As Random as Random can be

So the other day (Most of my posts begin this way don’t they… I need a new opening line) Anywho.. The other day someone shared something really apt on my wall and I couldn’t help but write about it.. My mind doesn’t Wander, It leaves completely.. (I know right.. that exactly me!!!) Apparently my great grandfather used to do that.. Go into deep meditation and visit different places, yeah right.. I.e his soul used to leave his body and go around visiting places and people. Most probably he used to sleep and dream of exotic lands.. In my case, Im sleep deprived anyway.. I wouldn’t know if my mind has left me a long time ago and decided never to come back..

My posts are always random.. How one thing leads to another  even within the post.. that trail is difficult to understand unless U’ve interacted with me.. Yes,  my brain works weird.. It doesn’t ask the most obvious question.. Like someone who falls down and fractures their foot, I’d probably ask “which stud were u looking at?” and not whether “ is it now in plaster?” And that moment  I do tell others the fact that someone had a fracture and that someone asks me is it now in plaster… #facepalm..

So this post is about all those completely random stuff that keeps popping up in my brain (Yeah.. I get it.. my mind may have left me for good, but my brain still exists.. If any two paragraphs are linked or you catch a flow of thought, that’s purely coincidental)

The books I purchased and the euphoria of doing nothing but reading all day is done and dusted.. Im back to the question of What is the meaning of Life, (Para Que Lavida If I may, and when I did put this up as my status on whatsapp my brilliant friends reply La vida es para mostrar al mundo lo que podemos hacer!!!! )  Is life just work, travelling and sleep deprivation? And Im back to the confused stage of my life.. where its life that’s leading me on.. and I have no control over its direction or the speed of time. While time goes slow on the weekdays, It goes super-fast on weekends. And It’s not really comforting that every day, every week you are getting older, and not any wiser.. Theres no much difference between the kind of life I had a year ago and now, so in essence I have wasted one whole year of my life..  ( If you check out my posts and think I am depressed.. Don’t worry.. I won’t jump out of my 17^th story window yet (Cuz that house is still under construction from the past 4 years.. Or the 31^st Floor of my office building (Cuz I guess in all Ive spent like 2 days adding up all the half an hour’s Ive been there in the past year)) And no, I am not gonna jump off anywhere.. the only fall Im gonna be having for a long time is on to the bed..

Last weekend when I was travelling by the ever slowing AC Bus.. (After eons that is, I now spend those extra  45 minutes in traffic, in the warmth of my bed) when a young couple climbed into the seat in front of me .. I love overhearing people talk, especially since I have a general understanding of most Indian Languages, listening to them talk about other people, fighting among themselves.. that’s what makes a journey worthwhile,  Surprisingly, they were quiet.. Maybe they already had a fight and were at the no talking stage.. It was much later that I noticed they were communicating in sign language… and Sadist that I am, I plugged in earphones and put on my now favorite song on really high volume.. The fact that I could hear and they could not and at that moment, all I could think of was noise when all they could hear was silence.. how upsetting right.. You would never have heard the birds chirp or trees rustle, or the soft sound of the keyboard when you are typing away.. Or the sound of toffee wrapper crinkle when crushed, or the peculiar beep when u plug in Ur iPhone/ iPod to charge… Apparently knowing things you have that others don’t is supposed to make you feel better.. And no this one didn’t.. Im still a narcissist and still a sadist.

So I also read bridge across forever... I simply can’t understand why Bach is so popular.. (Or isn’t he?) His Jonathan Livingstone seagull was not a children’s book as I realized when I was 10, and neither are his other books understandable when you are an adult (Am I yet? My brains still 5 years old.. And Im sure there are many that can vouch for that..) I can’t believe how self-centered he can be.. And I can’t comprehend how anyone can lead a life as he does.. Carefree and conceited and acting like he’s the only one everyone should care about.. I believe in Déjà vu.. But can it really be that dreams tell us about our future?  Lately Ive succumbed to being a normal being.. Ive started dreaming of stuff that Ive never even thought I could dream about.. Things that are not related to career, studies or even the other 2 points in my four pointed star dream.. And it scares me.. How can I spend sleepless nights thinking about such things when my brain has never been programmed this way? Or even used to thinking this way.. Am I turning mortal? (><) No I never had the misconception that I was immortal, but in my world, there were so many better things Ive dreamt about.. And who am I to blame Bach? All my posts are self-centered too.. (On a completely different tangent, do you think dreams tell us our future/past or are they just your minds deepest desires? And I don’t agree that dreams are limited to the universe as you know it, how else can you dream of completely new faces and completely new places?)

And Last week I also turned a year older.. How is it that you can turn a year older all in one day? Im still the same naïve ( yeah, rofl are you?), immature, lazy person who I was one day before the ominous date. And that few hours haven’t made any difference to my life, It’s still the same, weekdays jam-packed with lots of work and weekends repenting the fact that I’m still working and that there isn’t really any weekend in my life. And so this year I decided to not celebrate. Ive had enough of celebrations all these years, and especially last year when the celebrations didn’t seem to end for a really long time.. (Over a span of almost 2 months) And It’s not really a happy thought, that those few hours are making me a whole year older.. And the fact that I want weeks to get over sooner so that it’s a weekend(Actually it doesn’t make a difference, I know but the thought of a weekend is extremely comforting)  is actually working against the wish that I don’t grow older .. Can you believe it? Its April already and I haven’t started learning yet! Time to pull up my socks!

I write more when Im typing away on my laptop especially when Im trying to act as if Im doing work in office on public holidays or Sundays.. The word limit on this post has exceeded my usual word limit.. Oh yes.. I can’t stop talking about word limits.. 250 words is so not enough to talk about your role at your employer when it’s both true as well as exaggerated.. I just don’t seem to  know when to stop or even how to.. Should I always leave things with a conclusion? Should I just leave stuff hanging like some awful  books do.. When do good posts come to an end? When do I get a hang of completing one trail of thought and going to another? I guess I should leave this at that..

of this and that..

The other day, while flipping channels, cnbc was asking achievement award winners what achievement meant to them.. Some said fame, some said other stuff that was not worth another thought.. and I remember thinkin how petty their achievements are if they think fame is achievement...

And not that anyone is gonna ask me, it got me thinkin.. What does it mean to me? And then the most rhetorical of all questions.. Have I infact achieved anything at all?

Again achievement is relative (if u remember I'd written about something else that was also relative) One has always more than some one else and less than some other else.. Some one else did better than me, someone else is in a job that doesn't seem redundant after 6 months, someone in a job that takes them to different countries, someone else reaches home earlier than me.. Someone else doesn't travel much to work and that some one else is happy at work..(right now these things matter a lot more than money and fame to me)

I guess that is one of the most important factors.. Achievement is a job where one is happy.. Achievement is being able to give time to your family, time to yourself.. Leaving office when its still daylight out and reaching home in time for dinner when its dinner time and not time for insomniacs to sleep...

So to me essentially, achievement is satisfaction and for a person who is never satisfied, With life, with work, with qualifications.. It is extremely tough to justify achievement..

This weekend, (it was more like a culmination of many weeks that didn't end) was filled with self realization, thinking and reading (i read vayuputras!! I need to stop reading this way though.. Once I was done I was actually dizzy from the transition to the current age.. But there's nothin better than a book to make you forget all frustrations of a whole 6 months, it takes just a day of nothing but fiction to get me back to being happy.. No I didn't take the whole day for vayuputras, I also read krishna key.. Weak story in the beginning, he tries to be india's answer to dan brown, but manages to grip you by the end..)

what happened this weekend? I travelled.. without any deadline to reach clients place on time (ie before the reporting manager) and I travelled to one of my favorite places of all.. I love mumbai, and amongst all in those almost 50 km radius, I love the stretch from cst to marine drive.. its a long wonderful walk with all familiar haunts and familiar faces.. The uncle at the roadside stall near Icici bank at fort, who knows who the author of salamandra glass and how great the book was.. Who gives me additional discount just for a talk on which is the current best thriller..

Like the accessory shop outside mcdonalds.. I doubt his inventory has changed from the past 5 years.. I see the same bead bracelets and the same stick on tattoos hung there.. And those comfort me.. that even in this fast paced world there are a few things that havent changed..

Life used to be about mundane things like looking back to see the back end of the train at the curve at cst. When did all of it change? Why did all of it change?

As I walked down the cobbled road between cst and fountain, I wondered, do I really need anything more in life? Reliving those moments, which have hidden itself in the dark corners of ur huge memory bank, makes you wonder when life would be that simple again..

That annual trip to the book stalls, that annual birthday party at the gujarati thali restaurant that is almost as old as you(maybe older) that's all it took for a vacation to be eventful.. Life used to be so simple back then.. and 24 hours a day used to be enough for a lot more things than today.. Has time started moving faster? There was so much more we could achieve in a day...

the number of hours in a day remains 24.. it has not changed.. Similarly, the number of minutes remains 1440 and seconds remains 86400..

So that's achievement for you.. Using those hours in a day such that nothing suffers.. Neither work, nor your perspective on personal life.. And yes I do say and mean perspective.. Because everyone who is in the place where I am, knows that in the next few months there is not gonna be any personal life.. Nor any time to discuss perspective, So lets leave it at that..