Paanch Rupaye...

पाँच  रूपय  … 

आज शाम को लैब में बैठे हुए , अचानक कुछ याद आया और मैं अपना बैग टटोलने लगी।  न जाने कहाँ से छुपा हुआ पांच रूपये का सिक्का पॉकेट के  एक कोने  से झाँकने लगा और मेरे मन्न में जैसे सैंकड़ों ही यादों  और नजाने कितनी ही बातोँ का तूफ़ान फूट पड़ा ।  घर से कोसों दूर, दुनिया के दूसरे छोर पे बैठे हुए मानो मेरा पूरा बचपन ही वापस आ गया हो. वो सारी saturday afternoons और बहन के साथ झिकझिक जैसे कल की ही बात हो।  स्कूल में हाफ डे और बहन और मेरी ऐश।  मम्मी से दोनों को पांच पांच रुपये मिलते थे और जिस दिन किस्मत अच्छी, उस दिन तो तो  डबल मज़े! दस रुपये भाईसाहब , दस रुपये! lays का छोटा  पैकेट और ब्लू pepsi! जो पांच रुपये बचे उसमे टॉफ़ी और अरबपती गोलियां। क़ोइ तोड़ है इन नवाबी ठाठ का? बहन  टीवी  खोल  के बैठ जाती थी और मैं कोई नावेल। कूलर और ac में बैठे हुए, उन छोटी छोटी चीज़ों के मज़े लेते हुए , जाने ही कितनी दोपहर बीती हैं। अब सोचती हूँ तो रोने का जी करता है।  वो मई - जून की छुट्टियां .वो गर्मी में, कमरे में बितायी हुई शामें, ज़मीन पे बैठ के तरबूज़ खाना और रसना ... हर  बार अलग फ्लेवर...और फिर लीची भी तो थीं और milkshakes ...आह! रात में चबड्डी खाने निकल जाया करते थे पापा की कार में...जिसका मतलब था लौटते पे आइस क्रीम मिलेगी !
                             क्या दिन थे वो बचपन के , जब पैसे कम थे और हम अमीर थे। 

     ज़माना बीत गया और हम बड़े हो गए।  मैं बाहर  पढ़ने आ गई।  बहन  भी अब बड़ी हो गई है। पर हमारा वो रिश्ता अभी भी बरक़रार है।  अभी भी रोज़ बात होती है, अभी भी  वही
नोक -झोक , वही लड़ाई और वही प्यार।  पर पता नहीं आगे जाके यह संभव होगा की नहीं। सोचती हु समय को रोक लूँ , इस्से ज़्यादा और क्या ही बड़ा होना है। लेकिन जानती हूँ , यह संभव नहीं। जब छोटे थे तो बड़े होने की होड़ थी, अब बड़े हो गए तो वापस बच्चे बन जाने की ख्वाहिश है।  यही है मनुष्य प्रवृत्ति शायद। पर इस सिक्के ने आज ज़िन्दगी जीने के मायने याद दिल दिए। बचपन को ऐसे याद करेंगे , वो दिन फिर नहीं लौटेंगे , ये जानती तोह  शायद कुछ ज़्यादा जी लेती उस वक़्त को। आज का सबक है कि इस समय को ऐसे ही न जाने दूँ। भविष्य के ख्यालों में आज को ज़ाया न करूँ।  आज ज़िन्दगी को फिर से उसी ख़ुशी , उसी मासूमियत से जी लूँ।

   अभी लैब  में बैठी हूँ और 8 बज गए हैं। बचपन की यादों में जाने कहाँ टाइम निकल गया... काम वैसे का वैसा ही पड़ा है पर दिल खुश है। आज एक पाँच रुपये के सिक्के ने मेरा खोया बचपन लौटा दिया.....
  

Connecting people!

Say what you will against the internet..how it  takes people away from reality, how it is taking people apart, how the social sites are ruining the fabric of the society and blah blah. Having met some of the best people in my life through these very banal social networking sites, I am a huge fan. And I am sure, many many others, especially those  oddly introverted, seemingly reserved types like me would agree.

There are people, whom I haven;t met, atleast yet and they form one of the strongest links in my life. I know it sounds kiddish and the beginning of a horrid story where the person is butchered later at the hands of those very trusted people he/she met(?) online and all the crap the followed. I don't know. You take a poll and you'll find as many people agreeing with it as those begging to differ. Come on guys! You gotta see both sides of the coin!

I found a guy...an idiot who started out as a random, sometimes an excruciatingly bossy donkey, with such an air of superiority that you might want to rag him till he came down a peg or two. This by the way has proven impossible till date. While I used to seethe and squirm at hi nonchalance and bhaigiri, there were times, I felt almost affectionate towards him. As the time passed, we became buddies, great buddies infact, till one day this guy asked me to be his SISTER! I agreed readily because by the time 3 years or so had passed, I had too started looking upon him as a kid brother, whose ears I longed to twist the hell out of! But I had my doubts if he would be good to his words. I did not like this concept of friends turning siblings and all, yet I decided to make an exception. I am glad I did. And so here I am, writing a eulogy or him! :D

Iyer or Mote or Donkey as I call him mostly, is one of the most idiotic people on the planet. He is as good with his heart as he is bad with his words, and this is probably why we are such great friend-siblings. He has been with me through the thickest and the thinnest, always ready with sarcasm to pull your spirits down, if at all they are soaring too high, always ready with a stupid joke, even if you beg him to spare you, always angry with me for forgetting special days and always ready to forgive! I can in turn be a badi behen and a chhoti behen as I please and be assured he'll never let me down.
Though we are not related, heck, we haven't even met each other, I do not think it would have gotten any better, even if he was my brother in blood. Probably this is why this is so special. I never have a kind word to say for him, yet I know he understands how much I look upto him, for his objectivity and impracticality, for his strength and weaknesses, for everything that makes him so awesome.

Wait...

When love strikes, it does so with a force, unstoppable, unrelenting. It does not make room for you, it does not listen to you. You are swept off your feet in a whirlwind and by the time reality dawns upon you, you have already been consumed. Reduced from a being to a body; needy, vulnerable, naked. 

And yet, when I close my eyes, I see you. I think of you and feel nothing but at peace. Content. I regret nothing. Across the seven seas and thousands of miles, a strange, strange land, the only thing keeping me afloat is the thought of you, your strong embrace and your promise to be my cocoon. 

I have tried to get along. Tried too hard. To love the sun and play with the snow. To wade in the lakes and soak in the rains. Never works. Perhaps, never will. 

I have no choice but to go on...to go on and hope. Hope for us to be united again, eternally this time, I promise. As the sun turns in, I cross another day off the calender.  Count seconds and minutes, hours and weeks and months and years. It crushes me until I can get up no more. 

And wait is what I do. Wait for you to come to me, for you to call me. Perhaps, that's the biggest ordeal. The most scary, the worst punishment. 

When I die..

And when I am about to die, I want to know I lived. Lived on my terms, lived my way, lived to spread smiles, lived with compassion, lived with passion,  lived to love life.
When I am about to die, I want to know I loved. Loved beyond bounds, loved without inhibitions, loved with passion, in love with life, in love with life.
When I am about to die, I want to know I learned. Learned the truths on life, learned to be beautiful, learned things that matter, learned to be happy, learned to live, to love life and mortality.
When I am about to die, I want to know I can forget. Forget the misery, forget the pain, forget the times I felt cheated and move ahead., forget fear, forget death, forget my inhibitions to live like I can never die.

LIVE LOVE LEARN FORGET on this amazing journey. 

Life...As it is

Made up of millions and trillions of some random, small thoughts...small memories...infinite tiny breaths, pants and wheezes...small steps and big ones...this bizarre journey of "life" ends as suddenly as it begins. A thousand emotions and countless words and actions later, we are still, most of us, at any rate, unhappy with what we have in the end, dreaming of what could have been...what should have been...

Human mind is insatiable. It yearns for what it lacks, what the other has...the grass is always greener on the other side. Always eager to pass the buck onto someone else, hold someone else responsible for our ruined state, we always have a dozen people to put the blame onto.

So I did not excel in class and I tell myself its my dysfunctional family, that I am unable to study. Its my friends who disparage me from studying, my roommates who divert my attention. If nothing else, its my fiend who cheated on me.  I could not pursue what I hope to. My dream to be a doctor shattered. Its not my fault\, mind you. Its not the lack of studies at all. Its my parents who dissuaded me from applying to god forsaken colleges far off. Its my parents who do not have enough money to fund my studies in precious expensive medical schools. Its my peers who did not let me study. I am married now, a housewife and not working. Its all because of my husband, who doesn't want me to work. Its my parents who married me off so early. I would have been a professor somewhere, earning like hell. Its my family who kept bringing me some match or the other to get me married off. I would have been working somewhere, earning and leading a peaceful life. My brothers are to blame. They kept me here, beguiled me with promises for a happy family that stays together, eats together, plays together. As numerous as our failure, in fact much more, excuses never end.

Our success, on the other hand, definitely, is our own. Our very hard earned treasure.  I am no different. Nor are you.Oh my riches? Ah, this wonderful discovery that I have made? Yeah so I am the president here! Oh yes! thats all MY hard work..oh yeah my very own..my precious. In a sense,we are all "Gollums" in our own way. The greed for The Ring is ingrained in us...incredibly strong...invincible. One Ring to rule them all. The ring is, of course, different in each case.  This blind lust for success, seeking happiness in riches, power, position, money, ignoring what we have, the little things at hand, has reduced us into pitiable mortals, no better than that wretched Gollum, no better than Isildur. ready to kill for riches, I am forever weak-willed, never ready for hardship, always seeking the easy way out.

Why am I not strong enough to take my decisions and stand by them? Why am I looking for someone to put a blame on everytime? Why should I always give in to greed? Why cant I embrace my failures as I do my success? Why am I not brave enough to start all over again everytime I am put down? Why do I not focus on making my life better than wait upon someone else to take my decisions for me? Why do I mope thinking how others ruined my life?

I know one thing, as I am standing on the thin line between life and  ummm after-life, I do not want to regret for the things I couldn't do. I do not want to blame someone else for decisions gone wrong.


Its a lovely play...LIFE...a lovely sport. Whats your favourite sport? Racing? Tennis? Cricket maybe? Better than life ...is it?More fast tracked?More adventurous? I dont think so! :D Why not begin thinking? Why not be firm, be positive, more optimistic? Start deciding for yourself...put off asking others for advice.
                                  Take the journey on your own. Play the sport for yourself!

A bit of everything

So rains definitely set you on a retrospection spree...Its raining again...Once again I have a cup in my hand, this time its tea though and once again I thank Nature for making my life so beautiful, replete with all the colors. God must surely be an artist..

Anyway Dear Blog,

I come to you again....Early in the morning, its grey and misty with the heavy rains..So much like my life now. Looking back to when I was a mere 7 year old, I remember the vibrant me. A rainbow for the greyness in life today. The never-sleeps, never-idle Shreya. I was always upto something, figuring out what life is, how things work. In a sense, I still am. I guess, it'll end with me.

I was a bit of everything. A bit of a painter, a bit of a writer, some bit musician and some dancer. I was a scholar, an athelete, a comedian, an actor,a cook, a director, a singer. Parts of everything, which expressed in me freely. I did it all...I yearned to learn it all.
When we are young we get to be so much....a doctor today, a pilot tomorrow, an architect today, perhaps a paanwallah the other day??   Its a riot then...not any longer.


What am I now? A scientist in making? Its all only about science now...and am I even acing that? I don't think so. I wake up; I think of my experiments...I lie down at night and its my thesis...The day goes in how to beat the crap out of cancer...Where is me? Is science the only thing that gives me solace? Did I ever want my life to be this way? I am not sure...



In fact isn't it with most of us? Haven't all of us, knowingly or unknowingly, been trapped in the race for the survival-of-the-fittest? How many of us go out of our way to paint..to sing..to cook..to play..to dance..to do that one thing which will just make us happy...has no physical prize attached to it..is solely food for our soul....very few, I reckon. Certainly not me.


Growing up for me has just been shedding it all off...one by one.....

The connection I had lost with myself reasserts itself...the lack of harmony I was feeling within myself vanishes with the very first word I type here. I suppose writing is afterall, a passion for me. Like music defines some and art others, writing, and writing whatever crap bounces off my mind, gives me a feeling of belonging to myself.

At 12:32 am, I am far from sleepy. The restlessness and irritability, with which I had settled down, under my blankets to call it a day, has suddenly disappeared. A calmly settling peace and flighty happiness is stealing over me as that gradually wafting aroma of coffee  you feel slipping down your nostrils and enveloping your entire system, ( yes..am pretty much of a coffee addict). After a hiatus of over two years, I am finally penning down anything I wish. I don't know why I had stopped, nor why I resumed.

I am free.

PEACE.

"And some day, someone would walk into your life and show you why it never worked out with anyone else"...True that!

“And if it all falls apart, I will know deep in my heart, the only dream that mattered had come true. In this life, I was loved by you.”

cmpletely random

"rehna tu hai jaisa tu...thoda sa dard tu..thoda sukun..
thoda sa resham tu humdum thoda sa khurdura...
tujhe badalna nai chahun ratti bhar b sanam...."

nuthin mch in dere...just my favortest lines frm a song...RANDOM