Brain-sick's Diary #5

Life has offered varieties. Varieties in people, in their behavior, in their culture, and with this lies the varied experiences of ours. Experience is carved not just from our own endeavors, but it is also accompanied by the culture we are infused into. You may be protesting, not accepting the culture that surrounds you, but the survival for existence always stays at the top most priority in your list. Survival for existence is after all so natural. Lets not just blame humans only. Its prevalent across all forms of life that exists. And this is the survival for existence that pushes you to adapt. Adapt to the culture, to the surrounding which is not so acceptable to you otherwise.

He has adapted to the culture too. The learning curve was steep. But at the end the least that he could have achieved was to get used to with this culture; and he did it. Now he stands firm. The firmness has to be raised even more. Strands of relationships that tend to bind people together; he has doubts on this authenticity. He realizes that relationships are not permanent. Time is a dimension. And every relationship is carved out from time. Clock ticks, relationship tricks. He learnt to try not to be tricked. To keep trying is very important.

Where is the happiness? Well, the happiness is omnipresent. Happiness is God. If you believe, God is everywhere. If you don’t believe, you can’t find God. So is the happiness. And to add to this crude thought, here is an important quote : “Happiness is indeed a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experience.”

His struggle is on; his endeavors to find solace, to find God, to find happiness.

June 12th, 2015.

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The Tea Seller

I prefer to have my desk by the window side. This helps me to think. May be I am thinking for a story, may be for my research work, or may be just thinking about something abstract. I love to sit back and just think about something randomly. Sitting by the window helps me. I recently got an opportunity to work as an intern at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, to work on development of Iterative Dichotomizer Algorithm. Jhunuk da, the lab assistant here is an elderly person. He has helped me a lot to get my desk settled. I was being offered the cabin along with other interns, but I preferred to sit in a silent corner of the computer lab. And Jhunuk da helped me get my request approved from officials. There are a lot of rules here. I forget many, but Jhunuk da is always here to remind me about them and do my things accordingly.

The window by my desk has a frame which reminds of British days in India, and these are quite common in Kolkata. Through the closed window too, sun rays penetrate and fall at my desk in the morning. The window is east facing. When I am struck at my code, I peep through the window, and it amazes me with the vintage look of the city in hustle. I and Jhunuk da, we love to sit together by the window and enjoy our evening tea. The chai wallah who comes with tea for us has his shop outside the institute, and he has very good friendship with Jhunuk da. Jhunuk da has always helped him in his needs; he discussed these with me during our chai breaks. Jhunuk da is very sensitive guy. He actually feels for him, and tries his best to do all which he can.

‘He has to marry his girl child. She is nineteen now.’

‘I see. So he needs to find a groom for her?’ I inquired.

‘He has already found one. He is just arranging enough money for the marriage.’ Jhunuk da replied.

‘Dowry?’

‘No No. The family of groom has not asked for dowry. He is worried for the marriage costs. You see everything is so costly now. He hardly earns anything…’ The anxiety was easily visible on his face.

These conversations homed inside my head, and echoed from time to time. It was two or three days later that in one of my tea breaks with Jhunuk da, I suggested something.

‘Dada, why not collect some funds for the marriage?’

‘Whose marriage, chai wallah’s daughter’s?

 ‘Yes’ I said.

‘Umm. Yes we can… But who will agree to pay?’ he asked me.

‘See. I will go to other interns and ask them to pay as per their wish, for the marriage. I am sure they will contribute something.’

‘We can try…’ Jhunuk da replied.

...

The chai wallah came to my desk few weeks later. He handed me the wedding invitation. He was very happy. He shaked hands with me. His happiness was beyond any explanation. It made me think that I will be a father too. I will have to marry my daughter, may be then I would be feeling the same as he is feeling today. From my desk he moved to Jhunuk Da’s desk. He did not know that we had contributed funds for the wedding of his daughter. Jhunuk da did not want him to know this. He trusted Jhunuk da, and would take his help only. He had a lot of self-respect. What he knew was that Jhunuk da gave sufficient funds for the marriage.

I unfolded the wedding card, and felt contented to read the scheduled wedding date. I felt satisfied of having done something good. I never came to know what was the name of that chai wallah, until I read his name on the card. His name was ‘Dhani Chandra Ghosh’.  

"I am participating in the #DilKiDealOnSnapdeal activity at BlogAdda in association with SnapDeal."

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The Lunch Box

The class was as usual decked up with concepts of physics all around. The teacher kept drawing pulleys, and did all the hardship to pull it applying necessary forces, but I was lost somewhere else. Not that I was not interested in physics, and not that I was very much interested in our lady physics teacher like my friends; unlikely I was struck in those words which Priya had for me the day before. 

I was coming out from canteen that day, triumphant about the fact that I managed to buy two samosas. I always failed at it, as I used to give up the fight in the queue-less stampede at canteen each day. School authorities ceased their authoritarian and disciplinary actions at canteen I doubt. As I stepped out from the stampede, trying to wipe of the sauce that spilled a bit on my white uniform shirt, I found Priya standing in front of me. Her innocent eyes looked bleak. I stood there still, and watched her. I never had courage to speak to girls.

I chose to move out, and not to speak to her, as usual this time again. But as I moved past her, she called my name. With a jolt within, my mind capitulated, ‘she knows my name’.

‘Aarush, I had to get samosas, but you see the crowd there at the counter.’

‘Hmmm? Umm… Oh… I see’, this was all that I replied.

‘Do you know anyone there in the crowd at the counter? If you know, then please hand over this money to him.’

‘Actually… I don’t know anyone there. They are not from our class’, I said. ‘By the way, how many… Umm… how many samosas do you want?’ I added some more with my voice almost afraid to come out.

‘One’, she chirped.

‘You see, I have already had my lunch. I wanted one samosa too, but the counter guy didn’t have change so he gave me two.’

‘Would you like to have… I mean if you like, the one from mine?’, and as I said it seemed my heart would come out from my chest.

‘You are not hungry?’ she asked.

‘No. I had my lunch from the tiffin my mom prepared for me.’

She looked at me with her face showing her hesitation. She moved in order to pick one, but retraced her steps soon. She looked at me again. This time she smiled wide, and then she broke into laughter. It was a feeling so heavenly to watch her laugh; she was so beautiful.

She moved forward and picked one samosa, ‘Thanks’, she said.

While we snacked, she kept talking. She said that her mother was sick. And so she didn’t let her cook for the school tiffin. She would take the meal from school canteen, she had assured to her mother.

‘It would be two-three days more like this; I would have to come to canteen.’

‘Hmm…’, this was all that I could reply along with my smile.

And the other day, when I was in class waiting for the period to end, with all my attention towards Priya and the talk that we had, there was something cooking inside my head too. Just before five minutes from tiffin break, I asked my teacher for an excuse to let me go to washroom, with my constipated face at her disposal. My facial expression inferred to her that she had no choice left but to allow me.

I came out of classroom, and rushed to the canteen.

Priya came ten minutes later. She waited at the canteen gate; probably she was looking for someone in the crowd who might help her buying the meal. I went near, and from her back I called her name. She turned, and saw me standing, with both my hands holding a plate with two samosas. I bought one for her, and one for myself.

‘Hey. Did you leave the class with an excuse for samosas?’

‘Yes’, I said energetically.

‘Why didn’t you buy two for each one of us?’ she inquired.

‘You have one, and I will have one too. And then we will share from my tiffin. I had asked my mom to give more food today. I explained that as your mom was sick, so…’ And then I smiled.

What all followed next till the present day is something which I will not pen down here. But, let me share something special with you all. I and Priya are getting engaged on 27^th of April this year. The ceremony is going to held at my residence; GA 25, White Lake, Kolkata. You all are invited. (smiles)

"I am participating in the #DilKiDealOnSnapdeal activity at BlogAdda in association with SnapDeal."

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Collecting Happiness...

Happiness is a feeling, a feeling so warm that it makes us forget all the troubles in our lives for a while. I call it for a while because troubles tend to take over the happiness very soon. The extent of happiness is always decided by us. Though happiness cannot be measured, it’s just a feeling; however we make it big and we make it small. But for the while when emotions of happiness curl us within, don’t we feel ourselves freed and relieved from all unnecessary clutches in our lives? I wish if this feeling could persist throughout, always, in each and every moment that we live.

I look around myself, and I see ample number of reasons to be happy. The moment I stop seeing, I start to feel low. I need to clean by spectacles, wash my face, and then look around again. This time I find some reasons to be happy which I overlooked in my previous attempts. I feel enthralled to have found them and lucky because I know there would be many for whom these reasons either don’t exist or are not applicable. I still enjoy reading comics, I read TinTin, Tinkle, Chacha Chowdhury and many more. This may be a joke for a few, but it is special for me. Having found an unseen Chacha Chowdhury comic book at a small bookstore makes me enormously happy. But as I said, happiness is just a feeling, and in this case I make it huge (laughing). 

The God of small things has blessed me with a lot of happiness. When I bought a Parker pen for myself from my first salary, the happiness was beyond any explanation. Now after almost six months of my job, I bought a pen-pencil (laughing loudly). Pen-pencils are not common these days, but when I was in class four, they were very famous. I saw one at a stationary shop where I went to buy ink cartridges for my printer. Now my new pen-pencil rests proudly in my pen holder. Every time I look there, my face shows a smile. I may not use it, but to have procured it made me happy. 

Five days of stressful work in office, which often spans to 6 on some weeks, there it is essentially required to have at least one day off for complete refreshment. My friends might prefer to go to pub and then crash at a Chinese restaurant on sundays, but I have a completely different taste for my refreshment. I prefer to get a full plate biryani packed from Jai Jawan Dhaba, and enjoy it with 600 ml bottle of Coca-Cola at my home. I enjoy more this way, it feels good to be myself. When you are yourself and not faking to be someone else, then only you will explore what the God of small things has left for us. 

I was inspired to write this post by Coca-Cola India. Here I have shared a wonderful ad by them. #Iamappy

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The Flower Boy

We would know he is coming. He would ring his bicycle bell continuously, not because he is like every other guy in Patna who honks on road unnecessarily. It was his signal for us that he is in our lane of the colony. My mom would rush down, and start to collect finest of the flowers that flower boy would bring. We are Brahmins, and we adhere to some proper way of worshipping. And my mom cannot do puja without flowers. I used to wonder why does mom take so long to bring flowers, picking each of them by examining. And all this time the flower boy would keep smiling. He has two teeth in the front which are little bigger than the rest, and protruded outwards. Yes, like the chikku rabbit from Champak books. This makes his face look as if he is smiling. I always doubted him. He would not smile; it was just his face which seemed as if he was smiling, with two of his bigger teeth at display and rest inside his mouth. He would be of sixteen or seventeen years old. He had a dark complexion, and brown hair. You would not believe the fashion statement he carried for himself. He sold flowers, and he always wore a shirt which had flowery prints on them. Marigold, and jasmine; from the front till his back, his shirt was truly iconic. Sometimes I thought that he comes wrapped in flowers, and sell them here to my mom. My mom is happy to buy from him. And she even asks our neighbors to buy from him. He would not say a word; he only smiled or let’s say he looked as if he was smiling.

He cannot speak. He cannot even listen. God has made him this way. He was like this right from his birth. He is the only guy who supports his family. I always thought, if someday his bicycle bell conks out, how would he come to know? ‘No no, his mom would surely tell him that his bicycle bell is not working’, I would say this to myself. But still, to do something whose impact you don’t even know, how does it feel like? Does he know how much sound does that bell make? He does not. 

The flower boy was special. He would make me think a lot. But this was true that his arrival in our colony each day changed everyone’s mood at that particular moment. I don’t know if he smiled or not, but he would make us smile. I can never forget those protruded teeth of his.

We have a lot in our lives in one way or the other. There are many who don’t even have those. The flower boy is special. And he makes me feel that I am special too, because I have so many things. He makes me feel worth of all those things which I would have not considered special for myself. I wish he keeps smiling. I wish he stays sufficiently able to support the family after him.

I was inspired to write this post by Housing.com's activity for writing Look Up Stories.

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Healed into a Flower...

Love is auspicious. May be it is, or maybe I don’t know about it. But there was a time when I used to think about it strongly. I believed love would flutter its wings and take me to the fairyland. I knew of a fairy who lived there. Be it day, or night, my dreams would be occupied with my fairy in it. An angel whose beauty makes everyone jealous of, she would smile and happiness would start to flow. When she speaks, it muses the heart and soul of every person that exists on this earth. From the chippering of birds in the morning sky, to songs of nightingale at night, all of them seemed lighter in contrast with the voice of that fairy. And that fairy was mine. So foolish of me to think this now, but then it was not at all a joke for me. She was in my class. And I would sit beside her, always smiling for her, because she complimented that I look world’s cutest when I smile.

‘Rohan, it has been two years now, I see you as a kid. You haven’t grown up. You are still that school going child. I cannot live with a kid.’ 

It was my first year in college, and she called me to say all these. We were not together; I mean I had to go to college in a different state, while she stayed in her hometown. The physical absence of ours also started to make the space for love shorter between us. Love? I doubt if I should say this. I learned about it later that she was already having an affair with other boy from our school. She made excuse about me having a kiddish temperament. And I suppose he had all the manly traits, which certainly I missed.

‘Ok. If you are happy with this, its fine. I don’t have anything to say in it then.’ Tears rolled down my face as I spoke this to her.

‘It was not love Rohan, it was just that you were a good friend of mine. I dont think I love you the way I should. It’s not love Rohan.’ May be she was right. May be I was solely wrong. 

It was too much of turbulence inside me. I wanted to cry out loud. But I had determined that I would not go back to her again. I would look forward, and bring the change in myself, and do good for my grades that were falling down. I was in the second semester at college, almost towards the end of my first year of B-tech, when I came to know of blogging. It’s said that with all the adversities, sometimes chords set themselves to play a tune right. I started to blog. I expressed from the core of my heart, each and everything. Initially, I may have been perceived as a sadist, but slowly as the wound healed, so did the pain in my words. I started to write articles, short stories, based on various themes.

I don’t consider myself as a blogger, or a writer. But yes, I found a way out from the infliction that I went through and brought out a way to help myself. It’s been almost four years now of my blogging. I happily accept that my decision to start a blog has helped to know myself better.

A wonderful video from housing.com :

I was inspired to write this post by housing.com's activity about 'Start A New Life'

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Sparkle in their eyes...

Life is a teacher, whose fee we pay in various forms. Pain, heart breaks, losses, and what not. And the lessons that we learn from this teacher, they benefit us by deepening the experience base of ours. After all, experience is what makes us earn. It’s not just valid in IT industry, where I am working in one of the top notch MNC, where usually your pay scale is decided as per your experience. But in the real life too, the one with sound experience stays at the front. Others, they keep falling and rising, until they have the experience to come to the front.

Staying alone in a metro is not a joke. And I am living in a metro, all alone now. From house rent, electricity bills, and everything that I never cared about at my home when I stayed with mom and dad, all of them I have to manage here for myself. And for me, the experience to manage errands like this was bare minimum. It’s been three months now, I fell down several times but tried to rise every time again. The instinct inside you does not remain positive always. 

We are surrounded with negativeness, and with frequent failures it becomes very difficult to stay positive. I was going home, I was glad I managed to convince my bosses for three days of extra leave for Holi. And during my journey to home in train, I kept thinking of how much deplorable the circumstances I have been facing. I never had thought that I would be all alone like this. Getting a job is difficult, but to stay in the job and cut through all the forces acting against you is commendable. A metro city has many things to offer to you, and not all of them are pleasant. I have tasted some bitter flavors.

‘Hey, you have become so thin, don’t you eat properly there?’ 

Mommy kept asking questions, I struggled to take out my stuffs from my bag where I had pushed everything deliberately. 

‘Umm.. No.. I mean yes, I take food properly'. 

'Mommy, this one is for you. Dad, this one is for you…’ I would have said something more, but then mommy showered some more questions.
 

‘You wasted so much money for us. That’s not good, you don’t earn much at present. Its your new job. You should save as much as you can’.
 

‘Ok mommy. Now open and see, what is there inside’, I said. Dad came and smiled, he ruffled my hair affectionately. He has been man of fewer words, and more of actions.

I had bought Saree for mommy and an android phone for dad. The sparkle in their eyes, I cannot explain through words. The feeling of contentment overpowered all the negative thoughts that had crippled me till an hour before.

‘I would do all the hard work to keep that sparkle alive, always’, my own voice echoed in my head. Their happiness recharges me with positivity. This is the power of staying close to my family.

‘Mom, I am hungry’, is what I said next, as if I cannot wait even for a second without food. 

(I was inspired to write this post by housing.com's activity of writing about the power of being together!)

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An Unforgettable ILP

Life has various ups and downs planned for you. Some ups project you so up that you tend to believe that you are riding in your dreams. You pinch yourselves, and you realize that its reality. One such experience came in my life, spanned in form of several unforgettable moments, in form of ILP (Initial Learning Program) at TCS. Getting a job was a huge joy, the experience I had during my training for this job was beyond any definition for joy. 

I stayed in I-202, at Madhuram Greens. My ILP held at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. And as I say I-202, smile comes on my face. My roommates, Ankit, Prajesh and Aditya, they have become an integral part of my lives. Each of them are so close to me now that during the phases when I am feeling lowest, I recall memories where I was with them and that is enough to spread smile on my face. I will not deny that Ankit has been the only person with whom I came this close, ever in my life. He is a man of finest nature, and with an upbringing which is rare to find now. I am a moody, and react differently at times, and that is because of the turbulent thoughts which churn inside my head from time to time. If I had caused any trouble to my friends, I beg pardon. Other than my roommates, every person from my ILP holds an important place in my heart. This post was supposed to come quite before. But courtesy goes to my hectic project, which keeps me away from my social life these days, both online and offline. I wanted to make this post a collage of memories. Some mad photography I did there came to my rescue, and them I have included here in this post. 

View of Madhuram Greens from my room.

Aditya, Ankit and Prajesh, at AlphaOne Mall, Ahmedabad.

Aditya, Ankit, Me and Prajesh. While we were returning from AlphaOne mall in auto rickshaw. 

It was my first time at KFC. And I tried veg. 

Ankit's garba performace. :D

Its Nikhil in the blue T-shirt, dancing with kids. Umm... Not his kids though. :P

Happy Birthday Ankit... On his birthday. 

Crazy people. :D

Happy Birthday Prajesh... On his birthday.

The crazy me too. Aditya, Me and Prajesh.

Happy Birthday Aditya. Bewildered he was; it was not his birthday. But still... :P

Happy Birthday Vanshika. :)

Celebration on our first salary. :)

Me, and Ankit, at Adalaj Steep Well. 

Aditya, Ankit and me, at Vaishnav Mandir, Sarkhej. 

It was not my birthday either. But still... :P

The period of three months passed by in a jiffy. Time for graduation from ILP came. 

Our batch. AJA 50, on the very last working day for our ILP.

Me and Sanjay. We shared the same cubicle. He sat on my left side. He is one of my dearest. And a very good human. I wish to meet him soon. We have a lot to talk about. :)

Abhinav Kashikar, CR for AJA50, and me. 

Selfie. On the last working day of our ILP. Ankit, Aditi, Sanjay, and me. 

Words are not enough to describe the moments I have lived during my ILP tenure. I consider myself lucky that I got my training with such lovely people, from such wonderful faculties. TCS Garima Park, Gandhinagar, will always have an important existence in my heart. 

Here we have, Killing Machine, Bravo, ***** ****, RAMBO and Stealer. :P :P

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