scrambled mind

first the status update for the more familiar to facebook crowd -
ongoing movies: LOTR (for 27th time), Barfi
playing on TV: news, animal planet, comedy central etc etc swaps every 2-5 minutes
books open: LOTR (it'll get over real soon i promise), Kim by Kipling, Wolves of Calla by Stephen King (ebook)
location: sofa, chair in balcony, doorway floor, kitchen
on laptop: blogger, nfs most wanted, ys flight simulator, (no facebook)
munching: banana chips, cake, pringles

and believe me, all above almost at same time, none of any going on more than max 10 minutes.
thats really scrambled. can't continue after 1-2 races, can't go on after 1-2 failed landings of a B-737, just 50 some pages of the novel and then move to tv or game or office stuff and then back to pages.

thats why i believe, i won't be writing here for long! hehe! its frustrating... more so when i am alone.
its much better when wifey and nitya are here. tv remote is in wifey's hand, location is always changing chasing the little one all through home, very little gaming. only the books keep shuffling.

i think the only thing in near past i kept doing for a decently long time was my loooong drive.
i'm abnormally impatient and i don't like it.

back or just another visit?

a mind of mine which i always call an idiotic scramble strolled over here after so long. scrambled, yes, going on super scrambled. confused and above all, impatient. and this mind knows, for sure, that this is yet another visit only.... maybe for a few days if not only today but only a small one. thats what the next post will be all about.
of course i can't directly start hitting or praising a music director or a city in the first text itself after eons. have to gain the right to write first. a preface is necessary. so it'll be

still homesick

June 2004, when I first left home after 14 years of schooling and 4 years of Engineering and many many friends. The train started moving. I was on the door and signalled and hushed mummy, who was trying to catch up with the speed, not to cry, and shouted to Sandeep... inhe sambhaalna. she controlled herself there, and I too was as calm as this was just another of my journey. have thought about that calmness a hundred times since... how unusual, how impossible.
6 years since that day, after staying in so many cities, with so many people and then with my wife... still I am homesick. wanderer as many know me, but still I always rear to go home. on the last day of each and every tour, on the last leg of travel, I want to go to my home at Bhopal first. these 6 years haven't changed me... how unusual.
and this despite the fact, which I have discovered in these years when I wend home for short spans, that except at my home there, right from outside the gate, the sight of almost each turn and street brings a painful feeling of memories of my beautiful days there. I try not to go through those lanes or visit those shops or stop at those spots as they remind me of my friends. I feel alone everywhere out of my home. Yet I always stay homesick or better to call bhopal-homesick.
I am a branch, my parents are its tree, my wife the water and my friends are the sunlight. am living happily with just one of them always with me... how impossible!

sarhad paar se...

Gulzar recites...

Subah subah ik khwab ki dastak par darwaza khola, dekha
Sarhad ke us paar se kuchh mehmaan aaye hain

Aankhon se maanoos the saarey
Chehre saarey sune sunaaye
Paanv dhoye, Haath dhulaye
Aangan mein aasan lagwaaye...
Aur tannoor pe makki ke kuchh mote mote rot pakaye

Potli mein mehmaan mere
Pichhale saalon ki faslon ka gud laaye the

Aankh khuli to dekha ghar mein koi nahin tha
Haath lagakar dekha to tandoor abhi tak bujha nahin tha
Aur hothon pe meethe gud ka zaayka ab tak chipak raha tha

Khwab tha shayad!
Khwab hi hoga! !

Sarhad par kal raat, suna hai, chali thi goli
Sarhad par kal raat, suna hai
Kuchh khwaabon ka khoon hua hai

split must we?

we are getting divided
yet again
the splits are for loss
or, can't reckon, gain

one fasted silently
during the big partition
other abstined upto death
for another division

more want the markers
new borders to be drawn
more want clearly divided
a mornig from the same dawn

"this not your land
that not our land
you and us in the same hall
we both just can't stand!!

"you unaware of history
we were seperate once
perfect is the logic
we should slice hence

"sure it will pain a little
where the limb will break off
lust, not time, will heal
when we alone will show off"

read or TV

i don't switch on my TV unless i have completed reading newspaper or a magazine and reading is the first thing i do in morning or after i reach home.
i also know that once i start watching TV, i won't be able to switch it off and resume reading again
so exactly what do i prefer? reading or TV?? hmm...!???

yourself

you break trust on yourself when someone whom yourself trusted breaks your trust on him

what's important than what?

i hushed her coz she giggled and made a comment when i was engrossed in the scene which was playing. then all of the concentration broke and mind moved over. i hushed one of my best friend just for a giggle and honestly, the hush was indeed salty and her mood went off.

friends are important, a few are more important than others and very few are still more. but does this importance varies according to a situation? of course! when i am alone, any friend is important and when i am with these 'just' friends, the best friend is most significant.

what about other material things? is a really good movie powerful enough to make my best friend less significant? why do i leave my best friends behind on their own and myself rush and jump in jungle or waters without bothering whether they will be coming after me or not or whether they accept me leaving them? the same friends without whom i cannot enjoy any moment.

maybe its the change in the surroundings which changed my mind and shuffled the rankings. that movie and that theme. maybe some new stuff about which i never thought when i was virtually prioritizing everything. "yaar, aaj tu uske saath auto se chala jaa na. mujhe akele bike bhagaane ka mann kar raha hai. please!" there was no bike before.

so there is a new realization. i'd prefer eating roadside paani-puri even in rains or climbing those trees or roll on the grass or hike to that fort on the top of this hill alone rather than staying down with my 'best' friends who cannot come along. i may even say "balls to you"!! see... importance changed!

so the list gets shuffled. relativities change. some changes are temporary and others are permanent.

but the exceptions. is there anything whose place wont change ever? i think most of them are at the bottom of the list. but as we move towards top, its all cloud. positions change frequently, as quickly as situations.

after much thinking, the pre-conclusion: parents are the exceptions. they are the most important. irrespective of situations.

conclusion (in general, not necessarily pertaining to above lines): since there are exceptions in everything, there are exceptions in exceptions as well.

p.s. true friends never mind

Why do people risk their lives for others

an important conversation.

in the episode #70, at the funeral of The Third Hokage

Naruto: Iruka sensei. Why do people risk their lives for others?

Iruka sensei: When one person dies... he disappers. Along with his past, current lifestyle and his future. Many people die in missions and wars. They die easily and in surprisingly simple ways. Hayate was one of them. Those who die have goals and dreams. But everyone has something as important as those. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers... people who are important to you. They trust and help each other. The bond between the people important to you ever since birth... and the string that binds them becomes thicker and stronger as time goes by. It's beyond reason. Those bound to you by that string will do that. Because its important.

Naruto: Yes... I think I understand, somewhat. But... it's painful when someone dies.

Kakashi sensei: The Third didn't die for nothing. He left something important in all of us. You'll find out what eventually.

Naruto: Yeah, I think I understand that too, somewhat.

Iruka Sensei: (thinking) It seems like the small leaves in the Hidden Village of Konoha have inherited that fire of will you spoke of, Third. The fire on the leaves will eventually burn greater and stronger. It will flash its light and protect this village.

conclusion

after a long time which was spent in observing and analyzing, deciding and refusing and with all the surviving remnants of thoughts involved in these activities, I hereby conclude and state:
"'Its all in the mind' is the third truth of life."