Long day

It's been a long day.
I can close my eyes and feel your smile, not a visual feel but a feel that I can touch. Touch and grab and hold close, not letting go. No, never letting go.
And even though all of you lives somewhere in an infinitely soft voice brushing against uncountable intersections of my thoughts, I wake up, ifs and buts and cuts.
And even though bits and pieces of you and time flash in the constance of what now defines 'me' deep inside, nothing to do with who I am, I open my eyes, with hymns and prayers and cries.
It's been a long day.

Tamma Tamma \m/

Back to One

It is 31st December today, and while I sit on my bed reading posts by people on Facebook about how their year went (with crazyloads of achievements) of which exotic location have they chosen to spend their last day on (and how much cash they can shell out for it), it makes me look back and ask myself where the fuck was I during these 364 days?

I guess I was...
learning acceptance,
trying not to land up in a fight,
dating (don't ask me *whom*),
working (don't ask me *what* work),
tasting spiritual delicacies and not so,
looking for my CV but never updating it,
experiencing our people our place in Bareilly,
starting a few books and never finishing them,
having a few high efficiency shots of projects at work,
starting my Gold's gym membership and never going there,
regretting over waste of time but seldom doing anything about it,
losing few friends to better education better companies or marriage,
thinking about Bhai how life would have been if he were here with us,
looking for a flat to settle with family but never being able to finalize one,
driving through highways of UP sometimes in stress sometimes in ecstasy,
building and repairing Adobe Toastmasters and learning so much about people,
making new buddies in the comfortable (and limiting) context of my workplace,
satisfying a stupid curiosity for alcohol and hukka (once in a while, *of course*),
looking up to material possessions on various online sales for an existential distraction,
discussing endlessly about multidimensional beings relativity theory aliens and time over coffee

And as the clock hands of life rotate, the year number resets itself as we move from Nine to One.

A Recurring Question

It is not many times when I've asked this question to myself -

What is this all about? Why are we here? What's really up?

Are we here to earn and build castles, or to understand the Universe, or to understand ourselves, or to understand a higher being we call God, or to work for the common good, or to live life whatever freaking way we want to and have fun.

I don't know at this point of my life, whether I shall ever find it's answer. Or if I do find would it be a general one or specific to myself. But regardless, whenever this question pops up, I can see life flowing by and it's like a moment when you reach a bus stop, and suddenly look outside the window to see where you've come to.

Life is an opportunity to live.

Today as I left home, trapped in my own synthetic mental dialog, I saw a glimpse of death. Or more appropriately post-death. And while I drove ahead, the image of that young boy, a deceased soul, filtered the running, executing view of the Universe around me - pedestrians walking by, bikers racing around, shops opening, items being sold on road-side stalls, children going to school, mothers holding their hands probably asking them to study well.
What's the purpose of all of this if in fact one day we all have to reduce to cold flesh and dried blood. Why did I study Mathematics for hours, sat in thousands of exams, got compared against millions in competition, fought for that better seat in a bus or train, hoped for that lucky draw to bring me a tiny speck of immaterial happiness, argued with numerous believing my solutions could fix their lives, when the same fate awaits us without exception.

Then an image came to my mind - one of a Giant wheel.
Life is an opportunity to ride a huge and long and tall Ferris wheel.

We're all riding this Giant wheel of life, and we all have been given an option to live this experience the way we want to. All through these ups and downs, some of us want to corner ourselves, hide our faces and hope the ride is over soon, while others want to spread out their arms, open their eyes wide, let the wind blow them away as they shriek in sheer madness. And while we're all thinking and spinning strategies about the most optimal seat, the position of least deflection, the orientation which will provide the best comfort, being at a better or higher or worse or lower location than Sharma Ji's son, we never really know when we have to get down. When it will all just end. Maybe for you reading this, maybe for someone you dearly love. When your parents shall say Goodbye, or you'll welcome a tiny soul to occupy the seat adjacent to you - your little baby boy. The wheel still rotates, and shall forever do. But not for me or you. For our tokens are limited, and all I can do is to be the best of myself through these ups and downs and rounds and rounds. And money? Why hold it tight closer to your chest, when none shall accompany you when you get down.
For while you're on the ride, architect your life the way you want to. Don't look at other cabins because you don't belong there, and they don't belong to where you are.

If you're reading this till here, probably some of this did click with you.
Anyway, if it did or did not, I'd just say till when we're both here on the Ferris together, let's not waste any more time finding answers.

Simply put, let's chill.

The Train

Since time immemorial, as individual entities (and as symbiotic groups) we humans have strived to exercise power over others. This power has polar flavours - where on one hand it is produced and exercised using fear, oppression, limiting freedom, on the other hand there is the mystical power of unconditional love, authenticity and truth.

This incident is of 6th February 2016 is a manifestation of the latter flavour.

My analytical brain (can't be more wrong about it!) calculated the most cost efficient way of travelling to Nizamuddin station from where we had to catch a train to Amritsar. The time was 6.40AM for departure. Due to congested traffic and parking challenges at the station, I decided to take a cab instead. Leveraging prior knowledge that most cab drivers are not comfortable with OlaShare concept, I cherished at the idea of journeying at 60% of the cost of taking an ordinary private cab. To hedge the risk of finding an on-the-spot cab, I pre-booked another one before falling asleep that night. Tickets were carefully printed and we woke up pretty early so packing could be done on time. The OlaShare driver called me up early morning while packing was on at full velocity. I immediately noticed responsibility in his voice. He reached our society and I called him upstairs because I knew at the back of my mind that we were nowhere close to completing our packing job. He reminded me that the trip would automatically cancel shortly. But I already knew that, so I asked him not to worry as we could take our trip offline. While he sat in the drawing room, Papa prepared one of this his usual morning teas and gave it to Mohd Bhai, our to-be driver. Talks began and it was then when he took a small trip into Papa’s world. Meanwhile in 'my world' I was receiving SMS one after another informing me of cancellations by drivers of my advance booking. And here a driver who was not supposed to wait for more than 3 minutes, who finally waited for more than an hour, while we closed our packing and moved towards the station. 

On the way he talked about his various journeys and played a special Kavwaali for Papa on the cab’s music system. We paid him offline, about 200% of my ‘cost-efficient’ charges. But in return I saved his number in my phone - for whenever we'd need an urgent cab, he was there. And he found a new family, with a father who would love him like his own. And we found a responsible family-oriented young man who would be there for help at a phone call.

With a subtle sense of satisfaction we three entered the station. The time was 6.15, about 25 minutes to train arrival. I stood close to the electronic schedule board waiting to note the platform details. To my dismay, they were nowhere on the board.

This is when it hit me hard.

Frantically I opened my bag, pulled the tickets out and checked the station. And to my utmost horror I was right this time.

The source station was New Delhi (NDLS) and not Nizamuddin (NZM).

6.18am and suddenly like a house of cards the whole plan got weak in its limbs, starting to topple. 

What now? The answer came running to me in the form of my father. The moment I let him know, I knew what was on his mind - either spend a few more moments thinking and miss the train for sure or give it our best shot. How, I still didn’t know. I did call up Mohd Bhai in the hope that by any magical way he could make us reach on time, but someone else had booked his cab right then. This was when I saw Papa turning on his military mode - We rushed out of the station, where Papa got hold of an auto-rickshaw driver and we immediately boarded it. 

Now at this moment - the logical side of my brain had an extreme temptation to freak the hell out, and to eventually give up. Especially without a clue of how far New Delhi station was, and with Mum and Papa together, and a few minutes for departure. But this is where a miracle awaited us. The unfailing power of human connection. While Papa talked to the Auto-rickshaw driver, I saw him skipping traffic lights more than a few times. In Delhi, this is rare. For he connected with us, I could see how much he too wanted us to reach and catch the train. He told us the platform number where this train usually departs from, and rushed through unknown lanes in the dark of the night, manoeuvring his auto like a proud elephant marching through the battlefield, the world insignificantly minuscule below.

When I saw the first sign of New Delhi Railway station, I didn't want to have a look at my watch. But this is where my analytical brain kicked in and I noted 3 minutes to departure. I rushed out with the bags and asked Mum to follow me while Papa paid the driver and joined us. Noted the platform, which matched with what the driver earlier told us, and somehow we got on a moving train where Mum was the last one to jump and Papa pulled her up. Panting, exhausted and almost on the verge of going crazy I laughed, and Papa almost kicked me hard. After a pause that felt like eternity, we started moving towards our compartment, which was very inconveniently about 10 compartments away. All seated and set, I closed my eyes and reflected on these set of events.

What was it which led the cab driver mark himself offline, and spend more than an hour off duty sipping tea with a random family. What was it which made him play his favourite Kavwaali and tell Papa how much he missed his father. What was it which made him sound extremely regretful to know that we were at the wrong station, pushing him to the verge of cancelling his booked ride. What was it that made the perfect law abiding auto-rickshaw driver skip (stupid) red lights in a city like Delhi. What was it which made him repeat again and again - 'Sab bas aap station pahunch jao'.

The answer is simple - Love.

Such unconditional love is rare. When Papa enveloped them into his world, they were awestruck with an emotion they almost believed existed only in our own childhood. And this was real power. No amount of money can buy this power. No amount of fear can instil this effortless effort. No amount of domination can make the impossible, possible.

But something so subtle as love, can. A beautiful lesson indeed. Thanks Dad.

Toastmasters - Absolute Performance Conquers Absolutely

"You came alone. And you rocked the stage."

It was a bit weird how frequently people used 'rocked' after my first humorous speech performance at Toastmasters International Area C3 contest for Humorous Speech.
My younger brother knows the absolute mayhem in which the aforementioned speech was drafted. And most ridiculously, a few minutes before delivery I changed the whole beginning! And when I was sequenced 4th among four people, I was almost sure of boring them to death.

So what worked?

I did some preliminary analysis that day in my washroom, and this is something that came out of it -
1. More than mere words
A good speech isn't a collection of sentences but a performance. And when the performance is supposed to be 'Humorous' trust me it's going to stretch your limits of craziness when you're out there on the stage. So what are you waiting for? Go, stretch.

2. Hitting the nail on it's head
A humorous speech is all about humor. You can have 100 other parameters like 'purpose', 'value', 'effectiveness' graded on paper but you got to make people laugh if you want that trophy. And you got to make them laugh CRAZY.

3. Stretching beyond the ordinary
This is your chance to put your societal limits to a test. You ain't that crazy in front of your team in office but this performance is like a shot out of a Bollywood movie. For those five to seven minutes you shred yourself to adopt a new avatar and this avatar has no bounds! It's limitless!

4. Performance absolution
An analytical brain wants to think about competitors. It wants to be assured that you're better than them in x out of y parameters. But Sire, while this strategy can work, it can disastrously pull you down as well. Watching a great performance might suck the energy, enthusiasm and that fight out of you. So perform in absolution. If you still cannot survive without the reference of competition, just assume you're speaking against the world champion and see the magic (or disaster) unravel!

5. Structure the skeleton and focus on inflection points
The irony about a humorous speech is if you rehearse it a lot, it starts to sound like "What the bloody hell am I speaking". You start to feel that there's going to be absolute silence in the audience and this is because you'd have heard yourself hit those punches a billion times. Moreover what's worse if that out there on the stage, you MIGHT actually sound like a robot! So the best way is to only concretize important points of inflection in your memory and then plug in more granular points which you'll remember thanks to the segregation. Out there on the stage, use the moment to spin spontaneous magic.

Okay. Enough gyan.

But hang on. What about Speech Evaluation? Thankfully there's just one pointer here -
"Be different."
Professionalism is awesome. But it brings along a disease of monotony. When you bring a new framework to the performance on the table, it's like hot spicy seduction served on a plate for judges. And trust me they cannot avoid grading you well even if your core performance was slightly above average.
So innovation, creativity and you are to join hands and conquer the Evaluation together.

Disclaimer: This blog post is a note of personal observations and does not in any manner intend to declare me a God level speaker. I'm just a fraction who's tried to optimize!

Cheers!

P.S. I'll keep these quickies really short -

1. Explore the Stage!

Find 5 mins, go there, stand, sit and roam. Make yourself one with it before you step in for your delivery.

2. Use your voice, chuck the mike!

Unless you have a collar-mike, your hand's gonna be busy, and that can screw your intensity. Even with a collar mike you'll be hearing the echo of your own voice. And at times that's just weird. So either listen to yourself over it first, or chuck it altogether and go solo.

Mussoorie

When you look down from there, to a sheet of golden lights, you wonder about the million lives who live in the nuclei of those shimmering dots. And about the billion dreams each such life sees with open eyes every day. And about this one single dream of one single life that came true that day to see rejoice in the eyes of someone you love being there with you feeling tiny soft cold raindrops brush past her, as she strolls in the beautiful wet roads with an umbrella in her hand, in the alluring monsoon Mussoorie.

Past a two day long multi-parametric analysis on the web a month back, the venue for my Mum's surprise pre-birthday trip was frozen. A heritage stay in Mussoorie it was going to be. A week back the to and fro bus tickets were booked. All set, it was as planned and as free as it was supposed to be. I will always remember watching Mom almost jump with surprise when I broke the news after a delicious dinner one day. Then a couple of days back the Media shrieked mercilessly of ruthless rains in the state of Uttarakhand. 'Beware' they said. But rains always brought back beautiful childhood memories to me. And it indeed did transform Mussoorie to a beautiful solemn haven unlike the rustle-bustle of blind tourism that defames the erstwhile British escape in the scorching summer heat.
The transit city was Dehradun, a place with seemingly similar roads and shops and houses and billboards and dhabas and malls to the ones in the plains, yet with a freshness in the non polluted air that made you stretch your arms and inhale till it filled you with instant placidity. A taxi ride later, we reached the bus 'adda' for Mussoorie. The ride till Mussoorie was like driving through lazy fogy clouds. On the canvas of my imagination, I drew proud peaks, elegant valleys, box shaped houses set onto feeble man-made steps, distant mysterious temples all hidden exotically under the blanket of this mist.

Mussoorie, in it's first impression, with clouds heavy upon us and the rains more than possessive, was secluded. Taxi drivers who smelled of weed and local liqour swarmed around, which interestingly didn't stop them from charging outrageously for a ride lasting few minutes. The slopes were strict and it took a few seconds to reorient balance and sense of gravity. We reached Padmini Niwas for our weekend long retreat to be. The place was beautiful, more so with the woodwork, antiquity, an aura about the place with flattered you with subtle royalty. Still early morning, with hot paranthas and pickle and tea, the sound of raindrops smashing against tiny pebbles on the pathway, the absolute silence beautifully corrupted by distant chirruping of a young bird being your partner in admiration of  this natural celebration of monsoon rains.

The mall road had a living breathing life of it's own. A line of shops extended to 'infinity and beyond' selling everything you could bargain for at 2005.5 meters above sea level. Apparels, ice-cream, snacks, electronics, toys, antiques, cosmetics, footwear, medicines, bhutta vendors, and suddenly it almost seemed like slicing layer by layer of a 'mall' unwrapping the shops decorating them linearly beside the road keeping just enough space for cars to virtually battle through a swarm of gentlemen and ladies with colorful umbrellas trying to seep through the crevices of the traffic. From modest stays to colossal hotels built like a mountain upon a mountain, from square-tabled restaurants to the fully glass-ed 'Mall road view' ones, from the roadside 'extra-adrak' tea vendor to Cafe Coffee Day, from Desi 'bhutta' to Exotic continential, the wide spectrum of travelers and tourists injected the monetary fuel to keep an unexpected beast of an economy alive and moving.

The quintessential soul sister of Mussoorie was Kempty falls. Equally commercialized beehive of shops and stores selling outrageously useless stuff at times. For a family, the fall's base was well designed - carved almost like a swimming pool, though with a strong gush of chilling cold water that smashed against your shoulders. The impact of water fall expels excessive mist in the air, which when coupled with the breeze reminds you of December winter in Delhi. An endless set of stairs were to be climbed to and fro. The cab took us to two temples, the first one a modern built Indian one, and the second one was a serene Buddhist temple with a humble looking priest.

As the night drew close, like an almost conspiracy, the crowd kept growing thicker in direct proportion. I saw relief on faces of few who seemed to consider themselves pardoned from the 'wrath of the rains'. Others, majorly children, ran around frantically looking up at the sky tasting the rain drops with a prejudice-less delight. We grabbed boiled and grilled sweet corn sold alongside the roads, and walked on across the stretch. It was then when suddenly while taking a turn, you'd catch sight of the magnificent shimmering lights of Dehradun city below. Phantom clouds swam above the city like delicious cream over coffee. I wished a digital photograph could do justice to the dark scenery that lay ahead, but I knew it wouldn't so I asked myself and Mum and Aunt to capture this indescribable spectacle in their memories.

Finally it was time to close the Mussoorie chapter, and as we retreated to our hotel after dinner in one of the 'Mall road view' restaurants, our minds were elated but our legs cursed in an almost Punjabi manner. I exclaimed that such is a day's worth of spending physical and mental effort exploring and discovering something new like little children. That night as I played back snippets of memories of that day - the bus ride, misty fogy roads, beautiful sightings, delicious bhutta, jalebis, cab ride till Kempty, reading about Prayer wheels in Buddha temple, and suddenly it was a pleasant sinking sensation of giving in to sleep. I slept like a piece of log.

We packed and moved out early morning next day and boarded a bus back to Doon. While Mussoorie was a tiny self-sustaining ecosystem, Doon was a monster of a city in scale, and hence the dilemma of how to spend the last few hours of this trip. Upon recommended, we were escorted to the Forest Research Institute, and this was the second time all three of us almost jumped. The word 'magnificent' is an understatement for the architecture, the green cover, and especially the Dhanaulti mountains in the backdrop almost like an oil painting. We moved through museums experiencing rich studies on timber, forests, insects, herbs and happened to pity the University Chancellor due to some reason so silly the laughter persisted for a long time. It was an ideal place to sit down under a tree all day and think about life and it's ecstasy. But this was not that day, and so we left for ISBT, where our Volvo for Delhi awaited us. The way back home was one of reflection, and it reminded me of how the best of things are sometimes most simple and effortless.

Like this small escapade hopefully as a mark of a new beautiful beginning of endless experiential journeys. Happy Birthday Mum :-)