Excursions

I had earlier prated at facebook about how things never go wrong but they usually are wrong. This post is more about the incident that made me babble that out.

This particular incident is not a one off experience. It happens with me most of the time. I have started believing the quote, that one gets what he gets only when the time is right, far strongly than ever before.

So right from the morning today, i was hopelessly beating my head against numerous things interconnected. Code not getting configured, tools not running properly, system slowing down like hell … and what not. In simple terms, all the things that could possibly go wrong were going wrong.

Tried my best to bring things back on track. Even tried the ever successful way out of chanting random rants in the loo. But nothing seamed to work. Day went by with me fighting the villainous time. And suddenly right on the verge of me giving up, something happened and everything got sorted out.

I felt like yash raj was scripting a movie with me, the helpless protagonist waiting for the non-hero-non-villain types neutral time to sort things out, a la Amrish puri in DDLJ. Here ditto Yash Raj’s script, how the solution appears does not matter.

Many times the all time hidden problem creators suddenly loom out of nothingness. Or at times the same components which were adamant on not working get a mind change and start working. You sit there dumbfound trying to grasp what happened. Worse is when all the twisted knots straighten up when a new person pulls a thread, making one look a complete idiot.

By the way today’s was the first case. The bugger emerged from the tonnes of characters and the problem got solved. Time was 7:02pm. Felt i was destined to solve the problem, but not before 7:00pm 28th May.

A new problem, as usual, has come into existence tough. Yashji’s planning a magnum opus this time, i guess. So awaiting another day of head banging for a solution which i know i won’t get before the time gets right.

Nothing actually goes wrong, it is always wrong. What is worth mentioning tough is when it goes right!!

Another day spent with hardly any interesting updates in life. Truly speaking many things happen. Mind wanders around, surfs over various topics instead of diving deep into a single significant job at hand. Result is i am unable to get attached to any of the things happening around me.

The question arises what really does one need to make the mind notice what is happening around? Interest in what we do should be the first and most important thing. But what I don’t understand is why do i suddenly take raw interest in the same work which i wasn’t enjoying earlier. It must rather be something else .

According to me, they are the things that happen around me that actually decide if i notice what is happening around or not. If my mind feels they are worth noticing, it will notice them. Else it temporarily captures the images just to wipe it off the mind’s canvas, sooner rather than later. The problem is this “sooner” comes too soon for me to make even a slight impact.

Does this mean things around me are insignificant? I don’t thing so. Rather the things around me these days are like the monotonic long silences in Oscar winning movies; they are no way insignificant, however they hardly make any sense to me. I would rather prefer the insignificant, but joyous jabbers of Adam Sandler than Leone’s blunt eye shots. And i need to soon find these jabbers around me!

Update: Just watched this wonderful village lady, Susan Boyle, nailing another awesome of her performance. This lady has provided some thirlls and excitement in waise monotonous life.

Witness yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLLIIb_jA9Y

“Learning how to drive has been too easy these days my friend”, he said, “It’s a simple principle. Throw money learn honey. I learnt it not by choice, but by compulsion.” He had a sense of austerity in his voice. I knew i was about to embark on a journey of one of his lifetime experiences.

Though highly disinterested, flaunting my  phony curiosity i queried, “So when did you learn driving then.” I was more worried about me bumping the vehicle into the truck ahead.

“Long back,” going into a hazy flashback, he said. “The moment i knew school is not my liking and studies hardly interest me, my family started looking for some work for me. There was no concept of job actually. There was work which would earn money for the supper. Who best to earn it than a lone useless, dumb fellow in the house”

Frisking what i listened for a question to throw back, i asked him “So you were the eldest? The only bread earner in your family?”

With a sudden smirk on his face, he replied ” Actually i am the youngest among the siblings. I have 3 older brothers, all well educated and hold nice jobs. But soon they left the home. Ashamed may be of the illiteracy in the family.” I knew the reason was more a taunt to them than a reason.

“So what did you do then”, I asked him, my eyes glued to the traffic signal ahead approaching faster.

“I didn’t have to do anything actually. Those were the days when the transport business was calling out for unskilled labour as conductors. My father pushed me into one. The work was simple. Whatever the king of the truck, the driver ustaad would say, the conductor would do. Whatever was literally ‘whatever’, including washing vehicle, buying him a beer bottle, bidis, making him a peg, washing the beer glasses. Anything and everything which by social thoughts would sound as child torture.” I hoped he was not talking about sexual one though.

Being a bad listener to one’s saddest and ugliest of the experiences, i did not want to go in the details of the torture. I queried him further “So what about driving then?”

“Aye bha*ve hat na baju” he sweared at a cycle rickshaw ahead. The rickshaw puller pedaled for another 100 meters before siding, least affected by the blasphemous outrage thrown at him. “These bloody idiots wont listen as long as you don’t use below-abdomen swears. Maa Behen pe na jao to palle nahi padta inke. My ustaad always used to tell me, best horn is that which is particularly customized for the one you are blowing at. Use your mouth in cities more than honking”. I decided not to listen to this teaching of his, not for now at least.

“Anyway about the driving, that was another role the conductor has to play when the driver was talli with beer. Suddenly one day he would pass the steering half crawling and say sambhal isko. It started with a prank, when ustaad had a good laugh along with his drunkard gang over my terrified face. I came to know after few months that actually that was the first step of my driving class under ustaad. That was my first experience of driving.”

Damn interested i asked, “So what next. Did he teach or just played rash on you?”  Cool and calm, he pointed at a tea corner and said, ” For now i am teaching you. Lets take a break. Lots of rash experiences did follow. The experiences that collated to form my driving sessions. Aaram se baithke sunte hain. Do kadak chai dena chotya. Special.“

I awaited agog to listen to his series of driving sessions with his eccentric ustaad. I knew there were many experiences worth pondering over going to be unbundled soon.

At the other side, Chotya was cleaning the table in front of me. Suddenly he looked to me completely oblivious of the experience he was part of.

Another day goes by. Each day passes with me starting my day with a plan to blog about the zillions of ideas i have sidelined over the week now. I have to put a sticky post something on this guy’s face. This is a lame effort atleast to make that face a bit freshen.

So just to update, i am fed up with the monotony my life has been following. The following picture catches this phase of my life perfectly. I am facing the same soul deadening monotony.

Anyways i have made my mind now. I am working on a story that i heard from a person who taught me a lot over the period of 3 days. It has to come out. I will do that. Soon.

Today it happened again. A previous post has had many hits from the Google search. I know there is nothing surprising about this part. But what follows is.

The query type was usually like "My ambition in life" or "My ambition" or "What are my ambitions" or "My plans and ambitions". One query was also of the sort saying "Why have i lost my ambition". Instant reaction was like, ok, i know Google does answer your query. But i dearly wish it does not move to this personal level. I dearly wish a day would never come when i would google for "Where have i forgotten my underwear". I dearly wish i don't.

But after some time, I thought fare enough. Someone must have searched for an essay with this topic. Afterall even i remember how, during the 2nd -5th standard, my ambition changed with changing teachers and essay books. It mutated from a nation serving politician or soldier to a hard-working-son-of-soil farmer to a life saving doctor. Frankly speaking, considering the level of english i could blabber on my own, the essay that was not lengthy enough not to be mugged up, at the same time sounded good and earned marks had content for "My ambition". But i don't remember myself ever scribbling about being a "gibberish-speaking" sleepy bug dwelling in virtual reality, being a computer engineering, i.e., to be specific.

Anyways this fact urged me to think what really is an ambition. I thought of mining the precise definition for the word and to my surprise what it really means is "an ardent desire to achieve something". An ardent desire? That is it? Boss, i have been ceaselessly told my ambition has to foretell a long time down the future. All those "cheek-bursting" aunts and grandmas and uncles danced on my head for ages to know what i would be when i grow old, what is my ambition. I always doubted if they wanted to boggle the million rupees estate i would have. To such extent was my fear that i started publishing "social service" as my ambition just to push the demons away.

But now i feel pity that i was wandering along without really answering that question in the best way. If an ardent desire is what ambition is all about, then yes i would have had hundreds of ambitions. And the list has grown to a thousands now with passing age. With each ambition i achieved, i feel i have installed few more in the list. I know and still remember the whole gyan about a life lived without ambition is like an arrow fired without an aim. But then if i have to talk practically I feel it is highly impossible to lay the path for whole life right at the birth. Nah one can't.

And that does not mean as a child i spent my life without an aim. I still had an aim to complete my homework just to rush out to play hide n seek or help mom out with an aim to go out for a walk in some mela or finish every possible household exercises even on a foggy Sunday with an aim just to use that as an excuse while am watching a cricket match. Now i know these were my ambitions. Far more practical than being a politician or a doctor.

Yes i know there are still these whole lot of concepts of long term goal and short term goals and art of living and blah. So I feel skeptic to use ambition as a word. I feel i better call it a simple desire.  I have decided to pursue my billions of small but practical desires under the hood of long term, impractical or rather unverifiable ambition of being a respected and followed both professionally and personally. I have already mentioned how my ambitions faded away with time. I know my desires won't. I would be happy if the list grows to some tens of thousands, that would imply that i atleast completed 100 such desires. 100 such ambitionsi will call them.

Just finished watching the most wondrous poem on love and life, "Before Sunrise". I am so damn impressed. Its pretty amazing how the author's, the director's view can change a dragging chitchatting of a "just-met" couple into such awesome a journey for the viewer too. I mean, even i kind of get surprised that i thoroughly enjoyed a normal passage of some hours of two-people's life, their passage from strangers to lovers.

Everything about this movie left me impressed. The sweet time it takes to unfold itself, the locales of Vienna crawling beautifully behind the leads, the gentle music in the background. All these small little things just heaved my experience of what lied at the core, the subtle talks of the couple in lead. I relished everything the author was trying to say. It made me think, made me revisit my thoughts about many things. I mean not just about love, about life too. All it had to say about death, god etc. Small little gems like the one when the actress, Celine, talks about the old man who spent his whole life thinking about his career and his work. That was just a spectacularly well written scene.

And about love, well its better experienced in the movie itself. I am speechless, out of word to spell out my experience. Its not just for the one's in love, but also for the others to relish.  All those  pretty words, the moist  eyed stares, those mushy silences, the tender touches. Everything. The poem in particular written with so plain a word, milkshake, as its base. Man, spectacular is the word.

Yes, I want to wend one such passage before sunrise in my life, if possible in Vienna. And yes, if so beautiful is love crafted on the moving canvas, am sure i won't be alone feeling that way.