I'll tell you why

When was the last time
the person next to you was so
relieved and happy that
you were sleeping next to him/her..

When was the last time
someone came running to you
once you opened the door

When was the last time
someone laughed uncontrollably
at every foolish thing that you did
and everytime you did it

When was the last time
someone hugged you so tight
out of fear and panic...

When was the last time
you got a morning snuggle even
when your eyes were shut..

When was the last time
you admired the ceiling fan and its movement,
you found the light sneaking out of the table lamp so beautiful

When was the last time
you remembered you love being a kid
with no restraints, brutally honest and full of love

Its like being back at school, a pupil and a teacher all in one
You find things about yourself and
strive to be and do good..

Having a kid is as much about you evolving
into a better being as it is about bringing
a good person into this world!

I Regret

Let me start the post with a quote I read : ‘Don’t Regret the things that you did, because you felt they were right when you did them’. What a bunch of bullshit!

Words and Actions once dished out are not easily taken back or forgotten, are they? This post is something I have been wanting to write all my life, well not all my life, since the time I started hurting people. Since the time I started realizing I was hurting people.

ALL of us have hurt someone at some point or another. And We have done it hundreds of times. Some just do it in passing and get a kick out of it, Some do it by being brutally honest and Some just do it so that it hurts. And I have been all three.

And What I have come to realize is that the closer you get to people, the more opportunity you give yourself to hurt them. When was the last time you sneered at a Very Poor And Distasteful Joke(vPdJ) that your second cousin’s uncle cracked. You either pretentiously laughed out loud or sported a lovely smile. Had your father uttered the same joke, would you have reacted the same. You would keep quiet and added it to the list of things to be talked about when going back home in the car. It gets even more twisted in the case of a couple. To the World And To you, You are a couple, You are not A and B anymore and that broadens the scope of hurtdom.

Anyway, Coming to the topic, ‘I Regret’, I sincerely regret some of the things I have uttered and it hurts every time I think of them. I don’t need to dig them up to think about them, they float around aimlessly in my brain during those moments of near zero CPU Activity.

I Regret having said “Whoever knows about this college, And you have joined this college, haha” to that akka who wanted to hear my wishes after getting admission to her engineering college.

I Regret having said “Whose mistake do you think it was” when that anna was telling me about a grave accident in which he was involved wherein a life was actually lost.

I Regret having brushed away and mocked a song suggested by one of my friends just because I felt he lacked taste? The same song that played in my car stereo today that I sung along with.

I Regret not having turned the mixer from shower to tap mode and mocking my grandmother when she got wet from the shower. It hurts a little every day I enter the bathroom to take a shower.

I Regret the meeting we had in our office when I complained of the lack of privacy in our mall-style restrooms. How silly of me it was to take that up.

I Regret being rude and sporting a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude to friends whom I shared my room with.

I Regret that time when I over-sped and my car mirror hit a two wheeler. The ‘What If’ question keeps cropping up and kills me every time it makes an appearance.

And As always, the closest come last, because they can take it and you take them for granted?

Anyway, I Regret having said all the things that I said to my wife. After everything that I threw to her, not that she held back, She stuck with me seeing the good in me. And see how beautifully that has turned out. As I am typing this, my 8 month old son is trying to stand on my laptop monitor J.

And I forgot about my parents. They know!

Civilized But Sad

Civilized And Hence Sad. Heard this a couple of days ago! How we have forgotten to take in the smaller joys that this life offers us. How we have forgotten to smile. How we are preoccupied with thoughts when you don’t need any. You are sitting on the banks of a river which is hissing its love to you constantly and you are sober. You are thinking why I am not doing more trips like these. You are lying down on waters rushing past your ears, but You don’t scream. You don’t scream the joy you feel inside. You smile and lie down supposedly in tranquility. No Yelp of joy. You are at the base of a mountain and you get your picture clicked. You don’t smile. You don’t smile for cameras anymore. How I wish we could be that kid again, running around naked on the same river bank. That ‘uncivilized’ village brute jumping up and down in the running river. That inebriated group causing chaos under that waterfall. We are Too Civilized to be happy. We are all civilized and sad. Sad.

The Elitists

I find it very difficult to understand the elitist mentality in the upper middle class society. Firstly, there is a reason you are still labelled as 'middle class'. We are no royalty, i am not saying royalty gives you the right to use a whip, but the treatment meted out by the middle class is simply unacceptable.

We in the upper middle class have seen the lows and have lived in buildings which leak and battled with frog-lings and small snakes which sneak in through the kitchen hole. We have had trees uprooted in our backyards and removed all the branches and cleared the mess ourselves . We have had to go to the terrace in the rain adjusting antennas. We have cleaned our vehicles daily in the morning and we have washed our clothes on the stone stand at the backyard near the well where we drew water. And we were happy. Of course, we would have liked to have some more money to spend. But we were still happy. We built paper boats and sat on verandas and watched them sail. We got balloons for 10 rs and celebrated new year every year. We went to the local kite sellers and saw them making the kite strings and flew them as high as the aching fingers let you. We picked wrappers from road-sides and returned them to the shopkeeper to get our gifts. We had our kismi toffee bars and one Rs Pepsi and we were happy.

Cometh the millennium and we all grew rich, rich enough to afford a maid. Rich enough to afford a washing machine which does a shoddy job of what your mother/grandmother so expertly did. I have nothing against technology. It just has to be affordable and effective and it will solve a lot of issues. Fast forward a few years and we are here now. Sad and Elitist. A driver whom you can order around incessantly, A maid who cooks the food your children so unwillingly eat, a car cleaner who washes and wipes your car before you step out all shiny, a someone who takes care of your parents and also your kids while you rot away in office or even worse, abroad, A maid who has to wash your utensils, wipe your floor between your legs which you won’t move, wash your closets and even wipe your kids' ass? I understand. You are busy.

You have a family to run and you are grateful to your office. But I do not see the 'Family Running' part. Without the 'Help' that you get, your life would be in shambles. And there are some more of us elitists who come out and say, don't we pay for all the 'services' that we get and in a way are we not improving their lives as well. Are you really? Is that the thought that runs through your mind when you employ a maid - bettering their lives? Please stop these white lies. The maid's life and the standard of living does improve and she may probably be able to send her kids to school now, but that isn't what you have in mind when you employ them, do you? Someone has to work overtime so that you can be lazy.

There is one more thing that I keep hearing. I would rather spend my time on important/innovative things rather than do these menial jobs. Yet Another Excuse neatly worded. Japan and US, two countries where innovation is abound, do not have maids at home. They go to the extent of painting and building their own houses. You have money to throw around and hence you do.

If you can't clean your own shit, it is shameful. Stop producing kids if you can't cook for them and take care of them. Stop getting 4 bed room flats with 5 balconies if you can't maintain it yourself. And Don't tell me you don't have time to clean your car, It takes half an hour. And you housewives, if you are bored with washing vessels, ask your grown up kid or ur sluggish husband who is lying on the sofa watching tv to do them on alternate days. It doesn't take a lot to maintain your work and life balance if you care about both.

Pitchai

Post full'a instances, things i have seen....

Pala naatkala indha kelvi irundhu kitte irukku..

Sariya, illai thavara.. Idha edhukku venumnalum kekkalaamnu theriyum, aana indha pitchai podanumgara neram vandha podhum, Pitchai podaromo illayo, indha kelvi vandhurum. Ivar/ivan/ival/IDHUNGAL ukku podalaama.. yaarukku kaasu pogum.. nammalae ippdi kaasu kuduthu ivangalukku nambikkai tharome.. sari thaana namma panradhu.. ippdiye time poittu irukka, signal vizhundhurum,[Enakku comments kannula theriyudhu, Kaasu poda kanja pattu thaane naaye indha velai onakku nu... boys, control pannunga.. serious blog :)] first gear pottu thooka vendi thaan... adutha signal vara..

Adhe signal, innoru naal... oru vayasaana paati ma varuvaanga.. ivangalukku podalaam, edhuvum yosikkama nu jeans la theduvom.. thedi eduthu, oru satisfaction'oda poduvom patti maa kaila irukkara thattula.. 1 Re. Aen. Aen ennala/oru sarasari manushanala, manasa vittu pitchai poda mudiyardhilla.. Avasaram? Illa, again andha kelvigal? Signal la 1 Rs pottutu, veetu theru monaila 5 Rs ku oru kings..

Pitchai podaradhula sila per vidhyasama iruppanga.. For example, enga annan. Avanukku music na uyiru. Indha orey karanathukkaga yaaru train la flute/mouth organ/ edhavathu vasichuttu vandha podhum, pitchai poduvaan... vasikka therinjadhanaala thaano ennavo ippdi avangala kurudana sutha vuttu irukkanga... Slumdog Millionaire la vara maari..

Serenity

Torrid times.. looking back at all that has been going on within me, feels like its all going to burst out, sometime in the near future... not knowing what am doing, not knowing why am doing what am doing, not knowing how to stop what am doing and not knowing whether i should stop what am doing.. i am constantly creating my own puzzles and trying to solve it.. constantly getting myself lost in the maze.. i find the way out, but that lasts for too short a time for me to savor it, and am lost, in the maze again, thinking... i have started hating most of what i do.. most of what i loved to do.. this is a change in me that i badly want to undo .. i badly want to go back.. i badly want to stop thinking of a trillion things at a time.. need serenity.. probably a 'Into the wild' or a 'Catcher in the Rye' is what will bring me back..

Yaarukkillai Porattam, Kannilenna Neerottam

Its been a long time since I have posted something. Not that I have been keeping myself busy or anything. Don't mistake me and the nature of my job. Of late I have been whining about quite a few things -> my work, the strange thing with my stomach, so on and so forth. Just a few days back, a thing happened that just wanted me to put a stop to all this whining.

It was just another day, when i came back early from office at around 6'o clock. I kept the bike in the basement and was climbing the stairs up to the appartment when I noticed that our watchman's bags were packed.

We happen to be the 'Only' Bachelors in an appartment of families. So there we go, the odd one out. Once two of my roommates had a release and came late on a Friday night, the watchman looks at them for a minute or two, calls the appartment owner, who comes down, smiles and says "Friday Night Blues eh?? You bachelors..." Roommate looks at the owner for a minute and he struggles to find the right set of words, owner smirks and lets them inside.. So, all we have to do is pay the watchman 10 bucks every 3, 4 days for his Chai and Dhum and he will keep the door open for you forever.

Coming to where i left, our watchman's bags were packed. I happened to be one of the few people in our appartment knowing a little bit of hindi. He came out of his hut in the basement to arrange his bags. I asked him where he was going and the reply shook me to my core. If what I remember is right, he said 'mere bache ko kisi ne motal kar dhiya' .. I understand Hindi to an extent, but not to the extent of 'motal kar dhiya' .. I just said I dont get you and he came back with 'mere bache ko kisi ne maar dhiya'..(Somebody killed my sons) ..Then i Got it, i was lost for words.. And even worse was that he had to go by bus to his hometown and it will take some '4 days' to reach his place.. It was too much of a shock to me and I could not understand how someone can take this on the chin.. He did not even shed a tear.. Probably he was being a man now, but every minute in that bus journey will bring back memories of the past.. He was being what he is, a watchman, so far away from home, just to earn that extra 1000 and send it back home so that his kids don't starve..

This is when I probably realized that whatever I am whining about is just nothing when compared to what some people are going through right at this moment.. And I met a few other people who made my eyes water, The beggar who has probably had his eyes plucked without his knowledge and who has been made to beg on the trains.. A 90 year old lady whose spine is so bent she can't even stand for more than a few minutes, begging barefoot on a tar road..

There are a few lines that I recollect now.. This is from a Film Song in Tamil..

'Yaarukkillai Porattam, Kannil enna Neerottam'(Who isn't struggling here, why cry?)
'Tholvi indri Varalaara, Dhukkam enna en thozha' ..(With every failure, u get better, u will create history some day)

Every time we whine, we just have to probably think of the above two lines.. At this point I would like to quote one more line from another tamil song, which says,

'Unakkum keezhae ullavar kodi, Ninaithu paarthu nimmadhi naadu' (There is someone who is in a worse situation than what u are in right now, so don't lose it, don't lose hope)

If taken in the right sense, this will take you places.. Be happy with what you have, but dont be satisfied, always strive for more, but don't you whine about it..