The Year That TAUGHT

With 2008 coming to an end, most of us seem to be breathing a sigh of relief. Most of us have been complaining of this year, which is about to fly by in another 2 days and will bring to us a new morning, the same sun but with a new ray of hope to it. However, paradoxically, though we and this year witnessed some of the worst things, those bad memories will erase out within the next two days and will leave us with some new experiences and new days. So now that we are almost about to cross the finish line of this year's not so happening race, why not look back at some things that happened.

Most of my friends, acquaintances and people I know say that 2008 was a particularly bad year. Not only did the global village face some of the biggest crises, even our personal lives went through alot. I won't lie, I too saw some random events happening in my personal life that left me shattered for a while. Well, again to be honest, I too am pretty happy that this year is coming to an end. Coming to the point when many things happened, not only did the financial crunch strike, which left many devastated and dejected faces; the crime scene too went to all extents. I feel that this year there were too many murders, rapes and all the crimes; with terrosist attacks topping the charts. In fact, if noticed, our enviorment also seems not to be with us. Natural calamities causing unnatural deaths also happened. However, the good news seems that the coming year might not be that bad. How do I know that? Well, like any other person, I browsed through some sites that have already started giving out predictions for the next year. In fact, one of the sites said that the coming year might act as the healer for the mishaps that occured this year. Now that is something I am not sure about. But given to the observations and analysis that I did based on whatever happened in my life and things that I saw, I am sure I can act as a balm for my wounds and heal them now. So why not share it with you guys. (Again, I don't know how many of you would read my post and even if you read, I don't know whether you would like to think the way I thought)

Anyways, now coming to the questions I shot to myself include:

• My Character (Character, as in the strength in my charcter and not the other way that we understand character)
• My Social Responsibility
• And the most important one, my responsibilty towards myself

Well, apart from these ones, I really can't think of any other questions right now. If any of you want to add some more questions, please go ahead and help me and the others, who read my post. When a year ends, it takes away everything it gave us in that year. But one thing unique about this year is that even though it will fade away with a new morning on the 1st of January 2009, it cannot wash away the experiences that we all witnessed. Because each experience is God's way or rather Life's way of teaching us who we are and what we are made of. So, now that we all have learnt something or the other and I can bet that we all actually have learnt something, why not put out learnings into practice, afterall what's learning without practicing it and practice makes a man perfect. This will help us to build our charcters and at the same time, will help us build a secured and better tomorrow. Afterall, it is all about we (WE)

Life's Calling

Remember the tagline of Bacardi "Life's Calling"....I guess yes. How true it is. I always like the advertisement because it is absolutely amazing but realizing the meaning is more blissful. Life is such a beauty, it has so much to offer. Cribbing over small things has always been a human tendency and it very much will exist in all of us. But realizing the worth of life and the various opportunities that it has to offer us makes life and existence all the more simple. There is so much happening in the world, in our personal lives that we generally land up seeing the dark side of everything. But barely do we see the silver lining. Learning to see the silver lining will help us. How, well that is something we would need to realize it ourself.

Let me just share my thoughts on how I see the silver lining about all the various problems that's going on in the world first and then I'll discuss about my personal life. Let's talk about the global economic slowdown. Major industries have been hit by it and people have limited scope now. But if you see the silver lining, people have more to think and more fields to explore. They can actually finally break the trends and create new trends by studying subjects that many tread to take up, by taking up jobs that were never explored. This will actually lead to various discoveries. What say, have you thought about it yet?

Next, the Mumbai blasts. We have always been abusing terrorists and saying that what are they getting by doing all this. The only way of protesting that we know is by burning the wax. Will that help? No it will not because we need to help ourself. How? Well, we actually need to get emphathetic about the one's who are executing these tasks. There has to be a reason for it and as far as my understanding goes, it is definitely their poverty that makes them vulnerable to all these things. A man who cannot afford two time's meals for his family, will definitely not be educated and will be misguided. How can we help? We are the educated lot that earns a salary, survives in this world and also manages to indulge in luxuries. Why not get a bit selfless, not a lot to ask I guess. Let us see the silver lining and take up our responsibilities and avoid creating any more terrorists. Let us just help each other and see a better world. God that seems like a gyan huh?

Now in my personal life, I went through a major crisis, a crisis that I was not ready to face. But this crisis helped me be friends with complete strangers and I realized that life always gives us a second chance and that Life is surely calling us to take care of ourself and also of the one's around us. Moreover, it also is calling us to enjoy our lives and to "drink life to the brim". Now that the new year is around, cheers to all and enjoy life and always see the silver lining no matter what happens in your lives and in the world. Happy New Year to all. I know it's too early :-)

THE TWINKLING STAR

In the starless night
I look up and pray
Lord, let there be happiness
Let there be peace

The world needs you Lord
Each cry needs you
The homeless, the foodless
They all need you

The starless night
Says nothing; only stares
The dark night
Only mourns of the pain

The world is being shattered
Humans are being crashed
Hopes are being crushed
lives are being squashed

With some hopes
I look up into the starless night
When a twinkle in the sky
Sparkles; Prayers will not be unanswered

I hear a whisper
"Lord is in all humans
Humans won't be crashed
Hpoes won't be crushed
The world won't be shattered
Lives won't be squashed"

In the starless night
The twinkle whispered
"Lord is in all humans
Take the world in your hands
And protect it with each breath you take"

61st Birthday to our FREEDOM

15 th August is just 2 days away and right now what people must be thinking is "how to spend the holiday". The Indian Independence Day has merely become a matter of another holiday, the day when people can sleep till late hours and then enjoy with their kith and kin. However, honestly speaking, I really do not blame them. That one day, all broadcast and print media will make sure that they sing the songs of praise for our freedom fighters, they show movies that they feel can motivate the Indians. But does FREEDOM really mean that? Should we just celebrate the freedom of our nation only that one day when it achieved it? Is the true essence of freedom so short lived that the very next day we forget that we are the free citizens of a free democratic country? Well, if discussed, this debate can go on and on and on but however, the end result might just turn out to be as hollow as we the citizens of free India today are.

The true essence or the flavor of freedom is to be able to take your country to that position where our freedom fighters had dreamt of when they were selflessly fighting at the war front. Freedom fighters are not only those people, who led the battle but also those ones, who had the conviction in their leaders and fought the battle with a smile on their face and with the hope that one day they would see their flag hoisted high. However, today freedom has taken some just other meaning. Today, freedom means the power of self indulgence, the power to hold your head up even after committing gruesome crimes, killing people in the name of religion and God and being selfish.

I would be turning 25 years exactly 3 days after our Independence Day and in these 25 years of my life I have seen only degradation. When in school, I used to be thrilled about Independence Day because I got the scope to recite some of the great poems about freedom and hold a flag in my hand and to sing our national anthem. Today, I can bet that the same things are repeated in all schools and offices and colleges declare this day as a holiday. For the past 3 years I have been living in the capital city of the country and still never had the chance to visit RED FORT on the Independence Day because my parents, who live in Calcutta are scared that terrorists for sure will be in action. Isn't this a real shame. It is my country, my country's freedom day and I am scared of stepping out of the house because of some people, who according to them, are fighting their freedom battle? Have they really understood the meaning of freedom? Am I really free? Have I understood the real flavor of freedom? What do I do when I see kids, who probably can't even speak clearly begging on the roads? I give them a 2 rupee coin and is that my only responsibility towards the country?

I really don't want to blame our leaders or the media people, who try to lead and inform us because it is we, who have given them the power to do whatever they want to. It is we, who have given them the thought that this is their country and not ours'. It is we, who have not understood the real meaning of freedom. It is we, who need to understand the true meaning of this day and it is we, who need to celebrate 15th AUGUST everyday because we have got the freedom but we need to earn FREEDOM. I know that most of you, who will read this post might feel that it is easy to say than to do but if we all are ready to take up our responsibilities as individuals, then we will have 2 billion people serving this nation that it yet to see the true essence of freedom. I definitely will.

Khuda Ke Liye (In The Name of God)

An incredibly beautiful movie, any word or any form of speech is just not enough to describe or even talk about this movie. Almost after 42 years, a Pakistani movie debuted the Indian multiplexes, the debut was indeed an incredible one. On the second day of the release, I went to see the movie and that too all alone. My friends did not want to take the risk of an "intellectual" movie. Like a free spirit, I went to see KHUDA KE LIYE and the 2hours 45 minutes was definitely one of the most memorable moments of my life. One of the most beautiful movies that I had seen in this two and a half decades of my life. After three months I went to watch a film and I felt that the wait was worth it.

Beautiful is the one word that I have been using to describe each and every aspect of this movie, ever since I saw it. A beautiful script, beautiful direction, beautiful acting skills, beautiful people and the most important thing, a beautiful message. Although the movie is all about Islam, Jehad and the condition of the Muslims post 9/11, it definitely has a universal appeal and a universal message. The message has been beautifully passed. The movie released in Pakistan in July 2007 and it debuted in India last Friday. The narrative is extremely strong and it actually has the capacity to grip all it's viewers and why not, no one would want to miss a single scene of such a powerful and beautiful movie. Right from the beginning of the movie, it had that something to make you look deep into it.

The movie travels through the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States of America. And the travel was definitely a journey of all the characters in the movie. Their growth, their confusion over things, their love for things and their survival, their battle, Khuda Ke Liye portrays it all. Whether it is Mary or Mansoor or Janie or even Sarmad, each one of them reside in each one of us. Powerful acting is what definitely needs a standing applaud. It just did not seem that they were enacting their respective characters. I could feel the pain that Mansoor was going through when he was being tortured in the prison, or even when Mary had to sleep with her husband, whom she hated the most in her life. Even Hameed Sheikh was so impressive. His provocative speeches in the name of God had all the tone that one needs to provoke people to do all the wrong things in the name of God. Even Naseer Ud Din Shah, who has a cameo in the movie for about ten minutes showed the power of his craftsmanship. An out and out powerful movie, the actors have made a huge contribution in making what this movie is. Hats off to the director the movie Janab Shoib Mansoor, who had the courage to speak out the truth, to make such a beautiful movie and this is his directorial debut and nothing could have been better than this. Such a marvelous debut had not been seen for a very long time. He definitely deserves a standing ovation.

Khuda Ke Liye is engrossing, passes a beautiful message, is a an eye opener and speaks the universal language of survival. I would not want to talk about the story line of the movie because each one of you who reads my blog, it is my request please watch the movie and spread the word. It is a lifetime's experience and one should not miss it. Now one of the other things that stole my heart and made me fall in love with it again is the music of the movie. Incredible music, simply superb and engrossing. Each of the songs have something to say, something to mean. However, my favorite track of the movie is Bandya Ho. Reason, the way the song has been shot. Absolutely beautiful. In fact, after watching the movie, I once again feel like learning the instruments, they say so much, they can unite people, thoughts and even souls. I really do not know how many of you would like my blog because that is not my motive behind writing this blog. All I want to share with you people through my blog is that please go and watch this movie that is par excellence and feel the goose bums that you get while watching it. Enjoy the music of the movie that lets your spirit free and yes, in the end if your tear rolls down for Mansoor, don't stop it KHUDA KE LIYE

moving ahead in life

"Change is the only constant thing". Change, it's inevitable and no matter how much we hate changes, changes don't seem to leave us alone. Change, time changes, trend changes, everything changes and we too change. Journeying through the various paths of life is so full of events and changes. When I look back at life today, the only thing that comes to my mind is how many changes I have had to go through. And its not only me, it is with everybody and we manage to accept most of the changes, no matter how good or bad they are. But there are some changes that leave behind so many memories and it actually becomes so difficult to forget those days when the change had not taken place. There are so many people we know at one point of time and probably in the next moment, the people are all gone. There is nothing left, we don't even know whether we would get another chance of meeting those people. My friends say that each person, who comes into our lives, comes for some purpose and when the purpose is solved, they leave us. Is this the reason why that we make friends, we gel with them, we feel that yes they are the people, who constitute our world?

Why is change such a necessity and why do we have to move ahead in life by leaving all the people and the old circumstances behind us? I can bet that it is not easy to do that but since we are not left with any other option, we consciously accept it but somewhere, like today, it is coming out of me, it comes out of each one of us. Even we are happy but there are some aspects and some people, who we wish were still with us to have let us be with them. Well, I wish that life would not have meant to move ahead without the people we really want to be with, rather being with them would have made the journey even better. Life is about saying in your mind to someone "I MISS YOU, WISH YOU WERE WITH ME".

We, only we can make the difference

Well, this will be a small post. In the last post I spoke about the attitude of men towards women and since then, I felt like showing that post to my boss. Showing him the post came into my mind because I thought that it is high time that someone should actually start making a difference. Well, I don't know how successful it would be but at least I know that I have been vocal about my thoughts and that some men just cannot stop me from being the way I am. I did show him the post and even asked him to put up the print out on the soft board, so that everyone can read it. His first reaction to this was whether everyone will be able to comprehend it or not. I simply highlighted the portion where I had mentioned about the office nuisance. He agreed to me, however, also mentioned that people should not know that I have written it. My reaction to it was that I actually do not mind writing my name on that paper because people should know what I feel and what I think about them. Moreover, he also promised that he would send a mail to each one saying that complaints against male employees of the firm have come up regarding their behavior and therefore, if they are not careful in the future, severe actions would be taken. I am definitely feeling happy about the whole thing and the best part was when I sited an example of slapping a bus conductor in Delhi because he was drunk and was misbehaving. The only reaction he gave was do not do this, to which I said that now since I have actually told him about my initial indirect reaction to that jerk in the office, now I would actually not mind letting him directly know my thoughts and letting him know that he is jerk and the only things that makes him a man are his balls.

This was not a big thing that I did but yes small things can give us the courage and these small reactions can actually let these men know that it is high time and we are here to make the difference in our lives and for this we do not need to take the help of any man. We, only we can make the difference.

"woh tan se takatwaar hai, aur hum man se"

For quite sometime my friend and me have been discussing about these issues that are constantly haunting a woman. The bad looks on a man's eyes, the way they react when they see the species from Venus and definitely, the increasing number of molestations and rape cases and not to forget, the eve teasing cases. In one of the blogging sites, we across these topics and I felt quite amused to read some of the posts where it was clearly stated that we women ask for it and therefore, get it back. Now my title for this post is taken from a serial that comes on NDTV Imagine. I watched the serial yesterday and one of the female characters in the serial was molested by some galli ka chokras because she did not want them to put colors on her on the occasion of holi. After the incident, one of the elderly ladies of her family said the line. Though the statement is a common one, but still it actually left a lot of impact on me, probably because I have been thinking about these things for quite sometime now. Now let me translate the statement, it means that physically men are no doubt stronger but from the mind it is the female gender that takes the award or the winning prize.

Well, definitely we all know that women have always been subjected to n number of things, be it letching by men, eve teasing or anything. It is not only on the streets that we women actually feel as if we are being stripped naked by some odd men. Even the corporate world also does not seem to be untouched by these highly shameless activities. My work place too has people, more precisely, men, who would not even think twice before passing that dirty look. Well, it is not that I wear revealing clothes, I do know about workplace decorum and therefore, know how to follow it also. And it is not only with me but my entire team that comprises only of female employees. For quite sometime, I managed to be a mute spectator but then my conscious always cursed me for being that. Finally one day I decided to quit my mute attitude and get back to life. I decided not to directly tell the person what he is doing, instead by being quite loud, I indirectly told him that his weird way of looking at us is not accepted by us. This did have an impact, now the jerk does think twice because he knows that here is one woman who knows how to distinguish between whats wrong and whats right. However, this is again circumstantial because most of the times, we ignore such ridiculous behavior due to some or the other fear. Fear is definitely an important factor, in fact, we are scared of most of the things in our lives.

However, why is it that most of the times it is we women, who prefer not seeing the truth, prefer being silent? We are at no means lower than men, then why we and why not them. B e it your boss, your boyfriend, your husband or even your father, why not just put across your point of view to them. No body has given them the right to crash our hopes, cut down our wings, no they do not have the right. Sad enough but the truth is that we have given them the right. Now it is high time that we take back what we have given them and show them that yes we are here to live our lives on our own terms and anyone, who tries to invade the space would get it back, be it in a subtle or a harsh manner, they will get it back and that also from us, the descendants from Venus. Its pay back time.

Trying to compensate the clumsy saturday

I just thought of letting everyone know that even though I was half dead working on Saturday (remember my blog "Clumsy Saturday"), I didn't know that my Sunday and Monday would do wonders to my life. Well, Sunday was the usual meeting friends and going for outings to the same old malls in Noida, trying to do something adventurous, Monday was amazing fun man.

Monday morning I manage to get up at 8 a.m. to open the doors to let my maid in. She works and goes away and then begins my day. With the cosy quilts to make me feel warm, I was rolling on my bed in a deep sleep and yes, I do drool when I sleep. Sandeep says that I drool because I talk in my sleep too, I have no doubts on that, I am quite capable of doing that too. I love this modesty in me. Somewhere at 10 I felt like getting up and taking a shower but then the one thought that came to mind was who gets to know whether I have taken a shower or not(dirty I am I know ). Given to my laziness, I thought of lying back, not having lunch and not talking to anyone over the phone. This is one day that I always wanted to live, even if for a day and I am sure God listened to me. Finally I managed to pull myself out of that bed to have a cup of coffee at 6 p.m. That's evening. I had the coffee without brushing my teeth. Well, managed to take a shower too and indulge in tarot reading. Well, at 9 p.m. I again found myself on my bed to fall asleep, well, only after talking to Sandeep. Did that too and had a sleep once again.

Today, that is the 15 th of January, Tuesday, I got out of bed to realize that I need to go to office. Well, I wont crib because I got the day of my life, a day that everyone wishes to get, even if for once. A day that makes us feel lazy even to brush our teeth. However, how do these matter when you simply want to indulge yourself in a nice sleep, remember "Lyadh Khawa". I wish this day again comes in my life soon :-)

A CLUMSY SATURDAY

Its a Saturday and I sill can't believe that I am sitting in my office. Saturdays were never working for us but good things only stay for few moments. Alternate Saturdays have become working now and I am still in a dilemma that why do we work on Saturdays. My super boss thought of calling off his decision of keeping Saturdays working and sad enough...I have not yet come across his decision. The force of my office seems to be just 30% and greatly, my entire team is sincere enough to be in office today. Gone are those Saturdays when I managed to open my eyes at somewhere around 11 in the morning, just to have a cup of tea or coffee and again go to sleep. I call this "lyadh khawa" in bengali and I simply loved it.

Sitting at my desk, trying to work on my laptop today simply makes me feel like a bog of nonsense who has nothing to do in life but to work, work and work. Well, I can bet on the fact that this is something that each people in my office today is feeling. Ranjini, my best buddy in office has not yet started her work. She works and I get the impetus to work.Therefore, it is understandable that both of us would do nothing today. I am simply feeling like calling my super boss and telling him that we don't want to waste your resources....let us go back home and sleep. Man I am hungry for a nice sleep. Probably a movie in the afternoon with Sandeep could have been really good. But man proposes, God disposes. I had really prayed that Saturdays do not remain working. GOD ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME????
P.S: I wrote the post today on 12 th January, which is a Saturday. I don't know why its showing it Friday 11 th January