert yourself to reach to your destination, the bus does that work for you. You can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Looking around me, I see so many different faces, with so many different expressions. A man shouting at someone on his phone, a guy telling his friend about the admission procedures in Gargi (it made me want to interrupt and give a few pointers myself), a couple talking the silly love-talk, while the friend shifts uneasily because she feels unwanted and intrusive; an elderly couple enjoying the silence that has come after years of staying together formulating an unspoken language…or maybe they’re just estranged, and have nothing to talk about. It’s time such as these, when I get extremely bored that I take up a person and imagine what is going on in his or her life, why they’re where they are, how their life must be- outside the bus. But not today! Today I was more interested in the window looking out.
The soft pitter-patter of rain drops on the window glass, the wind blowing through my hair usually sends me to trips to far away lands, sometimes nostalgia strikes hard, or sometimes the imagination takes hold of the reigns. Today it was a sense of wonder and amazement at the world and people around me, especially those whom I didn’t know. Looking out of the window, whiling my time thinking about the guy riding the cycle next to the bus, while I had the luxury of being driven home. What kind of a life did he have? Does he have a wife…any kids? What if it started pouring right now, and he had to go to some important or formal place, and he reaches there drenched? Will the people understand his plight, after all it’s not his fault that he got caught in the rain, or maybe it is…after all he might be cheating someone, and needed to get somewhere fast so that he’s not caught, and this is nature’s way of punishing him!!!
The bus turns towards the Nizamuddin Bridge, and on the left side, there’s a whole bunch of jhuggies. People would have such interesting but difficult times living in jhuggies...wouldn’t they? Especially in the monsoon, when their thatched roofs aren’t able to stop the water from entering their small rooms (if they can be called rooms). Maybe many of them have a good place to live in the village, but they wanted to shift to the metropolitan to earn more money. They got these jhuggies instead. But then a dish antenna catches my eye. I look further to see that dish antennas are dappled all over the different jhuggies, and it seems weird that these very people who can’t seem to afford a proper place to stay, should have their individual dish antenna. It makes me smile, as I remember, that these people are probably counted in the below poverty line population, not getting their daily 2100 calorie intake, but they seem to have enough money to have satellite TV connections. God! Even I don’t have a satellite TV connection, and I’m supposed to be in the higher or at least middle-income group.
Soon the areas clear to form the vast expanse of green with puddles of water, that was supposed to be the Yamuna river. Next to my bus, a truck passes by with a horse atop its rear. The sight makes me smile. A horse is supposed to be a beast of burden isn’t it!!! It’s a white horse, all decked up…probably going for some marriage, where it’ll be the steed of the groom. This makes me think of the groom and his bride. How the marriage will be, with friends and family coming over? Or maybe it’s going to be a simple affair. Does the couple really want to get married? Is it a love marriage or an arranged one, or simply a marriage of convenience?
I’m now crossing the Akshardham Temple. I’ve always waned to come here, but never got the time. In fact, I wanted to walk down from my house to the temple and walk back. In the right kind of weather, with slight breeze and lots of clouds, the walk would be just wonderful. I make a mental note once again to one day follow through with my plan. The Temple construction seems to be going pretty fast. But somehow the temple doesn’t seem all that inviting anymore. In comparison to wild growth of trees earlier, the beautifully designed lawns and gardens seems mechanical. The lines on the temple look like a 3-D construction out of a computer program. Probably it is just that. But aren’t temples supposed to have souls. This one doesn’t seem to have one. There are too many straight lines and 900 angles, no realistic curves-no flaws. And I return my gaze to trees on the side of the road. Looking at those trees, newly adorned with their clean green leaves shining bright, it just seemed to me as if each tree had a particular personality of it’s own. One was scary and contorted, one seemed to be somewhat motherly, two of them reminded me of my friend and myself – conspiring with each other and living in their own private world, a little away from the rest, one had a kite stuck in its boughs, and I was reminded of the time when I once tried to fly kites and filed miserably, thereby tearing almost a dozen kites. The funny part was that they weren’t even mine, and I didn’t even ask their owner before taking. The poor guy got the shock of his life when he opened the cupboard to find all of his precious kites broken and torn.
I’ve reached my stop now. I get down, my reverie broken. Reality steps in, as I mingle with the tens and thousands, thinking about the next thing that I plan to do. Looking around, I see a girl standing in her balcony, looking somewhat bored...observing all the passersby. Our eyes connect, each acknowledging the other’s existence on this planet, and I turn my gaze back to the road ahead, wondering what kind of a life will she imagine for me. I smile as I walk on, and hope that it’s a little more interesting than the one I’m going back to.