The "Journey"----Part II

                                                    The Journey- 2

"The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt signs. please ensure all seat belts are fastened and all trays are secure in their upright position. We will be landing shortly so on behalf of Qatar, thank you for flying with us and we hope you enjoyed your flight"

The voice from the cabin crew coming over from the intercom was almost faint and yet robotic in speech. A faint buzz passed through my ears before the voice almost broke down and then stopped. This was almost a long journey flying around half the world finding pieces of my life still open. I almost fell sleep the last night when i begin remembering the bad memories which i had in my early childhood days. Yet i was reluctant to take up this journey. As its told a bad phase is always a god sign that there are good days ahead. the night is always dark before the dawn. and somehow I found myself related to this phase quite a few often. Not that my life was eminent of only bad goings it did have some good and positive things to look forward to. The body was almost numb after being seated for 7 hrs flight from Doha to London. The book I got the other night from the pavement was still in my bags and yet for this long hrs i didn't want to read this book.

The flight was rough with regular turbulence but the people were more interesting to me than the weather. Much to my luck of which bad luck had the largest count if it had, I got the middle seat. An overweight women was on my right who would use me as her pillow on almost the maximum duration of flight which i even willingly allowed her and to my left a grown well teen of around 17 with god knows why he was travelling alone on this full flight. While the descent announcements were made the young teen was courteous enough to offer me a half eaten pack of peanuts. When I shook my head he sniggered and stuffed a handful into his mouth chomping with bits tumbling from his mouth on his almost white shirt.

As my little bit of good luck would have it i was one of the first off the plane only to be the last to collect my luggage. A failed attempt of an Anger Management student would have found himself in the middle of yet another session but i tried to keep myself relaxed adjusting my Watch to a new time zone and keeping the track of the snow that was ahead of me when i was to go out of the airport. With all the procedures of the immigration and visa finishing i went out of the airport and signaled a Taxi to begin a new chapter of my life where there is a quest for finding solutions to some questions which were left unanswered. some people who never cared and some issues which needed to be resolved. I call this part of my life "The Journey"

The Journey

                                                The Journey

                                      PROLOGUE

Words of wisdom

"God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."

      When Chander came upon this piece of writing it struck a very deep chord within him. This was mainly attributed on his personal circumstances too. As Stephen Greenblatt had quoted “Art always penetrates the particular fissures in one’s physic life”. He just found out to be true. How strange that simple things which he books had to offer shows a lot of light on oneself. Today he would relish for the fact that he has survived 10000 days of existence in this wicked world. It would merely mean a number to others, but to him it meant 10000 days of struggle, pain and all complexities that life would have been better had he born a different person.         

      With just little hope he went to the central library today when he saw a book which just costed him 100 bucks. With such a rate he would certainly not buy a diamond but that would even not stop him from buying a book.  He would always consider books to be an open source of wisdom that preach some important lessons without paying much. 
      The night was just a regular night in his life where he would embark on a 10 min walk from his work place to home. Then it was followed by his regular dinner which included some shrimps and rice and would occasionally settle down for boiled potatoes too. However today he did have that book which he carried from the central library. Having finished his dinner he just embarked on a journey that the book had to offer him once he started reading it with the words of wisdom at the top.

                                                                CHAPTER 1

Cluttered in the protective arms of my mother was me where I could possibly behold all the happiness of my life. Well to be frank I never felt the warmth of the sun as enduring and caring as I felt being hugged in her arms. My memory would be faded as I was born but to the farthest corner of the world if I remember I could recall my innocence of the age when it came when I was around 2 yrs old. Those little memories I had had flown along with me since I grew in this miserable world.  A very diminishing image of my father had grown in me and I could recall him coming back to see me as soon as the clock would strike 5 PM. A little could I believe with both of my parents around me I would surely have been one happy Soul? Probably one last time where I could have been happy was on the second of March.

With all the little I heard from my momma was that my father was killed in the road accident. He would have been a careless person to just cross the roads while answering to an important phone call. The call surely did the most fateful thing that could have happened to the child. I was 2 yrs 08 months and 12 days old when suddenly my momma was left with the toughest responsibility she had to face in the coming future.

As a child I would often believe in fairy tales. Those stories which i grew up listening would somehow not fall in the correct place. I would listen to ma talking of an old rip van winkle that would sleep for as long as 20 yrs in some old days. How I wish i could have slept throughout those 20 yrs of my early days. Something I would have surely been happy of. But life teaches lessons of its own and sometimes the simple lessons of life would come from miseries and pain.
My mother on the other hand was not afraid of the afterlife. Of what is death after all? Where the soul leaves the weak body so that it doesn’t endure the suffering of a body. But all she was afraid of was the death which was imminent because of her lifelong of family sufferings which she have seen throughout her life. Her brother died of some cancer some decades ago, probably the time when the cure for the disease was not found and also the death of my father was before her. She would often hold me tight whenever I was to go away from her. Be it the school days where I where she would hold me tightly in her arms and would often talk about distinct possibility of not seeing her again or of those tiring long nights where she would often be awake ensuring i slept in peace which i thought was just to express her unconditional love. I would often be afraid to ask her of her actions which resulted in the beginning of unrest in my heart. But my curiosities of the questions were far less than the reality itself. I never thought that when the reality would strike this unrest would take the form of fear which would perhaps stay with me forever.  

A Review: Johnny Gone Down

A new thing which i am starting in my writing.. yes other than my curious minds is all about the books i read and which had deep impact in me. A vivid book reader which i am, i have gone through many books of world literature but yet there is something good which i feel about this book by the second time novelist Karan Bajaj.

After reading "Keep off the grass" i must admire Karan bajaj for the kind of writing he has, which is mature logical and dark. yes the author himself says in his interview that movie like old boy (Korean) were his inspirations.

Johnny Gone Down is a complete story of Nikhil from his appointment letter in NASA to being ending up first as a monk, then an accountant to a drug mafia and then a software mogul. The story starts with the graduation day at MIT where Nikhil is with his best bud sameer. Nikhil has just landed up with his dream job at NASA and is expected to join by next month. Suddenly sameer lands up with an idea of leaving to Cambodia for vacation. Everything is well planned except that when the two reach Cambodia they find themselves in the midst of a war. Nikhil in his act of selflessness saves Sam and he in turn stays there only to be caught by the revolutionists and for many a years being in jail he escapes back only to find himself in Thailand and hence becomes a monk even when his heart still wants him to get back to US for his dream job. He continues with monk for full 10 yrs and finally on a trip to Brazil decided to move out and now he finds himself in Brazil being an accountant to a drug mafia. falls in love with a Brazilian actress and gets married. but now again circumstances forces him to flee to US where he becomes a software giant but life comes as a full circle and now he returns back to India to complete the full final journey whose destination is "Death".

With the above synopsis with very li'l spoilers included, the book continues to move at a pace of its own not forcing its reader to be lost somewhere or feel sleepy. An extraordinary journey with little philosophical touch and a time frame covering more than 25 yrs and 6 countries. this is an extra ordinary journey of a man. While reading the book we can still feel the touch of Bollywood in the narration. of course the book and the plot make up a spicy Bollywood movie. A sense of realism brought in few portions were just remarkable.

But still the character Nikhil tries to arouse curiosity among the readers. he might well be regarded as a superhero but a hero who is about to die in the first chapter of the book, looses his hand in the first 100 pages of the book and a dedicated monk lived up in monastery for 10 long years and still ending up in drug business. How do you rate this hero. may be the one which is not seen much in literature. a very difficult book to lay off, that's precisely the reason why i finished the book in one go.

A word for the author Karan Bajaj: Take a bow. In line with the current Indian writers i admire him just because of the style of writing covering almost all aspects: philosophy, thriller, darkness. just like his former book the character is confused and almost wants to take up whatever the life is offering him not knowing of the consequences. In recent days never seen a writing so true and dark.

Lessons learnt: Live life king size, live the life as its a canvas and paint it with bright colors, live the life at present and never to think whats gonna happen next. A life which we regard as a perfect could change overnight and yet instead of pressing the panic button we must continue on whatever life offers us and be patient enough to get the correct fruit.

For me to sum up with the book and the character: "A life once lived, but fully lived"

My Rating: 8.5/10 for good writing and a fantastic plot.

A tribute to "Nothing"

Well i am starting this post not something which i can say is my own writing but thanks to John D Barrow book i am able to understand some concepts of nothing and zero and just sharing it.

Nothing in itself is a concept. the dictionary have 10 different meanings for nothing. so it got to be something right

zero in itself is circumlocutary. i.e it is using more word than required to express an idea. in tennis the use of word "love" comes from a rather unromantic french word "leuf" which means egg which symbolically represents zero "0"

plus when we all say he is fighting for love (not money).. which means nothing..

A null operation is a technological crap for nothing in computer. so when the initial computers were designed, during the difference between one key stroke and the other key stroke the computer would run the null operation meaning nothing is to be processes now.

but not all usage of zero were derogative. in earlier 15th century when french used to escape to scotland they used to keep their names secret by using the surname nimmo derived from latin "nenot" meaning no one.

writers also embraced the theory of nothing in their own sense. elbert hubbard book "essay on science" was a neatly bound book of blank pages. The ray craft used it as an autograph book
also in 1974 the nothing book was published which is a beautiful bound book in a nut brown denim building full of empty pages for the delight of dedicated scribbler

Elbert Hubbard

Zero became a great trouble for the early days of computer. in the days where all documents and applications were processed with the help of computer. Now the dates were recorded with the last two digits of the year. little did the computer and their developers knew that as year progressed to 2000 the literal 00 was of no significance and the calculation would start backwards. now just think if the credit card expiry instead of 01-Jun-2001 becomes 01-Jun-1901. what a blunder the world would have caused.


There are other amazing stuffs in the book one of which is a paradox explained through a small story

There is a man and a turtle. The man walks at 400 metres per hour. The turtle walks at 40 meters per hour.

The turtle starts the race 400 meters in front of the man.

By the time, the man has travelled 400 metres, the turtle will have travelled 40 meters so will be 40 meters ahead.

The man travels another 40 metres, but by then the turtle is 4 meters ahead.

The man travels another 4 metres, but the turtle is 0.4 meters ahead.

And so on…

The man can therefore never overtake the tortoise.

The point here is we keep going in relatively smaller amounts but we would never go to exact zero, each time just the difference is leading towards zero 

Well this book would serve a great fact book and an awesome read which it is. so all facts are just from the first chapter of this good book. so just track this book on

For all Indian Readers:Flipkart: http://www.flipkart.com/books/0099288451?pid=pnw3f1adtf&_l=oMITT7hLtDgRhkHnIEH7fA--&_r=OJHxb7ljLS4UQpxFegA5DA--&ref=158fa884-4bb0-4236-8b7b-d0cf6c5d9b48


For all outside India: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Nothing-Vacuums-Origins-Universe/dp/0375726098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321701418&sr=8-1

My path to prosperity!

Its just strange that "Circumstances laid in front of us have a part to play in shaping up our entire life". We all act together and some choose to throw it away while some might want to redeem it. Its just the way we look at it, act strong and achieve the goal.

Just to state a small instance where there were two good friends. They used to stay together, had the same goal  but different yet strong ideas to achieve it. They knew that if they acted smart enough they would turn their small investments to big fortunes. But suddenly the market collapsed and the bank in which they put their money had hopelessly failed. The former said to latter that worry and tension might not bring the money back but hard work and positive approach would definitely help them. Saying this the former went to work with optimism but latter went to work mourning the loss of money,

Its so strange that the situation in front of them were same where one chose to follow the path of prosperity the latter chose to curse it and let go off the positivity in him.

If circumstances had the power to bless and harm they would bless or harm each one alike but the same circumstance would prove fruitful or disaster to different person only proves that its not the circumstance that is good or bad its the human soul. I do hope that this particular instance would help in the enlightenment of my friend who just challenged that the path we chose is the path that is shown in front of us. Well most of you who will read this would agree with me on the thought i pondered upon.

Counting in "DAYS"!!!!

The time when i post this blog i am 8459 + days old.


i have learnt this beautiful way of expressing my life. A day comes in a natural cycle. filled with a morning, noon and night which makes it a cycle. i have survived, lived and learnt something new in 8459 cycles of life.

if i remember it would be easy for me to recall incidents happening in days rather i can think of all those occurings in year.

Also it is good when i see that i have lived 8459 days rather than say 23 yrs. i could plan ahead in days and have a thinking that i still have 1000 more days and 1000 more oppurtunities lie ahead. never should i feel low for any wrong i do today thinking that there is tomorrow and i would reckon a chance to do something afresh tomorrow.


i've never been good enough to write a poetry but still i am writing this depicting the beautiful nature of my life

                           
I've seen the life in months and days
i've lived the life in my own ways
i've been bright like the sun rays
i've been living life with the gainsays 


life's been dramatic like stage screenplays
life's been thrilling like the swordplays
life's gave me path like the highways
life's gave me lessons like the failed essays


Strange is the way how life plays
but still i lean and prays
of all those miserable yesterdays
i still look forward to a good today


there has been many joyous birthdays
there has been sad part ways
whatever be the halt and delays
i have lived life each and every day





so to those who wish to calculate your number of days click here http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014370/jscript/datecalc/dcalc-e.htm

I did it....TOMORROW

“Paradox”...This was precisely the one word that came into my mind when I first thought of the title.

Living in this age where everything seems to be running at great speeds, man with the help of the Technology which he made has made this world a small place to live in. People changed, infrastructures changed, the way we look in to our lives changed, the way we travel, the way we communicate, the way we live everything’s changed yet the only thing which ever remained constant was “TIME”. It’s just like the derivatives of mathematics. Everything changes with respect to something. And in this case, all changed with respect to time.

Time would be a very irrelevant factor when it comes to the thinking of mind. Our mind revolves around the reference of objects called “Time Frame”. What we think of now may not happen to us in future or whatever we think of the past may not have happened to us now. We must exercise our mind to live on NOW.

Mind has 3 frames of time. Past, Present and future. Time and mind are inseparable. Once we remove the time from mind, the mind would stop unless we choose to use it. To a human mind time would only be an illusion. The mind would think of past as well as future as without past there would be no identity. We are in present because of past, our past actions have made us to create actions what we do at present and the future goals would determine the actions we carry out in present. 

But frankly to me there was never a sense of rightness in this. As I have learnt from some books by a good philosopher Eckhart Tolle, "Time isn’t precious but all the things that are beyond an illusion of time". Nothing ever happened in past which is not present. The past is just a memory shade, Stored in our mind as the former present. By thinking of past we just switch on the button of the memory shade and the future is just an imagination, a projection of our mind what tomorrow holds for us. The more we go beyond this the lesser would be the fear of the present. The past and the future would have no significance; they are just a reality that is borrowed from the present. A full concentration of the present would definitely make a mind more sharper and more active towards work. The past and the future should be just a illusion.

May be this is the reason I find that some people engage themselves in adventurous sports or death defying stunts. They would always think and concentrate of the present rather than thinking if they would be alive. The focus of the mind is just in the present.

So if present was taken a single reference all activities of past have been present at that time and all actions we do in future is the present of tomorrow.

For me this ever increasing enthusiasm in time has led me to write something which has been hunting me down since the time a friend of mine asked me to write something on this topic. Although the contents on this may have very less to mean by the title but such thoughts and ideas ran into me thinking of the topic. May be someday I would learn answers to all my enthusiastic and my curious mind but as of now I would chase down every single aspect, every single experience towards the subject after all I was keen to write this article and if I post tomorrow then from the present point of view I would definitely say “I DID IT…..TOMORROW”