psychup

those good byes !

2007-04-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

i guess you realise the true worth of any relationship when you are miles apart. i am suddenly missing my two best friends may be because i know that they wont be staying in mumbai now. you meet people who forget you. you forget people you meet. but sometimes you meet those people you cannot forget, those are "friends"

finding friends is easy, but finding someone with whom you don't need words to talk, understand each other instinctively, being as different as chalk and cheese and yet being so alike, is rare. we don't have to talk to understand and know what we are feeling. our silence speakes louder than our words. "True measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention." - C.S.Lewis

i was a die hard fan of the soap Friends, and wondered will i ever have such friends?today, i know for sure, that i have the best friends i could ever have in my entire life!

though being occupied with work and surrounded by people, somewhere deep down in my heart there is an empty space which only x and y fill. just out of no where, a part of your life, routine is just chucked out! now i can no longer just call them and go for a stroll at marine drive or shop at colaba or eat pani puris,or sit for hours staring into nothing.

but these things are superficial, i guess what i really miss are those soul to soul talks, that comfort level, those friendly advices, those shoulders to cry on. i know all the three of us, in three different places, are lonely right now. it's not that we are never going to meet but the physical distance will be there from now on. soon, i know, life will resume back to normal, there will be new friends, but i doubt whether i will be able to have that same trust, faith and loyalty.

i suppose that's what it means - leaving footprints in your life!

even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.

live and let live.

2007-03-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

i just saw black friday, a few minutes ago. the movie was nothing but old wine in new bottle. but what struck me the most was one line in the beginning of the movie - " an eye for eye makes the whole world blind" - mahatma gandhi.

how true that statement is! i once believed in "tit for tat" but a very good family friend convinced that violence can achieve nothing. and today, my belief in non violence has become even stronger. coming back to black friday, what did the islamic fundamentalist achieve in their so called "battle for justice"?

the accused, convicted or acquitted, are living underground. they not only lost members of their family, money but also productive years which could have been used in a much better way. their notion of justice for islamic people by killing hindus has been proved foolish.

the thought of achieving justice through non-violence itself is quite unrealistic. non-violence though a very attractive and fast mean of achieving things be it freedom, justice, or anything can never produce long term results. justice is being fair. and if justice is achieved by unfair means can it even be called as justice?

apart from the movie, is the sacrifice of thousands of people worth any cause however noble or ignoble? Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others. non-violence is the result of bad temper. and bad temper can never be positive.

a struggle, it could be any, is never led by arms but by brain, the only weapon that man possess. all great men have always supported non-violence right from jesus to martin luther king to gandhi to vinoba bhave to mandela, even ashok became a follower of non-violence. but people who had and are supporting violence have and will never achieve anything. look at osama bin laden, dawood, gaddafi, hitler, mussolini and so many others. hilter, gaddafi, mussolini could never accomplish their dream and so also osama, dawood, bush and all those countless jihadis and islamic fanatics will never accomplish their motives.

agreed that revolutionaries had a lot of heorism, energy and courage. all these revolutionaries were either hanged or died in the attempt of revolutionary activities. had this energy used in a better way it would have grasped long term attention rather than publicity.

today, what we need to realise is that, violence will only destroy human civilization and divide us further. we need reformation, to inculcate a sense of rationalism and objectivism in us. violence around the world, in the form of terrorism, communism and rascism can achieve none of its aims. violence will only make us fall towards destruction and never rise towards creation.

the iraq war, the taliban episode, the local train blasts, twin towers collapse and innuerable other acts of violence have proved nothing but the infinite and limitless stupidity of mankind. if we wish to exist on this earth we better learn to adjust, co-operate and most importantly follow the live and let live policy.

" i know not with what weapons world war 3 would be fought, but i am sure world war 4 would be fought with sticks and stones" - albert einstein.

superficial existence....

2006-12-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

if all of us start introspecting, we all would realise that we all live such a superficial life. we all are existing for the sake of existence. all of us have these great goals and priorities in life. we are probably at our own level striving for it. but in this struggle of fulfilling our dreams and goals and setting priorities, we forget our own existence, our own identity.

we have time to chat with people we are not particularly fond of(through the "fantastic" medium of orkut of course), wile away time doing inconspicuos things. or work, work and work. we have time for everything but not for ourselves. while doing all these things, we end up losing touch with our own loved ones, we end up losing all our hobbies, we bid farewell to the joys of being alone, pondering, reading, listening to music, having a heart warming chat with a loved one, become one with nature,learn dancing and doing all those things that give us true bliss.

we have time for everything yet for nothing..
have we really become that mechanical?? is this the robotic existence mankind should be having?? have we forgotten ourselves with our office files in the hustle and bustle of life?? how many of us even manage to say a hi, how was your day to the people we like, love and happen to live with. is our existence worth it ??
is what we are actually living for ??

loss of childhood....

2006-12-11T03:40:00.000-08:00

my cousins and myself wandered into fields of nostalgia, while we were seeing some old family photographs. our banter was filled with tales from childhood, funny incidences, stupid goof-ups and all other possible experiences we shared together....
oh how i long for those sunday treks with dad, picnics in the farms, playing cards and scrabble in the afternoon, telling horror stories at midnight, drooling over our hot favourite actors, dancing to all madhuri numbers, setting hip shaking dances(and actually performing them in front of the entire family!), teasing and troubling each other, fighting with eachother and not speaking for days, arguing till midnight, watching movies while applying mehendi, shopping on linking road in summers, keeping socks in christmas just to get a gift from santa(even after knowing that it be mom putting those gifts there), playing with building friends on weekends, praying for the holidays to start, just to meet all the cousins once again, playing hide and seek, elephant's trunk, ice and water and all those games, applying lipstick when our mothers went out,playing fashion shows and miss india contests and innumerable such incidences. but i can only remember and cherish those good ol' days(i know i sound cliched but yeah, there were really good!) now.
but, now when i see my younger cousins, who must be 6, 7, 8 or somewhere between that age-group, i feel sad that they will never have the childhood that we had, no memories to remember about their childhood. all them live in the different parts of the world, meet once in a year, have fun( in their opinion it's fun!). fun for them and fun for us is so different. fun for them is watching cartoons, oh yeah and not to mention, superman and krish, playing some full of violence computer games and these activities they do in between their summer homework tuitions and drawing classes because their last terms drawing grades were bad( you know how important second standard grades are!!), and other such tuitions.. their parents sadly never realise what their kids are losing on.
today i dont know what grades i received when i was in second grade but yes, i remember playing in the gardens, i do remember sleeping at 9 in the night, only to be able to greet and welcome my cousins who would be coming early in the morning. these kids dont even feel excited to meet each other.i still remember my cousins crying after every vacation because we would be able to meet again only after six long months( they seemed like centuries then!).
i am so thankful, lucky and blessed to be able to have parents who made it possible for us and maybe our destiny, to have a childhood worth being jealous of. when all us would be 70, sitting on rocking chair, looking back into life, all of us will have playful, funny, full of life, memories(which i am sure will bring tears to our eyes), but my younger cousins will probably remember a childhood filled with tuitions, the idiot box and of course computer games!

creativity ??

2006-12-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

i am music buff. i admit i am more into english music but yeah, i do enjoy some melodious desi tracks too. and one of the hindi song that i thoroughly enjoyed off late was pal pal from lage raho. i still think it is a nice song to hum and just enjoy while your pining about paradise maybe. and, i also admit, that i do not believe in plagiarism.
but to my amazment, apparently the music of the song is taken from none other than an eric clapton number!! not only this but quite a few of my latest favourite tracks have taken from many western songs including some indonesian numbers. and i thought shantanu moitra and pritam chakraborty were two, "worth litstening to" music directors!! but to my dismay, they also belong to steal-and-then-claim-the-success guys of the filmdom !!
i really dont know how does one define talent and creavity in this industry. anu malik, i thought was the only "copycat" known in the music world. but quite a few are ready to join the line, seems like. copying scripts and robbing hollywood movies was a little heavy on our intestines but copying music too .. i cannot digest this now!!
have we really lost out on our innovation and creativity ?? or is this another trend? coming to think of it in the past 4 -5 years most of the hits have been adapted from some or the other western movie or latestly remade from some or the other old movie. well remaking is still fine with me as long as you can retain the magic of the old movie, which unfortunately is not the case, parineeta being the only exception. even versatile directors like farhan akhtar have started depending on old movies. and believe me, this was the last thing i expected from farhan, being a fan of his other two movies. i doubt whether directors like mahesh bhatt have made even a single movie which has not been "inspired"(which means scene to scene copy) from a hollywood flick or from his own life!!
fine, u wanna make movies out of hollywood inspired ones, go ahead. but atleast have the decency to give credit the original movie. atleast dont make the movie so bad that the original director might disown his own movie! anurag basu not only "murdered" unfaithful but raped it too!! hum tum, can never really create the magic which when harry met sally created. ek ajnabi doesnt make your heart go wild the way man on fire did. pyar to hona hi tha can never make you feel like having a french affair. what lies beneath makes a chill run down your spine, raaz doesnt even make you stir. lisa ray cannot bring back sharon stone's basic instict sexiness in kasoor. dirty dancing sets your foot tapping, but holiday??? and the list shall go on and on and on..
what i feel sad about is that, why can't we indians, use the genius which lays dormant within us erupt into a giant volcano of talent, innovation, creativity and ideas. should we stoop down to such a low level that all our films and now, music too is copied from hollywood? and then complain that our movies never get oscars. and the few original movies we make, too, are most of the time old wine in old bottle. all of us know that we are capable of creating mind blowing films like iqbal, chandni bar, dor, the munnabhai series, swades and so many more, which leave us spell bound. then why not, use that same genius to be more original, to be more indian, to be more like we are.
in the long run, these copied films are not remembered. i dont know whether i will ever ask my future generations to see mere yaar ki shaadi hai, but my best friend's wedding i surely will!!

is this celebration?

2006-10-22T13:46:00.001-07:00

Is this celebration?
I do not burst crackers nor do I support people who burst crackers “celebrating” Diwali, Eid, new year or weddings. I have not been bursting crackers since the past four years, the reason being the common one, air and sound pollution. I used to burst one or two crackers occasionally with my younger cousins, and later on watch them bursting crackers. But this year, I gave up that too, for a life time.
The real eye-opener came last year, when at a documentary film festival, the reality behind these crackers was unfolded to me. Child labor is banned in India but there are hundreds who violate the same law by engaging little lives to make crackers. Lives, tender and faultless are locked up in factory sheds for 15 hours a day to make such harmful substances. The laborers in these “doom houses” belong to the age category of 5 – 15 years!
The factory sheds are shown locked to avoid suspicion. These poor souls strive for 15 hours a day to earn a meager Rs.50 per day in hope of probably getting their sisters married or maybe to educate their siblings so that one day they will become a “bada saheb” in some big office or maybe to pay off their father’s loan or maybe to give at least a daily meal to their widow mother and hungry siblings!
The substances used in these crackers are so harmful that it reduces the life - span of these young ones to 18 years maximum! Hard to believe? But, this is reality happening in the outskirts of so many metros.
Do these children deserve this kind of lifestyle? Is it their fault that they have been born to poor parents? You and me could have been in their shoes. The parents of these kids, living in some distant village in U.P or Bihar send their children to cities in the hope that they would bring home prosperity, not realizing that they are actually sending their kids on the road to death!
Not only this but crackers also cause pollution as everyone knows. A bomb or any similar cracker produces a noise of 110 decibles and human ear can easily accept noise upto 60-65 decibles. Imagine, hundreds of such explosives burst every other minuit, the noise is more than in any airport! Over exposure to this noise can LEAD TO DEAFNESS. Air pollution in Delhi was 900, an all time high. Unimaginable amount of sulphur di oxide and carbon-mono-oxide are released in the air. This will naturally lead to global warming. Then please don’t complain about too hot a summer and too long a monsoon! We ourselves are responsible for the climatic changes.
After coming across this brutal reality, I told my cousins about it. But unfortunately there was no change in attitude. The reply that came was, “Well, if you are so damn concerned about pollution then stop driving cars!” I counter argued saying, “Cars are our necessities, crackers are not. Yes, cars do cause pollution but we are finding alternative means.”
I told mother about my argument with my cousins, to which she answered, “ Sneha, this is how Diwali is celebrated. You don’t burst crackers, let them.” I was annoyed. I told her, “Fine Mom, I am not asking them to stop bursting crackers. I just made them wary. But yes, I am shocked at their insensitivity. Tell me, is it right to celebrate at the cost of innocent lives? Is it correct to light your life by crackers by darkening the life of those who help you light yours? Is that momentary happiness worth it? Can you imagine me dead at 18?”My mother agreed with me.
But her point was also true. I really cannot enforce my views on others and stop them from bursting crackers, the least I can do is stick to my views and not burst crackers. In my own small way, I am sure, I can light the lamp of hope and prosperity in at least one life. Even if 20 conscientious citizens from each city stop bursting crackers, the sale of this ever growing industry will definetly reduce.
Remember, crackers are not our necessities, nor are they the only means of celebrating. Together, we all can make a change and a better India. It will take time, but I am confident, change will come. YOU HAVE TO BE IN THE SYSTEM TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM! Happy Diwali and Eid Mubarak!