Two Boats

Well it’s been a long journey. And I’m not yet tired. There is still so much left to explore and discover, and even if we run out of things to explore and discover we will have a nice time basking in the memories of our journey. Although a part of me wants that this journey never end, and we travel together all the time, but another part of me knows that this will not be possible. We can’t be in the same boat when we have to travel to different destinations. So unwillingly I have to accept the inevitability of the fact that you and I will travel in different boats for quite some time now.

I know that even though our destinations are different and we both are equally unsure about our reaching them in time, we are guided by the same drive: hunger for achievement. All psychology students will tell you there are primarily four drives in a human being. I consider the drive for achievement to be the dominating one in both of us. After all, we didn’t come onto earth to live and soak in its beauty without contributing to it in whichever way possible. And when we have a chance to choose the way, why not choose the best and make it large?

At times, the way we’ll choose will make us run after it, run all through the day. There will be a point where we’ll feel like giving up on the chosen way and also, on ourselves. Ah! But that is the real test of passion, to hold onto your choice even when nothing around you seems to be making sense. To stay with your choice when the world is telling you to give up. To stay determined. There are ought to be moments when you feel down but remember your greater purpose, the reason for your drive and keep moving. There is no problem if you move slowly; the problem arises if you refuse to move. So don’t.

There will be moments of utter happiness and satisfactions too, enjoy them, but also know that they too, like moments of sorrow are temporary. Remember when Chandragupta Maurya won a battle he did not spend away all night celebrating, he rather started to plan his next move. We need to move with that focus. We need to make our names that large, so that kids centuries after us, know who we were and why we were.

Needless to say there will always be up and downs and we have to face them both with equal courage and foresight. The reason why a term for a roller coaster going only up isn’t coined is because it is highly improbable. The two have to co-exist, up and down, black and white, sweet and sour; that’s what makes our little time on earth worthy of remembering.

We both are similar and not same. I don’t expect you to take the same decisions I consider right, but I do expect you to not take a different decision just because I chose the one you wanted. We can share.

What remains at the end of the day is only how much we contribute, in our own ways, and how close did we get to our greater purpose. I hope we both always remember this and keep moving. After all, there is going to be a time when we both will be on the same boat, for the same destination, again.

This is a piece of work I wrote for my best friend an year ago and never had the wish to email it.

 

The Tremors

I had no intention of dedicating a post to this topic, I'm not much of a Geography-Geology enthusiast. But. what happened back yesterday deserves a post!

As all my class-mates already know, it's summer-vacation-time and we have our exams the very first day our educational institution re-opens. So yup, we are supposed to study this whole vacation for the tests! Not that I dislike the vacation study part, I personally take a lot of time to understand a single lesson, sometimes even four to five days (yes, that's abnormal I know) and am usually crammed for time to finish all my lessons. My speed, no wonder. So I'm really glad about the vacations. 
Yesterday I wasn't reading any lesson, I had decided to take a Two-Day-Long-Break to just, you know, rewind and refresh (ya, I know that's abnormal too :P ). So I was lying down on my bed wondering about the various ways our new Prime Minister-in-Waiting could change the country within the next sixty months, when my cell phone rang. It was my cousin and we soon began to babble about a melange of issues. After we finished all we could think of talking at that time, I handed over the cell to my sister who had just walked into the room.
I went out to the drawing room to catch up on IPL. Barely had I sat down on the sofa, when I felt the ground trembling. For a moment I felt I was imagining and feeling things that weren't even real.I told dad that I felt the ground shaking, expecting my statement to elicit a roar of laughter from everyone in the room, but thankfully it didn't. Dad said he felt it too. It suddenly struck me that it could be An Earthquake and within no time my mind flashed images of the moving tectonic plates, just like the ones i had drawn in my geography test back in eighth grade.

Without even a moment's thought I yelled "RUN!" and just as soon as I said it there was a second round of shake and this one was way more stronger. I bellowed out to my sister who was on the phone to run out and I dashed out of the house. Almost immediately my sister and parents followed. My neighbors too, rushed down the apartment,all in their night-suits (it was around 10 in the night, what do you expect?). Everyone began asking if everyone else was fine and related things. some of my neighbors who live on one of the higher floors said they saw their furniture moving. My mother was of the same opinion about our house.
After about 15 minutes of a desperate wait for nature's fury to stop all of us decided to go back in. As usual, I was the first one in. I entered my room to check if everything was alright, what hit was another sudden realization- I was shivering.
I don't know since when I had been shivering or for that matter 'why' I was shivering. I blame adrenaline now (fight-or-flight, remember?) . Soon everyone was home and we dined quietly and retired to our beds after having thanked god.

When I think of it now, I'm just so glad to have gone through this experience. It was such a different zone altogether. It makes me think how assured we are about our lives, of  how a slight tremor gets people rushing out of their homes. It makes me wonder about how guaranteed we take Nature and her laws, of how small and insignificant we, as humans, are compared to her.In all the chaos of the earthquake and the subsequent effects it had on people, one thing is crystal clear- The Earth does not belong to the Humans, Humans belong to the Earth.

How To Read Khaled Hosseini

Well isn't a set of hard and fast rules you need to follow in order to read Khaled Hosseini's books, this post might just help you read and understand him and his books better.

1. Khaled Hosseini books are ALWAYS an emotional roller-coaster:

 Be mentally prepared to face a lot of ups and downs in his books. There is a twist here, and then, a turn there. There are even dramatic revelations when you least expect them. Like in The Kite Runner the Truth about Hassan is so dramatic that it took me a while to put the story back together and join all the pieces together. There are moments of elation, even universal happiness if I may so, and within a few pages you might already start feeling sorry for that high you felt.

2.Try To Start Reading On a Weekend:


 This one might not apply for every reader, but it did for most of my friends. They started reading on a week day and they soon found themselves unable to work, play or concentrate on something else wholeheartedly. Their mind kept reeling back to the book, it's story, its characters and what would happen next. That is the Power of a Khaled Hosseini book, it's addictive and it has something for everyone. So try to begin reading when you have enough time to spare. It can be a weekend or a vacation or whenever you feel you'll be able to read the book at a stretch without neglecting your work or play.

3. Keep a Tissue Nearby:

  If you cry at the sad scenes in the movies or at despairing and sorrowful parts in books, it's better to keep a tissue handy. Khaled Hosseini's books are filled with Lilliputian details which might at times get the better of your emotions. and before you know it tears will be coursing down your cheeks. Also at times, the book will get you're adrenaline running, the tissue might help with the sweat too.

4.  Be Ready for Some Farsi and Urdu Words:


  Needless to mention there are word directly from Farsi and rarely even Urdu. they don't fill the entire text up, and it is not like you will not understand the book if you don't know their meaning. Mostly, Hosseini gives the meaning of the words in the context they are being said very soon after they've been used, sometimes it's the immediate next thing after the word. However, in order to get what I call The Feel of The Book, try to get the meanings of the words and find out under what circumstances they are usually used.

5. Let the Story Flow:


 Numerous themes are there in Hosseini books, all interwoven beautifully. Try your best not to abandon the book before it's over. The story might get slow at times but Do Not give up. Don't try to think of alternative tracks for the novel till you finish it, after all the writer put it all there after considerable thought. So, basically just let it Flow.

A City and Two Sides.

I had written this piece a long time ago, in my summer vacations around an year ago when I visited my cousins in Patna. I happened to read it again and decided to post in up here.

It’s not even been a week here in Patna for me and I can already feel at home here. I agree Patna is not one of the best capitals in the country where one would like to rewind and refresh; you don’t have the benefit of great roads, cleanliness in every nook and corner, smooth driving, first class showrooms and so many more. There is a crowd at every second place, there are people talking way above the normal audible level, at some places there is not even something to call a proper road!

But then there is always a second side to the same coin! The flip-side, believe me, is indeed alluring!  You won’t see it sitting in a part of the city. It won’t come walking towards you to say "hello!"  But having said that, I would also say that goodness and beauty is subjective to every individual, I can only give you an account of how I experienced it in Patna.

Patna is the capital of Bihar. Here, you see people, irrespective of their social standing, enjoying themselves. People here are less bothered about who the president of the USA is, and more concerned if India will win every cricket match it plays. Every small shop has a TV where people flock to see cricket matches and cheer real loud even though they are thousands of miles away from the venue of the match. This is a part of the love and support that the Indian cricket team enjoys in the country.

The languages spoken here are also so diverse. Though my friends group it together saying its Bihari, but hey! That’s not the only language people speak in Bihar. You have Angika, Bajjika, Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili, each enchanting in itself. Each language has a different tone, a different texture and a different feel that it gives to both, the hearer and the speaker. When I think of making a generalization about the feel of the languages I can definitely say that it they are sweet, give a feel of belonging, and want you to understand them(or maybe that’s my minds playing tricks.) Bhojpuri, one of the loved Indian languages has its roots and also its maximum number of speakers, in Bihar, though not in Patna. In Patna, you get to hear almost every of the above mentioned language. The speaker speaks in his language and the listener responds in his, therefore when you go to a shop and speak to the shopkeeper in any language he will invariably respond in his mother tongue. If you, at any given point of time stand in a crowd and listen, you can hear the various languages all in the same crowd.

That’s not all. There’s a lot more than what meets the eye in Patna. I do not want to make it a boring essay by going more into details  but I can surely say that in Patna, yes, there is chaos, but under it there flows calmness and understanding.