Branches and Roots

Have you ever looked at a tree sans its leaves before?-I never have, until today, when I suddenly noticed something. There were these whole clump of trees, looking desolately heavenwards for their next supply of garb, I mean their leaves. They looked as if they were begging some unknown entity to give back what was rightfully theirs.

I noticed something else too. These bare branches look strikingly similar to their below-the-ground counterparts;I mean the roots. If there never were any leaves then they might have been mirror images of each other.

As I try to jog my mind for such similar images from where I come, I draw a blank. I never have seen a truly bare tree before in my 22 years of life. At my place, all the trees do, is to lazily change their coat from a bright green to a pale brown, without ever really shedding their leaves altogether.

I must have looked at them a million times before, but never really have paid close attention.It also didn't seem important.Sounds silly...huh. But it came as a surpirse to me. There are so many of these small things which we take for granted, for which we don't have time to spare, but things that set chugs of your brain in to motion.

PS: Well this blog was just food for thought.

Five years from now....

I didn't realise that I had been staring blankly at the screen for the past half hour until my eyes started watering. Come to think of it I can't even make out what was going on in my mind :)

Somebody asked me a few days ago "Where do you see yourself five years from now?". If this question had been asked by a prospective employer at an interview, the answer would have been a well rehearsed rhetoric of how I would have progressed up the company's hierarchial ladder, contributing both to my personal development and the company's growth. Crap.... who would know what is going to happen tommorrow let alone in five years. Since this was my friend I gave a true,heartfelt, answer "I don't know". This is the truth.

Iam not getting philosophical here. In fact Iam being practical. During campus recruitment this apparently inane question used to be the litmus test. You could see the people waiting to be interviewed, frantically trying to get a personalised version of his/her friend's answer. Even I have done that. How many different ways can there be to satisfy a corporate executive's ego? They hear what they want to hear. But we cannot tell them what we want to. Can we?

All Iam sure of right now is that whatever I will be doing it would be something I like,something I choose. Very few people get to do what they like and I want to be in these privileged few. Quoting R, it is my need- and if I need something I would get it. It is in your power to do what you like. Making a few compromises in life is ok but let your life not become a huge compromise in itself.

Take a break...

Hmmm. A new post has long been overdue and thanks to all those people who have been regularly visiting and nudging me to post. I really was busy for the past couple of weeks that I hardly had the time and energy to assimilate all that was going on around me. Anyways now that the spring break has started, I think atleast for a week the blogs would keep coming regularly.

I had mentioned earlier that my spring break has started. Spring "break" is really a misnomer. The professors break all records and load you with so much work that you feel, you were better off without the break. As such it is tough to slog during normal days, and worse still is to work during a break, when your mind keeps conjuring images of all things you could have done, had there been no work. Sigh....... There is work to be done and that too done fast.

Anyways atleast the first day of my spring break went off well. A trip to a nice place on a surprisingly warm day....Me and my friends went to a temple nearby(a visit that had been long pending). The highlight was the excellent food we had there.We knew that we would get good food there and it was part of the urge to go the temple ;). My taste buds had a gala time yesterday.

I was determined to splurge yesterday so unleashed all reigns and shopped like crazy. It felt good too.

Even after a long and exhausting day, I was determined to see my first day of the vacation off to a proper farewell. I came home at around midnight and proudly displayed all that I had bought during the day. Had a round table conference with my friends at the dinner table.I really wonder where I got all the energy from.

With the sights and sounds from the visit still running in my system I settled down in to my warm bed for a good night's sleep. And boy oh boy!! did I sleep well. I got up around noon today, feeling completely rejuvenated and up 'n ready for the week.

By the way does anyone remember anymore when the week starts and when it ends? Well for starters I don't. Every day just merges in to the chaos of the other with no difference. But yesterday was a thankful departure from the mundane. Once a while it is good to treat yourself to a break.

No Title.....

I was going through my blogs yesterday and felt that most of them were laced with a tinge of frustration, acerbity and pathos. I wont say I regret it, but I wont say I intend them to be either. Its just that they come out this way.

Well I started writing this blog yesterday and half way through I had a writer's block ;). Then I decided to change the topic I was writing on. I changed track and decided to write about an incident that had happened when I was a kid, that affected me very deeply and continues to affect me to this day.

I hail from a small town and whenever my parents got some time for themselves we used to go to a nearby city to shop, eat and what not. We were the regular patrons of a restaurant and we even had our standard menu to order. It was one such day that the incident I mentioned occurred. We had not yet started eating. The person who came to clean our table was a small kid who was roughly of the same age as me.

There I was sitting like a pompous idiot in between my parents and in front of me was the kid in rags with lines of weariness etched on his face. I could tell that he had had a long day.For an instant our eyes met and I saw this deep longing on his eyes. For the first time, on that day, I felt ashamed and embarassed for being so privileged and well taken care of. I felt that I would have gladly swapped places with him-anything to quell the rising feeling of guilt within me.

I was young when this happened and I could not even begin to express my feelings to my parents. When I was old enough I asked my parents why life was so unfair. They told me that, that was the way life ran. Life moves on and so do people. I still wonder about life's prejudice-why it treats somebody so well and leaves some others to die in the streets.I have tried to reason this out rationally, logically and practically, but without any success.

So I keep telling myself that, I, in my own small way will contribute to set the scales right. I don't know how Iam going to accomplish this but I have this gut feeling that I will do it somehow-in my own small way.

Nothing good lasts forever...But enjoy it while it is there!

There were a couple of things that were bothering me for the past few weeks. First there was my research in which I had a deadline to meet (the deadline was highly frayed due to a lot of extensions) and on top of that nothing was working properly. It was then that I realised why a PhD takes such a long time to complete. It is science after all and it is illegal for you to expect everything to go as you wish. It was in a way good also because I finally for sure, knew that Iam a very impatient person. (If I needed something, I had to have it immediately). So now that I know, I can work towards improving my levels of tolerance and patience because I need it badly over the next few years at least.

Secondly I had two midterms coming. And I had not started any serious studying till then. I mean serious, in comparison with the my last semester where I studied really hard. I believe strongly that you will only get something if you work for it. Luck and fluke have never worked for me. So naturally I was apprehensive about the exams.

But it was like a vent opening up yesterday. My exams went well and finally after a long and despairing wait something good happened to my experiments. I had never laughed from my heart for the past couple of weeks. But when I went back home yesterday I laughed. I had a much needed and long chat with my friends(we talk crap but it feels good to talk crap ;)). It was a really good atmosphere back home yesterday. I enjoyed every moment of it. I wanted it to go on forever.

I know nothing good lasts forever. But recharge your batteries while it is there, because you dont know when you will get the opportunity again to laugh again heartily.