together on the mountains

The cold winds blew against my face as I tried to keep the flaps of the tent intact. It was just 8pm,
but upon the Himalayas its bedtime, especially in the autumn.

After the first day of trek, we had just set up the tent besides a stream upon a hillock. I don't remember much about the landscape as we were too tired after all the excitement and exertion. Everyone was just getting warmed up and the mountains were just starting to become taller and more imposing.

After a messy dinner under the lamps( which attracted a hell lot of insects ), we decided to call it a day and get some sleep. This was the first time upon the mountains for many of us and first time in a tent for all of us. Many were getting accustomed to the weather, altitude, exertion and food and hence our group resembled more of a medical camp than anything else.

But being upon the magnificent Himalayas made me utterly happy and let me overlook the minor pains and difficulties.Even though we were tired, we all enjoyed the day's trek and looked forward to covering more distance from the second day.

I quickly wiggled into my sleeping bag, which was one off the 6 bags that now fully occupied that filled the tent. We grumbled about the uneven ground beneath which we could feel, and cracked jokes at each other for a while before those noises turned into slow snores.

I must have just drifted into slumber when I was woken up by the distinct noise of ringing bells. I sat
up startled and tried to imagine the source of the sound. The sound kept moving around the tent, and was accompanied by a strange crunching sound too. Now, I was really scared and tried to wiggle my head out of the sleeping bag in a hope to hear more clearly. It took a moment to realize that the pack horses were grazing on the meadows where the tents were put up. The wave of relief was replaced with one of panic when the horses started running amok and we feared getting trampled, as the stakes that held the tents were being pulled out by the stampede.

Then some of us started shouting and shooing the horses away, while some even got out and drove them away. The others lay inside, shivering, fearful of the horses, listening the noises outside. After maybe half an hour of the mayhem, everything went quite and the snores rose again.

The next day morning, we woke up one of the most wonderful sights in our life, and everyone had the story of the horses on their excited faces. There we were, together, the gang made of all kinds of people, clubbed into one cozy crazy gang, stepping out of our warm tents onto the icy grass and looking forward to taking on more and more adventures and lots of crazy fun.

suspended reality

while its not so easy to comprehend or reflect well on a life that's hardly taken its baby steps, one does feel the increasing gap between one's perspective of life, and its priorities from what one has learnt in life.

Some moments feel suffocating, a few liberating and most take the middle path.  While the agility seem to be sacrificed, niceties seem to be new guests. But niceties have a bad character of not being as stable as adversities and tend to draw more of the latter, leading to one's alarms going off now and then.

The trick is to decide whether to snooze or to wake up.

Its a challenge, its a trick, its a mystery, its a trap, its redemption, its punishment, its a blessing, its destiny, its a mistake, its a dream, its an adventure, its a poem, its a reality, its a myth - its life :)

crajjjyyy people

crazy people attract more crazy people, thats the way it is.

Craze is a vicious circle, or rather a spiral of sweet intoxicating ride through the maddening the drums of one's passion. Some get high for a moment while it might last for an entire life time for others.

Enjoy your craze, take chances, make mistakes, but be ready to pay for them and walk away when the time is ripe and seek new adventures and keep your craze and your soul alive along with it.

Better to burn away taking chances than fade away waiting for everything to fall into place by itself..

Look up to life

Naresh sir was popular among students of New Crescent High as the most notorious maths teacher ever.  Even the most daring students would scamper away when he walks by the corridor. No one dared to miss his assignments or tests. Such were the stories of those who had fallen before them that lent him the aura of a demi-god.

It was on a fine December morning that Tintu walked into the corridors of New Crescent High, freshly transferred a village school. Tintu's father was a government official and hence transfers were everyday matters for Tintu and his sister who had studied in 5 schools by the time Tintu was in the 9th grade.

It might have been due to this that Tintu held no interest in sitting for too long in classrooms, as he wouldn't be sticking around too long anyway to ruffle up anyone's feathers. He preferred to loiter in the corridors, and playing football with students of any grade who are available on the ground at the time of his liking. And maths was the subject he hated the most, since according to him it lacked a sense of purpose beyond just proving theorems which were proved centuries back, or somehow obtain the magical statement "LHS=RHS".

And it didn't take long for Tintu to lock horns with the demi-god of New Crescent High, Naresh sir. These two were often found in the corridors arguing about something or the other. Naresh seemed to hate the boy and didn't make private his intentions to debar Tintu from the final exams. This infuriated Tintu even further and he kept his antics going on, but he was thoroughly depressed and wanted to quit school.

One afternoon during lunch break, Tintu happened to pass by the staff room and heard his name being taken. Out of curiosity he eavesdropped on the conversation and realized that it was none other than Naresh speaking. But what he heard shocked him. Naresh kept on talking loads of niceties of Tintu to the fellow staff and kept on saying how he too was like Tintu in his childhood and how hopeful he is for Tintu's future. He even revealed that he had purposefully not failed Tintu and kept on adding insults at regular intervals to keep him motivated. He even reminded the staff  not to spill any of this to Tintu or to other students.

Hearing this, Tintu broke into tears and ran into the toilet and hide himself. He realized how badly he had been ruining his own life and that he has found his true teacher in Naresh, whom he had hated from day one at the new school. It took a while for him to clear his eyes, mind and throat. He  now had a reason to look up to life, and he walked out to meet Mr. Naresh at the corridor and met his staring eyes with an eye of appreciation. After a moment's shock, Naresh realized that his efforts hadn't gone in vain and hugged the boy.

Search for a new base

The way life takes one is sometimes a riddle for even the best minds and thinkers amongst us. Hence one fine morning I found myself distributing my wedding invitations and taking queries about preparations. Everything about getting married looks rosy(well, at least it did :P ) except the task of moving away from the bachelor house and settling in a house of one's own.

I must admit that it was quite challenging and I felt overwhelmed at times when faced with the various complexities of searching for the 'right' house to start our new life. Being a foolhardy and easy going traveller, finding a solid house was almost the opposite of what I knew about life, and that troubled me somewhere inside.

The usual way people do these are by talking to some real estate broker and get them to find the right place. I had done that myself a couple of times when looking for new places to live as bachelors. Well, now the game was being played at a different level altogether, and I had the innate sense of responsibility creeping up my guts slowly. Not only did I have very less time to take chances, I had to ensure that I counted various factors in selecting a home that I have never considered important in my life.

That made the whole 'operation', and yes that's what I like to call it, very interesting. I had tactically tried to evade the entire task by waiting for my fiancée to be transferred to same city and same office complex. I unwittingly kept on procrastinating until the day was upon me and my marriage was merely a fortnight away. At this point of time, I pushed myself off my bum and decided that I wouldn't go via the pesky real estate agents and rather put my own time and get the house myself, thereby saving some money too. *Pride*

(image credits peloruslearning.com)

But this meant that I had to spend a lot of time researching on the real estate conditions, checking available options and comparing them aggressively. I had heard about many online real estate websites that help in finding rentals at ease. I swear I must have heard at least 3-4 names repeated by various sources, and often with conflicting comments. Unable to come to conclusion by hearsay, I decided to put my time on it, and started off with a couple of them, scouring the sites, customizing my options and slowly learning what's for sale on the internet.

I found at least a couple of websites to be really good with the interfaces, but when it came to the quality of data, I found housing.com to be the best option. Not  only was every single ad and owner contact number accurate and up-to-date, they even had a mechanism to interface between owners and buyers, helping in making calls and sending reminders. This helped me especially since I would get return calls from owners I had contacted while I was riding my bike searching for the houses. Housing.com kept on providing me info on missed calls I received from owners and let them be tracked properly.

I must have visited at least 25 properties in a span of two days but when I was standing inside my current home, with the best deal one could get, just on the second day, I even suspected that I made a mistake somewhere. While this might sound like an ad, I must admit that I realized afterwards that if it wasn't for Housing.com, I wouldn't have found the home that we call our wonderful adobe right now. The story of its discovery is another topic in itself, but nothing short of serendipity, a word that I fell so deeply in love with :)

Anyway, here we are, one month after our marriage and with a good jump start for our exciting life ahead, feeling thankful for the presence of friends, relatives and some good neighbours that were found thanks to the time I decided to spend on the internet efficiently.

an outrage and then an afterthought

sometimes,  its just too hard to bottle up emotions and accept things.

That's one of the many extreme emotions I experienced after watching the BBC Documentary titled "India's Daughter" covering the incidents of the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case. And that ain't even the most extreme ones, because the nature of the contents of the documentary is such.

This video is banned in India, but BBC has decided to air it in UK, and it has been doing multiple rounds in the social media, generating many a fiery discussion, outbursts and many many more silent and guilty hearts.

The video interviews the main accused and he narrates in detail the incidents of the night, alongwith his justifications and motives. Narratives are also recorded from all the perpetrators' kin and also of the victim and others involved, giving it an overall picture of everyone's story.

To add to the gruesome nature of the crime itself , the lack of remorse displayed by the victims and the nature in which they accept it as a natural course of action makes one wonder if we are living in the same nation about which we talk so high and mighty on 15th August every year, or share the same values we like so much to boast about everywhere.

While its natural for a defence lawyer to argue on the side on his client, the deeply set mindset against women empowerment even among the highly educated, rich and respected men in the professional of legal practice lets ones belief down heavily on the society. I found it harder to sit still hearing their continuous banter against how women must conduct themselves. Statements like "We have the best culture in. In our culture, there is no place for a woman", uttered by the defence lawyer and the claims by another lawyer to set his own daughter on fire if she disgraces the family, just shows how deeply rotten things are down under the glossy image of "culture".

While its really a blessing that BBC has made this documentary and as Javed Akhtar stated in the parliament, if men watch this and feel its content is bad, they should also be ashamed about how they treat the women around them.

But after watching the heart wrenching 1 hr documentary, my heart keeps asking me "how many such videos would have to be made for this to become just a bad memory", and the answers I can come up with aren't anywhere near being rosy.

Somewhat in-line with what the documentary tries to expose by taking statements from the accused and their kin, and several other experts, the root of all this traces itself back and forth across various issues that we hear about daily, like poverty, unemployment,dowry, nepotism,caste etc. Strong divides between the rich and poor, powerful and downtrodden, leads to criminals taking birth in larger numbers with such notions of unequal share of power with the fairer sex. Clubbed with our society and political system's inability to cater to any one set of values consistently without media attention or direct benefits, all these stick for long times and keep coming back "after" someone has to go through the agonizing pains.

Afterall, how long did the tremendous and immensely passionate youth protests last? Did the rape crimes come down? Did the percentage of reported cases go up? Did we, collectively as the society and administration address any of the root causes with the required passion? I say the answer is no. I say this problem lives on with us, and every living moment has to be spent on correcting what we can, learning from our mistakes of complacency and keeping vigil to not let our society breed monsters within our people. And all are our people, both victims and accused.

This doesn't end here...

hella..

hella folks.. just wanna say hi.

I haven't gone anywhere, but I am yet to find the much required feathers for the missiles in my quiver.

Feel short of volleys, but the blades swish past and generate the needed spark once in a while.

Right now, sleepless head wants to rest :)

gnite folks