In to our 65th year of Independence...

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
-Rabindranath Tagore, In Gitanjali.

This stanza from this great man, portrays a concrete understanding and hope of those who spearheaded the fight for OUR Independence. To this day, even to a
person with little love towards his country gets goosebumps when he reads this stanza and to those people who go deep in and analyse what those lines
exactly meant, It would mean a plethora of Ideas and responsibilities that he is assigned with. Some of us could not recognise these responsibilities while
some of us though have these responsibilities in our cognition, put them in a back burner.

Mind Without Fear : Mind Comprises of Body and Brain. Body needs both internal and external equilibrium to stay fearless. Internally, It would be a fair
statement to say we are less stable than our ancestors and our children would be less stable than us if we do not interfere. Lack of physical workout,
inconsistent eating hours, the domination of fast foods in our diet would all support this argument. Now, it is up to us to set an example to our future
generations, Make it a habit to work out at least thrice in a week, regulate your food intake and try to avoid skipped meals. Externally, one is stable
when there are no threats to the peaceful living in our society. This can be done by avoiding conflicts between two individuals, two groups, two regions,
two states, two countries. In each of the above conflict avoidance, we as the constituents of these conflicts we have a part and that too an active part.
Always keep in a serene mood, learn to forgive, learn to apologise, spread the awareness, follow the norms and be a leader. Other essential component is
that of Brain (i.e) knowledge, it is not possible for everyone to have knowledge on all the things that surrounds us , but keep your self ahead in your own
field also keeping a continous touch with the matters concerning you as a whole, economic interactions in the world, technical, political changes around
need to be hashed upon now and then to keep the brain fearless.

Knowledge is free : It is not.. even after 64 years after these words been spoken. With education totally jumped in to corporate affairs in the modern era,
one finds it difficult to experience this line from tagore. But, You have bought the knowledge does not mean you have to sell it, at least not to the poor
and the destitute who cannot afford to buy. Take time out, Go about freelance writing on your technical, philosophical, daily life knowledge. Go to nearby
schools and try to volunteer to teach them. If we see this statement in a country's perspective, we still buy knowledge from the other countries and it
is not cheap, it accounts to a major chunk in our economy. What we can do about it? Excel in your field, develop the knowledge bank for India and make
India less dependent.

World not been broken : Do I have to say more on this , when as many as 15 regions want to get fragmented? Some of them were successful and some are not,
If these are externally visible fragments, there are internal fragments based on rich/poor, urban/rural , religion, caste and what not? Change should start
from within, and if we, the face of the nation are void of all these differences in the first place, we could always see the change in the surroundings
which may later spread to the entire country.

Words come from depth of truth : Truth has lost its meaning these days, there is not a single person who have not spoken nothing but truth even when
they swears to do so. The buzzword being "Corruption" these days, entire corruption boils down to series of lies that made the liars rich and
every one else poor. No one of us can firmly say that I have not told a lie till today, leave alone to strangers, to even to ones you love the most.
I would also agree to the fact that ,it is highly taxing to survive on truths alone. But lets give it a try, dont you think we should?

Striving towards perfection:: Yes, this brings us to the concept of self-efficacy , this term essentially means that "Be a boss of your work". The best
example is MOTHER. Most of us would see mother's work to be trivial and take it for granted. But as a person herself, after put in to the role of
a mother, she determines herself, Let the heaven fall but I would not make my children sad and She is the best at it. In the role of a mother, every lady
achieves her maximum with the maximum effort that she can give. SHE should be our inspiration.

The next statement essentially says that every person needs to develop Scientific Temperment. Learn to ask why, Do not be afraid to question the obvious
if you feel they are unreasonable. There are many habits(superstitions) in our society that drastically need to be unlearnt. Be a pioneer in questioning
these practices. Learn to reason it out than simply sticking to the flow.

I would not say that even I would follow all of what have been stated above, but nevertheless I would try my best to follow at least few of the above.
Think about them. Tagore have had this dream, not to his benefit but he had a larger meaning of independence in his mind when he wrote this. Give it a
thought, You would realise.. "To simply exist, is not living" again by this great man made me think about all this.

I WISH YOU A THOUGHTFUL AND HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY !!!

An unknown proposal

"Murali..." she called out as I came in to the heavily crowded KFC on a sunday afternoon... "Here.. I kept a seat " she said enthusiastically, I had to cross the heavily crowded 30 meters or so to reach the table she was at , on reaching there, she said .. "you are sweating, let me help you out .." I thought she will reach out in to her hand bag and wipe my forehead.. Instead she took over the tray in my hand.. I thought I was expecting more.
"There are some small things that change how we look on our life , isn't it?" she said looking in to my eyes. " I guess so ... Why do you say that ? "I asked thinking of all the possible reasons she could have thought about. " Nothing, there are a number of such small things that I experienced when I was with you that made me look at my life very differently .." she said looking down on her chicken burger, "I do not know what to say.. But .. you are very special to me and now that you are leaving India .. I feel lost .. Will you be calling me as frequently as you were doing here?" .. I looked at her .. She was looking directly in my eyes .. I know what she was expecting from me .. I feel that way too.. But Its never gonna happen with all the issues in my/her family. I did not want to tell her how I feel about her and disturb her again. She was just being recovering from her past. I could not lie looking in her eyes at the same time. " It may cost more to call that frequently, but ya.. I will surely try .." I said trying to bring the mood a little lighter. " I will miss you " she said , as little drops of water rolled over her cheeks from her eyes.. I do not know why.. but I said " I will miss you too .. do you want me to stay back? " ... " Will you do that for me?" she said with a bright shining in her eyes.

"Here you go .. This is where I say good bye " I said leaving her near her home.. She stood there thinking and staring at me. "Murali, I dont know if its correct to ask you this .. Do you like me?".
I was taken by surprise... " I said , yes , I do .. If it was some girl that I have liked in the recent years, It was you.. but nothing is going to happen between us. Its a no-no all together you know with all the caste thing.. " I said to only see her eyes flooding middle of the road. "Please control yourself ..." I looked around to see the possibility of people mis understanding . " I am sorry , I just wanted to confirm .. " she said and walked even without looking back at me. I thought It was the last time that I would see her after this episode. But, fate has something else in store and I did not knew it .

The happening part of my life !!

It was early in the morning around 4.00 AM, there was a knock at my room door and I hesitated that one of my other room mates would wake up and let our warden in so that he can torture us to get up and get ready and go to study hours ... But to my disappointment, no one got up.. and I had to as the knocking sound was like a heavy thud on my head as my bed was next to the door. I went up cursing all the heavenly shit I know and opened the door .. .. "Oh My god .... Holy shit ...!!! " this was my first reaction as I opened the door... A soft and soothing voice said " Yes son.. I am your god , but i will totally ignore your second statement as I know you did not mean it ... " I was like " Sir... God .. father ... what should I call you ?" ... The voice said " I would answer that later, but I wanted to grant you a wish in the first place .. so, buckle up and wish one " .. I was like ... Is he serious .. then I asked him something that redrawn the curves in my life there after .. Don't judge me .. its my age or you could say my "GUY" campus with no girls made me ask this ... " Hmm.. I need a co education campus for god sake ..." He said " I will grant you that .. not for my sake but for your well being ....or.... not ".. I was like what... when I suddenly woke up from that bizarre dream when my warden woke me up saying " Dude .. you are totally screwed .. its already late and your iit maths professor is so strict on his timings .." .... I went that day running to my class with out even brushing.. who cares ..its all in all a guy campus...

Our maths professor said " Guys, I have an announcement to make ...." I was like " God , are you kidding me ??" ... He then said " You will be having a test on Algebra tomorrow , be prepared ".. I was laughing on my self .. "you idiot .. it was totally a dream.. now shut up and prepare for the exam dumbo.." , later that it day , it actually happened .... which restored my faith on early morning dreams coming true ... It was announced that we , the 44 students of IIT batch will be shifted to the campus where we will be given coaching along with girls ... We heard it as ... " You , the lucky people of 44 in number , will be shifted in to a dream land where you will be given a chance to talk to the females.. every day... " ... The other batches when they knew this were like .." You lucky bas**rds. " and we were like " oh my god .. oh my god ..oh my god .." but every one hid their excitement in the class .. but that totally came out while they are packing.. " they are like ... high with six joints .. and were sweating to go and wash their clothes ..which they never did before... and also IRON them.. you don't know what it means for us in that campus to IRON the clothes. . Its only when " your mother comes " or " the chief minister of the state comes and gives you a neat hand shake " .. not even the sunday colours that would fly in to our campus got this privilege ...

But I was not so pumped up.. I was cool ..except that I arranged my blue shirt and only black jeans ready like 12 hours before and see that no one touches them as they may loose their folds.. it was totally natural.. except that I climbed up and down the stair case like 10-12 times so as to look slimmer .. I was just being health conscious you know... It was totally normal... except that I had all my books covered with clean brown sheet and labelled with mickey's stickers ... I was just being neat .. I was totally normal you know..

And some how the next morning was so far away... We had a discussion where we ended up deciding that we were excited not because there would be some other gender in there..but just that we would be having tough competitors in the name of the girls as they are well known for working hard... we were totally cool.. everyone went to sleep and that day was the only day that every one of us had a SHOWER .... that early in the morning.. We were sort of given a van , which would hardly fit half of us alone.. but we some how did not come in our way of going to a "well competitive" campus. we some how packed in all our luggage and all of us in and bid a good bye to our campus , remembered our friends there and thought ..... " You guys rot in this campus .. we are going to heaven..."

What all happened after that was very interesting for the most part of it.. one and half years in that campus with all of our friends.. some did not like me .. some did.. some I did not like.. some I did.. but every one of them are memorable.. will pen down some interesting situations that took place in that phase of my life in my next blogs.. this blog is already is long .. and i am sure most of you would have been fell asleep..


--cheers
Ohmi

My Intermediate....

First off, let me tell you why this phase of my life is a very memorable one ... Till my 10th standard, I was kind of childish in my behavior, I did not know the real world ..well not a least bit of it... I had very good friends which I have posted in my previous post and had a well knit small world of my own.
But, when I was stepping out to college for my intermediate ,My father asked me " Are you sure you wanna go to Vijayawada and do this, I am sure our town have good intermediate colleges .. and they are totally into giving you fee exemption based on your tenth marks" .. I was kind of in a neutral mind set about it .. But my mother insisted that I go to Vijayawada for my education. I think that's one of the best decisions made by my mother. This landed me in one of the best cities and my most favorite city that I ever stayed .. Vijayawada ..

All was new and exciting except for the Hostel Food , as on when we were getting tuned in to the hostel frame work and how to deal with the fellow in-mates , We were given "Home sick Leave" , which ironically brought us to square one on the home sick thing... We came back after a refreshing, belly full 15 days with sagging faces and totally weak... More surprise was in store as we came back , we were being shifted to a main campus which is like _million_kms_ from the city and no building more than 8 feet tall in it's 1km radius.. It assumed a deserty look all through the week ... except on sundays when _parents_ come to visit their sons. We all used to dress up so neat and tidy only on that day hoping that a girl (one of our friends sisters or cousins) would turn up as if she will totally come and say " I love you" by just seeing our attire. It never happened :)

Few colorful sundays passed and selection of a hand ful of students , separation of that students from others and giving them a name of "IIT batch" happened in no time .. Most of us dont know what exactly is IIT or a childhood dream (most of the iit ians claim so) of getting in to IIT. Few classes went rather heavily on our brains.. few of them left saying .."What Shit .... I would not screw up my EAMCET coaching owing to this insane IIT coaching ..."

But few of us hanged on.. And today many of us guys feel that its a wrong decision .. but I think the hard work will pay off in some way or other ... Our campus was like in a lush green fields and when you see through the balcony window .. you will find a long stretch of road running perpendicular to the view... It was a night mare(rather, was it ??) for any girl in that area to cross that far stretched road when we were [almost about 700 teenage boys] in our break.. thats between 5.00 - 6.00 PM..

She would constantly listen the whistles from almost all the 8 floor balconies except the ground floor, where our campus officials stay.. kind of a terror zone one could say... If she turns her head sidewards and see our campus .. that's it .she had made mistake of her life .. the intensity of whistles grows and also accompanied by series of comments and questions like " Whats your name?" .. "Will you go out with me ?" .. "Hey , I have some thing to say ..." ........ She could not avoid it by anyway... she cannot switch in to any other road because it was a lone road.. there were some girls who were contrary to the popular behavior.. they used to wave back at us and its night mare for us to decide who was she exactly waving at .... Everybody has their own claims but I positively and whole heartedly think she waved at me :)

It was fun for the few days we lived there .. But more was yet to come and that's where my most beloved friends and my first crush happened ... Will save that for the next blog...

Cheers ,
Ohmi.

Some People come and go ..

"You think I am stubborn .. I felt the same way about you" she said on the phone with a streak of anger and disappointment in her voice... This is all because we could not make it to a _pre_arranged_gathering [Supposed to be a treat from her]..." I called you, but by that time you were not interested " I said in sort of a complaining fashion. "You called me way after the time we decided, and further you did not respond to my calls..." she complained.. "Okay, lets call it even then, next time .. we will surely meet " I tried to make a deal.... "Okay" she said, with a little hesitation.

But the "Next time" did not come , sadly.. I have been to that part of the woods after that 3 times and I did not have time to call her, neither she was interested in enquire when I was going to her place after that.. I am not complaining.. That's what the life is ... For some days, We think the other person is a good friend of you,on the next day .. You think twice before remembering them.. But the times we spend , though short ones will be very memorable.. If on someday, sometime .. If we cross each other, we think ... "Hey, she is the girl .. what's her name .. hmm... " and she is like " He does not even remember me ..."

Its not one's fault , some people are meant to come in to your life and go .. Some people hang on if they really see some potential, healthy friendship with you.. There are many reasons that those *some people* goes away from your life .. may be they are afraid that this is going too fast that could end up in trouble.. may be they think that the other person is not what really perceived them as before...may be she thinks " He is flirting with me .." ... may be they think that "Okay, so ..what if he is from so and so college, and works in so and so company.. I am no less than him...

I am sure the people come in to your life really mean something.. they come in for purpose .. let it be for a short time..But every one has their reason and you will learn unknowingly or knowingly from them.. For all those who came and went in my life including the above mentioned girl... Thanks everyone.. Hope to meet you soon.... You bring smile on me ....

--OHMI

Life Lessons on the go !!

It was little late for me to realise few behaviour patterns which were traditionally idealised by the people in the society are no longer being given their "Traditional Importance" in the modern today.
I tend to double qualify "present tense" with modern today in my previous sentence in my attempt to over qualify society very modern.

First in my list is being nice to everyone. A look in to the society few years back, the quality of 'being nice to people' and 'showing due interest in what the elders/children/equals say' is a #1 sign of an individual well respected in the society. As time flew.. these traits have been losing their stature in the society and are substituted with what I call 'Being a Jerk' and 'Being totally uninterested in other's work expect his own' behaviour. I do not really know why these have been a hit in the modern society but yes.. they are quite famous. So, Be a jerk .. at lease some times.. Don't ever be so modest and thats the worst way to be ... If you have something to say , then SAY it.. whatever it might be.. Don't ever be lessen your self in front of anyone..I have been realising this off late.. may be I have had this experiences before... but i was not able to recognise these.. But in the corporate world that I am in, is feeding this right in to my brain;s medulla oblon..blah blah... Finally Be a JERK.. and in that.. a WISE JERK..

Second one is that.. you do not need to be mother hears_all and hear to whatever crap people say you.. It is quite natural that every person tries to become a Richard Fenyman and starts lecturing you the crappiest advices that they could give. They do not realise that people they are lecturing have had fucking twenty odd years up their ass and fairly seen this world by their own. I do not point out people who give advices .. But I direct my speech (yes, this too is a speech, and I dont realise that you guys have had xyz amount of years up your ass) to those who only give advices.. only advices alone for every thing they do. Come on guys, take a reality check.. Your speeches wants to be heard by NO FUCKING ONES that you are talking to.

Thridly, Many people I come across feels what he does is sent to him by the almighty as a sub process of saving this earth which in turn is a sub process of maintaning almighty his 'post' at the council of angels .. (whatever, I am sleepy)... While other's work as a piece of crap... I dont deny the fact that you are on a great mission of almighty dude.. but do not fucking look upon other works as worthless ones... Come on, grow up.. Before or Later .. you need to do that work too... and I could say only one thing to the guys of this kind.. "COME ON, FUCKING GROW UP ALREADY"...

I do not explicitly know why I am writing this post. .. But , yeah.. writing this and telling this out had given me a good feeling ..... and now Its already late .. and I need to get some sleep....

P.S. All the vocabulary used in this blog should not be treated as abuse...... nahhh.. its what you think... enjoy !!

My First Proposal !!!

"Do you think we should say this now??", Vikki asked me in a worried but energetic tone,"She is busy preparing for her exam and most of all she is not wearing my favourite colour , I think we should skip this to after exams".... I stood there thinking how to face the public examination on the next day .. It was Physics and supposed to be high scoring if prepared and a man-hole if not... I was thinking at least the person beside me would come prepared so that I could do something about it..."Are you listening to me ?? Should we say this now " Vikki brought me down to the reality... I said " What do you see in her dude.. Is she worth getting an 'F' grade in public exams".. He said " I like her so much .. See how she walks with her waving in the wind and did you notice ... She had put on new ear-rings today and they look so beautiful on her ".. I saw her at about a distance of 100 meters or so.. I did not find anything but a girl preparing for her exam...Seriously.. He added to my confusion " I feel She is looking towards me without we noticing her .." How can she? Vikki did not even flip his eye in effect not to miss her... I said "Oh!! Is it?" to encourage him..

He said " If I say and if she does not accept.. what should I do? I cannot do that again obviously...."..... Then he said something which is the root cause for me to write this blog entry.." Murali, Could you ask propose my love ??" .. ''What'' was my first reaction.. I said "No way , I am a born enemy to her and even if she has some feelings for you.. She will simply reject your proposal if I propose your love..." After a few promises of gift givings and sorries I had to agree to that "Mission Impossible"... but HOW?... was the next question..

Obviously, calling her from 100 meters is not an option since we need only her to know about this.. not her parents , the neighbours and almost half of a small street in between.... And to our bad luck, Cell Phones have not been a common gadget that even kids wonder about as now.. Then vikki had an idea.. " How about we shift our reading place much nearer to her house.. I know the granny in the house next to her and we can ask her if we can use it for today to read ".. Vikki said, feeling himself as he kicked the b*** of physics problem in tomorrow's exam... I had to oblige owing to the gifts and to satisfy my need of making the people happy. We moved in to the house next to her house, she still was reading , with out any knowledge of whats going to come..whats being planned around her... She was doing a oscillatory motion from one end of their balcony to other .. One end of her balcony was very near to our new reading adda ..

Everytime she comes to that near side, vikki would push me towards the brim of our balcony and hides himself behind the door... This happened some 9-10 times... when I finally needed to get this over with and read for my exam... "Sangeeta", I called out her name .... She looked all around and finally looked at me.... I did not know what to say.. I thought to say "Never Mind !! Whats portion for tomorrow, thanks" and get back.... But again.. immense need for making people happy.... " I have something to tel you" I said with a lower tone... " What is it? , I need to study" she said... As if We are the only one that dont need to study.... I said ," Look, You know Vikki??"
"Ya, My neighbour .. Whats up with him?" She enquired
"Nothing, Its just that HE loves you and want to know how you feel"

She could have
a) Call everybody at home and tell about us being such a jerks,
b) called each of her friends and let them know that she is popular too among boys
c)Thrown the 5kg book she was reading at me puncturing my nose
d) Unlikely thing of accepting his love and thus relieving me of my burden...

She chose none of the options , She laughed mysteriously, I thought she is in favour of option(d)... but She said " Him.. (chuckles), Whenever I see him, I will be reminded of my bro.. How could I??" That was enough... I thought I would now never want to see his face after hearing those and how hurt he was... She was continuing her speech.. but "vikki" was only in mind, I was thinking of what's gonna happen with him now... Finally I said " OKay.. Please go back to your reading, c ya " .. and turned back with out noticing her reply..

Vikki was not behind the door anymore.. I was frightened... Whats he gonna do to himself ??? I ran all over the town forgetting about my examination... after a gruelling half an hour...Saw him peacefully sitting at an ice cream parlour... eating my favourite strawberry flavour... I went in and took his remaining ice cream forcefully and said " You should have at least said me".. He was quiet.. I took a spoon of ice cream and asked "How about now?" .. He said " I dont know, She will always be in my heart "...

We both could pass the physics exam and She DID NOT stay in his heart after a month or so.. He had another girl in his life soon after that and what happened with her is another issue.. But for now.. This was my first proposal to a girl about love.. but it was not mine... MY LOVE PROPOSAL.... hmm.. will save that for later....

Vikki, may be that incident and that girl was the foundation for our friendship.. if it was not for her and your love about her..we could not have gone through all this in our life , best friends as of now.. so three cheers to her...


Murali.....