A vice called Advice

Advice; we come across this word in a number of scenarios.

When we actually need someone to guide us and to tell us what to do, based on his experience, we are seeking advice.

When we guide someone or inform someone regarding certain scenarios based on our experience we are giving advice.

But sometimes, I find that most people overdo it. 

There are some ladies and gentlemen who can advise (I am shifting to the verb now) on anything under the Sun. Career, relationships, studies, transportation, general knowledge, you name it.

They keep scouting for people to give advice to, and if you are caught by them, you can assume you are atoning for your sins for the next hour.

Some people give advice and act as if they are enlightened people while doing so. They will put in sentences pertaining to non-material things like the meaning of it all, the consequences of karma etc etc repeatedly between paragraphs, and they wont realize that they must have started off with advising you on which train to take in the morning to go to college and might very well end up advising you to change your stream of engineering. All throughout the conversation, they will have some sort of an aura on their faces and after they have finished giving you a earful, will heave a sigh of relief that they have done their bit by trying to reform an irate youngster.

Another set of people will start off by talking about their list of achievements and how they struggled to achieve what they had to, and how our generation does not have any respect for elders. It doesn't matter that you asked them about their favorite song, they don't care. They will go on listing the number of degrees acquired by them and how they cracked this examination and that examination to the last detail, even including the bargain they struck to purchase some books 30 years ago from some shop which might very well not exist anymore. They will end by telling you to try to become like them, although they doubt you will and will tell you to come to them anytime you need some 'advice'. You can assure yourself that you would have forgotten your favorite song, by the time this discussion concluded.

The next set of people are not from the older or previous generation, they are from your own generation or from a generation before you (one engineering batch might be assumed to be equal to one generation). These people are start and stop adviser's . They accomplish something then go around publicizing that accomplishment under the garb of advising others. Once they get bored talking about the same thing (of course, after they have bored thousands of others) they sit down and start working on another achievement. Once they have achieved something, the cycle of accomplishing and advising starts again. I appreciate these people because they work the hardest to update themselves and to provide new avenues of advisory services to us, the younger generation, notwithstanding the fact that we are just a couple of months younger. 

Another set consists of caustic people, who will find fault with the way you hold your spoon when you have dinner and will extrapolate it to conclude that you will never be a good manager or boss in your life and will start  enumerating the list of qualities you need to imbibe to become that manager or boss; and yes they will start by showing you how to hold the spoon all the way to how you should dress, talk, polish your shoes etc etc. These are the most dangerous and you need to do your best to avoid them, because they are capable of making you believe that you are useless and good for nothing which is a super power that they possess. 

The last set of people are those who have traveled and who will advise you on how to talk to people, decipher directions, and order food when you visit another country. The course will start from the moment they step into the airplane, which if not an airline based in India will add a couple of hours to the discussion since all aspects of the journey, replete with the choice of entertainment channels offered on the airlines' inflight entertainment system will be described to you in detail. 

This is simply to tell you that they have been abroad and you haven't and you can only prolong the seminar with your "Oh I see" ," Really?" "Wow, amazing, awesome" laced sentences.

I actually try to avoid advice givers or advisor's (I call them the former, they call themselves the latter) simply because they tend to waste my time. If someone wants to gloat about his or her achievements, I am not averse to listening to them, but not under the pretext of advising me. If someone has been abroad, good for him or her but I really do not find any sense when they share their experience under the pretext of advising me. 

These advice givers in my opinion, are simply looking for validation and acknowledgement from you for their status or perch in society, profession or academia, which they should understand cannot be given by you and I, who are just normal people, living normal lives and wanting to talk normal things and not being advised all the time.

There are very few wonderful people who actually empathize with you and try to make you think about finding solutions to your problems by delving into their file of experiences and trying to help you relate to them. These people are few and far apart, and most of the time will advise you only when you go to them seeking it. I respect these wonderful people who actually know the real meaning of the word advice and add value to my life and your life. 

Advice is good, advice is required, but for the right issues and from the right people, when it actually projects from experiences, wisdom and the core basic intention of helping others; 

Otherwise its nothing but a vice...

Those moments when we don't want to talk....

I used to talk a lot.

I used to think that voids should be filled with words.

I used to talk to impress people. I used to talk to seem social. To befriend them, why so, I have no idea.

Sometimes, I don't feel like talking.

I feel like lying down, staring at the ceiling, or look at the sky, or close my eyes and listen to a melodious song.

Rarely, very rarely, I feel like listening to the silence around me. It doesn't seem intimidating. It feels pleasant, calm and quiet.

I realized that when we talk we are actually battling a lot many emotions. There's commotion in our minds. Our hearts seem to be filled with emotions, mind with thoughts and we spew them out in the form of words. We talk when we don't need to. Shout when we don't need to. Converse even when we know that the other person doesn't appreciate the conversation.

We realize it. We sense that the audience isn't interested in what we are saying. We keep talking, keep advising. We do it because we are not at peace within. The wells of thoughts are overflowing and we pour out some thoughts in the form of words and sentences without an iota of awareness of what surrounds us at that time.

Nowadays, I feel that when we speak a lot, we seem to be doing the audience a disservice. We do not seem to add any value to them, and neither do we add any value to ourselves. The same thoughts keep whirling in our minds. We keep shifting from the past, to the future to the present and back to the past again, imagining things.

But there are some moments in our lives. Moments when we do not feel the urge to talk. Those thoughts seem to make themselves invisible for a while. We tell the future to wait and the past to leave for sometime. We immerse ourselves in the present. We think of nothing, almost nothing. We listen to the silence around us.

We seem to make peace with ourselves in these moments.

We talk a lot when there is a lot of conflict in our thoughts and fear in our hearts. When the thoughts disappear and the tide of fear recedes, we don't talk.

We listen. We listen to the silence around us. We listen to the sense of calm pervading us.

We listen....

The Cartoons of the Nineties

I recently observed how kids nowadays keep playing with tablets and watch some really advanced kind of cartoons on television.

It took me back to the Nineties, the age I grew up in.

The programs which I used to watch then were,

1.Duck tales

A tale of a miserly Uncle Scrooge and his mischevious nephews. The highlight of this program used to be the money bath that Scrooge McDuck used to take in a pool filled with gold coins.

2.Talespin

A program where the lead hero, a bear who works as a pilot, his no nonsense lady boss and his assitant, a cute bear who is an aircraft mechanic. It was fun to watch Baaloo, the bear, bungle up flight duty and his boss reprimanding him and his assitant fixing the plane. I really admire how the whole thing was built, straight out of fantasy with the bear wearing a flight jacket and all and driving an amphibian plane which used to land in a perfect and beautiful lakeside port.

3.Small Wonder

This one was about a Robot girl called Viki if I am correct. The program revolved around the robot girl, her father (A scientist who invented her), her mother and her brother. The father was called Ted Lawson. It gave us a glimpse of an American household and the amenities that an American house had since it was shot in an indoor set, that of a house in America.

4.Tom and Jerry

This was the funniest of the lot and both Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse were cute and used to make us laugh till we cried by chasing each other and trying to outsmart one another. The background music played a very important role. One could not imagine this program without the background music.

5.Heidi

I dont know how many people used to see this program. I think it came in the early 2000's and was about a cute little girl called Heidi who lived with her Grandfather in Switzerland, if I am correct. I used to be fascinated by how European countries looked in the past as the animation was wonderful.

6.Thomas and friends

This was one program which fascinated me to no end. Astonishingly this program was shot with the help of miniature train sets and different emotions used to be portrayed simply by changing the front face of the engine. This program used to make me yearn for a huge train set of my own, the size of Sodor Island where I could play with trains and hear the engines go 'Toot toot'.

7.Captain Planet

This program had Captain planet as the protagonist who used to be called by 5 kids called the 'Planeteers' symbolizing the five elements of nature, viz, air, water, fire, earth and heart. The villain was called Captain Pollution. Actually when I think about it now, the premise of the program was good. It educated young kids about things harmful to the planet.

8.Swat Cats

This program had two cats, whose names I forget now, who used to run a junkyard and below which stored their plane which they used to fly to save people. Talk about high tech for kids. The floor of the junkyard would open and the plane would take off from there into the air. Cartoons of those days could stretch ones imagination to its limits.

9.The Jetsons

This program was about a family living in an ultra modern world where they flew in glass bowl type planes to their offices and had houses high up in the sky perched on needle shaped pillars.

10.The Flintstones

Completely oppisite to the Jetsons, this program was about a family comprising of Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, his buddy Barney and his wife Bettie. It was set in the stone age but had an amazing twist in the form of Fred and Barney driving to office in cars which they had to push with their legs. It also showed stone houses which were a mix of an Igloo and a cave's design. This program left me thinking about how the World must have been in the stone age.

Nowadays I see kids watching things but somehow dont see that fascination in their eyes when they watch cartoons.

I used to be fascinated by those cartoons and used to really enjoy watching them. It helped, I suppose that some of these cartoons were a little futuristic and left me wonderstruck about technology.

Cartoons in those days were a World of their own, where us kids could get lost for a while and return fascinated and awestruck, to the dreaded homework that schoolteachers used to give us to do.

That magic seems to be missing in the cartoons of today. I might be wrong but I do feel it.

The Deccan Queen

I find myself at Pune Railway station on a nice cool morning. Normally, the first thing I do when I enter a station is to look for the board or Television set which displays the platform on which my train is berthed.

Today I wont need to do that, as I am traveling by the Deccan Queen, the most prestigious train in the Mumbai Pune section. It is always berthed on platform number 1. This I suppose is done to enable the passengers to alight from their vehicles, walk across the platform and hop into the train. Similar to the manner where prestigious trains like the Pallavan Express, Vaigai Express and Pandiyan Express are berthed on platform number 3 at Madras Egmore.

I walk through the main entrance to find my coach C4 stop just opposite me. Talk about luxury and convenience. I have been alotted an aisle seat this time, but its in a set of two, so its quite convenient.

The Deccan Queen has 4 AC Chair car coaches, two of them reserved for season ticket holders. The train starts right on time and slowly crosses Pune yard and the Sangam bridge.

After Shivajinagar the engine notches up and the Queen shows her true colours, proudly steaming towards Mumbai. Funny, the phrase 'Steam out' was used for trains many many years ago, since they were hauled by steam engines then. I day dream for some minutes trying to imagine the Deccan Queen speeding with a steam engine at its helm.

Waking up, I read a paper which has been distributed to all the passengers, 'The Golden Sparrow'. Funny name but quite a good paper, only problem being the issue was two days old. 

At Lonavala, I walk across the vestibule to the Dining Car. The Deccan Queen is the only train which has an on board restaurant car, where food is served in bone China crockery with knives, forks and spoons. Even the menu seems to have been left unchanged and reeks strongly of British cuisine. Bread and Cutlets, Omlettes, Sandwiches, Cheest Toast, Baked beans for the Vegetarians and dishes like Chicken cutlets and Fish N Chips for the carnivores.

Cutlets with toasted bread, served with a fork and a knife. 

As I was savoring the cutlets, the Queen came to a halt inside a tunnel, ensuring that the window side seat on the dining table wasn't going to be of much use to me.

After this I ordered a plate of Cheese toast.

It was crisp, hot and delicious.

To complete my adventures in culinary paradise I asked for a cup of coffee, which was served in a cup, with a saucer. I couldn't help but dream about me being some official from the past who was enjoying his morning breakfast, since the food was served in such a grand manner.

The total bill for this delicious spread along with a one litre bottle of mineral water came to Rs 100 which made me smile a little more as I paid the waiter.

Post breakfast I went back to my seat and spent the rest of the time dozing. The heavy and delicious breakfast did have a soporific effect and I took advantage of it to travel to dreamland for a while. 

Meanwhile the Queen seemed to be blazing the tracks to cover up the delay and slowed down before Kalyan and seemed to run slowly in a manner which the train must have found frustrating.

The Deccan Queen finally entered Dadar, delayed by around 20 minutes, which made me feel a little sad as an on time arrival would have ensured that I had been treated like royalty for 3 hours and 20 minutes, traveling by her majesty, the Queen of Central Railway, the Deccan Queen.

The Pragati 'Superfaaast' Express

Its around 0715 in the morning when I reach Pune railway station. There's a nip in the air, Pune feels nice and comfortable. Normally I take the Deccan Queen to Mumbai which leaves from platform number 1, but today I have opted for the Pragati Superfast Express (As the station announcer always insists on emphasizing the word 'Superfaaaast' to convince passengers).

A couple and two men come running to platform number one, probably to board the Deccan Queen. One gentleman walks towards the edge of the platform, looks towards the right. He then looks towards the left and jumps pointing to the end of platform number 1, 'There it is'. His friend takes the cue and both start running. The station clock says 0718 and the Deccan Queen has left sharp at 0715 and seems to have slowed down to negotiate the points.

Looking at the two chaps running, the couple also seems to have got inspired and they start running. Looking at this group running, in start and stop mode the Deccan Queen also seems to have got inspired and starts running once she clears the points. The two chaps and the couple run for a while and seeing the 'X' mark on the last coach going farther and farther away, they stop and stand resigned.

After watching this, I start climbing the bridge to board my train, the Pragati which has been announced on platform number 5. As I climb down from the foot over bridge, the Pragati is just being shunted into the platform. I start walking and board my coach 'C2'. The Pragati has two AC Chair Car coaches and I secretly hope C2 would be the one with large windows. Sadly, it is the old Mumbai Pune liveried AC Chair Car coach with square windows.

I locate my seat, a window in a set of 3, and settle down for a meditative nap, one which makes the onlooker think I am meditating, when I am actually dozing. Sharp at 0750 the Pragati inches out of the platform. It negotiates the points and slowly screeches past Pune yard. After crossing Shivajinagar I suppose the train has had enough of a warm up session and starts jogging. Come Dehu Road and the Pragati is on a sprint.

Breakfast orders are taken and I opt for Bread and Cutlets. Breakfast arrives and the cutlets seem to have been flattened. Surprisingly, breakfast is delicious and post breakfast, I decide to enjoy the cozy environs of the coach and doze off with Alka Yagnik and Arijit Singh crooning in my ears.

The Pragati meanwhile enters Lonavala and leaves after a short halt. The ghats are crossed at a sedate speed and the golden brownish tint of the windows doesn't help when it comes to admiring the scenery. Still, some views of the valley below are breathtaking. Satisfied I go back to listening to music. At Karjat the Pragati takes a different route. All the other trains between Mumbai and Pune reach CST from Karjat via Kalyan, while the Pragati travels on a single line between Karjat and Panvel.

This single line is a treat to the eyes, since it has 3 tunnels and one seems really long judging by the time the train takes to cross it. This line is sparingly used and the Pragati and the Pune Bhushaval Express are the two passenger trains which use it. The Bhushaval Pune Express is waiting at a small station to let our Pragati Superfast Express fly by. The Pragati being a Superfast has priority on this single line section. The Bhushaval Pune Express stops at the 3 or 4 stations between Karjat and Panvel while the Pragati skips all of them.

After a while the Pragati crosses the  Mumbai Pune Expressway over a girder bridge. Don't ask me why but I find this sight majestic. The Pragati stops just before Panvel as the points are set for the Mangala Lakshadweep Express to Ernakulam. Once Mangala clears the points the Pragati is admitted into the platform. Many passengers alight here. This train seems to be convenient for people working in New Mumbai.

The Pragati is off again and starts trundling towards Thane via Taloja and Nilaje. I see the Lodha township near Nilaje, and it seems quite vast. The Pragati joins the Thane Kalyan line at Diwa and after crossing the Parsik Tunnel pulls into Thane.

At Thane the announcer welcomes the passengers who have arrived by the Pragati 'Superfast' Express and requests them to keep their tickets and passes ready for inspection, to avoid delays.

I think the train heard the announcer mentioning 'Superfaaast' which refreshed its memory, because after that the Pragati ran like there was no tomorrow. Mulund, Bhandup, Vikhroli, Kanjurmarg were crossed at Maximum Permitted Speed. It slowed down near Kurla and again notched up to MPS near Sion. It entered Dadar at a very high speed and creaked to a stop.

My journey ended at Dadar and the Pragati was delayed by 10 minutes. Since it seems to have some slack built into its schedule from Dadar to CST, I surmised that it would end the journey with a delay of around 5 minutes which is right time as per Indian standards.

I was delighted to travel by this train. I do like and admire the Deccan Queen but the Queen is late by around 20 minutes whenever I have had the privilege to travel by it and that does dilute the experience of traveling by the most prestigious train of the Central Railway. The Pragati Express on the other hand seemed to prove its 'Superfaaast' status and managed to keep the delay to a minimum.

As I was getting out of Dadar station the announcer again welcomed the passengers and reminded them about the 'Superfaaast' status of the Pragati Express. I agreed....

Roads......

I step out of every phase of life,
With my best foot forward,
I try to walk towards the places I had dreamt off,
The roads are unfriendly,
They dont seem to take me there,
I fight with them,
I argue with them,
I reason with them,
I know where I want to go,
I tell them,
My walk is steady and steps determined,
I shall reach there, whatever the time,
We heard you walk, the roads say,
We have seen many like you make their way,
We extend from the source to the end and beyond, Oh traveller,
We have seen the nights, days and dawns,
You want to go to the place of your dreams,
We lead you away from your chosen path,
To show you new places,
If life were all about imagining and going where you wanted to,
Then why go there, Oh traveller?
If the place is going to be the same as the one you dreamt off,
Why see it when you have seen it before?
If that was all there was to life,
Just imagining a place and going there,
We wouldn't be needed Oh traveller, nor you,
The word destination contains the word destined,
The roads try to lead you to what is yours,
Whether you run on them, crawl or walk,
Whether you choose to look down and grumble,
Or look up and walk,
That is left to you,
When you reach somewhere,
You will see us again,
We dont start from somewhere and come to an end,
It is you who starts walking and stops,
It is you who argues with us and talks,
Be friends with us Oh traveler,
Let us show you the World,
We are as rough or soft as your thoughts,
And as long or short as your strides,
Talk to us, walk with us,
You and us, Oh traveler,
Are together what is called life....

-Aditya R Venkatesan

A 'Cinematic' experience

No one uses the word 'Cinema' nowadays.

It is derived from a French word 'Cinematograph' which in turn is derived from the word 'Kinematograph'.

Kinetic means motion or to move and graph means to write. Kinematography means moving and writing or writing while moving. Movies are made in this format, wherein the picture is recorded (graph)when the recording device is moving (Kinectic).

Theatre means a place for viewing. Since the images shown at theatres in this art form used the medium of Cinematography, they were called 'Cinema Theatres'

Long story short, a Cinema Theatre is a place where moving images are shown.

With the passage of time, they were simply called 'Cinema'.

A couple of years ago, we used to say, "We are going to the cinema" and a cinema theatre meant one with a single screen with a beam of light projecting some images on that huge piece of cloth.

Later on Multiplexes made their mark and we started saying "We are going to watch a movie" or "We are going to the movies". The word "Movie" is again derived from the word "Motion".

Today, I actually went to the cinema.

I saw a movie at Deepak Cinema at Lower Parel.

Deepak Cinema was started by a landlord named Tokershi Jivraj Gandhi in 1926. It is an 89 years old establishment and honestly I had never heard about it before.

A friend of mine wanted to see "Bridge of spies" and booked tickets at Deepak Cinema. Deepak Cinema now has a joint venture with an organization called Matterden CFC a creative company specializing in the field of media and technology.

Deepak Cinema now calls itself a 'Boutique' cinema and screens old hollywood movies alongwith the current blockbusters.

My friend had booked the tickets online and we were looking for a place to get our tickets. We are nowadays used to automated kiosks which spew out the tickets when the booking id is entered.

At Deepak Cinemas we had to obtain our tickets from a small ticket window. At the entrance we were greeted by a gentleman who told us that the movie did not have an interval and advised us to purchase any snacks that we wanted before we entered.

This is how the facade looks like,

As we entered, we were surprised to see that we had entered an open courtyard, an "Aangan" as it is called in Hindi, through an archway.

Quite a different entry. Nowadays, since we are used to the modern multiplexes this was something refreshing.

The courtyard had wooden benches and tables for people to sit, just like the ones at picnic spots or at college canteens.

A small kiosk at the corner served snacks and beverages.

As we entered the cinema hall, we found that the seats were arranged in the form of rows parallel to the main screen, unlike the semi circular layout that multiplexes use. This cinema hall had a section on the ground floor and one on the first floor which used to be called "Stall" and "Balcony" respectively in the good old days and nowadays are generally named after metallic colors or constellations.

The seating layout was really comfortable. One problem I have faced in a semi circular layout is that for a person sitting on the left side, the right side of the screen appears less bright than the left side. This cinema hall also seemed spacious and the legroom was great.

The movie was good, the cinema hall, great.

A different experience after a long time. Sometimes its nice to see some refreshing changes when it comes to theatre's. Watching a movie at Deepak cinema took me back in time. An old world ambiance with all the modern comforts and features.

After a long time I actually had a 'Cinematic Experience' today. I felt as if I had been to the cinema, and not simply watched a movie.


References,
http://www.mid-day.com/articles/lower-parels-deepak-talkies-new-and-improved/15141078
http://www.iamin.in/en/mumbai-south/news/deepak-talkies-opens-doors-classic-movies-39712
http://www.iamin.in/en/mumbai-south/news/deepak-talkies-opens-doors-classic-movies-39712
http://www.iamin.in/en/mumbai-south/news/matterden-screening-lawrence-oliviers-hamlet-lower-parel-43349
https://www.zomato.com/mumbai/the-cafe-matterden-cfc-lower-parel/info#tab

Magical Interludes

I like to listen to music, primarily Old Hindi songs, Arijit Singh, Rabbi Shergill, A R Rahman, Amit Trivedi, Tamil music too, Harris Jayaraj, K S Chitra and some old songs. I used to listen to them on the go, with the help of earphones.

After a while when I started feeling that I actually wasn't listening to them, just hearing them. I used to think about everything except the song playing in my ears. I ditched the habit. I then needed another instrument because I simply have to listen to music to refresh myself. I dusted the Creative speakers which were sparingly used and connected them to the computer. 

I started listening to music as I used to years ago. When I was listening to music on the go, I actually wasn't listening to the songs. I was hearing them no doubt, but not listening to them.

When I started listening to music the old school way, with the help of speakers and a woofer I actually started listening to it, not simply hearing it. It also helps that the speakers are loud enough for me to sing along yet not let my voice undermine that of the artist.

I observed something about great songs and great music composers. A couple of seconds in those particular songs are what make them magical, moments of magic, if I may say so.

Sometimes it is the combination of instruments, the singers voice when he just lets go, the powerful lyrics in that stanza or a single instrument playing for a few seconds and then all of them playing together to reach a crescendo. 

Those seconds could be called a finale, moments of magic, cascading notes etc etc.

I prefer to call those seconds of a song, magical interludes.

A R Rahman's songs have them in abundance. Those few seconds I feel are what add to A R Rahman's magic. The few seconds in Chinna Chinna Aasai where Rahman's sings. In Ishq Bina from Taal all surrounding sounds disappear and a lone violin starts playing, followed by Sonu Nigam's voice

Amit Trivedi's songs have them too, in Zinda unplugged wherein again all the surrounding sounds wane and disappear and Amit Trivedi sings "Hawa se jo maanga hissa mera, toh badle mein hawaa ne saans di". At the end of this stanza, Amit Trivedi lets himself go and it is a moment of magic listening to his voice reach a peak and all the other instruments start playing in sync immediately after that .

Hard to forget "Kabira" from Yeh Jawani Hain Diwani sung by Arijit Singh, when he sings "Teri manzilon ko chuke bata, tera raasta, tere guzre dinon se jaga tera vaasta". The lyrics....

All great songs have such magical interludes. They are what make that song immortal and a masterpiece. They are the reason those songs feel new even when we listen to them after a long time

Those interludes do not seem to belong to a genre, time frame or age, they seem to belong to the composer who thought about them.

Start making a list of your magical interludes and start adding those songs to your playlist. :-)

Reasons for writing on a blog....

Long time since I wrote on this blog. Really long time, about 8 months.

Why I didn't come around to write something, lots of reasons.

Many a times when it comes to actually writing something, I found that articulating ones thoughts and forming words and then typing on the screen is not as easy as it sounds, especially if I have frivolous reasons to try and use fancy English words so that the readers admire my English. Then I find that the fancy words are not exactly helping me say what I want to say.

Then there is this eternal dilemma. When I wanted to write, I didn't have anything to write about, and when I had some thoughts worth sharing, I didn't feel like writing.

Another reason for not writing on the blog is that sometimes I used to feel that there isn't point writing something if people are not going to read it and make loads of comments. That is pure ego talking there. I realized the absurdness of it all. That shouldn't be a reason to write something on a blog. Even if those comments do come, not all of them will be good and that is not a great reason to write something on a blog.

A blog should be meant to convey thoughts, it need not be a trendsetter, or a trailblazer of sorts.

If many people like me go through what I do, feel the same things and then when they read my blog, they find that they are not the only people with that particular point of view or opinion, that's enough I suppose.

I did travel a little, I could write something about that. When you are sitting in your office on a Friday evening, tired after facing the week, a cup of coffee in hand, piles of emails to send and reply to before wrapping up the weekend, a small experience would be nice to entertain you for a while.

I did form some opinions and introspect a little more about life, maybe something about that.

So now that I understand or rather I am clear about the purpose of my blog, merely to share my thoughts and experiences and not worry about 'Views' or 'Likes' or 'Comments', you will surely see me writing more.

The road is long

Life is a journey,
The road is long,
The world tells me to stop,
But I want to get to the top,
How do I get there?
Why do my legs end up in a snare?
A voice from my heart keeps getting louder,
Inch by inch it calls me yonder,
It tells me to keep moving,
It tells me to keep going,
As the years go by,
I might laugh or I might cry,
I have to keep up with its pace,
And the distance I have covered will give me solace,
Life is a journey,
The road is long.....

A night for which there doesnt seem to be a dawn...

I think something,
I say something,
Whatever I say,
People seldom like,
Whatever I think,
People never hear,
Whatever I say seems to hurt people,
Whatever I think never reaches people,
My thoughts are always good,
My intentions are always pure,
But I dont know why my speech seems unsure,
Maybe my mind doesnt talk to my heart,
In my dreams I wake up with a start,
The thought that I might have hurt someone taunts me,
My own speech seems to haunt me,
I try to learn every single day,
I try to keep my thoughts at bay,
But my minds war with my heart is always on,
Like a night for which there doesnt seem to be a dawn...

-Aditya R Venkatesan

Why do I feel so sad today?

Today is one of those days,
The steady routine of this monotonous life is interrupted by sadness,
In the din of happiness sadness pierces the heart,
I cant understand the reason for it,
Just as I cant understand the reasons for  exuberance on certain days,
My mind knows what to do,
But my heart wont listen,
A lot many memories flood the mind,
The dam of emotions shows a breach,
There is no reason for it,
Maybe some remnants from the past,
Fear of the future,
Or some experiences for today are responsible,
Tomorrow I'll again be the same,
To be confronted with this feeling again...
-Aditya R Venkatesan