When a friend dies.....

Note: Hey, if you are expecting the usual sarcastic nonsense, please skip this one. It is neither sarcastic nor nonsensical , though it may appear nonsensical to you.































This one is personal.


When your friend dies....
Your first reaction is disbelief which stays on in varying degrees of intensity.
Then comes the anger and the frustration. Why was the friend taken from you? Was it somehow your fault? Could you have stopped it from happening? The disbelief is still there of course, which makes you ask these questions in the first place.
You keep calling the friend on their cell. Of course, the friend doesn't answer.
You wonder, if perhaps the friend is angry at you.
You check his social networking profiles.
Nothing has changed much there.
Disbelief is waning. Fear sets in. Maybe the friend is really not coming back. Ever.
You try calling and messaging again with as much success as your previous try.
The fear is overwhelming now.
You replay the memories. Disbelief intensifies.
How can it stop this way?
No explanations.
No chance for a farewell.
You lose the dolphin around your neck. The dolphin, which was the symbol of your friendship. The dolphin you wore around your neck for 3 years.
This confirms it more than the death certificate of the friend.
WIth this finality, you start accepting it.
Now, comes the big task of moving on. Cherising the memories and moving on.
Moving on...............





The first thing you do, in the process of moving on is BLOG about it!!
Moving on..
Right.
Who am I kidding?




PS: Steve Irwin said, it was ok to cry. But when the tears stop, you start moving on. But how to you start moving on, when the tears don't come at all?

Global Shaving v/s Global Warming

Note: The following post has been written in a phase of extreme boredom and this idea appears brilliant to me right now. I don't know if it will remain so in my sane moments.



Will lead to....






Summer is here. Already. No late winter like late monsoon. Sigh. Also, if it is so hot in March itself, I shudder to think how how it will be in May. I shudder more at the thought of writing exams for three hours in the aforementioned hot May. I shudder even more at the thought of writing my last paper which is totally theory in the aforementioned hot May for the aforementioned three hours. And to make matters worse, my hair is such that it doesn't matter if I tie up or let it lose. Tresses always escape from my ponytail or bun or whatever other shape I have used to tame my hair. And pins give me a terrible headache. So, lets not even go there. So, my hair turns into a huge pain in the ass during summers. This time I am so fed up, I am considering to go bald like someone who did go bald for the same reason.

I asked a couple of my friends if it would be too mental or I would be hailed as a trendsetter of my generation. I don't give a hoot either way. But the common reaction was that men find it alarming when women start going bald. Take Shabana Azmi or Demi Moore, while their dedication to their roles was appreciated, they did look a bit alarming. So, judging by their reacton, I just went on a fantasizing spree.

Imagine, girls and women all over started going bald after being fed up of the heat. It would be an alarming site, ne c'est pas? After all, hair is the second most distinctive feature of females. The first one is irrelevant here, so has been duly ignored. We could use this to start a movement to combat Global Warming.

We can put up slogan's like
"If you like your women with hair, stop global warming NOW."

"*Next to a picture of a bald woman* Your wife/daughter/sister/girlfriend could be next"

"No more fiesty redheads unless you do something about the fiery heat"

"You need to beat the heat to stop globalding"

"No more blonde jokes everyone loves because there will be no more blondes. Save the blondes to inspire your sense of humour. All you have to do is stop global warming"

"We bet you didn't mean this when you said you like women who shave "

Ok. I think I will stop now. All this heat must have gone to my head. But think about it. What would you want? Globalding or Global warming?

Stereotyped..

This is the story of a girl who hated being stereotyped and who was stereotyped at every attempt she made at being different:

When she was born, she was exposed to all the things a girl might like. Pink, dolls, miniature kitchen sets.. She liked them all. She developed a liking for reading, so was introduced to fairy tales. They said, " She's a typical girl".

She grew up, became an older sibling when she was 4. She started noticing her brother's toys. Was fascinated with cars, bats, balls. She started getting bored with all the pots and pans. Cycling was the thing. Outdoors beckoned. Her likes followed her to school. She hated shopping and preferred to watch sports. They labelled her a 'typical tomboy'.

She reached her teenage. She insisted on wearing comfortable clothes instead of the ones in vogue at that time. She defended equal rights for both genders. Took offense whenever someone dismissed others' driving skills as ' like a typical woman's '. She refused to follow the set conventions for women. They said " Ahh, another feminist " when she remained headstrong and fiercely independent.

She is now at the verge of leaving her teenage years behind. She still loves pink. Still likes fairy tales and still hates shopping, and gossiping. Still enjoys sports more. She still believes in gender equality, still fiercely independent. She doesn't like being pampered. Hates flowers and chocolate. She prefers to pay the bill. Doesn't like to alter her appearance according to what people tell her. Yes, she has now become a typical Alpha-Woman.

Even in the desire to be different from everyone else, she is no different from the rest.




Moral of the story : No matter what you do, you will be stereotyped, because people like to define things. They fear what they don't understand. They try to make it an outcast. They would rather create new categories for defining things that don't come under the predefined categories than accepting them as different.

The Lesser Catastrophe

Those of you, who know me personally might have discovered that I am quite a spelling and a grammar nazi. So much that I feel like screaming my guts out when someone uses a verb in the past tense after "did" or "didn't". Considering I am not much of a screamer, I think I have OCD.





My brother's English paper read "comprehension, grammEr and writing skills"!! And then since the 1st standard I guess, we have been taught that the plural of hair is hair and not hairs. Wren and Martin say the same. Then they also go on to advise that 'grey hairs should be respected.' Same is the case with fish and deer. While, I don't hear deers often, I hear about fishes everywhere. I even read about different types of fishes in my Biology textbook. Oh, but childrens, that is not why I am writing this post.

Today I would like to single out my wrath on 'lesser'. Quite how the trend started to use the word, I don't know. But my Readers' Digest Dictionary says 'lesser' doesn't exist. Urban Dictionary is of the same opinion. When less itself is a comparative degree of little, ( little > less > least ), where does lesser come from? Choose the lesser of the two evils, Children of a lesser God, your marks are even lesser than the previous test. It gets on my nerves so much! I had to endure it during my HSC classes.

Bah, I am not a snob nor do I want to give the impression that I am one. But this is just the way I feel. I mean some people feel the same, when they see a mess around them. They can't stand it and they go about cleaning it. If I point out the mistakes, the most common reaction is 'Haan, Haan , we know you know better English than us. Please spare us the tutorial' What's a poor nazi to do?

Ok. Rant over. Next time maybe I will go on to direct my wrath to 'anyways'. But not now.

On an unrelated note,
Layman's view :
Roger Federer rules.
Manchester United rules.
Sachin Tendulkar rules.

Expert Opinion :
After comparing the statistics for the past few years, we have to admit that Federer maybe one of the greatest tennis players of all time. In other words, Federer rules.

Rule, rule United; Glory Glory Man Utd; In other words Man Utd rules. (biased but a true opinion)

Sachin is probably the greatest player of all time. On field and off it too. Sachin rules. Duh.

Why be an expert when you know all the important truths of life? Ok another truth is that I have exams from Monday. Got to study. Bye!

Observations - Part I

People say your blogging activity is inversely proportional to your social life. Not true. My recent hiatus in context of blog updates does not indicate my social life suddenly became more prominent. My social is the same as before , which is, exactly the way I want it to be. It just means I was too bored/lazy to update. Coming back to the post.

I like wandering and going to arbit places. Also, I prefer going to the aforementioned arbit places au pied. So I have observed this particular thing for quite a long time now. Whenever I come across a car whose number plate begins with MH 04, the vehicle in question is always physically damamged. And its not just true for 90% of them, all vehicles having the number plate beginning with MH 04 , that i have come across, are damamged in some way or the other, without exception. Be it a little dent on the bumper, or cracked mirror or missing parking lights.

The other day, I was waiting at the bus stop with my friend. We saw a Tata Nano, probably on its maiden journey considering all the plastic covers on the upholstery. But even then, there was a wide scratch on it in the corner of the bumper! New car already scratched. MH 04 licence plate.



The 04 in the number plate means the owner of the car lives in or near Thane. So what does this mean? That all the drivers living in Thane are rash ? Or is something wrong with their driving schools? If you are an offended Thane resident after reading this post, please, before taking offense, check your vehicle or your neighbours and you will find it damaged in some way.

PS: This can true for other number plates too, but I have observed this fact in MH 04 number plates only, without exception yet. And this is just my observation that I am stating in my post.

The Secret Behind The Secret

OK, so it's been a long time. Again. So this post has some spoilers about the book ' The Secret'. So , don't scroll down if you are planning to read the book or planning to cuss at me for spoiling the surprise or whatever.

I read the book ' the secret ' sometime back. And of course I thought about it a lot. Eventually I came up with sort of a theory about it. Also, this is just my own conclusion and does not imply that it is true. I'll write as if it is true nonetheless.

According to the book, there is an attractive force in the universe and we attract all the things that are dominant in our head. If we are happy, we attract more happiness, if we are frustrated, we attract more frustration and boredom invites more boredom. Also there is another book called ' the power of your subconscious mind', which says that whatever you convince your subconscious mind about, your subconscious mind makes it happen. It doesn't consider, whether it is right or wrong, true or false. Someone even said, ' Whether you think you are good or bad, you are right'. So I wonder if the secret was written so as to make people think positively, by trying to convince us , that there is a force in the universe which grants all our wishes. Now, according to the theory of the subconscious mind, this will be true, if we believe it without a doubt.



For example, consider any day. Just like the previous day, you wake up and get ready to start your usual day. Now while you go about it, you get an unexpected call from your dear friend who has moved away or something. This makes a normal person quite happy, so assume that you become happy. Then you go about your day in a better mood. Suppose you decide to go out. Outside, you have to cross the road, you almost get hit by a car. Thinking today is lucky, you think you were almost killed and because of your lucky day, you were saved.

You don't pause to consider that you don't get almost killed by vehicles everyday. You look at the incident in a positive way. So, you think all the good things are happening to you because, today is your lucky day or that you are attracting happiness. It's all in the attitude.

Also, I think the same principle was used in religion. Those who believe in it without a doubt, have no issues about the existence of God. But those, who doubt, will find many loopholes, because its all in the mind. I think that is what gave rise to superstitions too. Even today. The film stars, the sportsmen, Ekta Kapoor. All the weird numerology, tarot. It all works because you convince your subconscious it is true.

I think I am done with my rant. My bottom line is that 'it's all in the mind'. You cannot do something only if you convince yourself beyond doubt that you cannot do it. OK. I am done now. Finally.

Great Minds

It's been a month and I still can't bring myself to type out all that I have written in my notebook. What can I say other than yes, I am a lazy ass. Oh yeah, I can say - lucky you.
Anyway I have come across this saying many times and I have still not been able to fully understand it. The saying goes 'Great minds think alike'
In the book of idioms and proverbs that I have, it says it means that people having great minds think of similar things. To quote exactly ,'"Great minds think alike" means that great people think about things in similar ways' And I could not find the origin of this proverb anywhere but it has been used in French by Voltaire in 1760.

"“Comment les Grecs ont-ils mis en fables ce que les Hébreux ont mis en histoire? serait-ce par le don de l’invention? serait-ce par la facilité de l’imitation? serait-ce parce que les beaux esprits se rencontrent? Enfin, Dieu l’a permis; cela doit suffire.”

Voltaire,”Dictionnaire philosophique”, “Bacchus”"

So if this phrase is true, how come only Voltaire came up with it? There were many great minds during his time eg Benjamin Franklin ( I got a rant for him too ). Why didn't they think like him and come up with a similar phrase? Also if this statement holds true, then why do we need innovation. Or why are people who think differently given preference? You should think like other people. You are great. If you go search for diamonds that washed ashore, like a million others, you are great. because you thought like a million others. So is it that the more number of people think like you, greater is your mind?

So why should shakespeare be considered great? No one thought about writing tragedy, romance and comedy in plays. Not at his time at least. Why are movies which have a different storyline from others considered great ( of course this has to be accompanied by great acting and great music ) Oh and what about music. Why are Beethoevn, Mozart et al considered great? because they thought like others?

So next time someone says , hey this isn't different, this is just like others. You can say ' dude, I have a great mind. I think like other great minds '. Or something.

And one more thing. Is it great minds think alike simultaneously? or we don't consider the time factor?