Oblivion

As I sit here waiting for the ball to drop, I can't help but think about the year that has passed and the one that is about to come. It has been one hell of a roller coaster, with a lot of blind alleys and sharp turns. And also some good times as well. All of this made me grow up in a worldly sense and made me a little more prepared for the world that is waiting out there for me. When I step out into the world this coming year I will be a little more confident with a bright smile on my face. A new year brings hope to every single person, a fresh start. A do over if you may. It's like when you would buy new school notebooks and promise yourself to maintain it properly or at the beginning of every semester you vow to study well. It is a blank canvas, waiting to be painted by you yet again, and every time you get a blank canvas it is up to paint it vibrant or mellow. It's like when the clock strikes 12 you get redemption from everything of the past year. And this is p

What is wrong here..?!   Delhi is one city that is close to my heart. I love it despite the pollution, the crowd, the heat and well the occasional traffic. I love all of it. Delhi is a city that accepts everyone with open arms and has a lot to offer. But lately, when I look at the news and I see rape stories and molestation cases it just leaves me angry and hopeless. These incidents just keep happening every other say. Because of such incidents Delhi has come to be known as the "Rape Town". People laugh at us and make jokes about the situation here and hold prejudice against this majestic city. To us, the people of Delhi, it is refreshing and fun and very beautiful, for us it is home. But if you go talk to an outsider, you will see Delhi under a completely different light. To them, Delhi feels like a supremely unsafe place with incessantly increasing crime rates. This has gone to a point where none of my college friends ever want to live there, and moreover, the very ide

It's been 11 years since Monica and Chandler moved out of the apartment. That was one big moment for the group, after which they all really did grow up. Their lives went into six different directions, but they still try to keep in touch. The keeping in touch does not go very well with their busy lives. But they try to meet at least once a month at the coffee house, and swap stories like old times. This has now become a tradition. Also they always always go to Monica's place for thanksgiving where she cooks them a delicious meal and the kids run around and have fun! Monica and Chandler moved to the suburbs with the twins, who are now 11 years old. Monica is not only a chef at one of the best restaurants in NY but has published two cookbooks as well. Chandler who started on a new career path is now booming in that field, He is working at a great advertising firm, but he prefers to work from home (at least half the time) and stay with the kids. They have a perfect littl

I am on a plane on my way back to college after a week of pure leisure or to be precise laziness. At 10,000 feet in the sky, squished along with about 150 odd people on a vessel, with no way to escape or "get off". You have to ride out the journey. And mine is a pretty long one too, 2.5 hrs sitting in one seat that barely gives me space to stretch my legs! What is one to do in a situation where you have no means of entertainment and you have to sit with patience for the next 2 hours or so! Well, you start looking around at your fellows passengers. For  me this is a bit more interesting because I am on a flight to goa. Goa is sort of like the Las Vegas of India, where people go to sin! So as expected my fleet is made up of an odd bunch of people, a group of college students going on a trip, family vacations, newly married couples, foreigners or people looking to escape from it all. Next to me is sitting a couple, speaking in a foreign language, maybe Russian, they

There is a popular game in India called Rassa Kashi, or commonly known as tug of war. It is played a lot in India and there are proper tournaments and competitions for it. Athletes train regularly for it, basically it is a not just a game, here it is a sport. This game usually has two teams on the opposite sides holding a rope, and trying to pull it towards themselves. If you have ever noticed, it is a pretty thick rope, and holding on to it when it is being snatched away from you is pretty hard. Firstly there is a lot of friction involved when the rope is being tugged on by two ends, and due to that friction a lot of heat is generated and your palm may get burnt, also secondly, holding on to something so tight when someone else is trying to snatch it from you can give you bruises, and not just those tiny ones, deep bruises and maybe even cuts. You might be wondering why I am suddenly talking about this. Well, I have a good reason for it. I am trying to draw an analogy t

Today I sat with my mom and cleaned my college room. And I realized I was a hoarder! I just have too much stuff in the small hostel room of mine. And most of it is pretty useless, just sitting in the corner, accumulating dust, occupying space. I did not have any reason to have them there, adding to the existing clutter in my room, but they just had to be there. My mom would throw these things and I would quietly put some of them back in my pocket. And she just could not understand why! At the beginning neither could I. While cleaning out my room, something I realized was that this junk, crap in my room, wasn't just random useless stuff lying around. It was memories I had accumulated over the last 3.5 years in my college. This "junk" was my college. I had a pair of broken sunglasses from a road trip I took with my friends a year ago, I had the department ID card from my first ever Waves (our cultural fest), a drink stirrer from one of the many many nights,

These are moments that change our life in ways we can't even imagine. They can significant and insignificant at the same time. They could be something as huge as a promotion or an unfortunate accident or as small as losing a girl's number or a traffic jam making you late or one of the countless moments we go through in our daily life. For those of you who have seen the movie "The Vow", are familiar with the concept of "Moments of Impact". As a matter of fact the whole movie is based on such moments. For those of you who are wondering what this is, here it is. Well basically, these are events or incidents that change the course of our life and in turn define who we are. These moments need not be gigantic or huge, but they impact they have definitely is. You might not even notice how even the smallest of decisions changed your life and led you to where you are today. There is no way to know which of the moments in our life are the ones. No one is standing

It is a general opinion that a person's college life is the best time in his or her life.It is probably because in college there is a lot of freedom and not a lot of responsibility. We have the liberty to be carefree here because there isn't a lot of risk involved. It is like a transition phase from being a kid with restrictions and being an adult and totally independent. College life gives us just enough independence. And this comes right after the gruesome two years, where most of us study for more number of hours that we can count, have coaching classes and tuition and what not. Basically back then we were so involved in entrance exams and calculus and organic that we did not have time to look around and have fun. And also we were living with parents under restrictions and not a lot of room. It's like you are sitting in the driver's seat but the car is being controlled by a remote control. Once we come to college, that remote comes into our hands and we have

The smell of the fresh earth and the wet mud, the dew of the leafs, the pitter patter on the ceiling, I love everything about rain. I love how it makes people stop whatever they are doing even for a second, but that is enough.I love how these tiny drops bring the kid out hiding behind our pile of chores. You all must of heard about beer goggles. It is the name given to this concept where when a person is under the influence of a alcohol, they supposedly perceive things different that they normally would. For me that is rain. The technical term for such a person would be a pluviophile. Nature also greets rain like an old friend, reunitig after days. Everything becomes beautiful, you can see luscious greenery everywhere you look.The earthy smell of rain, just takes your mind of everything. And if the sun happens to be around, you can witness a picturesque rainbow spanning the blue sky and several tiny ones in the drops that fall. And that rainbow! Ahh! Brings back so many child

                            "You don't realize the value of something until it is gone" All of us must have heard it time and again, in books, movies or speeches or sometimes even from our elders who are trying to teach us a lesson. It is normally used as a warning, when people see us being casual about something or someone. They tell us to be careful and give it proper importance because once it is gone, then we might realize how dear it was to us and might end up regretting it. So we need to more respectful of things and people we have in our life and not take them for granted. True, all of it is true. Every single word makes sense. But then. But what if something or again someone is gone and it doesn't make much of a difference in your life. Things go on more or less the same. The same sun rising in the east, the same shining moon, the same awesome weather (that is if you are in goa, which I am :P), and same boring lectures. It's as if they were p