Mita de apni hasti ko, agar kuch martaba chaahe,
Ke daanaa khaak mei milkar, gul e gulzaar hota hai....

                                                                   .............. Allama Iqbal.          

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

                                          ............Robert Frost

Cheapsters !

I do not understand this at all. How can some people manage to surpass the cheapometer standard they set for themselves progressively each time? I wish I could be one of those people who can stick to their determination and say "Neither do I forgive nor do I forget". Unfortunately, or fortunately-I don't know, it is with great displeasure that I admit I'm amongst those who forgive easily and probably forget soon too :-/
It is this attitude or inborn trait that makes my life miserable. Making the same errors over and over again. I think I must resolve to not loose my guard and stay focused on forgive and don't ever forget and never give a second chance to the person again !

A Good Evening .....

After hours of pouring into piles of papers, rummaging through every self mailed files on my email account, hunting for images and videos on google, making and remaking and remaking of a handful of slides, making hazaar mental notes on stuff, I FINALLY FINISHED MY JC !!

I was very happy with it. If I were truly being honest about it, I did feel I could have done better or added more detail. Of course, whether I wanted to speak further about them or not, my audience, who were already minimal in numbers, would have reduced to sub-zero :-P 

The best part of it was, I was relaxed about it. I generally never am. I get all fidgety and oh my god oh my god kinds. Maybe because it was more informal, it felt safe and conducive. We were just a bunch of girls sitting and talking about things we know and about those we/I don't. Yes, none of the boys turned up, my boss included. My parasitic castration joke went down the drain with it! :-D

I then followed PH to her usual hangout urf kiosk. It was a lot of fun sipping coffee under the golden-mauve-grey-orange lit sky. Again, another relaxed and peaceful setting. The sky was so beautiful that I kept wondering about how painters or artists capture those colours on their canvas. Mixing of colours, the right way, in the right amounts. Bringing out the plain colours to life.

I went back home, after ascending and descending some buses here and there. :-D 

Although I felt peaceful and ready to hit the bed, the sleeping plan never reached its completion. My mom was one of those lets talk moods, so, I couldn't go ahead with my secretive sin of sloth. Completely exhausted, with deep sunken eyes, here iyyam, writing my blog. Distraction distraction go away, come again another day, little shalu wants to lay, so ..........!

Before I sound more drunk and remotely sober, I shall put and end to this.

Point Blank / Bull's Eye !

Its one of those days, I have been itching to finish writing four to five drafts that I began writing since 1947 a love story ! :-P More so, because I have a presentation to give tomorrow. FYI, I have just finished making the slides for introduction, which I believe will take up more than half the time allotted for the talk! CBag's voice keeps ringing in my head each time I see those eight slides with truck loads of information that I "intend" to disseminate :-/. 

Meanwhile I decided to take a break. I have been taking one for the past one and half hours now by the way :-P. For once I wish I could turn into a pumpkin or something as soon as the clock ticks four in the late afternoon today :-/. I suddenly remembered that PH sent me something to please my ears earlier in the afternoon yesterday. I decided that while I'm anyways vellaofying my precious time, I might as well listen to them. I opened the lyrics of the songs while I was listening to them simultaneously. Before I could finish hearing the songs I ended up reading the lyrics of the entire song. Can't help it with my restless, it sets out of my mind like light waves ! Aneehoooo. By the time I reached the last paragraph of the first song tears already started streaming down my gargantuan cheeks. Stopped right after I finished reading the second song.

Sometimes words, in any form (uttered or on a piece of paper or from a song), feel like they stroke the precise chords inside your head. Like they had access to what you wanted to hear deep deep down. Like you have been waiting for someone to say it out loud just for the heck of it. Not because they carry a promise that things "will" change or be different from now. Because it helps to regain your strength through the reassurance they posit.

I don't know why PH sent me those songs. But they hit the bull's eye in my head ! Thanks a lot :-)

Tick tock. Tick tock ! I shall go back to my preparation. I'm already running late on my set time to finish the slides. Aza Aza fighting :-D !!

You Have an Infectious Smile

You're the type of person who always finds something to smile about. You have a sunny disposition. Your smiling ways catch on quickly, and before you know it, everyone around you is smiling too. Instead of waiting for something to be happy about, you look for something to be happy about. It's a subtle but important difference. Even in the worst of times, there is something you can be thankful for. And that puts a smile on your face.

What Kind Of Smile Do You Have?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

       

You Are a Classic Heel

You pride yourself on being detail oriented. You never forget about anyone or anything. You are constantly evaluating your life and trying to improve. You believe in continually making small changes for the better. You hold yourself accountable for your actions. In the end, you have to live with yourself. You are a perfectionist. You notice and are fussy about every little detail.

What Kind of Heel Are You?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

   

You Are Beloved

You are adored and loved by many. People care deeply for you. You are a great person, and everyone knows it. You are well liked. You go beyond being just popular. You are highly regarded and respected. You are highly admired and cherished. Many people want to be like you.

The Watercolor Flowers Test

Blogthings: A Fine Line Between Insight and Stupidity

       

Lunch table Trivias ! 

A few days ago we were talking about a lot of things. One of them was about being homo-phobic. I was discussing about it with ketchup also one day. Ketchup was the one who pointed out that guys are more homo-phobic than girls. I took a moment to think about it. I did agree with Ketchup but then I wanted to think about it objectively. I did come to a conclusion that most men are indeed more homo-phobic than girls. I wondered why though !!

Is it because their ego and social image ka damage is something they are always gaurding ? Or is it that they cannot go through the whole "what is wrong with me man?" stuff because such an identity crisis could also cause the aforementioned ? The cow went through one such episode. I could tell that although he was pretty flattered, he kept pitching in this "I was scared for my life" sentence all along the story telling :-/. He also seemed highly surprised when I said that maybe I wont freak out if something of the sort happened to me. Initially I thought that I would but then again I realized maybe I wouldn't after all. I kept shuttling between these thoughts and I decided that there is only one way to know and then I finally realised that the possibility of such an episode happening with me shall never arise!

We moved onto how some people consciously or unconsciously become cold when introduced to new friends or meeting known yet distant acquaintances (perceived as cold from people who know that you are a lot more nice as a person in general except around new people). NW keeps shifting personalities with new and known friends. I admitted to the fact that I found it immensely annoying to talk to her initially because I thought that she gave too much bhaav to speak to me then! Same goes for the cow and the new member at the table then. I was shocked aaaaaaaaaaaaaand tongue tied. I sat there as a minority at the table and I didn't have many defenses. The reason being I was trying to accommodate this fact that its human nature to not hold langotia yaar [ :-P] conversations with strangers or even acquaintances. In spite of this I found it hard to believe that such a thing does exist. I thought maybe it is reluctance or plain disinterest or a kindly-bug-off-I-dont-know-you attitude. But it still didn't seem to sink in and make sense. I keep telling myself that I'm kind of a shy and an introvert - at least to strangers iyyam. But I must admit that it only lasts for the first three meetings beyond which it gets extremely difficult for me to not show my true avatar !

Dissecting out the reasons for such a behaviour led us to this topic of how you are bred from childhood and the cultural background you come from. I strongly disagreed to this. I didn't want to sound all forthright and adamant and so avoided avoided verbal confrontation by leaving the topic there. I agree that it could contribute to some extent, but most of who you become comes from your own personal experiences. NW was thoroughly ragged by me and then she gave this piece of information that I reminded her a lot of her ex-room mate (thankfully a person she likes!).

Something happened today, one of my friends came to the campus to visit me. NW spoke a lot to her and then pointed it out herself that she is surprised she spoke so much with her, given the fact that she DOES give a cold treatment otherwise :-D!

I don't have much to conclude from this, but I do know that for whatever reasons, some are more gregarious than others. Although it was  a little difficult for me to digest this, it still is, I came to terms with the fact that the nature of a person is something that cannot be questioned or justified using one or a few explanations. Some like crowds and others avoid it; some are introverts and others are not; some talk more and some don't; some are homophobic and others aren't; a perfect "coffee bite" thing! :-D

I've officially lost "it" !!

Yes, I have! To begin with I didn't have much anyways. But off late, I feel like I have really lost it. If you are scratching your head, then here it goes. The "it" is nothing but my "sanity" :-D

Not very long ago, I had undergone some level of discomfort about the fact that there was no company to socialize and talk about matters that mostly amount to nothing but garbage :-P. So I started a club in my own head. We meet all through the day, have reruns of the jokes that had occurred in the past, jokes that we read about or saw on some show or the ones we overheard/heard from other people's conversations or witnessed a funny event or jokes that are cracked in my parallel world while I'm still conversing with people in a group, etc etc and the list goes on. This kept me occupied and the entertainment value was stellar for sure. The downside of it all was, or still is, that its kind of uh.....hmm......uhhhhhh......ooo.....uhh....ummm....odd, there! I said it ! Yes, it comes off as being a freak show altogether. Of course, we do not care about such notions or firm opinions in other people's heads. Nevertheless, this constant need to conform to the societal norms of behaving normally distracts me sometimes. But I have mastered the art of ignorance is bliss.

The past few days have been hilarious. Hilarious in my head. This is not hilariousness shared with others over a common joke or event. I'm mostly far from it. I have officially lost it, and I'm just not capable of holding or containing a laughter riot inside my head anymore. And so this inability to suppress of course has become more transparent than ever. I just plainly sit by myself and laugh out loud continuously in intervals of every fifteen minutes. The good thing is I'm happy and excited all the time. But the bad thing being, "whats up with you man?" or "what just happened?" or "are you feeling ok?" or the grotesque question mark/surprised expressions, etc etc. 

I wonder then that the world has become so messed up that a person like me can't even peacefully laugh by myself if I wanted to. I mean, I'm not going around bad mouthing others, or calling them names, or behaving badly or disturbing intentionally or affecting their lives in some way. It is so important to join the bandwagon all the time. Be like the rest. I guess therefore you don't get a ride. Because the sense of belonging in a gang is lost. Whatever. Who cares (chuckles) :-P :-D? I don't mind being stationed right where Iyyam :-)