Summer Vacation begins

Abhishek looks at his watch.

Ten minutes left.
He looks at Arjun sitting beside him. He pokes the side of his tummy and shows him the time. Arjun sits up with a start, then blocks his tummy region with his arm, looks at his watch and grins and nods, but beckons him to look into the book while Mrs. D'Souza reads The Rime of Ancient Mariner.

Five minutes left.
Instead of his book, Abhishek looks at his watch as the seconds hand tick away. He starts gently tapping his legs, eager to run away at the first noise of the school bell. Pleasant music of Mario, the video-game starts playing in his head as he imagines himself jumping off the brick walls and hitting the brick ceilings for mushrooms.

Three minutes left.
Now the music changes to that of Contra, the video-game, to match his desperation levels. Abhishek closes his book and quietly slips it into his schoolbag. Slowly but steadily, he started closing the zip of his schoolbag. It starts making that noise. Mrs. D'Souza looks up from the textbook, Abhishek looks up from behind the boy sitting in front of him, and smiles at her. Mrs. D'Souza looks back at the textbook she's holding.
"Abhishek, what stanza are we reading at the moment? Can you please read it again?"
Pale with embarrassment, he looks at Mrs. D'Souza, then at grinning Himanshu sitting near the door, and few others nearby who were all looking at him. Arjun points his finger at the stanza as Abhishek lifts up Arjun's book in his hands and reads out the stanza.

One minute left.
Relieved to have escaped the punishment of staying back for 15 minutes after the final bell, Abhishek silently thanks Arjun. With every tick in his watch, his ear drums become restless to move to the tune of the final bell ring. And now, the last few moments of anticipation is too much to bear.
Ten seconds left.
Yes, any moment now. Yes.

The Final bell !!

Summer Vacations officially begin !!

Future is gonna be better than the present

I'm a passive being, lazy by nature. Hence, since my childhood I've capitalized on my observational skills and limited my active involvement. My observational skills grew with me, but without proper experience, active involvement, all one ends up having are assumptions, some work well, many don't. One of the assumption, though based on similar observations I made over many occasions, isn't reliable but has been immensely useful to me.
I never realized I had been following this one rule all my life till now: "Future is gonna be better than the present". Patience came easy to me, and with all that pessimist exterior to dissipate my fear, I always felt optimist within, but the best  part is that it was quite encouraging that there are no limits to imagination and dreams.
As a kid I used to fear many things, like deep water, heights, being on a speeding vehicle, eating curd, syringes, ghosts, strangers, being on a stage etc. But none of the grown ups I knew had any of my fear, which made me assume that as one grows up, things get better, that one becomes stronger and overcomes such fears. So, my fears didn't bother me much and with time, I grew over most of them!


We all want to believe that future is gonna be better than the present, but sometimes even the wisest person has doubts. One looks forward to holidays, exciting projects, meeting someone one likes but probably not a monotonous or highly stressful lifestyle with almost no interest in one's work or vocation, or turmoil relationship. Sometimes getting up for school used to be difficult and I'm sure for most of us getting up for work everyday is quite an effort. Future can't always be better than the present, but the thought itself can be powerful enough to make it happen. Starting the day with a happy thought, a strong resolution to make things better or experiencing something new, a perpetual willingness to welcome tomorrow into ones life will make every day a life experience.

I have always had this image in my mind, of myself when I'd be an adult. Sure I'm not quite like my imaginary future self as of now, which can only mean one thing, that there's still room for growth. And when you dream of better life, better self, your inclination moves you towards that future.

Polo, the mint with a hole

I love polo. I still remember the ad which shows minty air being blown through the hole in a piece of Polo. Mint always helps to refresh and improve one's breath. Sometimes I've popped a polo into my mouth instead of brushing my teeth!
Because of my decent polo consumption, my parents thought I really like polo. I do but whenever I went home on vacation from college, my parents took care to get me a pack with around 24 polo packs. I mean, I loved having polo everyday to class, pop one or two after lunch and dinner. But when I ran out of my polo supply I felt something missing in my life. I missed popping a polo or two in my mouth after a meal.
So, after that when the next time I got the big pack of polos, I didn't feel like having them but had to finish them. The good thing was, I started sharing polo because I had lost interest in it. Others always smiled and accept a polo or two. I can safely say polo has been one of the reasons that has made me realize the happiness one gets by sharing one's stuff with others!

P.S. - Polo is best in its original mint flavor. I tried orange and paan flavor, they sucked !!

Pencil and Pen

When in 5th class I got my first pen to write, I was quite excited.
Looking at elders writing with pen made me wonder as to why kids have to write with pencil. A pencil felt kind of inferior in front of and in comparison to a pen. When asked, my mother replied as if she had an answer already prepared, "Anything written with a pencil can be rubbed off with an eraser", and she wrote something, then rubbed it with an eraser, "but something written with a pen can't be. You're learning to write and your handwriting is neither neat, nor stable.
My first pen was a fountain pen. Filling ink in a fountain ink pen was fun, I like(d) Chinese fountain pens. The older I grew, the less I felt the need to write with a pencil, as it had been replaced with a pen. All my daily writing work was now done in pen.
I wondered why did I had to write with a fountain ink pen and not ball-point pen, to which my mother replied, "to get a better grip on your handwriting." Later I tested ball point pen and realized that she was telling the truth. I felt like I could write faster with it but couldn't get a good grip.
At present I use Cello Technotip and it works best for me. I also tried Parker ballpoint and ink pens but didn't really like them much.
After writing for ballpoint pens for some years, writing once in a while with a fountain ink pen feels good, takes me back to those days in 5th class.
Pencil didn't leave my life completely. I used it to make drawings in subjects like biology, and underline in textbooks. I started appreciating pencil since my 9th class because I had lost the luxury of erasing the contents of my writing. Ink erasers are available, yes, and I have used the 'nondust' one, but they work best on ink pen writing and I use ballpoint pens. Besides they don't erase as neatly as a pencil mark can be erased.
Now you may argue in defense of pen that it can write on skin and pencil can't, and I might argue in defense of pencil that one can write keeping pencil upside down, but that can't happen while using a pen!
Well, in conclusion, I use both the pen and the pencil and their combination provides me with a fine range of services.

Childhood Dreams

Do you still remember your childhood dreams, or have you been too occupied in your efforts to gain success in the real world?
I hardly bother about what happens in the real world, maybe that's why I still vaguely remember those days when I did want to become a lot of things, and amuse myself over it.
Randy Pausch talked about his Childhood Dreams and how he got to fulfill them, in his Last Lecture.
I think the first thing I wanted to be, was an astronaut. This might have been the direct consequence of watching TV and TV shows like I Dream of Jeannie.
Next I wanted to be a detective... Sherlock Holmes I guess influenced me!
Next was to be a scientist, not knowing how "mind blowing" subject science is.
Once I also had this urge to try voice-over for a character in an animated motion picture, especially after watching Mrs. Doubtfire in which Robin Williams's job is giving voice to a cartoon character. I actually started mimicking voices, and making faces and weird noises, but its only a pass-time now, couldn't materialize.
But, something that I always had at the back of my mind was to write stories, beautiful stories, loved by everyone, simple yet subtle and strong at theme, stories about possible and impossible things that may happen in life.
I wrote few pages for a "novel" in 6th class, found it silly when I read it in 8th class and threw it.
I extended a story in 9th class, which was an exercise at the back of the book but wasn't discussed in class, but I think I wrote it well...
Now a days I do try to write stories, but many times I fail to bring out the effect which leaves me unsatisfied and the story incomplete!
I've been trained to be an engineer, something I never thought I'd ever be, but I am. I am not sad about it, just amused and happy for some reasons.
But more than anything else, I'd like to write some beautiful stories... because beautiful things last forever!
P.S. - Recently too I had change of plans, I wanted to be a diagnosis specialist after watching House M.D., wanted to be a mentalist after watching Mentalist and later wanted to be a lawyer after watching Boston Legal.