My Words.............

I have FELT GOD around Me ……….. !!!!

2011-07-10T20:46:00.000+05:30

Me and my wife Shazia were busy scrolling through the names of the babies on a Saturday evening, it was the 9^th of April 2011, and all of a sudden she just held my hand and placed it on her stomach. My wife was expecting sometime soon, and she kept my hand to make me feel the kicks of our baby, it was a wonderful feeling, I promptly asked her ‘If I feel so delighted feeling the kicks from above the stomach, then how do you feel?’ , she just smiled back and said ‘Feels Good’ J . We both went back to scroll through the names , still not contented with all the unique names that we had sorted. We had some time in our hands , we thought. Since the due date according to the doctor was sometime in May 1^st week and it was still the 2^nd week of April. So we thought we will scroll the remaining names the next day………. But we never got a chance to do that , because the very next day Shazia had to be rushed to the hospital at 8 in the morning and at exactly 11:07 a.m. Alishba a.k.a Pariza came into this world.

Me and my darling mom were sitting out of the Operation Theatre (OT), just chitchatting anything, both were trying to show that we were cool n calm, but actually we weren’t , we were a bit nervous about what’s going on inside the OT. Just then the doctor came out with his mask on, and asked, are you guys with Shazia? I said yes, “Congratulations, you have been blessed with a BABY GIRL” . My mom hugged me and started crying out of joy and my vision got blurred, the tears of joy had filled up my eyes. I , rather we always wanted a baby girl and GOD had blessed us with one ! But the very next moment what I heard was shocking enough for me, the doctor said ‘ This is a rare reaction for us when we inform about a baby girl, and I am proud that you are happy about a baby girl’. He revealed that many educated people from well-to-do families also do not accept this piece of news as happily as we did. Anyways I was happy to have a girl child and to contribute towards the sex ratio of India J .

Amongst all this, my wife was still in a state of Anaesthesia, when she was brought out of the OT, she just smiled and held my hand and cried. An emotional moment for all of us it was. I then asked her, how did you feel during the operation, she said it was damn painful despite the anesthesia, but as soon as the baby came out and started crying loudly, she forgot all the pain and just started admiring her, the doctor then showed the baby to her and the sight of our baby just soothed out all her pain. I thought, I had wished for a baby girl, I got one, and GOD gave us one. For a moment I thought the whole feeling, the whole aura around us was such that the presence of GOD was being felt, maybe for a moment inside Shazia to answer our prayers of the baby girl and maybe for a moment to make her forget the pain of the operation.

There is a saying in Hindi “Maa ke Pairo Tale Jannat Hoti Hai” which means “There is Heaven underneath a Mother’s Feet”. I don’t know where this saying has come from, but after looking at my wife, the way she gets all the energy and all the power to take care of our baby, I do feel that once someone becomes mother, she definitely has ‘The Almighty’ around her helping in all her efforts. Just imagine, staying awake for about a week with just 2-3 hours of sleep on an average with an un-bearing pain of a Caesarian operation and despite that smiling and doing all to make the baby comfortable in this new world …………… well in a normal circumstance, it won’t be possible. Only a mother has this power. And then that’s GOD who is always with her to give this power.

Being a parent has also made me realise what efforts my parents have taken to grow me up. Its never easy, with just the beginning of my parenting experience the respect for my parents has grown even more than what I had before and especially for my Mother who has given so many sacrifices and took so much pain to make sure that her child grew up in the best possible way. Thanks Mom and Thanks Dad !!!

And Thanks GOD for being with the Mothers always, I have felt you around her, keep giving her the power!

The End or The Beginning .............. Well depends on how you see it !!!!!!!

2011-03-01T10:02:00.000+05:30

When the news/rumor about Apple chief Steve Jobs' degrading health broke out , it was a shocker for most of us. The whole internet is abuzz to know the truth. Interestingly there was an article published in Times of India (Sunday Supplement) dated 27th February 2011 which mentions Steve Jobs stating that "Knowing that soon I am going to Die makes things easy for me, I can prioritise things and take important decisions in my life, it acts as a very useful tool for me".

I was taken aback by his words, but then I thought for a while and it really struck my mind that what he said was so very true. When you are certain that somethings are going to happen soon and its inevitable, then you are in a better position to take calls, make some important decisions so as to minimise the impact/loss. People may well argue that someday everyone has to die , so whats the big deal about it? True, even I agree that Death is the Final Degree that all of us are going to get once we graduate out of the institution called Life, but we never know how long we are going to be in this institution, thus if you know that you are soon going to graduate out of it, it will propel us to speed up things , be close to your near and dear ones and do whatever you ever wanted to do in your life, but otherwise if you do not know (most of us don't ), then you may miss upon a lots of things you wished.

The end isnt always as bad as it looks, its just that we humans dont really let go things easily, with our emotions attached to anything and everything that ends, be it life or a relation or even a for that sake your favorite cricket bat which might break. Except for life, rest everything that comes to an end can be or rather IS always a beginning of something new and good, just depends on how an individual transitions through this phase (Well if I have to beleive in mythology, even end of a life is a beginning of it elsewhere). I very much believe in the saying "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us."

Its really sad and depressing if we keep looking back at what happened, so now the onus lies with us that do we keep staring back at what ended or we start looking at what has begun?

Kaam Kar Phal ki Apeksha Mat Kar……

2010-10-17T23:30:00.000+05:30

I always remember or recall this phrase at least once in a year , I recite it so many times in my mind that eventually I start believing in it and once done , I open my increment letter………… trust me this is the best shock absorber you can ever have. I always wonder how do my superiors (designation as well as salary wise :D ) manage to avoid these shocks, I mean do they ever get such shocks is my first question, looking at them or infact everyone else around me I don’t feel that they ever get such shocks , exceptions include some of my friends who too have started following my way of absorbing shocks.

I have seldom come across specie which looks happy after reading their increment/appraisal letters. I have known a few who were satisfied……………… oops, not few, just one, saying few would exaggerate it. It is a well known fact that in-house increments are as good as peanuts or maybe rotten peanuts would suit better , isn't it? i.e. if you are in the same company for a period of time, then expecting a hike of 20% …… OK lets say even 15% is a pure SIN !!!!!!!

Some of you must be smiling by the time you have read this much, and some of you must be thinking, what the crap is he blogging, so those who are smiling may continue reading further, and for those of you who feel this is crap .............. well then I cant help because there goes a famous saying , "What you think is what you are" , so the choice is yours :P :P :P

So let me get back to the subject again ............. till now you must have got an idea that I am representing those few 'unhappy' who just look happy or rather try to manage a smile on their faces despite so many woes behind them . Now there can be several reasons why an employee just like one of us is unhappy, I am not bothered of all the reasons at the moment, the only reason I look at right now is Money, because money is the primary reason in most cases.

When I say money, I mean increments, annual increments. The day annual increment letters are out, that day is the saddest day of the year, for obvious reasons and then you start thinking everything except loyalty towards the organization. I am no exception, but I have been lucky just once because someone above my hierarchy literally fought with the management for the work I had done all year through, but such things don't happen every now and then.

I have failed to understand why any organization can commit a blunder of not keeping their faithful employees happy. Why does it always happen that the new joiners are most of the times paid way higher than the loyal ones who have been helping you grow over the years? I am not jealous by looking at the offer letters of the new joiners (freshers spared) , but who knows how long is he/she going to stay in the organization, chances are that they will use the ‘fat salary package’ to show it to the other company and hop on to its payroll for a better package than what we offered. This acts as a double blow, you lose the new recruit and since you haven’t looked at the existing employee, the employee will surely become upset and dissatisfied by this treatment and thus will start looking out.

Some might say that I am looking only at the negative side of it, but I am trying to hint something else out here. Hiring a new recruit with a super salary might do wonders for you, but it might even hit you where it hurts the most. On the other hand, if you increase the salaries of existing ‘loyal employees’ then you will definitely reap benefits out of it. Now again someone might disagree on what I said, but the chances of getting hurt is less in this case. It’s a two way relation, if you think about the existing employees, they too feel a sense of security and belonging to the organization, they feel settled and they won’t look outside for their needs (profession related ofcourse) . But having said this, an employee should also not make unnecessary demands.

"I strongly opine that a successful organization will be the one which has more employees with a higher tenure at that particular organization". ………….. ummmmmmmmm did I miss something in my opinion above???…….. Yes I did miss a very important word, so here is the correct one - “I strongly opine that a successful organization will be the one which has more SATISFIED employees with a higher tenure at that particular organization” , So now you know that I missed on the word SATISFACTION, which is a very important ingredient in a company's growth rate and success.

I hope a CEO/Manager/Entrepreneur/Top Management Guy reads this blog post , and give it atleast half a thought if not one. I know Business is all about money, think on these lines and I am actually selling you a very good idea of making good money , but making it in the long run.

I conclude by reconstructing the phrase ‘ Kaam Kar Phal ki Apeksha Mat Kar’ to ‘ Pehle Kaam Kar ……….. Phir Phal ki Apeksha Kar ……….. Aur fir bhi phal na mile to Alvida Kar’. And that is the motto of this current generation of IT people these days, and I find nothing wrong in that, Loyalty doesn't really pay you, it pays to the organization :) !!!

Slaves of the Modern Era.....

2010-08-03T15:09:00.000+05:30

"I don't think you are being utilized 100% , we are giving money to your organization and we need to utilize you more and more, Its all money business you know" ........... silence prevailed for a few seconds, I really didn't know what should I respond , then again he spoke up " Look if you don't take up things that I give you, I may have to terminate your contract, I hope you know this is how it works"......... I was like whats wrong with him all of a sudden......... as I was gathering myself from this verbal assault , suddenly he spoke up again " So I take your commitment as a YES" , I replied "What commitment? I mean what are you saying, how can I commit unless I know what I need to work on? I guess let us talk about this on Monday, I am already on my way back home" . It was a Friday evening and I was returning home from my office, this was my manager at 'Client Side' who was yelling on me like anything on the phone. He then cut the phone with his final words "OK so I take it as a YES, great" !!!

I was like what sort of commitment was he talking about and he even took it as Yes and on top of it he is boasting about the Money Business, as if he has owned me and can order me anything, not even listen to what I have to say, rather respond.

I mentioned this to my manager (my inhouse manager) and he responded "This is the way things work at Client Side, you have to get used to it" . That is the mentality of most of the Indian Managers who deal with the clients. When I say MOST I refer to most of the managers that I have worked with. They will always try to adjust things around the client's ease. For Example timezone issues, the US managers cannot get up early, forget managers no one from their team can get up early and get on call/issues (despite the fact that most of them do have the facility to work from home), so we have to stay late, at times till midnight or even the whole night, why?, only because they are clients and we are getting $$ from them. How can one forget that if they are satisfying our organization's 'Monetary' need or rather greed, then even we are giving them what they want. Our existence means their existence.

I even gave a thought if this could be vice-a-versa i.e. their existence means our existence, this is actually a false perception which the whole world has accepted and is not budging to look it the other way. If I come out of the closet and say that 'I always wont attend the meetings or I wont be available at the odd hours or I wont sacrifice my family/friends at the cost of some $$' then the things will definitely work, it should be mutual, if we are willing to stretch at times then even the people at client side should show some 'HUMAN' understanding!!!! Just dont say sentences like 'We Understand........ but...' or 'That is fine.........but.....' This but is really a pain in the Butt. If you really understand, then you will work towards its resolution, but these are mere words.

All this while I was mentioning them as CLIENTS, but I guess that is the wrong word, at this point of time I am unable to figure out the appropriate word that could be used, but the basic problem lies in the word itself 'Client'. We think them as client and that is where we give them all the privilege to behave the way they do.

I feel we are the Slaves of the Modern Era, most of us might not realize this, but yes we are behaving as slaves when we agree to unrealistic demands/targets, when we don't stand up against anything which is not feasible or practical, and eventually we suffer. Its we who have to get up and become rebel at times, not always though, but at times we have to, otherwise it will be mental torture and sacrifices all the time.

I don't say that this happens always, but it happens most of the times, many might have faced a similar scenario in their professional lives. So if we don't stop this, this will go on forever and we will always keep on catering to the so called CLIENT.

The HUM vs TUM Battle Continues ................

2010-07-02T12:10:00.001+05:30

Friends this blog is a chat between me and one of my friends, HUM is me representing BOYS and TUM represents GIRLS. This was one of the most interesting discussions I have ever had over the battle of sexes , both proving themselves correct ........ Do read the entire discussion and comment on it please :)

TUM: ya...some tips culd be helpful here (she was referring to what the guys expect from girls)

HUM: lets mutually help each other

11:25 AM TUM: n u ..never praise another FEMALE old or young in front of the MOST gorgeous women

i.e ur wives

HUM: yes

did that mistake once

TUM: he he

HUM: that too on a TV show

Roadies me thi ek good looking chic

11:26 AM so I just told her that she looks good

and she shouldnt be out of the show

and when she was out

my wife looked visibly happy n also said 'Aapki fav to out ho gayi, u wont watch Roadies now na ? '

11:27 AM TUM: he he

HUM: that was hilarious for me

even that backfired

WHY R U LAUGHING ON ME she asked

11:28 AM I love the movie Pyar ke Side Effects, some scenes r so realistic

TUM: actually its one sided

HUM: whats one sided?

TUM: men potrayed so harrassed

the movie

HUM: sorry, they r harassed

11:29 AM TUM: no its not so

HUM: IT IS

TUM: no it is not

HUM: IT IS

TUM: u guys shld know women have silly feelings

whch culd get hurt very vry easily

HUM: so u agree that u have SILLY FEELINGS

TUM: ya we do

11:30 AM bt u shld care for them too

ha ha ha

HUM: well then u know where the problem is , then look at that na first

OK MY LORD

thats we end up doing

always

TUM: its not a PROBLEM...they r jst feelings and expectations

HUM: then speak them out in CLEAR WORDS

that u expect this from us

11:31 AM TUM: thts whts not possible

HUM: I mean what do you think of us yaar, read your minds?

which keeps on fluctuating again and again

TUM: u r SUPPOSED to be antaryami and guess wht we r expecting

he he

i like this

11:32 AM its the same with all couples then..i guess

maine aisa nahi kaha tha...but u meant it...nahi i didnt mean it

poor guys

HUM: If I have a baby boy, i will train him right from the childhood, beta besides many other things, most important things in life is to understand whats going on in someone's heart, it will help u in future

11:33 AM TUM: hha ha...u can never knw wht a woman wants

and if at all u gueess it right...it was not wht she wanted

it will abruptly change

HUM: so true, finally a woman confessing her SUPER POWERS

11:34 AM TUM: ok...realise we do this...cos we lov troubling u guys

HUM: these r actually SUPER POWERS which u posses

and use them at ur will

TUM: and thts bcos u guys take every step of life so easily...without thinking and taking any tension

11:35 AM HUM: thats a very wrong statement lady

TUM: means.... DO u show it tht u r in tension

do u show it tht u r thinking abt both of u

HUM: WE CARE for u , so we avoid showing tension

TUM: u r like...i am a MAN...let me handle this lady

11:36 AM HUM: but now its your duty to understand our Tensions

TUM: faltu me tension mat lo...is the pet dialog

as if we r faltu me taking tension

11:37 AM HUM: anyways we do think and we do take tensions

TUM: so u culd express it na

HUM: and at that time we need you the most

cmon, this is the time u have to be the ANTARYAAMI

TUM: we knw all tht...we want u to EXPRESS

11:38 AM HUM: wow what a discussion

I feel like blogging this one

TUM: m telling u this...but i wont tell my husband...i knw u care and do express...never...jst go cross and expect him to express

11:39 AM HUM: ok, pointers for me

thanks

TUM: ya ...exactly

HUM: next time we meet on chat

lets tell if this helped us or not

A Ramp called Sky and its Models called Clouds :)

2010-06-30T23:46:00.001+05:30

A couple of minutes ago was chatting with one of my best buddies, told him that I feel like blogging today, but as usual I am not sure what to write ............ he asked me to think , but what should I think. So I thought I better write this only, atleast my desire to blog something tonight wont go begging :) .

But then I guess I have a reputation amongst my readers (that is what I feel, or atleast my readers make me feel that way :P, thanks to them I still have the motivation to write), so considering this reputation in mind, I wont write anything which might come out as a nonsense post, so let me think on what should I write ............ ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm ............... okay so here I go, let me write something I really love to do with the mobile camera in my hand , especially during evenings before the sunset :). Clicking the clouds ....

Of all the things that Mother Nature has to offer us, Clouds excite me the most, they are available everywhere, but at the same time they are never the same, they show up in unique shapes and colors and patterns...... and I have been lucky on quite a number of times to capture these beautiful moments, sharing a few that I have clicked through my mobile and Deshu's camera ...

1. This was undoubtedly the most beautiful evenings I have ever come across in my life, I regret I didnt have camera as well as time to take more pictures on this beautiful evening, because I was travelling to the Pune Railway Station to drop Monty's parents , so this one was clicked while the Auto rick was taking a turn near the Race Course. This was taken with my Sony Ericsson W800i handset , it was a 2 Mega Pixel handset:

2. This one I took it today (30th June 2010) in Bangalore outside my office in Electronic City, I used a Sony Ericsson Naite, again a 2 MP camera, I really wonder why has it come out green and black, I didn't use any

effects to click this one, just focussed directly on the sun and clicked it, I never thought it would come out this beautiful:

3. Took these while I was in the bus, returning from the office, it was Sony Ericsson P1i this time, the pattern was really beautiful , see for yourself.

4. This one was clicked in Aurangabad, this was a Canon Camera, the evening hues were painting the skies beautiful, and I just couldnt stop myself from clicking them:

Looking at these beautiful sceneries, a thought came to my mind that 'The Sky is a Ramp on which these beautiful Models called Clouds walk every evening' , and at times we are amongst the privileged audiences who get to witness such beautiful shows.

Mother Nature is the Greatest :)

Teri Yaad

2010-06-06T23:38:00.000+05:30

This was another one written keeping Shazia in mind :)

Teri Yaad
Teri yaado se fursat nahi milti,
teri taareef kya likhu.
Meri kismat tune badal di,
Mai apni kismat kya likhu...

Ab ye raate kyu katati nahi,
Mere khayaal se tum kyu hatati nahi,
Tu hi shayad meri kismat hai,
tu ye baat kyu samajhti nahi.

Wo chandni raato me guzaare hue pal,
wo sapne jo dekhe the humne kal,
Wo sach honge,
Jo likhe the humne Ghazal.

Kaash ye yaade akeli hi aati

apne saath ye gum ko na laati
To din raat teri yaado me aata mai
agar ye yaade hume na rulaati!!!

In Pyaari Chandni Raato Me....

2010-06-06T23:27:00.000+05:30

This was the original poem that I had written in hindi, again for Shazia............. this sounds far better than the English one:

In Pyaari Chandni Raato Me

In pyaari chaandni raato me,
kho jaaye hum pyaar bhari baato me,
aur soche hum apne kal ke liye,
judaa na ho ek duje se ek pal ke liye.

Mujhe kisi bhi gum ka nahi hai ehsaas,
kyuki zindagi bhar tum rahogi mere paas,
tumhare liye bas ek hi hai mera paigaam,
jod lo tum mere naam se apna naam.

Humaare pyaar ki daastaan hai badi ajeeb,
door hote hue bhi hum hai ek duje ke kareeb,
pataa nahi kab tak rehna hoga tere bin,
bas yehi duaa hai jaldi beet jaaye ye din.

Tum me Kuch to hai Khaas,
isliye pehnana chahta hu tumhe dulhan ka libaas,
kabhi na hona tum mujhse khafaa,
Kyuki humaare is rishte ka naam hai WAFAA.

THE RHYMES OF THE COLLEGE TIMES

2010-06-06T23:15:00.000+05:30

This section will contain poems which I had written long back, 10 years ago when I had just started the college life, everything was exciting, everything was new, every beautiful girl was an inspiration for poems :P . These are a set of few poems in English that I had written in those days.............. they might look very amateur kinds, but I really was one then :)

Here it goes, one of the poems from those days:

FULL MOON NIGHTS
On these full moon nights so lovely,
I just lie on my bed to think about you,
I wish you were also with me
As I can think of nobody but you.

I sigh and imagine the moon to be your face,
& wonder how beautiful you are
Without you I am just a body lifeless,
I wish for you when I see a falling star....

Had you been with me on this night,
I would have fulfilled one of the wishes of my life,
I wish to take you with me in the the flight of my life,
By marrying you and making you my Wife.

This poem was written by keeping my wife Shazia in mind :).............. this one shows the amateur poet in the last stanza where i struggled to find proper words to rhyme.......but my aim was to convey the message.

The Feeling..........

2010-05-16T19:43:00.001+05:30

Does anyone of you recall the very first day of your school, I recall it very well. Mom and dad were all smiles since morning and they got me ready in the new school uniform which I thought to be like any other new dress that they purchased for me every now and then, but who knew that it was a UNIFORM which had to be worn every dayL. So with the new uniform , a new water bottle and a school bag consisting of maybe 2-3 books at the most I reached school to see so many little kiddos of my age in the same uniform as I was in (obviously I didn't know what a Uniform meant). As i was looking around at the faces, some looking nervous, some mischievous, some already crying a lot , I heard a voice of some lady dressed in a white gown with her head covered, she was welcoming all of us to the important phase of our life (I don't recall this much, my parents told me :P ), we kids were least bothered of what she was saying, but as soon as she stopped speaking, I was in my mom's arms and she was taking me towards a room and so were the other parents. As soon as I reached there, I saw the other kids shouting and wailing like mad, that made me nervous and even I was about to cry..............but I didn't because my mom was holding me in her arms, but that wasn't for long, even I joined the chorus in a while when my dearest mom handed me over to the same lady in white gown who was delivering the speech. I turned around and ran back to mom, but mom again handed me to her, the same cycle might have repeated for 6-7 times atleast, but mom didn't budge and finally walked out of the classroom L.

I was yelling on top of my voice like anything as if trying to compete with the other yellers in my class and eventually winning too. I still remember I ran out of the class many a times just to find that my mom was sitting with other moms outside the class and as soon as she saw me , she hugged me tightly and the next moment I was back in the same class. The feeling of mom leaving me all alone in this world of unknown people, of scary looking strangers made me so nervous and I sobbed nearly every time she left me, but when I came out of the class I always saw her waiting for me , and that made me confident that she hasn't left me all alone, she won't go away from me.

Its not that I got this feeling just once when I started schooling, I got this kind of a feeling many a times when I was alone, when I left for Pune to pursue my Masters, I felt all alone, but then at the back of my mind I was sure that she is there for me and will be there for me always. Having said all this about mom, I won't take away the credit from my dearest dad, even he has been always there when I needed him.

But off late I realised that this kind of a feeling isn't just limited to parents and your spouse. I have been transferred to Bangalore for nearly a year. I was in Pune office for about 5 years now and this Bangalore stuff happened so quickly that I didn't even get a time to realise before I was onboard the Karnataka express to my new destination. But my dearest friends gave me a farewell at McDonalds (which I was supposed to treat, but eventually Deshu and Neha ended paying up the whole bill, I owe them a treat for sure J). They gifted me with a rocking T-shirt............which I was expecting :P , so had I not got that I would have been disappointed, but since they did , I was happy. Having a friend like Deshu , you can actually expect surprises, and indeed I got one , he gifted me with a Royal Challengers Bangalore Flag, which I never thought in my wildest dreams. The next surprise element was the beautiful photograph of sunset clicked by Kaushal at the Alibaug beach, it is one of the most picturesque photograph I have ever seen. Before getting all this, Ashish Singh had dedicated a poem to me and the whole gang, which was truly touching, and just a week ago a blogpost was dedicated or rather inspired by me, and no surprises here in guessing, it was Deshu again who composed this beautiful blogpost.

Back to 'The Feeling' I am mentioning in this blog, have you ever thought why you felt this way, because it was our mother, our father who consoled us and gave us strength during the times when we thought we have been left alone, they helped us grow, helped us cope up with the difficulties coming our way, they were by our side all day, all night and that is how we grew from a school boy to a college boy to an engineer or doctor or a businessman etc. This was the case when we were kids, but as we grew up, we moved out of our homes and started spending more time with our friends or our roomies, parents were not with us always, and this is where we started attaching ourselves with these beautiful friends, who were not as good as our parents, but atleast a substitute to some extent. We found a few with whom we shared our secrets, we spoke about our plans which we wanted to execute with them and no one else J, we did this, we did that, we fought, we patched up and we fought again, but patched up again too :P.

When I was leaving behind these friends, I was feeling really sad, really low and a similar feeling ran through my spine that I am all alone, where have my friends gone, where have my parents gone, my dear wife won't be there with me for a few days or maybe even a couple of months. But then like when I was a kid, I always found my mom waiting for me outside the classroom, I know these friends will be waiting for me somewhere and they won't go anywhere, because even they can't stay without me...................

So all my dearest friends, I am going to this classroom called Bangalore and will come out of it very soon with good results and will be back around/near you forever I hope J.

I'll Miss Pune for.............

2010-04-26T21:51:00.000+05:30

Well I never thought I will be blogging about things that I will miss about Pune.............simply because I never thought I will ever leave Pune but destiny had other plans in her mind for me, it had written Bengaluru for me, so here I am writing this blog just for the reasons I will miss 'Aamchi Pune' for.

I came down to Pune back in 2002 to pursue my Masters degree, I was out of my shell for the first time and I did struggle a lot despite having family friends here.... some of the failures I faced for the first time in my life were in Pune only, these made me more resilient and taught me how to bounce back from nowhere. Just to name a few - 1. Having 6 backlogs at a time and doubting if I would clear my post grad exams within the stipulated time................. and then eventually doing so. 2. Living with flat partners who were no close to comfortable friends, conflicts with them taught me not to be friendly with one and all, but to choose your friends wisely rather than quickly. 3. Washing clothes (you might laugh, but this is one of the toughest task for me in the whole world) 4. Realising the importance of what the Dal-Roti of home meant when I used to grumble about it. These were a few things which I learnt here in Pune itself, and most of you might agree with me that these are the things which makes you the person you are right now. I gave all these tests in Pune, I lived all these moments in Pune ............. so these are a few bunch of reasons why Pune will always remain in my heart....apart from the following reasons!!!

Got the first job of my life here ....................... one moment which nobody can ever forget in their lives, and after earning the first salary , going to Laxmi road to purchase a Saree because there is no better place where you can bargain for quality clothes and since it was the first salary it was just 6k (half the month) which would fit in my budget for dear mom, and then hunting for a good wrist watch at for dad at MG Road. Treating my friends at the George on East Street was a proud moment because George was beyond budget back in college days , it was the Radio hotel or the Medina hotel or the Shahi Dawat which suited our pockets back then................. and the taste of Kebabs and 'Keema Ghotala' from these places still lingering on my taste buds. How can I forget the double omlet with cheese and bun-maska at Vohumann's near Jehangir Hospital. These are the places which I will definitely miss :( ............ latest to the addition was the Savera Hotel opposite the FC Gate.

Now here comes the crux of everything , the most important reason due to which I will crave for Pune, it will be because of my FRIENDS :):
- Muntasir a.k.a Jillu or Monty a flat partner for more than 6 years during which both of us walked down MG Road 100s of times staring at the chics and wishing even we had a hot one besides us :P, he is now amongst my best buddies.
- Next comes in Gaurav Dhawan a.k.a Nautanki my bestest friend who made me beleive that I can match his capability of eating 2 Tandoori Chickens alone and I did .
- Nilofar a.k.a Billi who is the most honest and the most sincere employee I have ever seen my life, besides this she earned her name as Billi by always copying me, be it buying Sony Ericsson phone or many other things which I cannot recall right now.
- Sheetal a.k.a Sweetu, I know JM Road, FC Road, Deccan, HongKong Lane, Waadeshwar, Vaishali and many more outlets only because of her. Thanks to Pune Expo 2003 where we met for the first time.
- Sandeep Deshpande a.k.a Deshu, what a dude he is , a very sensible fella , very ambitious, a ROCKING personality indeed. Whatever English Rock songs I know, is because of him, he is the first one who wrote a blog featuring me , actually my words inspired him to write this blog (http://ajungledawakening.blogspot.com/2010/04/kyunki-aaj-sachin-ka-birthday-hai.html)
and how can I forget Tejashree a.k.a Teja bhaai, never found such an amazing , such a dedicated, such a lovely person........... I got all these friends here in Pune. All these friends have a unique importance and a unique place in my life. Pune gave them to me :). Few more friends need to be mentioned here like Shalaka, Kiran Tawde, Yayati and Ashish Singh. They all have been close to my heart and will always remain special.

I will miss Pune for all these reasons...............and these are the reasons which will bring me back to Pune :)!!!! and ofcourse Pune Warriors ;)

Angels in Disguise

2010-04-10T20:48:00.000+05:30

There exist Angels and Demons in this world they say, but have you ever seen them? I mean the picture of angels with white glowing gown or whatever it is with a wonderful halo always on top of their head. I really wished that I had these Angels all around me and show me the path when I needed their help the most. But I always looked above my head, over my shoulders, everywhere I can , never found one :( to my utter disappointment ............. until recently when an Angel called me up on my cellphone, I mean trust me, this isnt a joke or something, you might say that I am too much inspired by Chetan Bhagat's 'One Night at Call Centre' in which they get a call from GOD........... nothing of that sort happened. Infact I claim that even you get calls from these angels and you meet them often, the only thing is that we fail to realise that these are angels in disguise!!!!!!!!!!!

These angels are no one else but our good buddies, I mean those who really care for you, give you advises at times when you dont get any way out of your troubles. I am lucky to have such angels around me. The most precious of them all is Nilofar :) . She is just as pure as what an angel can be, she is always there when I need her , or I rather say that she identifies when I need her and comes out of her closet of human being and gives me angelic advises, irrespective of whether those advises help me or not (most of the times they have , infact 90% of the times), the best part about it is that I have a support pillar when needed the most...... Thanks my Angel.

At times you might find an angel in someone who you never thought would be one, one such friend of mine can be categorized in this category, she is a school friend ,we dont meet that often, but whenever we do catch up online, she catches up on everything she missed during the long gap, if she finds that I am stressed or something, she will come up with advises which are really worth giving ear to. Thanks Afshan :) .

Having said this , beware of the Demons who are also disguised as Angels but it is very difficult to differentiate until they have done a whole lot of damage to you .................... I have had demons around me, but I wont mention them, because they are not worth the publicity.

There have been many such angels in my life , they are no less than the ones mentioned above, but off late , these two have been of significant help to me directly or indirectly, so this comes out right from the bottom of my heart ' My Dear Angels always be there for me ' .

And my other Angels, just wait................ I will dedicate a post to you soon .............. very soon.

Let me see who can guess that a blog dedication is coming their way............. Let me know who thinks that he/she is an 'Angel in Disguise' for me :)

Worst Fear is the Fear of Losing our IDENTITY....

2010-04-09T21:59:00.000+05:30

Have you ever come across a situation where life seems to be heading nowhere, things just dont work , whatever you do goes in vain, everything looks jinxed, everything around you looks scary. The confidence that oozed in you sometime back was just terrific, but at such times it seems to have disappeared somewhere, and you wonder was it really you who conquered these heights?
People around you seem to be climbing mountains, achieving success, doing everything you badly want to do, but for some unknown reason you are just not able to do anything , not even 10% of that.

The worst fear anyone can have is losing their Identity............... an Identity that was made over the years, the skills, the talents , the achievements that made this Identity. Its something like a paralysed life, you were able to run, but now you are not even able to drag yourself.

I am sinking deep in such a crisis. Once known for whatever I did, be it work or be it anything else............ is not even being asked today . I was always sought after to resolve issues at work place, but today there is no work, life is RUSTING like hell. Not openly though, but behind the back I have become a subject of ridicule. To top all this, the pressure of not able to fulfill my responsibilities hitting me hard deep down in my heart, my heart craving for the glory I lived in, for the fame I had. I feel like crying, but tears dont come out , I just want to get out of this as soon as possible and regain my identity.............

Such circumstances makes you realise one thing for sure, the friends who stand by your side. These situations actually give you the ability to distinguish between friends who are realising your apathy and those who despite seeing it, are not bothered to utter a word and help me out of this. Thankfully I can count a few friends right now, and I know they will be there always.

This post of mine might look very depressing, but this was one of the ways to let me express myself, let everything inside me come out in some form. I had to let this out so that I can have space in my mind to think of a BOUNCE BACK strategy.

Having said that I will Bounce Back, I know I can and I will do that but the only question is when, this question soon needs to be answered. And the answer lies with me only........... I was never a loser, and I have always made my presence felt, I have earned respect in the past and made my own IDENTITY which I have always been proud of.......

I have just slid down from the peak where I want to be .............. but I feel its just a matter of time .......... I have to prove a point to myself rather than anyone else. I have to be ME!!!!!!!!!

YOU................

2010-01-21T19:31:00.001+05:30

The Desire is what made YOU walk,
The Insanity is what made YOU talk,
where has the desire gone missing,
why isnt the insanity anymore hissing!!!

YOU did this, YOU did that,
YOU never gave up and sat,
YOU captained the ships through the storms and sailed,
YOU never fell and YOU never failed.

That is the YOU, the world knew,
That is the YOU, you yourself knew,
That YOU cannot die so soon,
That YOU needs to stand up and rule.

That YOU was no one but ME,
But This YOU is not the REAL ME,
This YOU needs to go away,
This YOU shouldnt come back I Pray!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An Institution Called Life & A Lesson Called Failure

2009-12-12T22:09:00.004+05:30

LIFE is the only institution none of us have taken any efforts to get an admission. But as soon as we got into this institute, we have started putting our efforts and we continue to do so throughout our stay in this institute and the day we stop putting our efforts, we graduate.................... We graduate to Death!!!!!!!!!!

There are many courses in this institute which all of us go through, no other institute teaches you the courses that life teaches us. And we have a unique syllabus which we study throughout the course. Also keep in mind that whoever gets in this institute has got a stipulated time to spend out here and the best part about it is that we do not know how much time is left. In this stipulated time, we even keep on giving examinations from time to time and also get our marksheets.

Out of all the courses that you study in this institute, the most important one is called as 'Failures'. This course may have many chapters in your life or maybe just one, differs from individual to individual, but you do come across atleast one chapter in this course for sure and whenever you are going through this chapter, make sure you learn your lessons from it or else you might have to re-read it and waste your precious time in this institute rather than moving ahead to the next chapter.....because as I mentioned above we really do not know how much time we have left with us.
The book of failures is really an interesting one, a chapter of failure is always followed by a chapter of success.

Like everyone else even I am studying this course and I have come across several chapters many a times and learnt many a lesson. But then sometimes some of the chapters are really tough, lengthy and they are difficult to understand too. I am going through one such chapter at the moment and really finding it difficult to understand it and learn from it. But from the tough chapters that I have come across in the past , I have learnt one thing, when you master these chapters you come across a very interesting chapter of Success which you feel like reading it again and again. I wish I master and understand this ongoing chapter in my life too......... and come across the next interesting chapter quickly.

I Wish (Episode 1)

2009-06-24T23:21:00.003+05:30

So here I go with my first post on this series .............. J

I love cars, and many of them are on my wishlist, I know I wont be able to buy any of them (not atleast in the near future .............by saying this I am still optimistic and hopeful J ,because I just mentioned “not atleast in the near future”) , ok so with this rejuvenated love of mine towards cars I recently started sending a series of emails in which I copy-pasted only those cars which really amazed me and made me want it more and more everytime I see it, so I was sending these copy-pasted emails to all my good friends....... which everyone liked a lot and many of them liked my taste of cars, for that sake even the hardcore bike lovers liked them.

But then just sending plain copy-pasted images along with the names of the cars wasnt as exciting I thought, I mean anyone can do it. So I came up with an idea to send the images as my wishes, I mean map the images to my wishes. I guess the following example will explain what I did to make things more interesting and express my wishes.

I wish that was My Palace …………………

So when I sent this innovative kind of a mail which reflected my wish to own such a car and a palace like the one shown in the image, it was well appreciated by all my friends, they liked my creativity and many of them responded back well.

Later on in the day a very close friend of mine with whom I was chatting said this ‘Raja bhai, the email that you sent this morning , the one with “I Wish ............” title was very much appreciated and liked by Ms.ABC’ , I was really happy to know this, but the next question which I asked him was that what did you tell Ms.ABC, did you tell her that those were “My Wishes....... (Me)” or did you tell her that those were “Your wishes............(His)”. Because these were actually my wishes and not yours in the first place. He said “Raja bhai, I forwarded them which she thought as mine” . To which I was like OK because he used my idea and my email to impress someone else (unknowingly though). But I made a pact with him then and there itself, asking him not to use my patented emails without my information and the pact was that he wont use any of I Wish emails sent by me, but he will use the term I Wish.(I know many of you will debate on this one saying that we get lots of creative forwards all day long and we use them to forward to our friends by removing the trails, lets not waste our time on this right now, we will debate on this later sometime).

Now thats one of MY WISHES, people should use my ideas, my concepts, my thoughts etc. etc. and use them successfully and not just use them but acknowledge it back to me. My ideas , my concepts , my thoughts everything should be useful in a positive manner, towards the benefit of someone. This is what one of the things that I WISHed. I know this is a very small example of my wish, but with this example I am trying to convey that everyone should benefit from my ideas, be it at a professional level or a personal level. I would rather summarise this post by saying that “ I WISH I get FAME/RECOGNITION ,for all the good things, for all the ideas that I come up with, I have done and which I will be doing in my life”

I conclude my first post of this series with this very small but the root of all my Bigger wishes which you will come to know in my future posts, many of them would be damn interesting ............. beleive me ............... coz there are some really interesting wishes too coming up............ and what would those be................. well let me keep it in suspense for a while.

Please drop your comments on this post and I will appreciate you sending me suggestions and feedback on my style, my content of writing.

I Wish ...............

2009-06-24T22:12:00.000+05:30

An Introduction

Few of my friends always keep on telling me that I should write more often, I promise them and I always think I will, but then I always end up forgetting or rather than forgetting I better say that I am a lazy person and thus this delay. So I have decided to come up with a new series of my posts this time titled "I Wish............" . These will be a set of posts on all the things I wish I should have, I should posses , I should own.

Napoleon Hill an American author once said "When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve." I beleive in what he said. If your wishes aren't strong enough, they will never materialise.

This series will let out all my wishes on my Blog, and as and when my life goes on, you can yourself make out which of my desires were strong enough :)

So Just wait for the first post to come up....................

I WISH .............. I start with the first post on this series soon enough :)

The most important and the most difficult thing to do in any Relation is to Payback

2008-09-23T08:26:00.000+05:30

I would like to ask a question to my readers, how many times have you felt that the person with whom you are in a relation isn’t balancing the relation? I mean to say that maybe you do a lot for him/her without any expectations, selflessly and for the person’s betterment, but only to realize that the person isn’t paying heed to what you are doing, what you are saying what you are feeling or thinking. I have gone through this feeling on a numerous occasion of times, but despite all such feelings I have continued the relation only because I cared. Many of you might debate to say that if I felt that the person isn’t balancing the relation or doing such things, I should go and speak up, open up etc. etc. But let me tell you, you never put in efforts to worry or care about anyone unless he/she is close , really close to your heart and a part of your life , of your world. And if such a person is incapable of understanding what your feelings are what and why you are doing all the things in that relation, then the person should give it a thought, give a serious thought before the relation starts losing its essence. The relation will continue the same way as it is going on, but it would be one way, because one in the relation is caring selflessly and without any expectations, but the other one is not doing justice to the relation. You won’t be able to payback in this relation.
Ever had a best friend who is not very expressive? Then try to understand him/her, because you may not understand what the friend wants or expects from you, because he/she does not have it in their nature. But if you are really a good friend, then you will understand the expectations without even talking about it and if you stand true to their expectations then the relation will flourish to another level of trust, another level of comfort, another level of bonding. But if you never did that, then you will lose out on getting to that next level.
This feeling can come in any relation, as close as parents and children. Tell me honestly how many times you have got this thought that I am such an obedient child, I always care for my parents, I do this, I do that and the list goes on and on…………….. but parents don’t think about my feelings, my thoughts. So let me now tell you that these are the same parents who have grown you up, didn’t sleep at nights when you were ill, took pains to get up early in the morning to make sure that you get up and study, prepare tea/coffee/juices for you, these are very small, maybe the smallest examples I can cite here. Have you ever done even this bit for them? Just give it a thought. Then from where do you have the authority to even bring such thoughts about them in your mind? Not that I have got such thoughts about my parents in my mind, but I have seen my friends behave this way. It really hurts. They have brought you to this world, you do not have a right to go against them or hurt them, if you love someone, you are doing it because you exist and how do you exist only because of your parents. So even if you are in love with some person, don’t be so selfish that you forget the roots of your existence, you have to do justice to your parent-child relation, in any ways you won’t be able to payback in this relation, but you can do as much as you can for them even if doing those things hurt you.
With the examples above, I just tried to make people realize that in any relation understand the importance of paying back, even if the person with whom you are into the relation does not demand it or expresses it. And if it is your parents, just prioritize them over everything. Because they are the root cause of everything, even at this point you reading this blog of mine.
I am very sure that many readers will not agree to my views here, they might debate about their rights their freedom and all those things, with due respect to their thoughts and their approach to their relations I would like to convey that these are my views and my principles which I shared with all of my readers here.Comments invited for this one.

Laugh with me please............. :)))))

2007-09-18T22:25:00.000+05:30

Hey Hi friends, writing again after a long time and this time I hope you will laugh like anything and drop dead on the floor, ok I dont have any intentions to kill you, but for sure I have intentions of making you laugh. I will be sharing all my experiences which were really hilarious.

STATUTORY WARNING:

Many of my experiences are double meanings, so if you are like one of those who cannot digest or take it in a matured sense please dont read further.

Incident1:

This isnt a double meaning stuff, but a hilarious incident that came out of pure adolescence.

We were in school that time, in 10th Class. We were sitting in the last period............ as in last lecture ( in school we used to call it periods, please dont take something out of the word period :D ) . The computer teacher was teaching something , some crap called LOGO, which I never understood, we were least interested in it. What we were interested in was the teacher. She was just amazing and too much for us at that age, well I guess even at this age for us. She had everything perfect, except one thing, it was her dress that particular day. She was wearing a white and pretty transparent Salwar Kameez............ and then she wore a Black Bra. Now that was turning on all the poor guys in the class. I along with couple of my buddies were sitting in the second row so we were lucky enough to gaze at her. We had these two fellas sitting on the first bench. They too were obviously under her spell. Both of them were whispering and commenting on her during the whole class, whenever she turned to the board they giggled and said something. As all this was happening , one of them whispered into the other's ear "Ma'am is wearing a BLACK BRA today" the other was unable to hear it properly, or rather completely, so he just looked back at him and said " What did you say , BLACK BRA?" and it was loud enough for the teacher and the 2nd row to listen. We just bursted out laughing like mad, obviously not in front of her, but by putting our heads down and trying to hide an eye contact with the teacher. It was just too much for us to bear. Both my friends sitting on the first bench were sent out of the class that day. We laugh like hell when we remember this.

Incident2:

My professional life had just begun and there was this group of mine , Gaurav, Rujuta, Nilofar along with me. We 4 enjoyed our bonding and were always seen around during coffee breaks. One such day while we were sipping our coffee , another girl from our fresher's batch joined us, she didnt have a coffee cup ( all of us got a brand new coffee cup when we join the company, all free of cost ;-) ) . I promptly asked her as to why is she not having coffee as I was not aware that she didnt get the cup due to low stock. She said " I dont have a cup as yet", I again promptly replied " Oh so you are still cupless!!!!!!!!!!" As soon as my words were out, Rujuta along with Nilofar just couldnt control laughing and I saw an embarassed look on the other girl's face, but soon she too started laughing , Gaurav and I realised a bit late about it, just a few seconds late mind you, and then we too joined the laughter riot. I still feel, that was an embarassing one, Thank God she didnt mind it.

Incident 3:

I was chatting with a friend of mine one fine day. She is now married and i always keep on asking her "Koi Khushkhabri" .............. as in whether she is pregnant or not. So as usual I was pestering her . So I asked the same question to her "Koi Khush khabri?" ......"Any good news?" and she promptly replied " One round is over, waiting for the HR round now" . And I was like confused as to what is she saying. I never imagined there were rounds in attaining the Khush Khabri. I asked her back " What the hell, how come you had rounds in this one?" . She asked me , what are you talking about.......... and I told her "My regular pestering yaar, what else" . And both of us couldnt help laughing. I nearly fell from my seat. The confusion came out all because she had given some interview and had just come online, so she was in that frame of mind and I was in another frame of mind while asking her the question. I still remember the incident and laugh over it.

Incident 4:

There is this friend and colleague of mine, I constantly keep on pulling her legs, its fun to be with her , and you actually enjoy being with her. One fine day we were having our dinner together, and she was in her normal chirpy mood doing all sorts of bak bak. We were a group of about 7 sitting together. 2 from our group had ordered Apple shakes. For some reason, one of the apple shakes had turned brown while the other one was fresh and still white. My friend immediately asked " Tera kaala kaise aur aapka gora kaise?" (How come yours is black and his is white?). Not everyone heard this, but I did, and It was pure double meaning and I just couldnt control my laughter. I guess I wouldnt elaborate on the sentence, coz people clever enuf will understand it and enjoy it. Anyways I whispered it to the other friends of mine, so that we all can laugh our lungs out. but I whispered long enough for this girl to hear it.............. and there she got angry, very angry on me coz she realised what she had said. For 2 long days she didnt talk to me, but now she is back to normal............... thank god.

These are just a few which I can recollect now. I will add to these as and when I remind of them.

I hope you enjjoyed them............ please leave your comments on it.

My Ability To Bounce Back............

2007-07-26T10:29:00.000+05:30

Life is one of the most memorable journeys you ever experience, you come across so many bitter things, so many sweet memories so many learnings, it leaves a trace behind you. Sometimes when you ponder over this trace you notice that there are certain things which are repetitive, not that it happens on its own, but you make those things happen, knowingly or unknowingly. I have been observing a certain pattern in my life and I guess that has been the reason behind my success.

The pattern here I mention is to BOUNCE BACK FROM NOWHERE and that too in STYLE. I have done it on quite a few occassions in my life. All of them were never planned though, there is this some element inside me which makes such things happen. I wish it stays with me till I die.

I would like to share each one of these experiences and would like to get an honest feedback from my readers about my thoughts, I believe this one to be a special ability of mine, my strength, but maybe others too posses it and none of them have shared with me!!!!!!!!!

I would like to go back to my school days to begin with. I am passionate about cricket and though I played cricket well enough I was never given a chance in the playing 11, this really hurt me a lot always. Once we were playing a cricket match, this was the very first match I was playing on a leather ball(leave aside practice matches) , and my team was struggling to pile on runs and I was in the team as one of the team members was not keeping well , I was the last batsman to walk in. When I was walking down to the pitch, I had only one thing in mind that I have got a chance, I have to make a mark now and save my team and prove that I belong to the playing 11 and not to the extras. I did it in style, I made a partnership of around 40 odd runs to play the remaining overs. We won the tournament as it was the FINAL match of the tournament and my captain realised that I did not belong to extras, I should have been in the team in the earlier matches too. I made a mark.

The second incident which I remember was during my HSC exams, I wasnt faring well during the preliminaries and the main exams were just a couple of months away, someone in my class said that I wont be able to crack the mains also, this really made me upset, I had a point to prove to this person and everyone who thought the same about me. Dont know what went in me, I slogged for those 2 months and I bagged a distinction in the HSC mains.

This 3rd incident has been the toughest experience of my life and this incident made me beleive in my abilities to bounce back from nowhere.
I had come down to Pune to pursue my MCA course which was of 6 semesters. Until now I had not seen a marksheet with a FAIL result , I had scored low but had not failed even once till this time. 1st Semester results were out and I got 1 backlog, this really upset me a lot. Parents were upset too, I thought I will make up for the loss in the next semester but the things went from bad to worse, I failed in 3 papers in the next semester, I was broken, unable to understand the reason behind my dismal performance. 3rd Semester things did improve, but they improved in my number of backlogs i.e. I bettered my backlogs from 3 to 4. I was going down and down, the 4th semester was the biggest achievement of my all time, my tally of backlogs rose to 6 , so I was now appearing for 12 papers in one semester, 6 regular and 6 backlogs. It was the worst phase of my life , my father had asked me on question " In How many years do you see yourself completing your MCA course? and to remind you, you can appear only for 3 more years after your regular period!!!!!!!!!!!" . This was an insult for me , being a father he was concerned about me and my future so I dont blame him to speak this out, but those words hit me deep down my heart, I thought "What does my dad think of me, I will prove him that though the results are showing failures, I am not dead, dont count me out yet, you have now challenged my abilities , and I need to prove it and I will make sure that you eat your own words " . 5th Semester results were out and I reduced the backlogs to 3, I cleared 9 papers out of the 12 which I gave. During this time campus interviews had started for our batch. And with these 3 backlogs I still had an aggregate of 60+ so I appeared for the campus interviews and I bagged an offer letter amidst all this. I bagged the offer letter leaving behind my class topper and many other so caled BRIGHT students of my class, I had bounced back with some energy and zeal and to silence my critics. For the first time in my life I cried out of happiness, I cried when I had the offer letter in my hands, though no one knows it but I now reveal that I was very emotional for many reasons, I had proved my worth and I had silenced all my critics. But still my father was worried that if I dont clear my backlogs the company might kick me off. I cleared all the papers in my final sem and secured 64% marks in MCA along with a secured job. But hold on, I had made a mark elsewhere also. All these 3 years I was the Class Representative ( I was chosen before my 1st Semester Result) and with such large number of backlogs, I was being considered as a candidate who survives on FAVORISM by the teachers. This too hurt. But with the offer letter in hand, many gulped down their words and many who didnt like my success beleived that I had some internal contacts to make it, I really pity on their thoughts. I started beleiving strongly in my BOUNCING BACK abilities.

Then my career path began, it was a wonderful moment for me, sweet success and the rewards were in front of me, I was experiencing it. I was learning the corporate lessons, I was learning the technical lessons, I was moulding myself to become a professional. After my training days were over I was alloted a project, it was time to be serious and perform in my work. This is when I came across 4th incident of my life.............

I joined a team where there were 8 senior members , all of them with atleast 4-5 years of experience behind them, so I was an amateur, definitely, but always eager to know things. My seniors were excellent , they made me feel comfortable as I was new in the field, they trained me , taught me many things, I was eager to perform. I had this manager of mine who was a dynamic person and a motivational person too, but since I was inexperienced he never paid that much of heed to me, I always felt bad about it, on personal front he was excellent but since I was working with people who had around 5 years of experience and the kind of appreciations they got, the kind of work they did, even I was eager to sail the same boat, was eager to stand on the same level as they were. I really felt ignored and it was natural for my seniors and managers for not allowing me to do things LIVE as my inexperience would have spoiled the things as far as work was considered. But then I was unable to understand it, and I decided that I need to prove something to these people, dont ignore me, I have it in me, give me a chance. Opportunity came knocking, all my senior members left , some left the company, some joined another team. I was the lone member left along with my immediate supervisor and a junior member. And when this happened , a critical problem popped up its head which I dealt with by working late at night and resolving it thus avoiding a major failure. The very next day, my manager who ignored me all this time, had a chat with me and was all gaga for my work and appreciated my efforts in written. Thats the time I heaved a sigh of releif. Point proved again...............
But today when I look back, I feel that my manager was doing his job, things shouldnt be thrown in inexperienced hands, that can cause problems, severe damage to the projects, so hats off to my manager who pressed the right buttons at the right time.

5th and the final incident to finally make myself beleive that I have it in me, but the worst situations bring out the best in me.

Fame, who doesnt like fame and name. But unfortunately for some reason the project which I worked on , wasnt considered amongst the most important projects. But when I worked on my project, I thought that my project wasnt so worthless that it can be ignored. As a result we did feel ignored at times despite performing so well. This was a trigger to another mission, prove that we as a team can do wonders and dont count us out, I just wished deep in my heart that I should contribute so well that one day our project should be known to one and all and besides us everyone should be proud of it. Or better say "Other's Envy and My Pride" . This did happen, we as a team bagged appreications and achieved results which no other team did and we were now people who belonged to a project with overall rating of 5/5. Another mission acoomplished.........................

This was all my school, college and profession life, I do have a few incidents in my personal life also, but I wont cover them out here ..............

Kaam Kar Phal Ki Apeksha Mat kar

2007-07-04T07:40:00.000+05:30

"Kaam Kar Phal ki Apeksha Mat kar"....................... must have heard this famous quote, I wonder who thought about it, but whosoever did definitely did it after his appraisal period, I am sure about it and had he not done it I would have defintely done it on the 29th of June 2007 at 4:35 p.m.

After reading my appraisal letter, many phrases passed thru my mind, one of them was " Kaam karna PAAP hai" and I decided I will religiously follow this one and try to do as less PAAP as possible.

One of my friends over the chat asked me "how much was your appraisal this time? " I replied back "Appraisal, when did that happen dude? ", poor fella he didnt understand me and thought I was serious, and again asked me "Didnt u check ur appraisal letter? It has been sent already" . OMG, cant he understand what I wanted to tell , tell him that my appraisal was pathetic and despite working so much all year through, my efforts were ignored completely. I closed the chat window immediately to avoid further embarassment. Then suddenly I felt guilty, I felt very bad not about closing the chat window and ignoring him, I felt bad about my deeds all year thru, why should I be rude to him so I messaged him back saying " Yaar maine paap kiya tha saal bhar, to uski sazaa to milegi na " , he wasnt getting anything out of my words, he asked me "ye tu kya bol raha hai " I told him, " maine saal bhar bohot paap kiye hai, infact I didnt even leave sundays to commit my PAAPS, so how can i be rewarded? " Then he got my point and understood my level of frustration and didnt ask me anything ask me anything related to appraisal.

My friend was consoling me over the phone " do not worry these things happen, they havent realised your worth , just dont take tension" I asked him back "Why me?". One more friend of mine she called me up and was talking about the same , she said " This is ur testing times and now that this has happend to you , I am sure you will prove your worth to these people out here" , all these morale boosting talks n advices flowed in from my good friends, and all these good friends were those whose appraisal was good, far more better than my appraisal, anyways they atleast did their bit of responsibility of friendship with me. Even I would have done the same.

Finally one more proverb in hindi struck my mind "Laato ke Bhoot Baato se Nahi Maante" , I do fall in that category, unless I get a kick on my A** i wont bounce back, but one more thing , when i do bounce back i do it in style, my past records say it all, i have bounced back from nowhere in the blues and stunned one and all. Just waiting for this time again................

Now is the time for me to bounce back....................

TO HELP THE BEGGARS OR NOT TO……………… AND WHY?

2007-05-10T08:30:00.000+05:30

This must have happened even with you also, while walking on M.G.Road, or railway station or any other public place beggars running after you, asking for money or food, and what do we do most of the times, we just shoo them away and walk off. Yes we literally shoo them away like we do it to a stray dog. Even I have done it at times. But the other day I was returning from my office and my cab was waiting on a signal and I came across such a scenario again, this time I thought over my behavior, why do I shoo them away always? Someone once told me that these people fake it up and are very lazy, they don’t want to work and hence they beg, infact some even said that the women and children found begging are sent by their husbands/parents since they don’t wana work.

I do agree there are some who are like this, but what about the old people? What about those who are disabled? We don’t even give them!!!!!!!!!! Isn’t it? Ok even if some of you say that we do give money/food to these people then how much do you give? 1 Rupee, 2 Rupees or at the most 5 Rupees. And do you think that this amount is sufficient enough to have atleast basic meals for the day???? I don’t think so.

No let me tell ou my monthly expenses. I normally end up spending around Rs.200/ day every month on myself, including food, shelter and my clothes. And there are times when I spend my money on things which are actually luxury, which are more than the basic needs, and why not, if I earn well I can afford to do this. Why I am telling all this is because I guess I or rather I should say WE can spend out some part of money that we earn on such needy people. These thoughts flashed through my mind while this beggar was waiting, knocking my window and waiting to get something from me; as usual I never gave anything to her. She even went to other vehicles waiting on the signal, but only one person gave her a rupee, that’s it. I felt I could have given her 100 bucks, yes hand over a Rs.100 note to her, this could have made her day, or probably her week.

I don’t know how much she is earning everyday or maybe she is even faking with her acting skills or her resemblance, but then if I pop out a 50/100 rupee note and hand over even to one such beggar some day every week, then I will be able to make their day. Atleast they will feel happy and will be able to eat to their heart’s content or do whatever they want to do with it. And I would give it to those who are aged and helpless and find it difficult even to walk and beg, they just sit on the footpath or one corner of a railway station.

What is wrong if I try to help these people? Why do we shoo them away? Can anyone tell me? And yes we do purchase cards/books or anything which helps big organizations/NGOs to collect funds for children/disabled/mentally challenged etc., but have you ever seen where does the money actually go? I do not doubt on these organizations, but I haven’t seen it myself, so it is somewhat difficult to believe. Rather than saying difficult to believe I would say that when I give money directly to these beggars, I know that it has reached the needy people eventually, I am convinced because I have done it myself. And that remains a doubt when I help big organizations to collect money for the needy.

Let us help them, and if my thoughts are wrong anywhere please correct me.

With a small effort we can bring smiles in their lives.

FLIRTING ----- What’s wrong in FLIRTING?

2007-04-27T23:19:00.000+05:30

Hi friends , writing after a long time , though I always think of writing Blogs frequently but I end up writing them infrequently, anyways this time around I just started typing this one all of a sudden and that is how I normally pen down all my posts , no prior thoughts, just opened a word doc and started typing. Mind you this one is a HINGLISH BLOG (just a cpl of lines though), the first I am attempting, lets see how well I score here.

I always keep on getting such comments from my friends , especially girls, one of my friends always tells me “Sudhar jaao Shahnawaz, ab to sudhar jaao”, I reply “ Yaar maine kya galat kiya hai? Please tell me” and she will shrug off her shoulders with a sigh. Ok now this is all in context with my nature which is very much flirting kinda, I cant help flirting with girls, not all , mind you, only with those who allow me to flirt with them, but yes I do agree that I initiate. What you read ahead are pure facts dealing with my life and please do not think that I am boasting of myself, till date I have had string of affairs with many girls ( my fiancée not included ) and yes all of these were casual flirting when it started off, 3 girls have readily fallen for me , I have proofs to show if anyone of you doubt, but I never intended to fall in love with either of these, again this was just the Halka Phulka kinda flirting which they didn’t understand I feel.

One of my very close friend says “ Shahnawaz when you flirt , try to grasp the girl’s level of understanding, if she is really treating this as a flirting or treating this as a serious affair” and I guess she was so right, all these 3 girls whom I have mentioned didn’t understand the meaning of flirting and thus in my list. Infact I have flirted a lot with this friend of mine, and m glad that she understands it so well and makes flirting a fun, cheers babe.

Another friend of mine once asked me “ Raja would you like it if your wife flirts with someone else the way you do” my reply was “ I don’t have any problems coz I know I m not doing anything wrong, until you are faithful to each other, it doesn’t matter” , my fiancée hasn’t done this till date, so I guess I am saying all this so easily, only time will tell if I follow my words or not?

The point here I feel is that if I am flirting with a girl, I guess I am not doing anything wrong, I am not luring her into some physical thing by doing this or not emotionally involving her or so , the thing here is that some people love doing it and I am one of them, I openly agree to this habit of mine, so no issues, I have told this to my fiancée also, till now everything seems to be pretty cool, now I don’t know what lies after my marriage for me, but definitely I will try to flirt as much as I can do with my WIFE, and no other female.

Why I say this is because I have noticed that only a few girls will take such things casually, and all the friends I have mentioned above will not like their HUSBANDS to flirt around, even if it is a casual thingy. 90% oops, 99% of Indian girls are like this, I can easily say this.

But I still say I am not doing anything wrong. Well my marriage is long time from now, so let me enjoy this habit of mine till then, coz after that I need to tune myself according to my wife.

Do Comment people

Love Vs Lust ?

2007-02-23T17:37:00.000+05:30

Three guys are sipping coffee in an IT company and "Oh shit, look at her , lovely stats man........" said one and everyone stared at her as if their eyes would pop out, just a couple of minutes later another one said " damn , there she comes, I have been looking at her since the day we joined, she is an HR isnt it? , day by day she gets beautiful and gorgeous .......... wish I could ......@)$&(&#$ her" and everyone sighs desperately. Then another one from the lot of these beautiful DIVAS goes past them, two of these guys again start describing her figure , third guy keeps quiet and when both of them get beyond limits, he just stops them " Please guys , thats enough , I love her and you know it " . Now why did this guy, who until now was enjoying the other babes didnt utter a word or comment on her? Cause he was in Love with her.

Now let me tell the point of focus out here, its LOVE vs LUST. If you love someone very much then such thoughts dont occupy your mind initially(later it will obviously, if both of them are straight ;-) ). Those oohs and aahs and ummmms come out only for the unknown ones, for the girls/women you dont know, and you havent actually communicated with or the best way you can say is you havent fallen in love with. When you are in love with someone you will look at her eyes more often but its not the case otherwise wherein you look everywhere more than her face or for that sake her eyes. I dont say that people in LOVE dont look at these things, they do , they definitely look but not with the one they love, they will actually give second priority to these things.

Love At First Sight is what happens with many people but then these are the relations which either break up far too easily or they compromise the most, very rarely you will find that in such marriages both are compatible with each other. Attraction is temporary and how long will the person remain attractive/sexy/beautiful ts just a matter of time, and later on all that matters is the nature of the person.

Many might argue that they change oneself so as to get along with the other one, in short you can actually say that you are changing yourself, losing all those originality in you, whatever you are to get that person, but then I think thats not right, when you wont be what you actually are then whats the use.

A person falling in love after several meetings, several talks with the other one tends to last longer. For me it was love at first sight, but i was lucky enuf to know her nature over the period. So eventually its a better bet to go with a average looking person but who is more compatible with u rather than a gorgeous babe who is not at all compatible with you.

My CIRCUITS and My LUCKY SINGHS .......... MUNNA is incomplete without you!!!!

2007-02-12T22:36:00.000+05:30

My previous blog was criticised terribly by my readers, some of them said that "Raja it was unlike you, we are disappointed, terribly disappointed" . So in order to get back to rhythm I decided to write a few posts so that i get back in the groove. Well i guess i lost my habit of writing frequently, once you lose touch of anything it is difficult to get back to it, and that is what happened with me.

Guess what whose gonna help me to get back in my rythm, my dear CIRCUITS . Well not the electric CIRCUIT , obviously not, but those CIRCUITS which do exist inside all my close friends, yes you are right, the character CIRCUIT from the movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai.
I am sure that most of you have seen the movie, well I think that all of you are my CIRCUITS and I am your MUNNA.

The movie was excellent, one of my favorites.If you remember the movie, whenever Munna used to see or better say that whenever there was CHEMICAL LOCHA in Munna's brain and he saw our Father, I mean Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi (MG), he(MG) used to talk with him and advise him and always helped him out of various situations ,poor Circuit never saw him(MG) and whenever Munna asked Circuit "Circuit can you see Bapu ?" poor fellow used to nod in assertion and which made Munna's belief stronger that the friendly ghost of Bapu did exist to help him.

On the similar lines, whenever I have posted you guys my link saying "Please read my blog and comment on it" , whether u liked them or not my dear CIRCUITS , I mean you all , you have always replied with great comments which made me believe that I am a great blog writer. U always gave me confidence and belief, infact I posses such good writing skills which can win me Pulitzer.

All of you know the truth that Bapu didnt exist ithe way Munna thought him to be , it was a CHEMICAL LOCHA in his brain which made him believe that Bapu existed , similarly for me it was some motivation from your side which made me beleive that I write so well, which actually I realised I dont. But life is not a BED OF ROSES, like Munna had an excellent friend in Circuit , he even had Lucky Singh....... the bad man so did I, I also had a few Lucky Singhs in my life whom I wouldnt call a villain or a bad man at all, but yes they proved an eye opener to me............ they made me realise that whatever I write wont be accepted always like all my CIRCUITS do and will be criticized when they need to be. I really thank these Lucky Singhs in my life who have helped me a lot.

But anyways, the majority of the credit goes to all my CIRCUITS who have always supported me and always been on my side. If you remember Circuit was Munna's best buddy who always helped him , same is the case with my CIRCUITS , who have never discouraged me never stopped me from writing or never said anything directly thinking that I might feel hurted or I might get disappointed................. thanx to all my CIRCUITS.

Like I always do, I will update each one of you about this post of mine and all you CIRCUITS and LUCKY SINGHS, please be what you are. MUNNA is ready for you......... just eagerly waiting for another assertion from CIRCUIT or maybe another eyeopener from a LUCKY SINGH.

This Post is dedicated to all my CIRCUITS and LUCKY SINGHS, I hope I do justice to all of you this time atleast.

Just one sentence before I sign off

"My Dear My CIRCUITS and LUCKY SINGHS................. Thanks for making me a MUNNA"

Magical Spells………

2007-02-09T17:16:00.000+05:30

Girls and Raja ………..phewww , this was what one of my friends commented after reading about one of my past affairs. I believe as soon as I was born, Cupid was ready with its bow and arrow to hit upon me, and bingo it did hit.
My memory isn't that strong, but I guess I must have been staring at the beautiful nurse as soon as I was born. Then I came across 2 lovely girls , I must be 3 years old and so were they, it was a love triangle, my goodness at the age of 3 a love triangle, wow Raja an accomplishment at that age, guys don't get even manage one affair all their life and here at the age of 3 I was having 2. One of them was Sonali, she is now married to some silly looking guy and the other was Saima , she is now in Delhi and has become a BABE…… a typical DELHI BABE, I hope you got what I mean to say ;) . Both of them used to say "I want to marry Raja" …………. Hehehe lucky me , guys plz don't be jealous. If Mr.Cupid didn't hit you when you were born, its your bad luck. Anyways I chose Sonali at that point of time, coz she was more cute than Saima, but now its vice-a-versa. I regret choosing Sonali rather than Saima. It didn't last long because Sonali moved on to Pune and Saima to Delhi. So did I , I came down to Aurangabad for my schooling.

Now that I already was interested in girls …. Oh I am sorry, girls were interested in me would be a better way to say it. I came across this girl Sejal , she was the only frind I had in the neighborhood and thus I practiced all that Cupid had injected in me on her, and I did it successfully …. So another one in the kitty , wow Raja, let me tell you, she is still my friend …….. but only a friend mind you. Being my neighbor for quite some time I was lucky enough to hone all my skills on her. I was never serious about anyone, believe me or not, but flirting was in my blood since childhood and I was very successful at it. Well till now I can count 12 girls involved with me, hope my fiancee doesnt read this .......... well no problem if she does, coz she knows me.
.But I never thought about spending my life with any one of these except 1.

Every summer I paid visit to my cousins and grandparents who were in Jamshedpur, and I had dozens of cousins. There was this girl called Shazia , who was the most beautiful and innocent looking, shy kind of girl amongst them. First time I saw her (I must be around 5 that time), I was mesmerized or maybe you can say I was under some magical spell, she was unlike other girls whom I had met till that time, like other girls used to talk to me, showed interest in me she never ever talked to me. This always made me restless and bothered me, I had so many girls under my influence but why does this girl act as if she is not at all interested in me, or maybe she never was interested in me.If ever someone would ask me , whom do u wish to marry when I grow up, I would say SHAZIA, I being a kid they would laugh it off, but they didn't know that I was determined like all SCORPIOS are, that point onwards I always wanted to be around her, wanted her to talk to me, she was so mean, she always ignored me and rarely used to talk to me, but occasionally used to smile at me as if trying to tease me. Those were magic moments for me. Her twinkling eyes always conveyed something to me, I thought. As time flew by, I grew up and so did the intensity of my feelings for her. But she was the same old teaser for me, but then with time she also used many ways of spelling magic on me.

I remember an incidence where I was sitting with her father and some of his friends she had come to serve tea to all of us, and she was wearing a sky blue outfit, with her hair loose , she was looking so beautiful, I was just looking at her as she was serving the tea and snacks to all of us. After serving the tea, she just turned around to go back, I just wished deep down my heart that she should turn and smile back at me, she did , and it reminded me of the dialogue of Nana Patekar from the movie Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman "Agar wo tujhse pyar karti hai to zaroor palat ke dekhegi, PALAT" and she did with a broad smile. Oh man I had gone crazy, but then I heard everyone around me laughing. I came back to my senses and found that everyone was laughing at me, the reason, while I was deeply engrossed in looking at this girl , her father was introducing me to his friends, and I never heard him, all of them saw me staring at her and even after repeatedly calling out my name I didnt pay any heed. It was so embarassing, but anyways it was all because of this girl, who had spelt some magic on me.

There were many such magical spells on me and eventually we fell for each other and now we are engaged and soon we will tie a knot................

Well my next Blog will be about my innings so long........ in game called LOVE , with various opponents.............. hehehehe, just wait for it.

My Friends.........

2007-01-26T21:58:00.000+05:30

Friends , in every phase of our life we come across friends, and all of these friends are different from each other , they have their own ways of expressing their feelings, of carrying their relations with you.

I have made many in my life , and not all of them are close to my heart, but yes some of them are very close to me and they will be forever. The most interesting part of all this is how they become close to you. This again will be a series of Posts, since I have had so many friends during my different phases of life and I dont wanna disappoint any of them. Let me start of with one my colleagues ............ whom I consider a good friend of mine. Now let me tell u one more thing, if i consider some one close to me , it is not necessary that he/she will think in similar fashion.

I think to call some one your as your close friend, SHARING,CARING , UNDERSTANDING and FAITH are the most important factors.

There was this friend of mine, we had done our college together and we werent very good friends in college, but after getting into the same company we gradually became good friends. During our college days I always used to think that this girl has loads of attitude and i never thought that i willl consider her as one of my close freinds.

All of you might agree that you need to give sme time to any relation, only then the relation develops, but yes besides giving time I guess the rapport also counts. you just cannot spend time and try to develop a close relation with anyone. I never ever got a chance to spend time with her during my college days nor did i try. It someohow happened that both of us came in a group during the training period and then it just rolled off ............. being from the same college, we had lots of things in common to talk about and yes i even realised that we had a good rapport between us , sharing jokes, playng pranks ( most of the times she played it on me ).

The best part which i thought about her was the way she cared and valued her relations. She never exprssed things directly, she had her own way of expressing herself. And yes this is one girl who has beauty with brains. Being beautiful she always had lots of guys trying to get along with her, but she had a very good brain to deal with such situations, but I still remember times when she had to face situations when she needed my help to get rid off someone asking her company on the weekends.

whenever I had some time, i used to dial her extension and we always used to meet up in our office canteen have coffee and talk over various things, laugh, pull someone's legs and we used to enjoy doing it.

With time I had started realising that whatever i thought about her during my college days wasnt right, to know some one, u need to spend time with him/her and shouldnt make any presumptions.

We had many similarities in our likings, our taste of music, the passion of writing and many such things. Infact, she even shared a secret with me, which I guess is known only to me ............ she has shared her BLOG identity where she writes everything. Well this is how our friendship grew with time............. I was reall happy to find another good friend , she is amongst those friends whom i really treasure in my life.

Time flew by and we had become good friends over a year. I didnt realise how much i cherished her friendship until she joined another company. And it happens with most of the relations, u do not realise the importance unless the person is gone.

I had promised her that i would dedicate a POST to her and that is what i did. Anyways I wouldnt do it for all of my friends, just a few previliged ones.................... and she is one of them!!!!!!

ANGELS, I ASK YOU AGAIN .............

2006-10-16T12:55:00.000+05:30

Clock was ticking, time for the first time was passing by fast..........really fast , when i wanted it to go slow, really slow, ideally i wanted it to stop forever. It was just cries all around me , some were sobbing, some were wiping off their tears quietly, and some were just praying for a miracle to happen, so was i, the reason - a young man maybe in his mid-thirties was struggling to live, with the help of life support system , his pulse beats were decreasing, most of his organs had stopped functioning, except his heart which was doing a countdown . Just then a small boy, really innocent, unaware of all this , came upto me and asked "Raja bhaiyya, why is daddy not getting up?" . The biggest question for me to answer , i had no answer for this innocent little boy, what would i tell him, that he will have to live rest of his life without his father, that his mother will have to struggle and bring him up, that all his promises made by his father will not be fulfilled any more.................... God i just felt like weeping, but I couldnt.
This was the most difficult moment for me , where do all the angels disappear at such times? Why dont they turn all these mourning faces into smiling ones, why? Only If angels could read my BLOG , I wish they will.
This is not the first time I have prayed to these Angels, I have begged them on previous two occassions also.
I was only 18 then, I had a friend who was really close to me, we used to be together always, he was the only son of his parents. He was brilliant in studies, he was an ideal son of his proud parents. He was amongst the STATE toppers in his exams, with dreams in his eyes, he had moved to Pune for higher education, he got into one of the best colleges and was enjoying his life in Pune, when one day suddenly I got a news that he met with an accident and died on the spot, this news shattered me , that was the first time I asked these Angels, as to why him, why not some one else ............. why only him, I weeped for the first time in my life. I didnt get my answer.............

Last year on a weekend I was enjoying a get together with my friends, when I got a call from one of my close family friends, she asked me "Raja can you please come to Sassoon Hospital, as early as possible" , My heart started pounding fast and I asked her "Why? What Happened?" . She told me please come fast. I just ran off to the hospital, it was a Government Hospital. I saw her standing , she wasnt crying but she looked tense, she just whispered in my ears " Pradeep uncle died in a freak mishap, but we havent revealed this to his wife and daughter, they are sitting there on the bench ". The person who she was reffering was one of our very close family friends. Since all his relatives were in Mumbai and Bangalore , I was the only male member out there to stand by them in such a difficult situation. I went inside and saw his dead body, he was hit on his head by a speeding truck. My aunty who had called me up, then broke up and she started sobbing. I was looking at a dead body from so close for the first time, and that too of some one I knew so closely. Tears rolled down my eyes, but then I had to wipe them. Because situation demanded that.
Just then one ward boy walked upto me and asked me to take off his clothes and all his belongings so that the body can be taken for post-mortem, since it was an accident case, police was involved in it. I removed his shoes, his belt, his tie, and then his shirt and finally his belongings, I still cannot believe I did it, it was some strange force within me which gave me courage to do all this. Now when i think of it, i just shiver. He was taken to the Morgue, for the first time in my life I saw a morgue, I experienced everything which I had heard about the Government Hospitals, about the Police cases and about the formalities, it was such a torture to get our own relative's body back. And amongst such agony i thought about his wife and his only child , a teenaged daughter who he left behind. It was all over for them, a disaster . The whole night I was busy in the formalities, and at around 4 in the morning I got his body in our possesion.
After all this, I again asked the same question........ to these ANGELS of LIFE, why such innocent people, WHY ONLY THEM? Please answer this question to me, I want to answer it to the innocent little boy who is asking me whether his father will ever get up and hug him in his arms, please for me , answer my question , give me an answer............. still waiting for the answer, and still I havent got the answer................ Dont know if my question will ever be answered, but I have only one wish , I dont have to ask these Angels of Life , the question again and again........................ not so frequently atleast.....................

MIRACLES DO HAPPEN.........

2006-09-14T10:00:00.000+05:30

25th of May 2006, 3:00 p.m., my cell phone rang, it was my mom’s routine call. She calls me everyday n talks to me. Her usual question are “Had your breakfast/lunch?”, “What did you have for your breakfast/lunch today?”, “what time is your office?” and all such stuff. But today she was unusually silent, she just asked me “what were you doing?” and she kept mum after that, the silence was very abnormal and it was making me restless, so this time around I started asking her “are you alright?” , “you seem to be very low today, what’s the matter?”. She then said “Shazia got engaged last night”. This didn’t shock me at all, because I knew it was somewhere round the corner , my next question was “When is she getting married?” , my mom said “ when she gets her groom”. This confused me , I wasn’t getting anything out of this , I told her “just now u told me that Shazia got engaged and now you are telling me she does not who will be her future husband” I cant understand it at all. Then she said “Her engagement broke last night, the guy turned down the offer immediately after seeing her” , I thought she is not bad looking at all then why did the guy turn down the offer, he was getting a chance to marry such a beauty.
Whatever , I was just feeling happy about everything……….. but I didn’t express it.

Well the next question which popped up was just what I still cannot believe , in my wildest dream I couldn’t of thought of it. My father took over and asked, for the first time in my life I was talking over this issue with my father, a scene well reminding me of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum, Amitabh asking Shahrukh about his plans to marry Kajol, my father asked me “Do you still love her ?” , i was unable to speak anything, he repeated the question, I nodded , but then I realized that I am on phone and not in front of him, so my nodding wouldn’t help, I had to speak out. Slowly in a whispering tone I said “yes”, but immediately after that I said “But still it is your call, I wont go against you, eventually it will be our decision”. My father said nothing and handed over the phone to my mother and my mother said that we will call you again after some time!!!!!

She called me back in an hour, but this one hour seemed to be one of the most difficult time in my life to pass, I was so helpless, I wanted to talk to Shazia , I wanted to console her because my mom said that she was crying all night. Everything that I wanted to do was not possible at that time. So when mom called up , she said “ your father had a talk with her father, and he told Shazia’s father that to keep searching for good grooms and to look for a guy with whom Shazia remains happy, in case you don’t find any such groom, I am ready to marry Raja with her but………… not before a couple of years at least”
I just couldn’t believe this, things were changing around, a dream was turning into reality, slowly but steadily. But then my mom said “Raja, don’t be excited from the word go, because your father is still reluctant”, I told her “ I have already put the ball in your court, its upto you to decide the final thing” , I was gambling , I wanted to play safe on all fronts and didn’t want either side to feel that I am not supporting them. For my parents I was a good son , who was still ready to do whatever they decided and Shazia knew how much I loved her. And these are the people who mattered the most in my life, so I was not hurting any of them, well played RAJA, I thought.

I had still not talked with Shazia, because the full and final YES wasn’t said from either side, especially from my father. After this incident there was silence on both the fronts, but then one day I came to know that some guy who is doing his MBA has approached her father and her father is considering it, this really bothered me, if this time I lose her I will be lost forever, I had gulped down the fact of losing her once, but it was impossible for me to do it for the second time. Again I was restless and wanted to talk to Shazia, but my parents and all my relatives had asked me to have patience, because any emotional move from my side would result in losing her forever, they told me it’s just a matter of time, don’t worry, and the very thought of losing her forever sent shivers down my spine, so I didn’t call her up. The phase continued for about a week, same news kept on coming and it made me more and more restless and testing my patience.

I was mapping the whole situation to a K serial, like it happens in all the K serials, when everything is going right, something terrible has to happen, a VAMP has to come in between. The news was playing a VAMP out here in my case, meanwhile I even felt like blaming EKTA KAPOOR for her soaps because her soaps have made people change their way of thinking, especially of all the WOMEN. But cursing is what I was able to do, but I didn’t even know whom should I curse?

The whole week passed by, some how, next week I got a call again from my mother , confirming that it was just a rumor, don’t know who had spread it, whoever he/she was, was a moron. I was happy again, but still there was no FINAL YES from my father. I was just unable to understand as to why my father is not giving his VERDICT.

This phase again was difficult for me, because during this phase I was not even able to concentrate on my backup babes , well I should tell you guys, I had a lot of backups (in case I didn’t get Shazia). But then backup can never replace the original, isn’t it?.

Finally after a couple of months ……………… I got a call , this time it was Shazia’s younger sister, she called up and said “Congrats Jiju” and I just couldn’t believe my ears, I asked “why are you congratulating me for?” then I realized that she had said “JIJU” and I was the happiest person in this world. I just couldn’t believe it, I asked her if she is playing a prank or is she really serious, she said she was serious. That day was the best day of my life and the call was the most important call of my life.

I started believing in miracles from that time onwards. If you have read my previous blog, CONFESS ………… then you will also start believing in miracles.

I am getting engaged with SHAZIA this November.

Well my next blog would be on how these things happened, who were the key players involved in making this happen……….

CONFESS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE............................

2006-07-14T12:41:00.000+05:30

" Raja next time you come here you will have to attend my marriage" she said, "No , I wont come" I replied , "Why?, why wouldnt you come for my marriage", silence prevailed , we looked at each other, it was a full moon night, she looked gorgeous in the full moon lit night ,we were sittng on the terrace stairs, her beautiful eyes were demanding some answer which would hint my affection and love towards her , until now I hadn't proposed her, I knew it was just a matter of time and I will propose her but I never thought I would do it this way, I said "I wont come to your marriage , because I can't see any one snatching you away from me". She never asked me the reason again .Message was clear enough to convey my love , my desire to be with her forever. I had indirectly proposed her.
She was beautiful like a princess, fair, had long hair down till her knees, well I am not describing any fairy out here , she was my cousin SHAZIA , the girl whom I adored since my childhood , the girl whom i wished to marry and spend the rest of my life, she was the girl of my dreams.
Since childhood I had developed felings for this pretty girl, whenever I used to go to her place I always wanted her to be around me , talk to me , eat with me ................. play with me .................. and many more things, if ever she wanted to go out with her friends I would always oppose. Her nature was altogether opposite to what my nature is , she was shy , never expressed herself , she was very beautiful , not that I am very ugly looking but if you pair both of us , you will easily say that I am luckier than her. I never felt that she ever loved me or had similar feelings for me because she never wanted to be with me , she never wanted to do all the things with me which I wanted to do with her. I always thought it was a one sided stuff and I will never ever express myself.
I wasnt sure if I had done correct by proposing her indirectly, but it all happened unplanned. I was there at her place to attend her sister's wedding back in May 2000. We arrived 20 days before the marriage. All the relatives and guests were yet to arrive so I was lucky to spend time with her. One afternoon she was busy doing her daily household chores and I was glued to the TV , a song from the movie Hum Aapke Hain Kaun "Pehla Pehla pyar hai............" ,if you have ever heard, was going on and I was humming it along , after the song got over SHAZIA came down to me and said "your reactions while humming the song looked as if you are really in love" , I was taken aback , because I was humming the song with her picutre in my mind. Before I could react she went away smiling mysteriously. First hint.
The very next day I was reading news paper and she was sitting beside me , I was least interested in the newspapers and was stealing glances towards her, while doing so I noticed something scribbled on her left hand, it was some number , it was 143 written and a name was written along side but then it was not so clear, the name was scratched. I knew 143 was the code for I LOVE YOU , but then I was eager to know whose name was written before scratching it. I asked her politely "What is this written on your hand?" , "Just a number" she said , I again asked her "Why 143 , why not some other number?" , she replied " Why are you so much bothered about it?, do your own work" . She was testing my patience , I was anxious to know whose name was it? infact I was getting jealous, she had read it through my behaviour. This was ubearable for me , I roughly pulled her hand and twisted it and asked her rudely "Tell me who is this rascal?" she didnt utter a word and went away , leaving me with a feeling of jealousy and anger.The whole day I got pangs of jealousy. We didnt talk to each other the whole day. That was me , my possesive nature towards her which made me act in such a manner. Later on I apologised for my behaviour , I politely asked her about the name , she just replied " YOU ARE A BIG RASCAL" . I didnt realise at that point of time that she had answered my question and she had hinted me something which I always longed for. I again asked her "Please tell me who is this guy?" , she just murmurred something in frustration and left. I had got the second hint , but was unaware that the rascal whom I was cursing was myself.
During the marriage day she was looking gorgeous. I thought she had dressed herself to kill me, she was in dark maroon outfit , I thought of proposing her then n there , but then thoughts just remained thoughts nothing more. I still remember an incident during the ceremony when the groom's brother was trying to click her snaps and was trying to be friendly with her , this was too much for me , I knew if I behave rudely at this point of time then things might turn bitter , so I decided to block his views whenever he attempted to click her snaps, even SHAZIA noticed this and smiled at my behavior. Whenever he came forward to talk to SHAZIA , I intervened and took her aside, poor fellow , he must be cursing me so much , had he focussed on some other girl I would have gone one step ahead to help him , but it was SHAZIA, wrong target dude , I thought. Anyway during the whole ceremony I never gave him a chance even to come closer to SHAZIA , later on she did ask me the reason , I just said "I did what my heart said ", she had read my heart.
Days passed by, I got many hints from her but I failed to pick any of them. My return journey date was coming closer , it was just 2 days left for me to leave , I was still cursing the guy whose name was scribbled on her hand. Amongst all this we got time to sit together on a full moon night on the terrace stairs when she told me "Raja next time you come here you will have to attend my marriage......................."(read the first paragraph of the blog)
Then came the final day of my stay at her place , she was already gloomy , so was I , we had already sensed the feelings in our heart for each other, still none of us proposed each other, both of us were waiting for each other , being a guy I should have done it already but even after all this I didnt have the courage to speak it out to her. My train was in the evening , everyone was coming to see me off at the station , might be some 15-20 relatives including her had come , luckily for me the train was 40 minutes late. Meanwhile I was asked to fill cold water in the bottle , I took a few steps towards the tap , then I turned back and looked at her , she got the message , I was asking her to accompany me , since the tap was at some distance from where everyone was waiting on the platform , so that I can spend some last moments with her. She walked beside me, after walking a few steps we were not visible to our relatives, she took my hand in her hand, we didnt talk , just kept on walking towards the tap. While filling the water she just didnt leave my hand. All of a sudden she said "Raja, when you get into the train , open your bag and look at what I have gifted you" , I was already anticipating some development in our untold , un-expressed Love story. I didnt ask her what the gift was, it was mutual understanding between us. But a thought ran through my mind , if she has initiated then I should also express myself now. After filling the water bottle we returned to the place where everyone was sitting, I went to her father and asked him for a piece of paper and a pen, he gave it to me without questioning me about it ( I guess I should get bravery award for such an act , isnt it?) , I immediately wrote down 143 on it and folded the piece of paper. The train had still not arrived , 15 minutes were remaining, I thought 15 minutes to propose , get her forever or lose her forever. I walked down to where she was standing , took her hand in my hands and passed the piece of paper onto her palm, she also was anticipating it , she accepted it and tried to open it up. I said" Not now , please read it when I board the train , and do reciprocate on the phone". I wasnt feeling like leaving her , I just cursed myself for missing all those opportunities , it was too late , it was time for me to leave her ..................... maybe forever. I had now realised that the name which she had written on her hand was none other than mine, I was the RASCAL whom she referred. Amongst all these thoughts I heard the whistle of the engine as it passed in front of us. My heart was reluctant to go , I wished some miracle could stop me from going , but miracles on happen in Hindi Movies , not in real life. I boarded the train , she had tears in her eyes and I too felt like weeping, I dont remember if I ever waved my hand to my other relatives except her. Sooner the train left the platform , I realised that she was going away from me , maybe forever.
As sson as the train gathered momentum , I opened my bag to find a beautiful diary inside which she had written "143 Raja, do you?", my heart screamed at the top of its voice "YES I DO". I was the happiest person in the world after reading the message.
But destiny had other plans for me , since the day we proposed each other we never met . Till today I havent met her , infact during these long gap of 6 years many things happened , eventually I had to sacrifice my love for her due to my parents. They never accepted my love for her , though relations between both the families still prevails but I have already gulped down the bitter truth that I will never ever get her. She is to get married soon ,and again the same question has popped my mind , which she asked me a few years ago "Will you attend my marriage?" , and still my answer to her is "NO ,NEVER". Infact I dont want to meet her ever in my life.
Still I have hopes that some miracle happens and we get each other forever. It was too late to propose her , too late , infact I lost her forever after proposing her , so if you love anyone by heart please please please CONFESS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE............................

Being an Indian

2006-07-13T08:41:00.000+05:30

Hi Guys, I am back again . Actually night shifts give me lot of time to write , usually i get time only after 3 a.m. becaue by that time most of the work is over(normally).

So here it goes..............

How many of you call yourselves Indians? I guess all of us, isnt it? How many of you call yourselves TRUE INDIANS? I guess all of us would proudly say that, but did you ever think what does it mean to call yourselves a TRUE INDIAN?I feel like calling myself a TRUE INDIAN, but I am also not sure whether the real life incident which i narrate you is proof enough to call myself a TRUE INDIAN or not?I still remember one incident in my life , I might be 12-13 years old, I was at my native place watching an INDO-PAK encounter with all my relatives and some guys from neighborhood. We were chasing well when one of our top batsman got out and triggered a collapse from where the Indian team didnt recover and lost the match, I have always been an Indian supporter so I was crestfallen due to the outcome of the match, but some guys out there weren't sad , they were happy that Pakistan won the match and were bursting crackers, this was totally unbearable for me and I went to one of the guys who was happily bursting crackers and I gave him a tight slap on his face, I didnt run away from the scene , but stood staring the guy in his eyes. And I guess he too understood the message which I tried to convey with this slap , he didnt reciprocate, instead he walked away from the scene. I got bashings from my father for my behavior, and was ordered to go and apologise to that guy................. I havent done it till date because I thought I wasnt wrong. I agree that all of us have freedom to support the team of our choice , I have no hassles if you support Pakistan or any other team in the world but dont make fun of My COUNTRY. The guy was shouting"India is B*** S*** , Azhar is *****, Sachin is ****" as he was bursting the crackers . That was the only reason I slapped him. Today I feel proud about my behavior. Because I think I showed everyone around me that how much I love my country and how much I hate hearing bad things about it. I still feel country is a priority over religion. Maybe the other guy prioritised religion over country , which i feel isnt correct (no debates here plz , I have my own views which I am expressing, some of you might disagree with me).Some of you might debate saying that it wasn't love for the COUNTRY which was speaking , but it was love for CRICKET which was speaking , I agree that it was more of CRICKET which spoke , but if CRICKET can instill so much of patriotism in someone then the message is clear enough.Please comment on this...................

What A Match it was..............

2006-06-08T04:59:00.000+05:30

Hi friends this is the first ever blog I am writing, the reason-- Aniket's blogs inspired me, he is my best friend from my school days.This goes a long time ago , we were in the 10th class. The students of our school were divided in 4 groups called HOUSES which were named on different colors , Yellow HOUSE, Green HOUSE, Red HOUSE and Blue HOUSE. Every year there used to be cricket matches for a trophy called JACKSON Trophy. All the 4 HOUSES used to participate in it , its players mainly comprised of students from class 10 and class 9. Green and Red HOUSE teams had the best of the cricketing talent. While Yellow and Blue HOUSE were considered underdogs.Aniket , my best buddy was in the Green HOUSE and I was in the Yellow. Our first match was with Blue HOUSE team, which we won comprehensively and qualified for the FINALS, I was a part of the team , but wasnt there in the playing XI for that match. Green HOUSE lost to guys in Red. So the stage was all set for the mega finals , I am calling it a mega final because all the students from class 10 were invited to watch the match, whish was not the case in the league games. It somehow happened that one of our key players didnt turn up for the match and so I was in. Our team won the toss and elected to bat first. The Red HOUSE bowlers turned the heat on and the wickets tumbled one by one. The score was reduced to 36/9 , that is when I walked in.I was playing cricket on the mats for the first time in my life , I was wearing the batting pads for the first time in my life and hence my captain suggested that I should limp to the pitch so that we can claim for a runner as running with the batting pads on is difficult if you are doing it for the first time, I acted well in limping down to the pitch , that is when my captain came running and asked me if I need a runner , I went to the umpire and said "Sir I need a runner as my right leg is injured". Luckily for me I wasnt interrogated further on the issue and the runner was granted.I was on strike and my heart was pounding since the responsibility of the team was on my shoulders and i was a bit nervous, I had butterflies in my stomach , like Sachin Tendulkar has before every innings. I took guard and was set to face the first ball. I dont remember who the bowler was , but i still remember that he tried to bowl a yorker to me ,thinking that I am just a statue standing in front of stumps, he was wrong , I defended the bowl pretty well. It gave me lots of confidence . Thankfully it was the last bowl of the over, I had a nice batting partner at the other end , his name was Altaf. He was batting well when I joned him. He along with my captain motivated me to stay at the wicket and play normally.After a few deliveries I was back on strike, this time the bowler bowled me on my legs , and I flicked it to the square leg boundary , and it was a beautiful sight to watch the ball disappear into the fence. My first boundary of the match and that too in a crunch situation, I was high on spirits. Our partnership blossomed and we kept on piling runs at good pace. I even played an ON DRIVE for another boundary, I had only two fours in my innings. After some time we were in the final over and I was on strike , the score had improved to reach 72/9, a partnership of 36 between us was speaking volumes in the context of the match or it will be better to say from the situation our team was in. First ball of the last over , I defended it down the pitch , as soon as i did that , my captain who was running for me gave the call to the non-striker and they went for the run which was very much on the cards. But unluckily for me and my team , my captain's shoes got stuck in the mat and he tumbled on the ground , resulting in a run out . And thus we were bundled out for 72.Red HOUSE had a very good batting line up and a target of 73 in 12 overs wasnt a daunting task. I wasnt fielding since I had an invisible injury on my right leg. So I was a spectator for the remainder of the innings. The Red HOUSE guys began well and they were hitting our bowlers every corner of the ground , as far as i remember , the score read 32/2 in 4 overs , wickets did tumble ocassionally. The match finally reached to its last over, Red HOUSE needed just 3 runs from 6 balls and with 3 wickets in hand. I thought the only way to win this match will be if the bowler takes all the three wickets. I was praying that we should win it , because it was due to the last wicket effort that we imposed a fighting total , in which i played a key role. FIRST ball , the batsman played a nice looking shot towards mid on , and lo the good looking shot was converted into an astonishing catch. 1 down , I thought, 2 more to go. My fingers were crossed , every one was tense and was involved in the match, the equaton now read 5 balls left , 3 runs needed and 2 wickets in hand, anything was possible. our team guys were all charged up due to the brilliant catch taken. Next ball , and what i heard was the off stump tumbling down, it was such a relief. Now things looked very much in our hands , including the match , our bowler was on a hat-trick. We just wished that he should get it , it will be icing on the cake for us. Last man from the Red HOUSE , who until now were looking as if they would run away with the match , came in. We all had our fingers crossed , hoping for the hat-trick and the match. Bowler came in running and bowled the ball , a perfect yorker and the middle stump was uprooted. We couldnt believe it , we had won the FINALS , it was celebration time. Our team guys hugged each other and jumped over each other in joy.After the match my innings was appreciated by everyone , including my captain , who thought I could have easily played the first match. I was delighted and proud of myself for playing a match saving knock.Do reply if you liked my first blog , my email id is shahnawazsoni@gmail.com. I know it was more intended towards the cricketing audience , but I had to write it since it was one of the sweetest memories of my school days . Will write more in future......................hopefully

Love or Infatuation........... I still Wonder

2006-02-24T02:54:00.000+05:30

Hi Friends, writing my second blog , another experience of mine............ this time the topic will interest all, coz its on LOVE.

I had taken admission in BSc course. To tell you , the college from where I did my graduation had a college population of 70% girls and 30% boys , so no wonder the probability of a guy falling into Love was high, and in my case it was very high, not that I am a hunk or anything but you will come to know the reason behind this one soon.

I was in the 1st year, our college had a prestigious club called as Computer Science Club, it was managed by students who had taken Computers as one of their subjects. There were several posts for the club , like the General Secretary, Joint Secretary, various Heads and some selected members who worked under these heads. I was elected as a member of the Quiz committee, which had the responsibility of hosting several Quiz events all year through.

We had a very royal tradition of having annual day kind of program for the Computer dept. during which all the members of the club were felicitated for their efforts during the year by giving them beautiful momentos and the outgoing batch was treated with royal hospitality given by their juniors and the college authorities, the whole event used to be captured in video and there were eminent personalities of the city invited as chief guests , so it was a special ocassion for all the members of the club.

I had heard a lot about this event through my immediate seniors, and was very eager to experience it. Finally the most awaited day arrived, snacks and icecream and sweets were ordered on a large scale for the whole event. We bieng the juniormost members were given the responsibility to fill in the plates and pass it on to the other members of the club who would serve the seniors as well as the lecturers. I was handling the sweets section along with a good looking girl (whom i had seen all year through but hadn't talked ever, she was a member of another comittee)

While doing the work we just exchanged a few smiles, I thought I would initiate the the introduction session, but I did it only in my thoughts. I guess she read my mind well. During all this exchange of smiles , there was some speech going on by the chief guests which I guess both of us were least interested.

I was busy stealing a few glances towards her ocassionally. Amongst all this happenings she spoke out "Hi Raja", I was surprised , I replied with a broad smile "Hi". We shook hands and she introduced herself to me "I am Pallavi(using a fictional name, not the real one)". Not realising that she had already taken my name while greetng me I replied " I am Raja", she said " I know".
I asked her"How do you know me ?" , she said "I saw the quiz that you hosted " , "And you did it well, thats when I came to know about you" she continued. I thanked her and my stars too. As we were handling the sweets section , she offered me the sweet, it was Mysore Paak , I dont like the sweet at all, so I said"No Thanks Pallavi, I dont like it" . She looked disappointed by my answer, and I too was disappointed by her expression thinking that I should have accepted the sweet only to make her feel good. I also thought that I should offer her since she offered it to me , it would be behaving like a proper gentleman. So I picked up a piece of the sweet and offered it to her , she promptly took it and ate it. After some time she said" Well Raja I also dont like the sweet but since YOU gave it to me , I ate it". I wasnt expecting such an answer from this pretty lass. I thought wow Raja , seems something is already cooking between us and cooking well. I thought of testing her , so I asked her "Pallavi dont be silly if I give you anything , then would you have it? " , she replied with a mysterious smile "Yes Raja, why not?"
"Even if it is a bottle of POISON?" I asked. "Go ahead and test it if you have any doubts" she replied. I was confused , as this was my first conversation with her and in the first conversation itself she conveyed so many messages.

All of a sudden I heard applauses all around us , the function was over. After the function we cleaned the mess , and during all this we didnt speak at all , just smiled at each other . I said bye to her for the day, I was so mesmerised by her talks that I didnt even ask her the class in which she was . I went to bed with all the thoughts about her and the conversation between us , I thought the CUPID has struck me. The next day I walked into the college , this time with lots of excitement and desire to meet her and talk to her again. I was walking towards my class , looking in every possible direction hoping that I might spot her. But I was disappointed as I didnt spot her anywhere, I thought I should have asked her about her class(There were many classes in our college and she was definitely not in my class). During the lunch break when I was having lunch with my group which had 6 girls and 4 guys, she walked in with her tiffin said Hi to all the girls in my group and then turned towards me and said "Hi Raja , how are you?", I said "I am fine , feeling good(obviously hinting to the conversation we had the previous day)" , she was a really good mind reader and she replied"Why wouldnt you feel good?" and smiled mischieviously at me , my friends did smell something fishy between us .After the lunch was over , I asked my friends if they knew her , the girls said "Yes , she is in division B and we are friends for quite some time, but it looks as if both of you are friends even before we became friends". They started teasing me by her name henceforth. But they never did it during her presence.

We exchanged telephone numbers , we talked with each other almost everyday for about an hour, we talked at length on various topics , we never felt like keeping the reciever of the phone but eventually had to do it . But in college her behavior was beyond my understanding , she never talked properly with me like she used to do on the phone , the only conversation we had between us was the greetings and sometimes exchanging of notes. As she was in different division she had her own group of friends , but during the breaks or during free periods she always used to sit with our group. And as usual we used to exchange glances along with smiles, our eyes spoke I thought , and they communicated well enough.

This went on for a couple of years , during all this time I even thought of proposing her but never gathered courage even to speak it on the phone. Now we were in the final year , and I was the Joint Secretary of the Computer Club I mentioned above. I had many more responsibilites of the club on my shoulders. She was incharge of the quiz committee in the final year.

It once happened that there was a guest lecture arranged by our club. We had a tradition of gifting the guest lecturers , the shopping of the gift was done by the heads of the club along with some senior members. I was asked to go for shopping . I was given 500 bucks cash for the shopping. She accompanied me with two more friends of mine. We zeroed onto a wall clock worth Rs.350 , my friends had other plans , they asked the shopkeeper to make a bill of 450/- so that we can pocket 100 bucks in and then have ice-cream on the way back. I was an honest guy(I am still an honest guy), so I said no to my friends. At this point of time , Pallavi was quite , she wasnt commenting on the situation. Finally it was decided that if Pallavi also agrees for it then I will have to go with the majority. Pallavi was looking towards me , I and both my friends were looking towards her ,. They were trying to plead her , Pallavi raised her eyebrows as if to ask "Raja tell me what should I do?" , I just nodded my head to say no , my friends were unable to see it as they were facing Pallavi , the whole communication between us was in actions . As soon as I did that , Pallavi spoke out"I think Raja is right , we shouldnt dupe our college authorities". I had won the argument , we didnt make a fake bill. And Pallavi had won my heart.

It was our final year in the college and the annual function was nearing. It was February , I posted a Valentine card to her. I thought I had given her hints enough aut my feelings and I thought she would reciprocate with same feelings . But the next day she met me and didnt talk a word , infact she was very angry with me, I was disturbed by her behaviour. I even tried calling her , but she kept the phone after hearing my voice. I never thought that this will be her reaction , everything which was going smoothly between us collapsed like a pack of cards. She didnt talk to me for the whole week. Life seemed difficult for me during that period.

A week later I walked into the college with a heavy heart thinking that it will be another difficult day for me to pass time all day. But to my surprise , she was standing in the corridor smiling at me , and I also smiled back at her. She said "SORRY Raja", I said "WHY DID U BEHAVE LIKE THIS?" . She said"Dont ask any further , I said I am Sorry, I didnt understand you." Happy times were back again.

The very next day was our annual function , it was an emotional moment for many of us as we were not going to meet in future , most of them were going to pursue future education somewhere else. At the end of the fucntion , I was sitting in one corner thinking about those three beautiful years passing by so quickly , just then Pallavi came and gifted me a SLAM BOOK which had a message written on it which read "If you Love Some One Truly , Confess it before it is too late ". I thanked her for such a beautiful gift.

We never proposed each other even after this , time flew by and our final year papers were over , result time and we met again , this time I told her that I have secured a seat in Pune for my future studies , she was happy to hear it and said"Hope you wouldnt change when you go to Pune" I said "No I wont, I will be the same Raja which you know." further i murmured "Nor will my love change for you". She added " Raja go on with your life and study well and make your parents' dream come true , dont get infatuated like you were with me , you might find many beautiful PALLAVIS in Pune". I was taken aback by this sentence of hers. I just couldnt say anything more.

Now we are not in touch , last I heard about her was that she is in Bangalore.

I still wonder whether it was Love or Infatuation ? ........maybe you guys can comment on it.

This was my second blog , I know I was unable to present it the way I did my first one , but I will improve to perfection with my future blogs and with oyur feedbacks and comments.