No more space

"Hey stop staring at me! I feel guilty. I don't have any more space to accommodate you. I could have stuffed you  somehow but you're not that tasty!"
He looks up from his dinner plate, and keeps it for washing.

Path of my life

One of my dulla friends (B.Tech + MS by research dual degree program student at IIIT-Hyd) told me about a year ago that the fifth year in college will help us think and plan our life ahead and I think I might have finally decided on what to do with my life !! I'm really excited!
Yes, first and foremost, I'll take all the efforts humanly possible to get enough work done towards MS, get the degree and get out. The uncertainty usually starts then.
Do a job to earn livelihood? Yes, for next one and a half year. Then appear for CAT, get into IIM-A, get a degree in MBA, specialization in Marketing. No, its not the pay package, the knowledge/skills I'd learn, perhaps, but there's one more very good thing about a B-school. Network of alumni and batchmates, perhaps.
I'll then work for a year using the skills learnt in the B-school. I'll then appear for civil services exam, become an IAS officer and serve my country for 10 years.
This would be the end of phase 1.
I'd save enough money and go to Hollywood, become a voice-over artist, work in some sitcoms, and perhaps become a scriptwriter in the process. With fame and money, I'll return to my motherland, and join a medical college, study MBBS, become MD, DM and serve in a village for few years. I hope I have covered all the sought after degree programs in India!
This would be the end of phase 2.
By this time I should have turned 65. I'll then start my own company.
Oh, I forgot about LAW. :( I'll read law whenever I'll get time in the last 40 years.
Finally I'll settle down in my hometown and write an autobiography, which would be a bestseller, making me the best selling author. Hence I'll fulfill my childhood dream!
I missed out on song writing, music composing, cooking, martial arts... life's so short. :'(
And I might also apply to Guinness Book of World Records.

Funny SMSs

The thing about funny SMSs is, there are too many of them.

My sister, since last one month (using unlimited SMS scheme), has been sending me all the funny SMSs in the world. And they are good. Believe me, even the lame, pathetic PJs are good. I've requested my sister a few times to stop sending me those SMSs but she says she has limited memory on her mobile so wants me to store them. And I keep all those SMSs now on my mobile.

Every morning I wake up with the sound of her incoming SMS buzzing in my mobile, even before the alarm I set in my mobile could ring. My day starts with reading her SMSs. I read her SMSs on my way to bathroom, on my way to breakfast, on my way to lab... and before I sleep. Its interesting to note at this point that because of all the lovely funny SMSs pouring in, I don't feel like watching sitcom episodes anymore.

Traffic generated by my sister's SMS is so very much that advertisements and various vodafone schemes SMSs now seems to come so very rarely. Moreover any personal SMS amidst these funny SMSs sometimes feels really good, a fresh breath of relief.

Funny SMSs, either circulated or created by teenagers does show their innovation intellect. Its amazing, really. And most of the times the topic is, "exams". Exams bother them a lot! Its a part of being a teenager... later one stops making jokes of exams because its not funny anymore!

The point where it isn't funny anymore is, when you get a serious SMS or SMS with a moral in it, and you expect it to make you laugh and you may even laugh, as a reflex and then realize that you were not supposed to laugh! Now, that's funny!!

P.S. - Thank you sis, for sending such funny SMSs. Please take some time out for other things in life as well. :-)
P.S. - After SMSs, gtalk/facebook/twitter status updates is where people showcase their creativity! :D

The "don't" decision

At every moment, we reject many possibilities to select one. Our mind processes a lot of information and based on experience, decides on the next thing to do, or next step to take. Before making a decision, however small, we think of all the possibilities that would arise if we 'do' and possibilities that would arise if we 'don't'. Finally we 'do' the thing.

Have you not been a bit curious to know what would happen or how things would be different if you 'did' the 'don't' instead of the 'do'? Owing to personal bad experience or other's stories or facts, we tend to arrive at the safest or most profitable 'do'.

I have the tendency to think of various possibilities if I had done the 'don't'. Most of the time and most of the possibilities are false, mainly because of my presumptions which are, most of the times, incorrect. I have read this or heard this from some source that infinite parallel universes exist and each universe is created because of each decision we make. Our universe is made of all the 'do' decisions. Other universes might be made of either some 'do' and 'don't' decisions or all the 'don't' decisions. By not doing the 'don't', we reject being in that other parallel universe created by that 'don't' decision. Can too much brooding over the consequences of 'don't' make me jump to that universe and back, as in give me some superpower to jump between universes !!

I once read a book from the series, "Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Be a detective mystery stories" in which the reader could either choose to read Nancy Drew's part or Hardy Boys' part of the investigation. Because I didn't want to miss any of the investigations, I kept tabs (my fingers, and later few bookmarks) at each of those pages where I had to decide between Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. After reaching a dead end or end of the investigation, I backtracked and read the other stories. It was similar to traversing all the nodes of a tree (the data structure in computer science) in preorder fashion.

Its like the game in which a person has to choose between two or more doors. The person decides on one door, and other doors are shown as to what he lost by not choosing the other doors. In life, the other doors are never opened. We make a decision, we enter that one door and can never walk back. Later we're again faced by some number of doors, out of which we select one door and walk in, never to walk back.

She called me

I saw her number flash on my mobile screen as the ringing tone filled the empty dim lighted corridor of my office. I decided to ignore it.

After 9 rings:

"Hi Mandy, how're you? I just called to..."

"Please Shruti, this is not a good time. I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"I know you don't want to talk to me, but please listen to me. I just wanted to..."

"You've always been so persistent. God! I felt so stifled when we were together. Everything had to be about you! Last few months have been so liberating."

"But I can't help it Mandy, this is who I am. I can't change now."

"Oh sure, but I could, isn't it? Mandy don't do this, Mandy do that, Mandy this..."

After fifteen minutes:

At the other end of the corridor, I saw silhouette of Mr. Mehta waving at me. I looked at my watch.

"Listen Shruti, I don't have time to listen to you crying over the phone. Please could you not do this. I am seriously in the middle of something right now."

I disconnect the call.

"Gosh! I wish she was here. Why do I still miss her? Bitch!" I spoke to myself in low voice as I hurried to the grand hall in the office campus.

"Mandeep, where had you been? Everybody is waiting!"

"Yes Mehta ji, I'm really sorry. Was attending an important call."

As I entered the grand hall, I saw everyone dressed up and a banner that read "Happy Birthday Sirjee". I heard my mobile beep an incoming message signal which was drowned under the "Happy Birthday" song which everybody started singing.

The message was from Shruti.

"Happy Birthday Mandy."

Happy Holi

Holi has following salient features:

1. Everybody looks quite the same, i.e., easily unrecognizable.

2. You can play with water, colors, mud etc. and others would be happy about it, unlike those toddler days.

3. You could deface/dirty anyone and that person won't really mind!

(bura naa maano, holi hai OR Don't mind, its Holi)

and many more...

For all my btech years, I happily avoided Holi celebrations in IIIT-H campus. But today when Ninja and Shashank came to take me for Holi celebrations, I couldn't really refuse. This would be my last year in college, my last holi as a college student so I decided to celebrate it for once. And it was fun. I now wonder how much fun it would have been if I had celebrated it with all my batchmates during the last four years. But, as they say, better late than never.

Shashank had asked me to prepare for the worst, i.e., wear an old t-shirt and that vest may not be worn. I changed into the t-shirt of the felicity my batch organized. And my dear juniors and friends tore my t-shirt, and then the vest I wore inside it. But it was fun getting one's t-shirt ripped and torn off. I felt more into the mood of Holi after that!

The mud party wasn't as bad as I had imagined. Nitin, Shashank, Abhinav and others put me in the puddle of mud water, then put mud and water on me, rolled me over the mud. With the mud party, I had officially celebrated my first Holi in IIIT-H!

I did avoid dipping into the tumbler of colorful dirty water, and used the hose pipe for direct water supply from a big water reservoir.

Just a passing thought: Holi and Halloween are similar in some ways... they sound similar, in Halloween people wear costumes and mask their face, in Holi people wear color on their clothes and mask their face with colors. Also, people are generally unrecognizable in both.

P.S. - Today before Holi celebrations, for the first time I solved some of many clues in crossword puzzle with Sashidhar.

The first time you meet someone

"One never gets a second chance to make the first impression."
Till a few years ago I used to believe that my first impressions are rarely good. I've stopped bothering about my first impression and the burden now entirely lies on the other person to think of my first impression as a pleasant one or a weird one.
To get over a one month long writer's block, today I decided to write about my friends, starting from the moment and the reason we met. That made me realize the importance of that first moment when you meet someone, especially when he/she becomes an integral part of your life, and in some ways changes/defines your life.
Perhaps its in human nature, a part of nature's law itself, that one remembers the start, some peak points and the end (if reached). And in all that, for me, the start or the first time is the most important.
A simple activity will show you the importance of the first time you meet someone. This is an experiment that may make you feel sad. If you've lost someone in your family/friends group or if you haven't met any of your family member/friend for a very long time and are not likely to meet him/her in near future, did you not, for once, think of the first time you had met that person. The feeling of nostalgia takes over and you recall the first time you met that person and the reason your lives met, the first laugh you shared, the first awkward moment you had, the first thing you did together or some other incident that cemented your relation at the level to where it was when you last met that person. This works for close acquaintances, and pets as well.
Its like walking on a road, alone or with that person, then halting and looking back at the first point on the road when you met that person.

Kabir Das ji once said, "Meet everyone with a smile on your face, you never know which one turns out to be God."
He was right. Just that the way I see it, God in this case would be the person who becomes an integral part of your life and changes it for good. Hence, "Meet everyone with a smile on your face, you never know which one turns out to become an integral part (or love) of your life."