Dost

doosron ki hasi main khushi dhundhna
unke gam main dujhi hona
kabhie roothna kabhie manana
kabhie has kar baat taal dena
dil ki baatein itminaan se batana
unke saath achhe bure pal bitana
zindagi main mil jaaye aise log
jinko dekh dil bole 'haan yeh hain humare dost'

My attempt at hindi

zindagi ke safar main log milte hai kayi
kabhi satate kabhi manate hai wohi
man lubhate toh hai kayi
saath nibhate sirf chuninda koi

din dhalke raat ho jaati hai
zindagi ke safar main rahein tang ho jaati hai
in anjaan rahoon par rahe jo aapke paas
unka shukriya-ada karna zaroor aap

kabhi koi mile jo aapko khaas
rakhna unko aapne dil ke paas
chahe woh ho dost ya aur koi
dil se nibhana rishte sabhi

aakhir zindagi ke safar nirale hai bade
kabhi rulate kabhi hasate hain hume

Happy Endings

Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Raja Hindustani, Ishq, DDLJ, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and many many more....the obvious question here is why am i naming movies randomly....these are the movies i watched today....while i should have been studying i was going on a major movie marathon....but that is irrelevant to it all....the question is what was common in them all....and the answer is HAPPY ENDINGS....what exactly is a happy ending??
I don’t have the exact answer to that question...but this is my take on it...it is when you know that there will be tough times ahead but you also know that you have a support system to take care of you....it is when you know that for all the happiness around you right now there is going to be an equal amount of sadness but that it will always and always be offset by reassuring face next to you...it is when you know that you are going to fail in things that are going to come but there is a person who will be your encouragement....it is when you know that there are going to be days when all you want to do is cry but there is a shoulder always for you to cry upon.....it is when the negatives around you become minimal and the positives multiply...it is when you have the ability to smile through hard times because you believe that good times are around the corner....Happy endings are those when there is peace in your heart and a smile on your face because you believe in this world full of mistrust and angst there are people around you who are good and who will be there....like this quote from Bob Marley - “Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for."

Change - the only constant

People change whether you like it not...You change whether you realise it or not!!
"After four months I will either hate the mention of food or crave it so badly that I would give anything for good food" I said to my dad the day I landed in Chennai. Anyone who knows me would have said without any hesitation that it would be the second one and they would have been absolutely right...So the other day when I was talking to a friend of mine (also from Delhi) about good food joints in Delhi I should have been happy and I was for about 5 min...I should have been happy because I was going home for 4 days which meant I could gorge on as much good food as I wanted....and yet I was not...and this brings me to my opening line about CHANGE....
You will wonder what change has to do with me not being happy about the food discussion...it’s something like this....I would be in Delhi and I can go to as many places as I want but this would be the first time that I would be in Delhi and I would not be meeting any of my friends...even though so many of them are in town for Diwali....and that is what made me sad....and the fact that I was sad was surprising for me and it would be for most people who know me because as a general rule I don’t like people too much...I like meeting them even less and yet here I was bummed out about the fact that I would not get to meet them this time around.... and all of this because of these (not going into details) certain people who I have in my life who came in uninvited....who stayed there without the welcome and who changed me ....changed me to an extent where I started wanting people to be there around me...they made me so open that I missed talking to them.....and all of this change happened without me even realising it....they made me a better person without knowing it....because I changed when they stopped trying to change me...and when I look back at the scheme of things I am grateful to them because they tolerated the worst of me to bring out the other side....and looking ahead I know that I will always be a better person..A better friend till I have them by my side....
So yes people change whether we like it or not and we also change without realising it at all.....and as much as we may hate it at that time and as much as we may hate people for changing themselves or changing us we later realise that they got us to being closer to who we really are ....because like they say...Everything happens for a reason!!

The Seven Year Itch!!

The 7 year itch!!! A line I have started to hate especially in the recent past. Making it more so is the fact that I am not even in a relationship...not the one associated with this movie anyway....having heard this line from a friend of mine often enough one day I decided to watch this movie. Not a Casablanca or a Roman Holiday by any means but still an interesting watch...
Relationships or rather the complexity of relationships is what gets to me...I know that fundamentally relations which are easy to maintain don’t exist...but the level of complexity present in them is baffling none the less.... knowing what to say, knowing what to do..understanding the other person...hoping for understanding from the other person...the expectations and the complexities just never seem to end...and this is what got me to the statement – The SEVEN Year Itch....technically the 7 year rule doesn’t apply to me but considering that two of my closest friendships which are at stake at this point of time have an average which equals 7 I figured it might be a road worth exploring.....these are two people who may not have always understood me but always supported me...who may not have always agreed but always and always stood by me...my support system and whose support system included me...
Yet today am at a place where I haven’t spoken to either of them in days...and while they say it’s not how often you talk but rather what you talk...the point is I haven’t TALKED to them in days.....and it is not because I don’t want to talk to them or they don’t want to talk to me....nor is it because that I don’t want to be there for them....it’s just the way I am right now....and what is frustrating is the WHY of it all!!! After two frustrating weeks and endless soul searching expeditions I finally found a path...that too while cleaning my external had drive....the movie...The 7 Year Itch!!
Maybe, and this is just my understanding, that here the number 7 is not as importance as the time period it signifies... after a certain number of years, and this will vary for each person, you reach a stage or rather a stagnation point...where you think you know what the other person has to say so you don’t talk....where old issues never die down and get you depressed....where you stop understanding because your mind expects a previous repeat to happen....there are a lot of beacuses’ which I haven’t penned down and probably some more which I haven’t even comprehended...but what I do know is that talking was never so hard....never to those two people in my life....being around for them was never a task...never an effort.....things never were this complicated....directions never so contradicted..... where I am now is beyond me....where I want to be an unknown dream.....something’s just don’t make sense...Some distances just don’t seem to end....fences are broken waiting to be mended... but my mind just refuses to comprehend...

Life ain't rocket science

LOST is what I was...have been for some time now. Lost to the extent where I didn’t care...about ANYTHNING. By anything I mean anything everything...be it my studies, my friends, things happening around me...my family...there was a detachment which was disturbing for everyone around me. Indifference to the extent where I didn’t have anything to say when my closest friend was down, where not talking to anyone was just fine, where nothing seemed interesting. I was in a place where I was anything but happy...and happy I should have been. I was doing a course which had been a dream for ever so long, surrounded by people who loved me and wanted me around them. So then where was the happiness, the feeling of things being ok...being good? Why was there a void inside me?? A void which nothing seemed to fill...an indifference which nothing seemed to erase. This was the state of my mind with which I set out to the beach with a couple of my friends. I can now safely say that it was the best thing I could have done for myself.
Sitting on the sand, watching the sun set, the breeze flowing around me and the waves crashing in front of me, it was a scene from a picture. So logically I should have been happy but no...my brain the devil that it is refused to be at peace here also and my ever so faithful heart also played its part. Sitting there all I could think was about things which were wrong there....ignoring the things which were right....and so the time went by. Without realising I got lost in the water and its vastness, its darkness and its mystery. The farther I looked the darker it became until suddenly I realised that all was not dark. My brain suddenly registered the white which would puncture the darkness of water. The colour of waves forming and crashing!! The blackness created by stillness was being coloured by the thrashing of the waves. And suddenly there I was, standing near the waters’ edge just looking ahead...my mind a complete blank...and then the first wave of water hit my feet jolting me out of my daze. Looking at the waves made me realise some things:
1) Thousands of droplets make a wave rendering them inconsequential alone. The same drops would be priceless in a desert.
2) Infinite waves are generated and yet a few brushed my feet and even fewer swamped my feet.
3) Footprints no matter how deeply engraved were eventually washed away
4) My desire to not get wet was not a deterrent to the water
Any sane person at this point would say SO WHAT?? These are all basic facts not rocket science and I completely agree. No rocket science here just like there is no rocket science in understanding life. Each of these points brought out certain facts into perspective...made me see things in a different light
1) Everything and everyone has a worth somewhere which is priceless.
2) Out of thousands of people you meet in a lifetime some are going to be closer and some are just gonna swamp you and there is nothing that you can do about it because that’s just how life is
3) Nothing is permanent, no matter what. Things, people, events change.
4) Some people are always going to exist in your life no matter what. It’s better to appreciate them sooner than later
Lost deep in thought was where I was when a hand crept up. And I found myself surrounded by my friends highlighting the most basic fact of life...you can run and you can hide but life will always ensure you are surrounded by people who love you and whom you love.
With that we walked towards the road heading back to our campus.
My questions were not answered and neither did the truth of life dawn upon me but I definitely got the energy and motivation to care again, to feel again...to want things again!!!

Expectations...

"There's a reason why people say we shouldn't expect too much, no one wants to see someone they care about end up disappointed. We instinctively act to protect our own from being hurt, and do what we can to make the right choices for people we love. But the reason we have expectations in the first place, is because we want to aim as high as we can. Because when you love someone, there's no limit to what you can accomplish." Heard this at a time when I probably needed to hear it the most. Was going through one of those phases where whoever u turn to is so engrossed in their own lives that there is no time for anyone else. It is at these times that you feel you should have had more people you could turn to in the first place but that doesn't solve the problem. Because no matter no matter how many people you are close to there is bound to come a time when they all will be busy. So you are back to square one. You may ask, where do expectations fit in all of this. Having that expectation from a close friend is the reason you called them up in the first place. You wanting your closest friends to be there is your expectations. You wanting them to understand that you are going through a low phase is your expectation. Every relation has its expectations. No matter how much try not to expect, no matter how much you convince yourself that you are not looking forward to something from that person, the expectations will always be there. They may be hidden but there none the less. Frankly, the closer you are to people the more the expectations there will be. Its human nature. But those expectations will differ from people to people. I am not saying they won't be there. They will be there, no doubt about that. They will just be something that you have suppressed, because you know that by expecting those things you will hurt yourself. Getting hurt is the biggest reason people don't want to have expectations. This is where that dialogue makes so much of sense. If you love someone, be it your parents, siblings, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, you will always have those expectations, both from yourself and them. The expectations you have from yourself will make you a better person because you will always want to achieve more to make the other person happy. The expectations that you have from the other person will make you a better father, mother, sister, friend, because what you expect from them is somewhere what you do for them. So to expect more you will always do more for them. So having expectations is not bad. It’s actually good, provided you draw a line somewhere. You should have expectations in the sense that you should do what you would expect in return but after doing that you should forget the expectation. Because that is what hurts. That expectation that because i did something the other person should also reciprocate is what pulls us down. Because if our expectations are not fulfilled, we don't make the same effort the next time and that is what causes problems in the relationship. So expect the most from yourself because that is in your hand to give and achieve. Expect the best from others but be prepared for the worst because that way you will enjoy and appreciate every little action and gesture of theirs.