Man with umbrella

He opens the umbrella and holds it on his head. Next moment the first set of raindrops touch the umbrella and drops off from the edges. He can somehow sense the rain in the heaviness of the air itself. As he stands there waiting, he sees all the other people surprised by the sudden rain, running for the roof nearby. He sighs and wonders yet again, why do people get scared of water falling from the skies, don't we have bath everyday?
Standing there 10 minutes, he witnesses situation get from bad to worse. The road in front of him fills up with water and looks like a small pond. He takes few steps back, lest he'd be drenched with the muddy road water when some car's wheel would roll into the puddle.
He sneezes. Afraid he may catch cold due to the cold wind that starts blowing a moment ago, he takes out his scarf, and wraps his neck and ears, then puts on his hat again. His trouser is getting wet from below, and now he can feel some water drip from the water soaked trouser to his socks, then to his leg. It never gets old, he smiles. Sniff! Sniff!
He hears the door open from behind. A lady in her mid 30s walks out. She smiles when she sees him.
He rushes to receive her under his umbrella.
"I'm so sorry dad, I made you wait."
"Its alright princess. People here kept me amused, and rain added to the entertainment. How was your class?"

Episode 9: The Pot Belly Guy!

Previous Episode

Few months later...

"Did I tell you about my idea about the Pot-Belly guy?!"
Parth stands there holding the door after opening it with a sudden thrust, looking at Aditya who was browsing on his laptop.
"Hey hi", Aditya responds, without taking his eyes off the laptop screen.
"What man, what are you doing in the darkness?"
"Just watching some videos. Hey did you watch Lady Gaga's latest video?" Aditya asks curiously.
"No! Anyways, remember the Pot-Belly guy?"
"Yeah! Man, that's an awesome idea."

Sniffing the air.
"Did you just smoke weed?!" Parth asks curiously.
"Yeah, little bit. Can you smell it or what?"
"Yeah, I like the smell. Wish I could smoke it too."
"O yeah, doctor has asked you not to."
"Anyways, back to pot-belly guy! Lets pitch this idea to Dreamworks or Pixar for an animated movie !!"
"Yeah, ok wait. Let me think. So what's your idea?"

After a very satisfying nonsensical discussion on the Pot-belly guy's idea, Parth walks up to his room and tries tweaking his idea to make a better story out of it.

One week later.

"What's this Parth? What have you done to yourself?! I went home for vacation and in my absence, you betrayed me!!"
Natasha gasps, staring at his tummy!
"I am so sorry honey, you were gone and I was so lonely... I really didn't mean to, but all the time I was thinking about you only. You know how much I love watching sitcoms and munching Lays!"
"I see... I need time to think." She turns and starts walking away slowly, suppressing her giggle.
Parth catches up with her, holds her hand, and faces her.
"I'll do anything, anything you say!"
"Then get rid of this." She says, gently tapping it.
"What, you don't like the pot belly guy!" Parth says, pointing at his belly!
"I like the guy, not the belly. Its cute... ok let me show you why i don't like the belly. Come here."
She wraps her arms around him and hugs him. Parth feels his neck getting pulled away.
"See?"
"Yeah! But isn't it cute?" Parth says, grinning and moving his hands over his tummy.
"In that case, you know what you'll be missing."

As he saw her turn away and leave, Parth suddenly feels like Karan Shergil in Lakshya.

Haan yehi rasta hai tera,
toone ab jaana hai,
haan yehi sapna hai tera,
toone pehchaana hai,
tujhe ab ye dikhaana hai.

He pulls his tummy inside.

An hour later.

"Buddy, how do I reduce this?" Parth says, looking down upon his tummy.
"C'mon man, don't even think about it. That's our inspiration for our story!" Aditya says.
"But Natasha doesn't like it!"
"That's unfortunate, coz you're keeping it!" Aditya says nonchalantly.
"But she's back from her home! I don't like carrying this around when I'm with her."

That evening Parth decides, today it begins. He rolls up his sleeves, adjusts his pants, and sits down to download Rocky series !! "Time for some inspiration!!"
"Will watch Rocky 1 and go for jogging in the morning."
One and a half hour later.
"Wow, Rocky II also downloaded. I guess I can watch this too, its only 10:00 PM."
Two hours later.
"I think I should forward the stupid dialogues and get straight to the training part."
One hour later.
"I think its too late for waking up early in the morning. I'll finish the inspiration part tonight."
After two hours and Rocky IV, he rips open the packet of tomato flavored lays and starts munching.
"mmmm... wow, I'm loving it."
After 3 hours and Rocky VI, Parth jumps out of his bed.

"Eye of the tiger, buddy, eye of the tiger." he says to himself.
With the Rocky music playing in his mind, he walks out of his room and enjoys the beautiful scenery and cool breeze of early morning, and yawns a little.
"I ain't that sleepy, I think I should get into the habit of going for jogging in the morning."

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 !!

The Dementor's Effect

Sometimes this happens. I'm at some place, doing my own job, minding my own business without bothering anyone when suddenly this feeling gets fired up in me. I feel deeply morose and flushed out of all happiness that ever existed in my life. I feel as if someone/thing has gripped my heart and is sucking all the happiness out of it, like the dementors do in Harry Potter series. I lose interest in everything that's around me and about me. I feel I can never be happy, as if I'm living in a post apocalypse world, with debris all around. I just be there, doing nothing, being nothing, fully aware that the time is passing by.

I see people around me talking, doing their work and various activities. I hear them laugh, argue, grumble and wonder if all that's really happening or if I'm dreaming. And if its really happening, how lucky they are! I feel jealous of them and happy for them at the same time. 'At least they are not trapped like me in my own misery', I think.

Once this feeling fires up in my heart, it doesn't leave me. My heart feels like a stone sinking in an ocean, deeper and deeper. At this time I sometimes hear some songs that resonate my feelings. This has been my biggest blunder because that only aggravates the feeling and sinks me deeper into this abyss.

I have tried few things to feel better. I watch sitcoms or standup comedians. I may laugh few times and forget about my sinking heart but once the show is complete, the feeling returns. I have also done some workout at home to fire up some testosterone to feel better. It helps sometimes but the sinking heart leaves me so devoid of energy that most of the times I don't feel like doing the workout.
Sometimes I talk to my parents and my sister when this happens. It does help if I do it right. I've observed that whenever it has helped, it was because I could release any bottled up emotions through crying for a while.
Maybe its because I miss home, maybe its because I feel lonely in spite of having so many wonderful friends. But most probably its because I never express myself. And this has perturbed many who have known me. Many of my friends, my mentor, manager and my friends at office, some of my toastmasters friends and even my parents (who got used to it after sometime). I thought I was shy but this is way beyond shyness, its actually quite sinister!
If I do well, I don't treat myself or celebrate. If I fail, I just ignore those feelings of anger and disappointment and just try to move on. If I like something or someone, I never say that. If I like something someone has done, I may just utter a word or two only because everybody else around me does so.
Maybe this sickening, drowning in my misery feeling is because of this messed up amalgamation of emotions within me that were never let out at the right time. They lie within me like a mess of entangled wires. The more you move around those wires, the more entangled they get.

Now that I do understand what's going on, I need to learn to express myself. Any ideas?! :)

Traffic in Mind

I stand at the divider every morning for at least 5 minutes before I am able to break through the heavy traffic flow between me and my office. Traffic doesn't allow me to reach my destination. It delays me, it raises my stress levels and maybe even harm me when I try to cut through without enough room for myself to walk on to the other side safely.

While I sit at my desk in office, my mind feels like that road outside being run over by umpteen thoughts of various shapes, sizes, color etc. racing at various speeds. In fact even while commuting in auto to office or while having food in office catetaria or at home, basically when I'm not working or reading something, my mind is filled with these thoughts coming from and running around in every direction. And the directions seem infinite. Amidst all this, my mind feels clogged and unable to think, remember and make good decisions. Its like this traffic doesn't allow me to look clearly to the other side (the problem or situation), brings out my emotions when I try to cross it and delays my progress.

Sometimes in serious situations, I scold myself, focus on the gaps between this traffic of thoughts, i.e., the road (gaps of silence between every thought) and create a wider gap for myself. When this gap is wide enough, I'll run across. With practice I'll gain greater understanding of life and better control of my mind and emotions, and very soon I'm sure I'll be able to stop this traffic at will and casually walk by. And with the newly gained perpetual peace of mind, I'll live a happier and more fulfiling life.

Blogging

People ask me, what's your hobby?
I say, I am a blogger. The moment they hear the word 'blogger', I can sense the restlessness in them to change the topic! A blogger! OMG !! Its like they've stepped on a dynamite.... now he'll ask me to read his blog... now he'll talk about his blog... what do i do, what do I DO?
If you're a painter, a person can decide by looking at it in one glance if its good or not so good, if you're a musician/singer, then a few minutes can be spared... but if you're a writer, a blogger in particular, you feel like a threat! I share my link on facebook and wait... I jump at any notification I get, and get disappointed when its not about my blog. Sometimes you feel so desperate you want to hold that person's head, press his nose to the computer screen and scream at him... READ THIS NOW !!! :D

I feel confused when someone liked the previous blogpost, commented on it, and no response to this one... why?! Its both been written by me! Remember, you liked that one? Why not this one? Tell me why! :P

Reading can be quite time consuming and quite an effort. I myself don't read many blogs. I generally read those shared by my friends. When I visit someone's blog, its usually through some shared link of their blogpost that I liked. I read up most of their blogs, comment on some and most probably don't return to that blog again, because there are just too many blogs!
I feel guilty that even though I write sometimes I barely read. But its never easy to go through different blogs. One should have bookmarked few blogs to read/follow on a regular basis. Reading different blogs for me is like reading different people's minds and such varied thoughts can be heavy on the mind! Add to it the decor of their blog that sets the mood or upsets it. Sometimes its hard to read a good article in a distractive/bad decor and sometimes good decor can make reading crap a pleasure.

Almost all of us who live online have a blog. Its a good way to express oneself and share ideas or vent out frustrations knowing that even if one doesn't get any comments/likes on the blog, the blogposts are out there for people to read and someone would have already and if not, would read it sometime soon in the future. With so many expectations, intentional or otherwise, when someone posts a blog article, people generally don't write anything that may hurt the writer. This seems to be an unknown understanding amongst us, the citizens of internet. Its always better to be silent than to speak ill of someone for no good reason.
And if you're the ones who think they're smart enough, you'd write few general comments for someone's post, like "good post. I liked it. keep writing. Good idea" etc. and then leave link to your blogpost. And you have one more reader.

What's my Passion?

Many people I spoke to, in the last one week indicated me indirectly, "dude, follow your passion".
I've been avoiding confrontation with the idea of following one's passion for many years now. And I've come to believe that this might be the reason for my underperformance in almost every activity I do, be it my BTech, MS, or some work at office. Unlike others who clearly know what they're passionate about, I am not so sure about myself.

Initially I thought I was passionate about writing but then I didn't write on a regular basis. Moreover, watching movies / TV shows and Facebooking seemed to take higher priority. Upon further investigation I realized that maybe I was too stressed out about my underperformance in my studies and later job that I could not get myself to start writing in most of the cases. But whenever I've just sat and wrote, it certainly felt wonderful, and looking at the finished piece of poem or story, or an article makes me feel like I'd achieved something after a long time.
During childhood, I've always been interested in every subject, but when I chose non-medical in 11th, I knew that although I enjoy the implications of the laws and equations, I wasn't interested in solving challenging problems using those concepts, unlike many of my friends who'd enjoy spending hours on the problem. I thought it was a waste of my time! I thought, watching TV was a better investment.
I have been interested in Dramatics, public speaking, music and I've fair share of experience as an amateur in them. I enjoy doing them, as a hobby, but I can't call them my passion because my life will still be fine without them.
I'm 24 years old now, quite old to have already made up my mind about this. And while I write this, I still wonder what my passion is. One of my friends went to LA to do masters in music. Another friend of mine is working on his startup. Yet another one has successfully started her own publishing house.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really scared to find my passion. I feel I'll find out about it and then because I feel safe being in IT, I will ignore it or at best pursue it as a hobby. Now I realize how tough it is for people to pursue their passion when its different direction from their regular life/profession. Walking down an unknown path with no guarantee but just a belief that one day the passion will turn into success.

BTW I'm still searching for my passion, if anybody finds it, please let me know. :)